Snapchat firm hit new york stock exchange

Shares in Snap, owner of messaging app Snapchat, began trading
on the US stock market on Thursday.

At the close of trade shares were $24.48 each, a jump of more
than 40%.

The flotation valued the company at $17 a share, or $24bn in all,
although Snap has never made a profit.

The firm's inital public offering (IPO) is the biggest for a US tech
firm since Facebook in 2012 and will turn the company's
founders, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, into multi-billionaires.

Snapchat, which is especially popular with teenagers, allows users
to send images and messages which then vanish.

The company's losses widened last year, and user growth is
slowing down in the face of intense competition from larger rivals
such as Facebook.

Despite the challenges in converting "cool" into cash, Snap's
valuation is the richest for a US tech flotation since Facebook in
2012.

At the beginning of February Snap's formal announcement to
regulators of its plans revealed that the company had revenue of
$404m last year, but made a loss of $515m.

Unlike in most listed companies, people who buy the floated
shares in Snap will not get any voting rights.

Some analysts argued the company was overvalued.

"Snap is a promising early stage company with significant
opportunity ahead of itself.

"Unfortunately, it is significantly overvalued given the likely scale of
its long-term opportunity and the risks associated with executing
against that opportunity," wrote analyst Brian Wieser from Pivotal
Research in a note. He gave it a "sell" rating.

Before the trading debut, Jordan Hiscott, chief trader at Ayondo
Markets, said: "What sets it apart from other messaging apps like
WhatsApp for me is the innovative features built into the app's
interface, such as the lenses function.

"A pertinent point in the company's S1 filing for the IPO is that it
doesn't call itself a messaging service, but a camera company."

"This seems to be an intentional move to differentiate it from
Facebook and Twitter and the success and failure of their
respective IPOs, which in my view, is very clever."