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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba begins trading on NYSE

Alibaba's jump in price as it went public on the New York Stock Exchange gave it a larger market capitalization than Facebook.

By Frances Burns
Alibaba Co-Founder Jack Ma stands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange before Alibaba begins trading on Wall Street in New York City on September 19, 2014. The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group started trading Friday at 11:53 AM with an opening price of $92.70 to make it the biggest U.S. initial public offering ever. UPI/John Angelillo
1 of 11 | Alibaba Co-Founder Jack Ma stands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange before Alibaba begins trading on Wall Street in New York City on September 19, 2014. The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group started trading Friday at 11:53 AM with an opening price of $92.70 to make it the biggest U.S. initial public offering ever. UPI/John Angelillo | License Photo

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Jack Ma, founder of the e-commerce giant, the Alibaba Group, became the richest man in China when the company went public Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Shares were priced at $68 for the initial public offering or IPO. The stock opened 36 percent higher at $92.70, although it later dipped to $90.

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The jump made the company worth about $228 billion, bigger than Facebook, although still far short of Google. It put Ma in the select company of Bill Gates and Larry Ellison as one of the 10 richest people in the world, at least on paper.

Alibaba still does much of its business in China, a country where outside investors have learned to be careful, sometimes the hard way. The company claims larger revenues than Amazon or eBay.

Yahoo, which invested in Alibaba in 2005, sold 121.7 million shares through the IPO, raising more than $8 billion. Yahoo still owns more than 16 percent of Alibaba.

The much-anticipated IPO appeared to have drained much of the energy from the rest of the stock market. Few other companies went public this week.

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"Some companies have avoided going public this week because of all the hoopla with Alibaba," Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida, told the New York Times.

Yahoo's stock price dropped.

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