It's Twitter IPO day! The digital megaphone's shift from private venture to public company went off without a hitch this morning, and stands to make a few of its founders very rich.
The newly christened $TWTR on the NYSE, which set its opening price at $26 yesterday, is off to a pretty impressive start. Here are a few of the key numbers:
- Price per Twitter share at IPO yesterday: $26
- What the stock actually opened up at: $45
- Percentage above expectations: 73.5 percent
- Company value at opening: $31.8 billion
That makes it the second biggest IPO pop since Facebook went public a year ago, reports the Wall Street Journal.
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Ben Popper at The Verge writes that Twitter is "most concerned about having a clean opening that will give the stock positive momentum" — sort of the opposite of what happened to its key social network rival.
Unlike Twitter, Facebook was somewhat of a less risky buy going into its IPO because it showed it could eke a profit before going public. Facebook raised $16 billion during its public offering in 2012, and its stock has risen pretty steadily since its rocky start.
Twitter's executives and directors — including Jack Dorsey, whose Vine is up above — stand to make $3.24 billion between them, according to TechCrunch.
We'll be updating this throughout the day, so check back periodically for the best insights from around the web.
UPDATE: 12:07 p.m. EST: Jack Dorsey, who wasn't expected to become a billionaire, just did. Business Insider reports that his 23,411,350 shares are now worth about $1.05 billion. Let's hope he takes a selfie.
UPDATE: 12:17 p.m. EST: This is a nice change of pace: Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic collected the most retweeted tweets of all time and wrote about what they say about our culture and how we use Twitter. Yes, many of them have to do with Biebs and One Direction.
UPDATE: 1:26 p.m. EST: Here is how Twitter's revenue per user compares to Facebook's. That's impressive considering Facebook's (obviously) much larger scale.
It also looks like a group of protesters have gathered outside of Twitter HQ.
UPDATE: 3:04 p.m. EST: Looks like it's smooth sailing for the rest of the day: After hitting a high of $50, share prices have come back down to $48.50. "Facebook was so overhyped people felt like they couldn't miss out," said Kenneth Polcari, a senior floor official at O'Neil Securities Inc., tells the Chicago Tribune. "Twitter isn't like that, though you can feel the excitement."
UPDATE: 5:20 p.m. EST: "Twitter closed at $44.90 a share, 73 percent above its I.P.O. price, but slightly below the day's opening price of $45.10," reports the New York Times' Dealbook. Thanks for following along!
