Twitter Inc. shares launched on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, October 5th. There were no troubles with the initial launch, unlike Facebook’s IPO last year on the NASDAQ. This was the second biggest United States listed offering ever since Facebook back in May of 2012. The IPO price was valued at $26 a share. However, the shares on The New York Stock Exchange opened at $45.10, up 73% from the IPO price. After the open, the stock fluctuated a bit. At one point it was above $50. Nonetheless, the stock ended up closing at $44.90, lower than its opening price but still higher than the IPO price. The company was given a market cap of $25 billion as a result based on 555 million shares outstanding, not bad for a 6 year old firm.
Throughout all this, many employees and executive members also made money since Twitter distributed roughly 86 million restricted stock units to its 2,300 employees. At the end of Thursday’s trading day, these shares were worth $3.86 billion. However, these shares could not be sold immediately. There are restrictions as to when and how much the employees can sell. Although Twitter’s price went up 73%, this is not something never before seen. Twitter ranks as the eight-biggest opening day gain by Dealogic. Twitter’s stock closed at $41.65 on Friday, November 9th.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702303309504579182403432312182
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