How do Twitter's big gains compare to other IPOs?

Twitter saw its stock rocket 73%, which is higher than Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple

Ok, so by now we all know that Twitter just had what can only be described as a remarkable debut day; one that saw the stock rise to over 90% of its IPO price at one point, before coming back down and ending at around 73%.

At the end of regular trading the stock now stands at $44.90, a gain of 72.69% or $18.90 a share. Its market cap now stands at $24.46 billion.

It is also one that earned co-founder Evan Williams over $2 billion. In all, the IPO netted the company $1.82 billion and it is now valued at $24.73 billion. Not bad. Not bad at all. 

But the real question is: how did it compare to other recent IPOs? Are these historic gains, or just par for the course?

Let's take a look at the numbers. 

The most obvious comparison for Twitter, of course, is to its social media rivals: Facebook and LinkedIn. But the answer to which company won is not exactly clear. While Facebook raised a lot more money than Twitter, nearly 9 times as much, it is LinkedIn that actually saw the larger rise on its opening day.

• Facebook raised $16 billion for its IPO, the largest ever for a tech company, when it priced its shares at $38. Facebook’s stock rose to over 12% to spike at $42.05, but it eventually came down again, ending at $38.23, a mere 0.6% rise over its initial price.

• LinkedIn made its debut in May of 2011 after raising $352.8 million. The stock hit a high of $115, before ending its first day at $94.25, more than doubling its IPO price of $45. 

Of course, there are plenty of others to compare it to as well, outside of the social media space. And Twitter beat out all of them, withonly Yelp coming close to seeing such a huge gain.

• Yelp went public on March 2, 2012, and saw its shares, which had an IPO price of $15, go up 67% in its first day of trading to $24.58. It ended the day with $24.50, an increase of 63% on its initial price. The IPO raised  $171.5 million.

• Groupon went public on November 4, 2011. The initial IPO price was $20, and the company saw its stock surge on opening day, going up 50% to hit $30. The stock closed at $26.11, a 31% gain. Of course, Groupon had a particularly rocky road to get there. The company raised $700 million in its IPO.
• Angie’s List raised $130 million for its IPO, and opened at $13 a share on November 17, 2011. The rating site saw its stock jump nearly 40%, going all the way up to $18.75, before closing at $16.26, still up 25%.

• Game developer Zynga, whose games including FarmVille and CityVille, had an IPO price of $10 with a $7 billion valuation. Its stock price dropped 5 percent, closing at $9.50 on December 16, 2011, after gaining 15 percent.

• Online radio station Pandora went public on June 15, 2011, raising a $235 million IPO. It opened at $16 a share. It peaked at $24 a share, closing at $17.42, a 9% gain.

• Demand Media and Nielsen went public on the same day, January 25, 2011. Demand Media had an IPO price of $17, and hit a peak of 40% on its initial trading day to reach $23 a share, before ending at $22.65, a rise of 33.2%. Nielsen, whose IPO price was $23, saw its shares rise 9% to $25, eventually closing at 8.7%. Nielsen raised $1.6 billion in its IPO, while Demand Media raised $151.3 million.

• The Carlyle Group, a global asset management firm, went public on May 3, 2012. Its IPO price was $22 and it settled at $22.05, an increase of 0.2 percent, after peaking at $22.45. The Carlyle Group raised $671 million.

Given how well Twitter did, it is also interesting to compare it to some of the other giant IPOs of the past 30 years. Keep in mind that things have changed mightily since a lot of these companies went public, with market caps going through the roof.

• Netscape stock was initially offered at $28 per share on August 9, 1995. The stock more than doubled, closing at $58.25, raising nearly $3 billion for Netscape.

• Yahoo had an IPO number of $24.50 when it went public on April 12, 1996. Its shares hit a high of $43, before ending at $33, raising $33.8 million for Yahoo.

• Microsoft went public March 13, 1986, opening at $21.00 per share. It ended its first day at $$27.75 a share, up 32%, raising $61 million.

• Apple went public on December 12, 1980 at $22 a share, going up 30% on its first day to close at $29. It raised less than $100 million.

• Amazon, which went public on May 15, 1997, and had an IPO price of $18. The stock hit a high of $30 efore settling at $23.50, a gain of 30%. The IPO netted Amazon $54 million.

• Google raised $1.9 billion when it went public on Aug. 19, 2004, with an IPO price of $85 that ended at $100 on its first day of trading, up 18%.

So in all, it seem like only LinkedIn saw higher gains than Twitter on its opening day. Now, if Twitter wants to stay at this range, it is going to have to show that it can actually start to make money.

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