Alibaba shares BABA on Friday surged 38% from $68 to $93.89 per share. Now if you had been lucky enough to get your share of the Alibaba IPO, you could have easily made a profit of 38% in one day. Why? Because market analysts are saying that Alibaba is not a buy in the long term. Alibaba is over hyped for now. The stock opened at $92.70 shortly before noon ET and quickly rose to a high of $99.70, before paring gains to close at $93.89. Some 271 million shares changed hands, more than double the turnover on Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) first day last year, although still short of volume for the General Motors Co (GM.N) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) IPOs.
Unlike the disastrous 2012 Facebook (FB, Tech30)IPO on Nasdaq, Alibaba’s first few hours as a public company went smoothly. That’s good news for the New York Stock Exchange, where Alibaba chose to list its high-profile IPO under the ticker symbol “BABA.”
Alibaba shares hit the market Friday amid much hype, becoming the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history, but two pros are warning investors to stay away from the Chinese e-commerce giant.