Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) priced its September initial public offering (IPO) at $68, and the massively oversubscribed shares rocketed out of the gate on the first day of trading, finally closing at $93.89, after trading as high as $99.70. Exuberant shareholders such as Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which sold a gigantic block of shares, cheered the stock’s 38% first-day gain. From there, things went downhill, however, and by October 15 (less than a month after the IPO), the stock closed at $85.60. With the entire market in a steep sell-off, things looked dicey.
The dice came up snake-eyes Tuesday, with Alibaba posting a new post-IPO low of $81.22 before noon, after closing Monday night at $84.00. Volume was already equal to the daily average of around 15 million shares. This is not good news for Alibaba. Shares broke through a theoretical floor in the mid-$80 range and have done so on heavy volume. More selling could be on the way as those protecting gains from the IPO’s $68 price may start to sell, and sell big, especially with the huge flood of shares coming via lockup expirations.
How big is the flood? On March 19, some 429 million ordinary shares will be available for sale in the public market, which is more than the 320 million shares the company sold in the IPO and about 17% of the shares outstanding. That is easily trumped by a massive 1.58 billion shares that will available for sale later this year, on September 21, which represents 64% of the shares outstanding.
Alibaba’s stock traded down 3.2% in the noon hour on Tuesday, at $81.32 in a new post-IPO range of $81.22 to $120.00. The consensus price target on the stock from 35 analysts is $112.52.
ALSO READ: Is Alibaba Headed Back to the IPO Price or Lower as Lockup Expirations Near?
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