Google jumps 18% in debut

No. 1 search engine posts solid gains in long awaited debut, but not like the
late 1990s.
August 19, 2004: 4:36 PM EDT
By Paul R. La Monica, CNN/Money senior writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Google stock jumped 18 percent in its long-awaited but rocky debut Thursday.

Shares of the No. 1 search engine company closed at $100.34 after they opened at $100, a 17 percent increase from its offering price of $85.

More than 22 million shares changed hands on its first day of trading, making Google one of the most actively traded stocks on the Nasdaq. The stock stayed in a fairly tight range throughout the day, hitting a low of $95 and high of $104.06.

The slightly better-than-expected performance was not enough to save other tech stocks though; the Nasdaq composite index fell about 0.6 percent Thursday.

Google, trading under the ticker symbol GOOG (GOOG: Research, Estimates), was supposed to be one of the hottest initial public offerings of stock since the late 1990s. But its gains paled next to some of the hottest names of that era.


--- Read more here ---