[ by Howard Haykin ] The Nasdaq/Facebook Debacle grows curiouser and curiouser every day.  This week, on Sunday, the news out of UBS AG is that the Swiss banking giant is getting set to take legal action against the exchange over its reported loss of $350 million on Facebook-Day One. UBS apparently incurred the trading loss on 5/18/12, during Facebook's IPO and first day of trading on Nasdaq.  UBS is said to have placed an order for one million shares of Facebook.  The company resubmitted the order several times when it failed to receive confirmation of the order.  This led to multiple orders getting logged in, leading to a higher-than-expected volume of stock being purchased. The technical glitches at the Nasdaq stock exchange began from the get-go, with the first trade going off 30 minutes late.  Thereafter, investors suffered from improperly processed orders.  Nasdaq confirmed that matching up the buy and sell orders to arrive at the price for the first trade took five milliseconds instead of the normal three milliseconds. Amid this delay, the exchange's systems were flooded with messages to adjust orders or cancel trades. Many of the clients who invested in Facebook on its debut suffered huge losses as the share fell in the following days. As of Tuesday, 6/12, FB shares wre trading around $27.44, nearly 28% below its IPO listing price of $38. Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld announced that the exchange has set aside $40 million to compensate traders for their losses caused by the technical glitches.  That number has always been viewed as inadequate - but now we'd say it's comical, except for the fact that Nasdaq market maker incurred hundreds of millions in losses that apparently were due to technical glitches that they (the firms) had no control over.  Thirty million shares reportedly traded that day and were affected by these problems. Facebook chose the Nasdaq for listing instead of the New York Stock Exchange, as Nasdaq was a fully electronic exchange, while the NYSE has the hybrid model that uses both floor and electronic methods. While the NYSE has more global recognition, it is more expensive compared to Nasdaq. For further details, go to:   RTTnews, 6/10/12]