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Wall Street shares higher as Alibaba to begin trading

Published: 10:27 19 Sep 2014 EDT

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Shares on Wall Street got off to a strong start with all eyes on the momentous Alibaba float in New York.

The Chinese powerhouse is set to begin trading today and yesterday priced the float at U$68 per share - making it the largest IPO for a US listed company ever.

The stock market debut will raise an eye watering $21.8 billion, a figure that could rise to $25 billion if underwriters exercise an option to buy more shares at the IPO price. 

It values the company at around $167.6 billion making itone of the most valuable technology companies on the planet, and bigger than  Amazon but not quite as big as socal network behemoth Facebook, which floated in 2012, which has a market cap of US$200.2bn.

London broker Cantor says investors should 'buy' the stock.

It believes Alibaba is the best way to play growing online consumption in China, and has the potential to dominate the global online commerce over time.

On Wall Street, the benchmark Dow Jones gained 62 points to 17,327, the Nasdaq added 15 to 4,608, while the S&P 500 added seven points to stand at 2,018.

In London, the focus was on the Scottish referendum result -  a 'no' to the country becoming independent.

The turnout was an impressive 86% of voters and losing first minister Alex Salmond has conceded the 'yes' defeat calling for the powers at Westminster to now deliver on their further devolution pledges.

Footsie is up 40 points at 6,857 at the time of writing.

The biggest riser was banking group RBS (LON:RBS) unsurprisingly, which gained 3%. Power firm SSE (LON:SSE) is also up 1.18%.

Big cap miners are in the doldrums though -  Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) are both down.

Standard Life (LON:SL.) issued a statement on the referendum result, saying it recognises that further constitutional change is very likely following the clear result of the referendum.

"We will consider the implications of any changes for our customers and other stakeholders in our business to ensure their interests are represented and protected. As a large company based in Scotland, Standard Life is ready to contribute to this process," the insurance firm said.

In the junior space, the vibe was also upbeat - FTSE AIM All share gained 3.58, while FTSE AIM 100  was up 19.26 points.

Among the small-caps, North River Resources (LON:NRRP) was a riser after it reported a "significant increase” in the resource at Namib, its flagship lead-zinc project in Namibia, thanks to an extensive underground drilling programme.

African Minerals (LON:AML), the developer, operator and 75% shareholder of the Tonkolili iron ore project, was also wanted after its new chief executive officer, Alan Watling, said he expects the project will become cash flow positive by the end of the year, assuming iron ore prices remain relatively stable.

ANGLE (LON:AGL) also nudged a little higher after it signed a collaboration agreement with the University of Southern California to investigate the use of its Parsortix system in breast cancer research.

Ferrex (LON:FRX) is up 12.5%, while Atlantic Coal (LON:ATC) gained over 26%.

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