After months of waiting, eager retail investors were finally able to get their hands on Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) shares.
Snap shares were originally priced at $17.00 per share, but huge buying demand quickly came in. Shares opened at $24.00 each, rose as high as $26.05 and fell as far as $23.50. They closed at $24.48, up 44% for the day. More than 211 million Snap shares traded hands.
Snap shares continued to perform well on Friday, rising another 9.2% in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Snap’s first day of trading was one of the best in recent memory. Its 44% pop on its first trading day was higher than both Alibaba and Facebook’s debuts. Recall that Facebook barely gained ground on its first day of trading, closing a mere 0.6% higher.
Sources say Snap’s IPO was 12 times oversubscribed. NBC Universal also participated in the deal, investing $500 million into the IPO.
Snap’s current market cap has surpassed $30 billion, making the company bigger than CBS, Target, and Marriott. It lost $515 million last year.
Not everyone was wowed by Snap’s debut. Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group, initiated coverage on the stock. He slapped it with a sell rating and a $10.00 price target, citing significant dilution from stock-based incentives and execution risk.
Wieser also pointed out the relative inexperience of Snap’s top executive team – remember, the CEO is only 26 – as well as the aggressive competition it is facing in the social media space.
