'Open sesame': Alibaba surges in debut

Alibaba’s stock soared as the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse began its first day trading as a public company Friday. Jubilant CEO Jack Ma stood on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor Friday as eight Alibaba customers, including an American cherry farmer and a Chinese Olympian, rang the opening bell.

We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart. We hope in 15 years people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart, they changed, shaped the world.

CEO Jack Ma

The main reason investors appear breathless about the 15-year old Alibaba: It offers an investment vehicle that taps into China’s burgeoning middle-class. Alibaba’s Taobao, TMall and other platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce. Most of Alibaba’s 279 million active buyers visit the sites at least once a month on smartphones and other mobile devices, making the company attractive to investors as computing shifts away from laptop and desktop machines.

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