Twitter Surges In Opening Trade On NYSE
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- If Twitter's bankers and executives were hoping for a surge on the day of the stock's public debut, they got it. The stock opened at $45.10 a share on its first day of trading, 73 percent above its initial offering price.
"It's gone on pretty flawlessly,'' says JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade.
Twitter Set For Public Stock Debut On NYSE
The stock is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TWTR.''
It's the most highly anticipated initial public stock offering since Facebook debuted last year. More than an hour into trading, the stock was holding steady. This tight range of trading, Kinahan says, indicates that people "feel like it was pretty fairly priced.''
The opening price values Twitter Inc. at $31 billion, which puts it in range of KFC and Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands, tractor and tool maker Deere & Co. and slightly below State Street Corp., a financial services holding company.
"It clearly shows that demand exceeds the supply of shares,'' says Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter. "It's impossible to know what the real value is.''
EXTRA: More From CBS Money Watch
Twitter's shares jumped as high as $50.09 on Thursday morning and were up $19.14, or 73.6 percent, at $45.14 in midday trading amid a broader market decline. Tech stocks were broadly down as well, with Facebook Inc. sliding $1.02, or 2.1 percent, to $48.10.
Earlier in the day, Twitter gave users the opportunity to ring NYSE's opening bell instead of executives. The users included Sir Patrick Stewart, Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' Vivienne Harr, a 9-year-old girl who ran a lemonade stand for a year to raise money to end child slavery and Cheryl Fiandaca of the Boston Police Department.
Twitter's initial public offering was carefully orchestrated to avoid the glitches and eventual letdown that surrounded Facebook's initial public offering on the Nasdaq 18 months ago. Still, it's the most highly anticipated IPO since its Silicon Valley rival's 2012 debut.
"In hindsight when you look at this you almost think they left a little too much money on the table,'' says Roger Entner of Recon Analytics.
What Entner means is that Twitter raised $1.8 billion Wednesday night when it sold 70 million shares at $26 each. Had it priced the stock at $30, for instance, the company would have taken away $2.1 billion. At $35, it would have reaped nearly $2.5 billion.
At $26 per share, Twitter was valued at more than $18 billion based on its outstanding stock, options and restricted stock expected to be available after the IPO. That already put it above Macy's and Bed Bath & Beyond. Facebook Inc.'s value, meanwhile, stood at $104 billion at the time of its IPO.
Twitter got its start 7 years ago, first with Jack Dorsey and then Evan Williams as CEO. Its current chief is Dick Costolo, a former Google executive who once aspired to be a stand-up comedian.
On March 21, 2006, Dorsey posted the world's first tweet: "Just setting up my twttr.'' Noah Glass, who helped create Twitter posted the same words just 10 minutes later.
Since then, the social network that lets users send short messages in 140-character bursts has attracted world leaders, religious icons and celebrities, along with CEOs, businesses and a slew of marketers and self-promoters.
"Because of Twitter's purpose, that being real-time news and information, it's really applicable to a lot of people around the world who want to consume news," said Brain Blau, the director of consumer technology for Gartner, Inc.
Tempering expectations was a big theme in the weeks leading up to Twitter's IPO, but that all but flew out the window with the stock's opening surge.
"Twitter now just has to deliver on all this,'' Entner says.
The company tried to avoid the trouble that plagued Facebook's high-profile offering. Facebook's public debut was marred by technical glitches on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. As a result, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined Nasdaq $10 million, the largest ever levied against an exchange. Those problems likely led Twitter to the NYSE.
One of Twitter's biggest challenges as a newly public company will be to generate more revenue outside the U.S. More than three-quarters of Twitter's 232 million users are outside the U.S.
But only 26 percent of Twitter's revenue comes from abroad. The company has said that it plans to bring in more international revenue by hiring more sales representatives in countries such as Australia, Brazil and Ireland.
Twitter was offering 70 million shares in the IPO, plus an option to buy another 10.5 million. If all shares are sold, the IPO will raise $2.09 billion, making it the biggest IPO for an Internet company since Facebook raised $16 billion last year.
Twitter, which has never turned a profit in 7 years of existence, had originally set a price range of $17 to $20 per share for the IPO, but that was an obvious lowball designed to temper expectations. It was widely expected that the price range would go higher.
Back in August, for example, the company priced some of its employee stock options at $20.62, based on an appraisal by an investment firm and it's unlikely to have lost value since.
Twitter's shares enter a frothy market. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high on Wednesday, up 128 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,746. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,770, just one point below its own all-time high.
Check Out These Other Stories From CBSNewYork.com:
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
