(CBS News) Alibaba (BABA) is officially the biggest U.S. initial public offering of all time. When market makers at the New York Stock Exchange finally gave the OK for the shares in the Chinese e-commerce company to start trading Friday at 11:53. a.m., the opening price was $92.70.
The stock quickly jumped to $96.29, shooting up 42 percent from the $68 a share the initial public offering priced at last night and lifting Alibaba's market capitalization to $236 billion. That makes it more valuable than U.S. giants such as Facebook (FB), which has a market value of $200 billion, Amazon.com (AMZN), at $150 billion, and Citigroup (C), $163 billion. Even Walmart (WMT), the world's biggest retailer, is only slightly more valuable than Alibaba in market terms.