Investors seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as Mark Zuckerberg testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Shares of the social network company rose by $7.11, or 4.50 percent, on Tuesday, hitting their highest level since March 22. The biggest boost came while Zuckerberg testified.
Shares were up by around 1.5 percent before Zuckerberg began to testify, in keeping with the broader market. They began to rise even further as soon as the hearing began. During Zuckerberg’s answer to the first question from the Senate panel, the shares rose by about half a percentage point.
Despite the rise of the price of shares on Tuesday, Facebook shares are still down sharply for the year, and since the company’s latest troubles began. Facebook shares began the year at $181.42 and closed at $185.09 on March 19th. At the close on Tuesday, shares were priced at $165.04.
Trading volume on Tuesday was more than twice an average trading day, with close to 58 million shares trading hands. Volume picked up considerably during the Senate panel.