Pinterest shares surge 28% in public debut

Shares of online scrapbook company Pinterest surged as much as 30 percent in its public debut Thursday, suggesting that investors aren’t yet planning to write off tech listings after Lyft’s rocky first few weeks.

Questions have been swirling around demand for tech initial public offerings after Lyft, the nation’s second-largest ride-hailing company, struggled to hold the gains it racked up in its high-profile stock offering earlier this month.

Pinterest’s successful debut bodes well for the IPO market as investors brace themselves for Uber’s much-anticipated stock launch.

“I think Pinterest gets a gold star for good IPO performance,” Renaissance Capital co-founder Kathleen Smith told The Post.

Shares of Zoom Video Communications also surged in the video conferencing company’s opening day of trading Thursday, closing 72 percent above their IPO price of $36.

Investors are hopeful that Pinterest, the highest-profile social media company to list in the US since Snap in 2017, will have a strong run given the company’s ability to grow revenue and increase its user base.

Its shares opened at $23.75, well above the $19 they were priced at, and touched a high of $24.99 in its first hour of trading.

“I think everyone who was close to this saw this coming,” said Rett Wallace of Triton Research, a New York-based firm that tracks tech IPOs said. “There was no surprise whatsoever.”

Wallace added that Pinterest arriving before Uber’s IPO put it in a favorable position.

“Opening up for Uber is like opening up for the Rolling Stones,” he said. “It’s a pretty good thing to do.”

D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte, who currently has the stock rated “neutral,” said that the initial investor response to Pinterest’s first day is a positive sign, but doesn’t guarantee success.

Pinterest shares finished up 28 percent, at $24.40.

With Reuters