Reddit Stock Surges on Its First Day of Trading
The road to Reddit’s initial public offering has been a long one; in the 19 years since its founding, the social media giant has led many lives. It was an independent startup, and then it wasn’t, until it was again. It despised the idea of selling ads or censoring user content, but eventually found itself deeply pursuing both. It’s had half a dozen leaders, including current CEO Steve Huffman—also known by his username Spez—who is on his second tour of duty.
Now its post-IPO life has begun. Reddit shares surged as much as 60 percent before falling back in the company’s first hour of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker RDDT. As a publicly traded company, Reddit will have to meet user and revenue growth expectations quarter after quarter or face the public wrath of investors. Huffman told NPR last year it was time for Reddit to “grow up and behave like an adult company.”
The IPO had valued Reddit at almost $6.5 billion, a haircut from the $10 billion the company was valued at back in 2021. Thursday’s run-up in shares pushed the market capitalization, however, to almost $8 billion at the time of writing.
