Twitter tripped up on second day of trading
Day two saw the social network lose nearly $2 billion in value.
Twitter took flight Thursday in an impressive initial public offering that valued the company at $24.48 billion. Friday, the company's wings were clipped a bit as shares fell more than 7 percent.
Seven-year-old Twitter's IPO could be characterized by its anti-Facebook qualities. The smaller social network priced its shares at $26 apiece, opened with a healthy 73 percent pop at $45.10, then closed the day at $44.95. Clearly, investors were willing to give Twitter a pass on its money-losing business.
But Wall Street types, as usual, proved to be a fickle bunch. Though Twitter opened at $45.93 Friday, shares went in the opposite direction for most of the day. The company closed its second day of trading at $41.65, giving it a slightly more humble market value of $22.69 billion.
If Twitter is to soar on the public market, the company will eventually need to turn a profit from the attention of its 232 million active users. In the first nine months of 2013, Twitter lost $134 million on $422.2 million in revenue. Still, the company's proximity to all things live, particularly television, and its still-in-development advertising business have many willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.