The biggest initial public offering of all time appears to have finally got US retail investors’ attention.
Two weeks ago, brokerage firms and financial advisers were hearing practically nothing from clients about Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which went public yesterday. But today, investors at TD Ameritrade and Fidelity Investments rushed to place orders for shares of the Chinese e-commerce provider, a juggernaut in China which has higher sales figures than Amazon.com and eBay combined.
Pre-market investor orders at TD Ameritrade Holding Corp for shares of Alibaba Holding surpassed the number of orders before the Facebook initial public offering. Similarly, at Fidelity Investments’ brokerage arm, orders for Alibaba were running 10 per cent higher than for Facebook.
As of Monday, 88 per cent of American consumers had not even heard of Alibaba, according to an Ipsos poll. The surge in orders for Alibaba at TD Ameritrade took the brokerage’s executives by surprise, said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at the firm.
As of midday, Alibaba accounted for about 15 per cent of all retail client trades at TD Ameritrade, said the company.
Retail investors get only 10-20 per cent of shares in big IPOs. The offer, $68 per share, began trading at $92.70 on the New York Stock Exchange.– (Reuters)
