twitterIPOday1

Day 1 as a public company is in the books for Twitter (TWTR), which saw a relatively steady day on the New York Stock Exchange.

twitter-bird-white-on-blueAfter opening at $45.10 — 73 percent higher than its IPO price set Wednesday — and rising as high as $50 at one point, shares cooled off in the afternoon and ended the day at $44.90.

Twitter, the 26th technology company to conduct an IPO on the NYSE this year, offered 70 million shares to the public out of a total of 545 million outstanding shares and now has a market value of $24.5 billion.

The social media giant chose several of its users to ring the opening bell on the NYSE this morning, including Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek), as well as 9-year-old girl who set up a lemonade stand to protest slavery and a member of the Boston Police Department.

Investors are betting that Twitter, which still remains unprofitable, can somehow figure out a way to make a profit with its 232 million monthly active users. The seven-year-old company of 2,300 employees made $168.6 million in revenue last quarter, more than double what it pulled in at this time last year.

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