Investing.com – Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) started trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange with sharp gains of 41% near $24.
The first official trade for the stock was reportedly delayed longer than expected due to the high levels of demand. In the first few minutes of trade, Reuters noted that Snap was the most heavily traded stock with more than 60 million shares traded at the time.
Snap's opening price gives the company market valuation of approximately $33.3 billion.
The creator of the popular image messaging social media app Snapchat priced 200 million shares at $17 each on Wednesday, above its expected range of $14 to $16 a share, valuing it initially at roughly $24 billion, more than double the size of rival Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and the richest valuation in a U.S. tech IPO since Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) five years ago.
The large jump in share price on Thursday was unsurprising to some who had pointed to the fact that the offering was oversubscribed 10 times, suggesting a higher demand for the shares floated, though some analysts warned of the firm’s lack of profit and steep competition from Facebook.
At 11:22AM ET (16:22GMT), shares gained 47.00% to $24.99.