Shares of Pandora Media were up as much as 51% on their first morning of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The successful IPO and subsequent rise in share prices means Pandora has become one of the most valuable music-related companies in the world.
Trading under the symbol “P,” the stock opened at $16, quickly rose to $24.20 and had dropped to $20.71 by 10:40am ET. In spite of that drop, shares were still up 30% on the day.
Neither institutional investors, who were sold shares at the $16 IPO price, nor the retail investors who followed them showed concern about the criticism of the company in the media earlier this week. Numerous reports had warned of the company’s lack of profitability, its obligations to pay content owners and the general poor performances of digital music companies.
But the market shrugged off those concerns. And in giving Pandora such a warm reception, investors had turned Pandora into one of the world’s most valuable music companies. At $20.71 per share, Pandora has a market value of roughly $3.4 billion.