Twitter chooses NYSE over Nasdaq, greymarket value and volumes rise

Twitter IPO targeting November 15 to begin trading as Twitter prepares for an end-of-October investor roadshow.

Twitter has issued an update to its IPO prospectus, and in it surprised many in the financial world by selecting to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:TWTR) over Nasdaq. Nasdaq is home to many if not most of the leading tech companies, including most of Twitter’s natural publicly traded comps in the online world, including Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). Business-focused social networking site LinkedIn does trade on the NYSE (NYSE:LNKD).

As such, this is nothing short of a major coup for the NYSE.

As the date for the Twitter IPO nears, its expected valuation is also rising. Latest reports from the Twitter greymarket — where traders can already take positions on what Twitter’s valuation will actually be post IPO — have Twitter being traded at between a $20-$22 billion valuation. That is nearly double the Twitter greymarket value at launch five weeks ago.

And given the rise in value, it is not surprising that volumes are also picking up at online brokers such as IG and ETX Capital, where Twitter stock can be traded in the greymarket. Volumes are expected to rise even further once the actual pricing date nears in mid November.

Twitter also provided its Q3 financials in the updated prospectus. Revenue rose 21% over Q2 to reach $169 million, although on the bottom line Twitter continues to lose (more) money, $64 million in Q3. However a good portion of the ‘loss’ was for US-GAAP-required stock based compensation. Taking that out, Twitter would have reported just a $17 million loss in Q3.

To see the updated Twitter IPO prospectus (S-1/A filing) click here.

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