Shares of high-profile real-estate website Zillow more than doubled in price and headphone maker SkullCandy's shares leaped in their initial public offerings Wednesday, after both debuted well above their expected ranges.
Investors looking for the next big Internet darling snapped up shares of Zillow , which opened at $60 a share, up 200 percent from its $20 pricing. It was the strongest IPO open in the past 10 years, according to IPOFinancial.com. (Click here to see the best and worst 1st day returns for U.S. IPOs.) By early afternoon, shares were up 95 percent.
Shares of SkullCandy were trading only slightly higher after leaping 10 percent in early trading.
Both companies priced their IPOs at a higher-than-expected $20 a share. Zillow originally had planned to price 3.5 million shares of Class A common stock in the $12 to $16 a share range, but boosted its price last week amid strong interest. The company’s stock debuted under the symbol “Z”—one of the coveted single-letter ticker symbols.
Skullcandy, maker of headphones, iPod cases and apparel featuring its distinctive skull logo, increased its offering size to 9.4 million shares from 8.3 million. It originally had planned to offer the shares in a range of $17 to $19 a share. Its shares traded on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol “SKUL.”
Zillow’s strong performance may renew speculation about an Internet stock bubble. In May, some private equity analysts warned that a financial bubble had emerged around Internet companies.
Bubble speculation arose amid a private equity frenzy over shares of social-networking site Facebook and the hugely successful IPO of professional-networking website LinkedIn.
But fears of a growing new tech-bubble eased after Pandora Media shares crashed and burned a day after its highly anticipated IPO. Pandora’s shares soared more than 50 percent in their debut, but pulled back sharply in line with the broader market and closed at $17.42. A day later, the online music service’s shares tumbled to $13.26, well below its IPO offering price of $16.