All Eye On Alibaba IPO - Economic Highlights

The start of trading for shares of Alibaba and the retail availability of the new iPhones are today's big developments. And the Scotland news is finally behind us, with Scots deciding to retain their 300-year old union with England. The sum total of these drivers is expected to help stocks maintain the positive momentum of the last two sessions.  

The long-awaited Alibaba IPO is finally upon us, with the Chinese e-commerce giant set to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange today at $68 per share, the high end of its expected price range. That price puts the IPO on track to raise at least $21.8 billion from the offering, the largest ever in the world. This gives the company a market capitalization of $168 billion, bigger than Amazon AMZN or eBay EBAY.

It is hard not get swept up in the frenzy surrounding a hot IPO, and the Alibaba debut stands out even among the small number of big tech IPOs. But investors will do themselves a big favor by staying back from this one in today's session; they will get many opportunities to buy this in the coming days.

Alibaba isn't the only exciting tech news of the day: Apple's AAPL new line-up of iPhones go on sale today to the familiar headlines of fans waiting in long lines overnight at the company's retail outlets. Investors will be closely watching the first weekend sales for the new set of iPhones to handicap volumes for the all-important holiday-quarter sales.

In 2012, Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s in its first weekend, with the holiday-quarter sales for that model coming in at 48 million units, up from 37 million in the preceding year's period. Last year, the company sold 9 million units of iPhones 5S and 5C on their first weekend and 51 million in the holiday quarter. Since this year's products represent a major upgrade, expectations would be high from the first weekend's sales numbers.

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