Shares of discount retailer Five Below (FIVE) are popping in their debut on the Nasdaq Thursday, rising more than 57 percent in late trading. Its shares, priced at $17 on Wednesday, hit $26.16 within the first hour of trade and were hovering above $28 an hour before the close. Five Below raised $163.5 million in its offering of 9.6 million shares.
The Philadelphia-based company -- which caters to the tween set, selling everything from sports gear to party supplies to iPhone cases at a price of $5 or less -- first opened its doors in 2002. It currently has 199 stores across the U.S. and plans to open another 50 this year. Five Below was the top percentage gainer of the session.
This smooth start stands in contrast with the most notorious Nasdaq offering of the year: Facebook's (FB) mid-May IPO, a debacle that began with tech glitches that massively botched the opening day of trading and may have lost more than $500 million for investors and financial firms. Facebook shares are currently at $29 and change, $9 below its IPO price of $38 a share.
Investor confidence, already at less-than-high levels, took yet another hit from the disastrous debut of the social network. To that note, Yahoo! Finance (along with partner CNBC) asked our users in a poll: After the Facebook debacle, would you buy an IPO on the Nasdaq? More than 80 percent of respondents gave the virtual thumbs down, with the majority (43 percent) saying it was because they don't trust the listing process.
Tomorrow's Nasdaq debuts include guitar maker Fender, which will start trading under the ticker FNDR, and online travel site Kayak, which will use the symbol KYAK. Kayak will be one of the largest tech offerings on the exchange since Facebook. As of late afternoon Thursday, the company was planning to sell 3.5 million shares in a range of $22 to $25, with the hopes of raising as much as $100 million.