Alibaba shares shoot up 36% just two hours after opening in New York

The New York Times commented, "Alibaba has captured the attention of American investors, politicians and consumers to an extent that is unusual for a company that does much of its business in China.

"The initial public offering reflects the rise of China’s consumer class. Investors see it as perhaps the best chance yet to buy into the country’s growth."

By 12:19 P.M. Alibaba was worth more than Facebook, said the NYT.

Alibaba started trading with a market capitalisation of about $228.5 billion, making it more valuable than Facebook and Amazon but not nearly as large as Google.

The Times listed the market capitalisation of some other tech giants, around noon on Friday:

LinkedIn: $25.6 billion

Twitter: $30.8 billion

eBay: $65.5 billion

Amazon: $151.7 billion

Facebook: $200 billion

Google: $400.3 billion

The paper said the interest in the Alibaba IPO was so enormous " the rest of the market essentially ground to a halt ahead of the Chinese company’s listing ."

Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida., commented , “Some companies have avoided going public this week because of all the hoopla with Alibaba.”

Citizens Financial had planned to list this week, but delayed to make room for Alibaba. Now the bank plans to raise as much as $3.5 billion next week, said the NYT.

Alibaba’s chief executive, Jack Ma led his company’s roadshow over the last week and was in New York for the opening bell.

The $21.8 billion raised by Alibaba was equal to all the I.P.O.s in the first six months of this year, according to Ritter.

Yahoo became a big investor in Alibaba in 2005 and raised about $8.3 billion by selling 121.7 million shares via Alibaba’s I.P.O. the previous night. It still owned a 16.3 percent stake, worth $37.2 billion yesterday morning. Yahoo’s own capitalisation, was just $42 billion at Thursday’s close.