Google Shares Hit $100.34 In Market Debut

19 Aug, 2004 at 9:59pm ET Article published in Tech

In a debut vaguely reminiscent of the dot-com boom, shares of Internet search giant Google Inc. surged in their first day of public trading Thursday as investors who avoided the company’s auction-based offering readily jumped into the familiar territory of the stock market.

Though the 18 percent jump boosted the paper worth of Google shareholders and insiders, it also raised questions about the effectiveness of the unorthodox auction, which was designed to gauge true demand and set a rational price that wouldn’t be subject to big swings. “It seemed like the whole purpose of the auction was to prevent that kind of big move from happening,” said Barry Randall, portfolio manager for the First American Technology Fund. “If it’s not a failure, it clearly didn’t work the way Google’s management intended it.”

Source: eWeek

Comments

19 Aug 2004 ~ 11:37pm pseudonym Thats disgusting. How much higher could it go?? Whats the point to buy in that high?
20 Aug 2004 ~ 12:37am 289Mustang It could be just as cheap or expensive depending on what you think the company will do if the price was $20 instead of $100.
20 Aug 2004 ~ 1:12am Nomad I was thinking of spending $1000 and buying like 10 shares, waiting for it to go up 15% in the first week, and then sell it all again. I decided not to though.
22 Aug 2004 ~ 1:29am Justin Anybody want to go in on one share?