All eyes on Alibaba (NYSE:BABA)

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By Thomas Copeland on September 20, 2014 Market

Alibaba’s (NYSE:BABA) IPO caught everybody’s eye this week in the market. Wall Street was buzzing with the company’s entry into the New York Stock Exchange. Investors took interest in the Chinese Retailer’s stocks as it flew at 38 percent on Friday. This was the first day of its trading and it gained $25.89 coming to a close at $93.89. As the day came to a close, S&P’s 500 Index (INDEXSP:.INX) dropped lesser than a single point to 2,010.40. This was its best weekly gain ever seen since the past month.

Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), a bigger giant than Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) yet smaller than Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), had its IPO at $68 per share and it gained $21.8 billion from its investors. The chief strategist of TD Ameritrade JJ Kinahan, reported that there was a lot of demand from both retail and institutional investors. He continued to say that it won’t come as a shock to see it rally.

With stories of Alibaba’s (NYSE:BABA) success this past Friday, investors are waiting to see how the company turns out on Monday morning. On Wednesday, there was a controversy of the Fed trying to keep rates low for a reason as it issued a statement the same day stating that it aimed to keep its benchmark of lending rates relatively low. The S&P 500 Index (INDEXSP: .INX) is on cloud 9 with such increases. It reported the best gain since the full year with a 9 percent increase.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) on the other hand, inched upwards by 0.1 percent or 13.75 points/ this came to a close at 17,279.74. The Nasdaq composite (INDEXNASDAQ: .IXIC) dropped however. This included a decline of 0.3 percent to 13.64 points. It ended at 4,579.79. Other businesses across the globe experienced changes in their values as well with the German company SAP (NYSE:SAP) reporting that it planned to acquire Concur Technologies (NASDAQ:CNQR) with a label of $7.4 billion.

With this announcement, Concur’s (NASDAQ:CNQR) stock reached $19.02, or in other words 18 percent making it to a close at $126.82. The interest in companies investing in others may have come from the internet giant Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) reaping benefits from the prior-to-the-IPO investment in Alibaba (NYSE:BABA). Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) saw a decline in its stocks on Thursday. This came after the founder, Larry Ellison’s announcement to resign as CEO after his 37 year reign. The company’s stock dropped 4% or $1.75, making it to $39.80.

Britain’s main index saw a gradual rise as its FTSE 100 made it to 0.3 percent. There was a decrease of 0.1 percent in France’s CAC 40. Coming to Japan, Nikkei 225 climbed 1.6 percent. This was due to a depreciated yen that was good for companies which relied on exports to make money. There was a decrease in industrial metal in the commodities industry trading. Gold came down to $1,216.60 per ounce while Silver also experienced a drop of 67 cents making it to $17.84 per ounce. However, Copper remained at $3.09 per pound.