Twitter Shares Soar On NYSE Trading Debut

(RTTNews) - Twitter Inc. (TWTR) soared over 92 percent in its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, after pricing its IPO above the estimated range.

The micro-blogging site's stock opened at $45.10 a share on its first day of trading, 73 percent above its IPO price of $26. The company had sold 70 million shares in its IPO, raising about $1.82 billion, the biggest Internet IPO since Facebook Inc.'s (FB) in May 2012.

The stock is currently trading at $48.40, up $22.32 or 86.15%, on a volume of about 99 million shares.

Actor Sir Patrick Stewart helped ring the opening bell at the exchange along with Vivienne Harr, a 9-year old fourth-grader who kept a lemonade stand to raise money and awareness to end child slavery across world.

Meanwhile, Twitter's IPO and blockbuster opening turns out to be a big success when compared to last year's Facebook's flop debut. Facebook shares soared on its launch from its IPO price of $38 but closed its first day of trading with a meager $0.23 gain.

San Francisco, California-based Twitter could raise up to $2.1 billion from the IPO, if the underwriters exercise their over-allotments options in full.

Twitter was founded in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Twitter lets users to post text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets."

The company revealed in a tweet on its seventh birthday on March 21 that it has well over 200 million active users creating over 400 million Tweets each day, which has now gone up to 500 million tweets per day.