Groupon's Best Deal Yet?
This story was first published on Thursday, November 3, 2011. All values have been updated to reflect today's developments.
Groupon, a Chicago-based e-commerce discounter, made its debut at the NASDAQ Friday morning .
Shares of Groupon priced above the intial $16 to $18 range, at $20 per share, valuing the company at $700 million.
According to Thomson Reuters Deals Insight, this was the second largest internet IPO of the year, after Yandex , Russia's leading online search engine.
The IPO market has been relatively sluggish so far this year, with only 99 companies venturing into the market, compared to 118 deals completed during the same period in 2010, and 171 back in 2007.
Of this year's IPOs, 20 have in the high technology sector, accounting for about one-fifth of the activity.
Here is a look at best and worst first-day returns during IPOs in 2011, which on average saw an 11 percent gain.
The Best and the Worst
Qihoo 360 Technology , which offers web browser services and other Internet security products in China, had lots of appeal on its first day of trading, with the company's shares soaring 134 percent.
In fact, Renaissance Capital lists China’s Qihoo 360 as the third best first-day gain for a US listed IPO in the post tech-bubble era and in the last 10 years. Since its debut, the stock lost more than 51 percent of its value.
On the other side of the spectrum, adult-social networking and multimedia entertainment company FriendFinder had an initial issue price of $10 per share during the second quarter of this year, posting a 21.5 percent drop on its first day of trading, the worst first-day performance so far this year.
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