Alibaba BABA Shares Priced at $68

The Alibaba IPO shares have been priced at $68. Alibaba IPO is today.

Chinese Alibaba is going to sell shares worth of about $22 billion starting today. The shares of the Alibaba IPO have been priced at $68.

Alibaba is set to start trading today under the symbol BABA on the New York Stock Exchange. Alibaba has raised the share price target recently due to demand and as expected picked the top range that has been in play so far.

Jack Ma built an extremely impressive online imperium that handles more transaction than Amazon and eBay combined.

The Alibaba market value at this initial share price is $168 billion. It is expected that shares will spike and will trade above the IPO price. The only thing that could negatively influence the initial trade dynamic is a special clause for a group of early investors. About $8 billion worth of shares can be flipped anytime. They do not have a lockup.

Alibaba’s founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, aims to keep full control of Alibaba even after the IPO. Which I think is a good thing. He was able to make e-commerce work in China in a way Silicon Valley did not figure out. There is though one Silicon Valley company that will profit big time from the Alibaba IPO. Yahoo! is a major shareholder of Alibaba. The only question is if he will be able to take on other markets in the same scale as in China.

To buy or not to buy: 7 investors give their views of the risk and opportunity ahead of the Alibaba IPO http://t.co/ajHpZvS58q— WSJ Asia (@WSJAsia) September 19, 2014

About Alibaba

Alibaba Group was founded in 1999 by 18 people led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China. It began as an online wholesale marketplace for small Chinese exporters and entrepreneurs to reach global buyers.
The principal executive offices of our principal operations are located in the Xixi District of Hangzhou, China. As of March 31, 2014, we employed more than 22,000 people around the world.
SoftBank Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. and their respective affiliates are major shareholders. SoftBank Corp. has been our shareholder since 2000 and Yahoo! Inc. since 2005.