PTR: World’s First $1 Trillion Company, and Alibaba Debut
Monday morning in Asia saw a bit of history made, as Petrochina finally went public on the Chinese mainland to huge success. The company’s shares tripled during trading, enough to value the company at over $1 trillion–the first company to reach that milestone. By hitting that valuation, PTR was worth more than the entire Russian stock market, and more than Exxon-Mobil and GE combined. In fact, the Chinese economy was only valued at $1.1 trillion before this year started! Bloomberg has the article here.
Unfortunately for holders of the company’s U.S. shares didn’t fare quite as well, when the trading day opened on Monday. PTR was hammered all afternoon by American sellers, driving the company’s price down around 13% on the day. Other Asian stocks got clobbered during the day, with FXI, the Chinese index fund, closing down almost 9%, and China Mobile, CHL, ending the day down about 12%.
While Chinese mainland investors were basking in their earnings over PTRs debut, Alibaba made its entry on Tuesday. The internet seller’s stock quickly doubled, making it Asia’s second biggest internet company. Although the stock is not yet available to U.S. investors, Yahoo! and Cisco both have large stakes in the company, and it will be interesting to see in the following weeks what those stocks do.
