DealBook: Live Blog: Tracking the Giant Alibaba 1.P.0.

Photo A Chinese flag waves over the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.Credit Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

Alibaba has captured the attention of American investors, politicians and consumers to an extent that's unusual for a company that does much of its business in China.

The company's shares priced at $68 on Thursday, making it one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. Apart from making its insiders rich and providing fees to Wall Street, the initial public offering reflects the rise of China's consumer class. Investors see it as perhaps the best chance yet to buy into the country's growth. The American-based technology giant Yahoo owns a significant stake in Alibaba, helping bolster its own stock price.

As the company begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange this morning, DealBook is taking a look at some of its past milestones, tracking its stock performance and offering analysis on how Wall Street is viewing this behemoth:

9:42 A.M. Jack Ma on the Floor, Not at the Bell Photo

Eight Alibaba employees applauded the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.Credit Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Jack Ma was the New York Stock Exchange at the market open. But he didn't ring the opening bell.

Eight customers of Alibaba rang the bell on the company's behalf. Alibaba says this shows its "customers first" ethos. It also reflects the importance of the number 8.

The customers include an American farmer, a Chinese delivery courier, an Olympic gold medalist and a customer service representative for Alibaba's Taobao marketplace.

— William Alden

9:28 A.M. Alibabas Lucky Numbers

There are plenty of important numbers to keep in mind when analyzing Alibaba. But a few stand out: 6, 9 and especially 8.

Consider how many 8's appear in the stock offering. The roadshow for the I.P.O. kicked off the week of Sept. 8. The deal priced on Sept. 18. The price was set at $68 a share.

If you dig into Alibaba's prospectus, there are more 8's, 9's and 6's. The company had 18 founders. Its holding company was established on June 28, 1999 (6/28/99). A credit facility it obtained last year was worth $8 billion.

The pattern is no coincidence. The number 8 is considered lucky in Chinese culture. The word for eight in Mandarin, "ba," rhymes with the word for prosper, "fa." (The Beijing Olympics — in 2008 — began at 8 p.m. on the eighth day of August, the eighth month of the year.)

Alibaba just so happens to contain two "eights" in its name.

Reports this summer said Alibaba was considering scheduling its trading debut for Aug. 8, or 8/8, a date the company saw as auspicious.

But a debut in September, the ninth month, is also significant. The number 9 is considered desirable because it sounds the same as the word for long-lasting, "jiu."

The number 6 is popular as well. It can signify "longevity" or "joy," depending on the dialect.

A string of these numbers is even better. Consider, then, the market value Alibaba achieved last night: $168 billion.

— William Alden

9:16 A.M. The Whale of the I.P.O. Market

The trading debut of Alibaba Group comes at a time when the market for initial public offerings has been robust.

At $21.8 billion, Alibaba's offering is the largest in the United States, topping the I.P.O.s of Visa, Facebook and General Motors. But to really get a sense to how enormous Alibaba is, consider that the market value of the Chinese e-commerce company is nearly as big as the market value of the entire American I.P.O. market so far this year.

With its shares priced at $68 each, Alibaba has a market value of about $168 billion. The combined market value of the 154 companies based in the United States that have already gone public this year is $180.5 billion, says Standard & Poor's Capital IQ, a research firm.

Fully diluted, Alibaba's market value is $176 billion at $68 a share, says Renaissance Capital, an I.P.O research firm. That would make Alibaba among the top 25 most valuable companies listed in the United States, it says.

— Jeffrey Cane

9:06 A.M. Who Got In at the Debut Price?

Word is already emerging on who managed to snag shares in Alibaba's I.P.O., and unsurprisingly the biggest of the big investors prevailed.

The company and its underwriters allocated the vast majority of shares from the offering to "strategic partners" like mutual funds, according to people briefed on the matter. More than 50 percent of the stock went to the biggest accounts, one of these people said.

Behind the allocation, these people said, was a desire to create a solid base of investors willing to stick with the company for the long term.

— Michael J. de la Merced

9:00 A.M. How Alibaba Is Set Up

What exactly will shareholders be buying, you may be asking? Steven Davidoff Solomon, noted in a Deal Professor column that investors in the offering won't have title to most of Alibaba's Chinese assets because of Chinese prohibitions on foreign ownership.

Instead, the company is using a so-called variable interest entity structure. It works for Jack Ma, Alibaba's co-founder and executive chairman, but whether it works for investors remains to be seen, he writes. He also takes a look in this video:

8:44 A.M. Don't Look for Alibaba's Price Right at 9:30 A.M.

Alibaba shares aren't expected to start trading for several hours, but the floor of the New York Stock Exchange is already bustling, and brimming with orange from the company's logo. Within the Big Board, screens at various posts — especially at Barclays, the designated market maker — are displaying the bright orange Alibaba logo prominently. The logos of other Chinese companies, like Autohome Inc. and Leju.com, dot the screens of other market makers.

I get the sense some company is going public today. #alibaba $baba http://t.co/DX1OEHzLhX

— Michael de la Merced (@m_delamerced) 19 Sep 14

And the chatter around the floor has a distinctly more Chinese flavor. An estimated 140 media teams from the China region have gathered at the Big Board to cover Alibaba's market debut.

The N.Y.S.E. is also going to great lengths to make sure there are no glitches, so the stock won't be trading right at the opening bell:

Credit CNBC

— Michael J. de la Merced

7:39 A.M. The Scene on Wall Street Photo

Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, arriving at the New York Stock Exchange.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Jack Ma arriving at the New York Stock Exchange. Dozens of onlookers had gathered early Friday in anticipation of Alibaba's first day of trading.

Photo

The scene outside the N.Y.S.E.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

DealBook's Michael J. de la Merced is at the exchange to follow the debut:

More than a few Chinese visitors stop to have their picture taken in front of the NYSE $baba @ New… http://t.co/0KMoosJZ5V

— Michael de la Merced (@m_delamerced) 19 Sep 14

7:23 AM How the Chinese Feel About Alibaba

With the Alibaba I.P.O. heavily oversubscribed, the world already knows how international and institutional investors feel about the offering. Less emphasis has been placed on what Chinese investors think.

A survey by the Chinese tech media site PingWest of more than 600 Chinese investors found that 59 percent would not invest in the company. Though 66.7 percent of those asked said that they were bullish on Alibaba's long-term growth, 16.1 percent said the price was too high, while 8.6 percent chose the more personal reason: They didn't like Jack Ma and Alibaba.

— Paul Mozur and Shanshan Wang

7:00 A.M. In Hong Kong, Wondering What Might Have Been

HONG KONG — The new Alibaba Group had originally sought to list in Hong Kong. But regulators refused to sign off on its partnership structure, which gives a committee of fewer than 30 of the company's employees and associates majority control over board appointments.

Speaking to potential investors while on a marketing tour in Hong Kong on Monday, Jack Ma asked his audience to "think about us just like any other Internet company that happens to be in China."

In Hong Kong, that's not so easy to do.

— Neil Gough

6:42 A.M. Jack Ma's Previous I.P.O. Popped, and Fizzled

HONG KONG — This isn't Jack Ma's first trip to the I.P.O. rodeo.

Demand was tremendous back in 2007 when Mr. Ma listed Alibaba.com, a website connecting Chinese exporters with overseas buyers, on the Hong Kong stock exchange. It raised $1.7 billion, a record for an initial public offering by an Internet company in Asia at the time.

Alibaba.com originally offered 129 million shares to individual retail investors and received orders for 33 billion shares. The opening-day pop in the stock was impressive: the shares rose 193 percent on their first day of trading, Nov. 6, 2007 — climbing from an offer price of 13.50 Hong Kong dollars apiece, or $1.74, to 39.50 dollars apiece.

But Alibaba.com came to market near the top of what proved to be a global rally in equities that would turn into a downward spiral a year later, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

From a peak of 38.92 dollars just three weeks after its I.P.O., Alibaba.com's stock plunged and never quite recovered. It was languishing below 10 Hong Kong dollars a share in early 2012 when the parent company, the Alibaba Group, offered to take it private at 13.50 dollars a share — which just so happened to be the I.P.O. price.

— Neil Gough

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