How The Biggest Tech IPOs Traded On Their First Day

Snap Inc SNAP is making its highly-anticipated market debut Thursday after the company’s IPO priced at $17, higher than anticipated.

The public-market debuts of major Silicon Valley giants can be extremely unpredictable, but they are typically extremely volatile.

Related Link: The Road Ahead For Snap: What Does It Mean To Be A Camera Company?

According to CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla, the 10 largest U.S. tech IPOs in history have generated an average gain of about 27 percent on their first day of trading. Of course, those gains are based on the IPO price rather than the opening price.

A Look Back

Here’s a look at how some of the largest tech IPOs have finished out their first day of trading:

• Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA closed 38 percent above its IPO price.
• Alphabet Inc GOOGL closed 18 percent above its IPO price.
• Facebook Inc FB closed only 0.6 percent above its IPO price.
• LinkedIn Corp LNKD) closed 109 percent above its IPO price.
• Twilio Inc TWLO closed 91 percent above its IPO price.
• Twitter Inc TWTR closed 72 percent above its IPO price.

Crowdsourcing Opinion

Benzinga asked Twitter users where they believe Snap will finish Thursday’s session. At last check, more than 40 percent of respondents predict a close above $20/share, while the remaining votes were split evenly between the $17–20 range and under $17.