No Pop in Zynga's IPO

Maybe it's not such a great day to live in Farmville after all. Zynga's much ballyhooed IPO took a turn for the negative this morning. Though things seemed encouraging out the gate—shares opened on Nasdaq a dollar above its $10 initial public offering price—they sank below that price after just 10 minutes, hitting a low of $9.48. They're currently trading around $9.71.

This doesn't bode well for other companies anticipating an early 2012 IPO, writes Lynn Cowan for the Wall Street Journal, especially when you consider that, as the dip occurred, "major market indices were trending up." Writing for the New York Times, Evelyn Rusli sees a sector struggling to "stay above water," noting that Pandora is trading more than 30% below its price, and this year's 42 tech IPOs have seen an average 15% drop. And though Zynga is financially stronger than many of those peers, she reports that user growth is down while marketing spending is up. With Facebook on deck IPO-wise, all eyes are on Zynga, which will be "a critical test for the fragile market" over the next few months. (More Zynga stories.)