An hour after Klarna's CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski rang the bell on Wall Street, the stock was traded, according to the first indications, between 48 and 50 dollars, reported Bloomberg. Then the cheerful signals continued to come during the following hours.
When the first closing was made just after 7:00 PM, it became clear that the price had risen to 52 dollars per share, reports Bloomberg.
The price at Klarna's listing was set at 40 dollars per share. This means that the price has increased by 30 percent in the initial trading.
Over-subscribed 25 times
The news agency reports that the share was over-subscribed 25 times, and half of those who made advance orders were left without due to the great interest.
Philip Scholtzé, savings economist at Avanza, testified earlier during the Wednesday afternoon about great pressure among Swedish traders.
Trading American shares is popular among our customers, and of the American orders we have now, 36 percent are in Klarna. So it's a very great interest, he said to TT at 4:30 PM.
Then I think there are many who are sitting and waiting to see where the price will open somewhere. We know the listing price but where it opens is very difficult to say and then you may be very wrong.
Doubled compared to Spotify
Regarding the fact that the stock price initially seemed to rise sharply in the initial trading, Philip Scholtzé said:
If you have then placed yourself at 40 dollars, you are wrong from the start. Then you do not know how it moves, it may initially go up and then jump back again. It's very difficult to predict new trading in a share that has not been traded before.
In 2018, another major Swedish tech company was introduced on the New York Stock Exchange - Spotify. Can the interest from Swedish traders be compared then and now?
Then we also looked at how many orders were expected, before it started. There are twice as many on Klarna now, but we had significantly fewer customers then, so it's not a completely fair comparison.
