14 DAY TRIAL // Snap's IPO was a success, the company's valuation at the end of the trading day reaching a whopping $34 billion.
Over 200 million shares changed hands throughout the day, making up for about 10% of the total trading volume at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, CNBC reports.
As expected before trading hours, Snap's shares started trading for $24 a share, more than 41% over the opening pricing. The company had decided upon $17 a share for its IPO.
Shares rose as high as $26.05, and fell as low as $23.50, but managed to stay high throughout the day.
The $34 billion valuation puts Snap's market capitalization at about the same size as companies such as Marriot or Target. By comparison, Twitter's market cap is somewhere around $11 billion, while Facebook's is around the $395 billion mark.
Bright future ahead
Regardless, this is a great feat for Snap, the parent company of ephemeral photo messaging app Snapchat. This is a company that doesn't have a lot of diversity, but has big plans. In fact, ahead of the IPO, it signed multi-year, multi-billion deals with Google and Amazon for use of their cloud computing systems, indicating that it hopes to provide the best service to users and, perhaps, even more services in the future.
These were both bold moves since they involved spending many billions over the course of a few years. It should be added that, last year, Snap posted a $515 million loss, which caused a lot of skepticism among Wall Street analysts regarding the success of this public offering.
It remains to be seen how investors will act in the days to come and whether this was just first-day excitement or if the trust in Snap and its apps will live on. The company has a lot to prove now that the IPO has passed and we hope it manages to do so.