Etsy Inc Up Over 100% In First Day of Trading

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In yet another sign of a frothy market making new highs, Etsy Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY), a well-known online marketplace for crafts and handmade goods, soared in its IPO on Thursday, up more than 100% in the first few hours of trading. The opening price for shares was $31, almost 95% above the $16 price IPO buyers paid. Of note, $16 was the high end of the anticipated range for the Etsy IPO.

Etsy shares traded as high as $34 in frenzied action following the IPO Thursday morning.

Details on the Etsy IPO

Analysts note the deal raised close to $267 million in selling 16.7 million shares. However, including the additional shares in the overallotment option, the company should end up with around $314 million. At the IPO price, Etsy had a market capitalization of $1.8 billion.

In a refreshing change, the highly popular N.Y.-based company took a nontraditional approach to setting up its initial public offering. The firm structured the IPO so that it could sell shares to a broad cross-section of smaller investors. Access to the IPO was also limited to a relatively small number of large investors, frustrating some fund managers, according to sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal.

The program allowed individual investors to buy as much as $2,500 in Etsy stock in the IPO.

More on Etsy

Etsy was launched almost a decade ago as an online marketplace for handmade and vintage items as well as craft supplies. The site was an almost instant hit, and had 1.4 million active sellers and 19.8 million active buyers as of year end 2014, according to an SEC regulatory filing. The business model of the firm involves making money by charging fees to all of the sellers that use the platform to sell their craft products.

It should be noted that the firm has reported net losses in each of the last three years, despite rapid growth in revenues. Gross revenue was up by 56% in 2014, based on recent SEC filings.

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