Tesla shares zoom on first day of trading
Tesla, appearing on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol “TSLA,” traded at about $18.40 in early afternoon trading. Shares initially opened around that level, then plunged before climbing back up.
TeslaÂ’s underwriters, sensing bigger-than-expected investor appetite for the offering, raised the initial sale price to $17, above the $14 to $16 expected range. They also increased the number of shares to be sold in the offering by 20 percent, to more than 13 million shares.
The offering garnered Tesla more than $226 million in proceeds.
So far, investors appear unconcerned about some of the risks of investing in Tesla. Among those, as noted by the company: its constant losses since its founding its dependence on access to loans from the Energy Department and its reliance on one car model, the $109,000 Roadster. The more affordable $50,000 Model S isnÂ’t expected to hit sales floors for another two years.
Related News

Climate change: Greenhouse gas concentrations again break records
LONDON - The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the increase in CO2 was just above the average rise recorded over the last decade.
Levels of other warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, have also surged by above average amounts.
Since 1990 there's been an increase of 43% in the warming effect on the climate of long lived greenhouse gases.
The WMO report looks at concentrations of warming gases in the atmosphere rather than just emissions.
The difference between the two is that emissions refer to the amount of gases that go up into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels, such…