Snapchat off to flying start at NYSE; stock finishes 44pc high

Snap opened on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning trading at $24 per share and closed the day at $24.51 giving it a market cap of about $33 billion. The stock price was a 44 percent increase from its initial price of $17 per share reflecting strong investor demand.

Snap's IPO is the biggest tech IPO on a U.S. exchange since Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba went public in 2014. Though, the ephemeral photo messaging company posted a $515 million loss last year with slowing user growth but looks like investors aren’t scared of any of it and are betting big on capabilities of 26-year-old Evan Spiegel.

Incidentally many are drawing a similarity between Snapchat’s debut to Twitter that went public in 2013. The company saw a stellar performance on its first day gaining 72.69 percent, but then saw a lot of volatility in the following months. Facebook, on the other hand, had a rocky start as a public company, with the share price closing exactly where it opened but then grew steadily.

Notably, Snapchat has decided to go public earlier in its monetization, perhaps because it’s better to go public before the market considers the company overvalued. Yet, we can’t ignore the company’s slowing growth and mounting losses.

According to Snap’s filings, the company plans to use the IPO funding for "general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses, and capital expenditures.” The company also said it is not “anticipating any material acquisitions” but may purchase some “complementary businesses, products or technologies.”