we talk about apple pay and maybe that will be the business down the road. but apple is through and through an iphone company. >> is that an apple iphone song they are singing too. we should learn what that is. >> i think he's going to speak actually. so let's try to listen in. no speaking but a lot of applause. >> it is an important moment for tim cook with the unveiling of the products. this was the point he could say really it was miss company and not just the legacy of steve jobs working its way through. >> this is a good picture here. people have been wondering about

what his imprint was going to be for years, almost four years, three years. and, you know, i think it is getting to a point now where he's sort of being associated the way disney with associated with the disney company. it's taken time and clearly some innovation. but tim cook is putting his mark on it. >> and the stock has risen more than 20% this year largely in anticipation of this new product launch. the new iphones and also apple pay and the watch which doesn't become available until next year. >> also he held the lines with the finances and icall and the rest. and it's been a battle for the last year to get to the position he's in at a moment. a very personal battle at times would appear. >> and probably not a coincidence that bob uygur of disney is on the apple board. just a few days ago they found a way to make this feeling of magic happen at a time where american interests and

capabilities are questioned all around the world. >> back to bob on floor. we have more on the alibaba pricing here of the new york stock exchange. bob. >> the important thing we are at 88-90 and appear to be getting a little closer. give us the size. >> we've got 30 million paired with extra 10 million to buy at the higher end. so it feels like we are getting asymptotically close. >> 30 million paired with 10 million to buy. right? >> that's right. >> so bottom line is we have 10 million buyers still potentially that have to be satisfied yet. >> before we had 15. and 20 minutes ago we had 24. the point here is that this process is working and we are getting closer and closer. >> it is a very orderly and deliberate process run by goldman and dmm and the rest of the underwriters. and most importantly the entire world knows where this stock is going to open and that is what we're looking for. >> the important thing is 20 minute, 25 minutes.

>> i don't know. >> 30 minutes. we are getting very close. we are all in here together and seeing all the executives that are in here, pull wide and back. you can see everybody is crowded into this very very tiny booth. and we're all standing here looking at each other and looking at the space. including mr. ma whose right here standing next to us on our right and we're all chatting trying to figure out when the stock is exactly going to hope open. the point is the process is working, clear and orderly and transparent, scott. >> and we're really thrilled houd this has been working. we've been smoothly and orderly in our fashion of going through price indications and now as we're getting closer people have the opportunity to buy or sell at these levels and it is amazing and historic given the size of the ipo. >> another 20 minutes. we're taking deli orders. pa stramy? anything like that. we're taking orders. back to you. >> thank you bob. along with jack ma as we await

the opening trade of alibaba, the web and e-commerce giant going public today at the new york stock exchange. we knew this was going to take time and guidance in the premarket was probably 2 hours, possibly 3 hours. we're going to be 2 hours in in a little bit here. the indication 89 to 91 now kayla. and you have been watching closely. >> and i know the management of the company is very patient. they want it to be done right and meticulously and deliberately as it obviously is at this moment. we've been following bob whose reporting on these days is unmatched. being inside the bull pen with the market makers every step of the way. 89-91. at 90 dollars a share this is a market cap of 243 billion dollars. throughout this whole week we've been comparing alibaba's market cap at 160-ish billion dollars.

but there is a host of tech companies here in the u.s. that alibaba will now dwarf if it goes public at 243. >> it exceeds the market cap of every u.s. ipo so far this year. 154 other ipos. kathleen smith joins us here. great to see you again. >> thank you. >> at what level do you start to get worried on valuation. >> i think o at lo lot of inves are looking a facebook's valuation that. multiple is 38 times coming year earnings and that would make the stock at about $100 a share at that multiple. and i think even now with this price, fundamental investors are saying well maybe it is not quite a facebook multiple but certainly good at this point. >> you were talking act atfs and their relationship getting some of this. where does that stand?

>> the main thing about at fs is they usually take a long time. so the etf business is a very important business these days to individual investors. so wave designed in our renaissance ipo etf a product that not only includes the portfolio of newly formed companies but takes a large company like alibaba and has them enter the portfolio in a faster basis. it gives investors a less emotional way to own the portfolio of new companies. >> do you get the sense that after alibaba investors would open pocketbooks more to china's ipos. it has a full 25 percent of the global ipo activity and a lot of people are saying once the investor at home gets familiar with alibaba, there could be a

flood gate opened with many more deals. >> that is very likely true, especially if the deals are performing well. and this year there have been about 11 chinese ipos that have been done and all have traded above their ipo price. u.s. investors have gotten very comfortable with the chinese ipos. that wasn't necessarily the case if you go back to 2010 and some of these years where there were in ipos and they did not perform well. so we have a love relationship right now with china. i'm sure it will turn into this love/hate relationship. but yes, i think it does pave the way. alibaba is such a big name. i think investors are going to get very comfortable with china as a result. >> bob is getting comfortable with jack ma. >> well we're just sitting here scott. let's just make sure we get the new indications. 89-91, correct? >> right. >> and how close are we to this whole process? >> we've still got time.

and if we go more to a $2 range and narrow down to a $1 range we'll get closer and closer. >> ja ma is here. how do you feel about this whole process. >> good process. very happy about that. and i'm learning a lot. i'm learning how we can do better next year. >> we've been watching you sit here with the specialists the designated market makers explaining the process. are you satisfied that the process is fair and transparent and it's happening the way you wanted it to happen. >> yes. of course of course. it's exciting and very transparent. >> looks like we are moving towards an open in the next perhaps 20, 30 minutes. looks like around 90 dollars. how do you feel about that price. >> i don't know. i'm just excited. >> we're all excited here. i got the pa strame order in.

>> getting pretty exciting at this point. >> we'll give you the next indication. should be very soon now guys. there is jack and we got the pastrame coming. >> thank you bob. and we're chatting here with kathleen talking market caps and starting to compare to it very large retailers statements. walmart would be on the list now. >> it would. $90 a share. and not to mention i've been watching yahoo shares. which are up a bit. 401 milli 1 million dollars. and 46 billion dollars after having sold shares today. and then soft bank. almost 800 million shares, john they own. >> wow. >> and kathleen, what do you think is the impact of this kind of big financial event on investor mind set. tomorrow's front page we are going to see apple iphone hype?

apple is a huge company. we're going to see alibaba ipo. another huge company. what is that going to do next week for nvlsers? >> i think we are climbing this strong bull market in a wall of worry in the bull market. we are seeing in terms of ipos that are going to come after alibaba. this deal does well. we're seeing many billion dollar plus ipos come to market. it will be probably the most outstanding year, 20$2014 for billion dollar plus ipos if we are continuing on this trend. so market psychology is good at this point. >> s&p 2016, they picked a good day. kah kara joins us from washington. we're trying to cover this from the floor. and it is sometimes difficult to raise your head above the hype. where is your head? >> not above the hype. i'm thinking what they are going

to do with all the money. it will trade high up. it will go down. people will sell. all this news coverage is causing the hype to happen, everyone wanting to have it. i think the real issue is if they get this much money what are they going to do with it and what they could buy. and that to me is what's interesting. >> asked jack ma that question earlier. 15 billion they are raising and as you point out the currency itself. he wouldn't really answer it. so what is your guess? a lot of people think maybe they start acquiring obviously in other countries. >> i think they are probably very slow to come to the u.s. in the road show i talked to investors. they down played a lot of u.s. purchases but think certainly could go for a number of u.s. companies here. they don't have much presence here or at owl they could just expand their own offerings. there is a lot of the chinese people here and they could do all kinds of things back and forth with people in china and

people who live here. all kinds of things in emerging countries. they could look to india for example. all kinds of places they could go to bring their model. obviously they run slam into amazon when they come to the united states. so that will be an interesting fight between the two of them. >> kara, how big a day is this for jerry yang, who's clearly spearheaded yahoo's early investment in this company. if this goes up and yahoo stake goes up, is it vindication for him not wanting to sell yahoo to microsoft way back when, seeing more value in it than investors. >> and they have always had the stake. i don't think he was thinking of alibaba at the time with that but it was one of the greatest trades in history for yahoo. yahoo right now is a alibaba investment company. that is really where most of the value of the company is in alibaba shares the ones they have to shell and the ones they

get to keep. and they sold a bunch recently. at a very low price so not every trade has been perfect but they still hold a lot of shares and we'll see what happens. and they really don't have to do much business and they just have to hold alibaba's shares at this moment and then the focus will be on the core business. >> we asked ma this morning how investors are supposed to get their heads around the foreign aspects of regulation in china. >> yeah. >> the relationship to the government. his answer was trust. essentially his answer was trust me. and i just wonder how that rings where you are in the valley among people who watch big tech companies. >> it's brought up a lot more in the valley lately. maybe scare tactics. but you know trust the chinese government. that's very difficult i think for most investors. they should think about it. even though i think jack is telling the truth when he says that. it's a difficult question. does he have control of it. and he's operating in a government that has a great deal

of control in the country. you never know what the chinese government is going to do. i don't think they will step all over this. they have been trying to do all kinds of economic expansion. they have to. and at the same time they have a lot more control over the companies than they do here in the united states. >> there is that lock up of 6 months or so for the top slate of shareholders. >> yeah. >> i'm wondering. these sound like people very committed to the cause. saying this is the beginning, not the end. it will be interesting to see what the executives eventually do. i know that is something we'll be debating. but kara for this moment i want to toss it back to bob in post eight inside the bull pen. >> and we have another new indication. the $90 range. 90 to 91. what is the size? >> from three to two to one. so in this birthing process we are now actually getting close.

so it looks like at that 90 we've still got 20 million paired at that level with residual to buy. >> what is the residual to buy? >> it is in the millions. i don't exactly know but we are getting closer. >> so 20 million is already paired off at that high end at the 90. and there is still 10 million left? >> you want to order in balance to buy at any level here. so at 90 to 91 we are probably likely to open now within that range or very close to it. >> and of course as i mention all the executives are here and crowded in a booth with us. jack ma was right over there. and there's jo sai. the executive chairman and members of his family standing there as well. so we are all crowded in here. waiting for this open. ten minutes? >> i don't know. but again, i have four kids and so i've been through this process that way many times. but it is so exciting because we

do feel we are getting close to that moment in time where this is going to be the biggest debut in history. it's exciting and you have families here and executives to watch it all happen. >> it is the biggest ipo as we mentioned before. the green shoe, extra 15% allocated to the underwriters likely will be exercised. now we are at a 25 billion dollar range roughly. this would be the biggest ipo of all time. >> very exciting and it is exciting to watch. >> yeah. bottom line here is give it another 15 minute or so. maybe we'll get one more price indication. $3 range earlier now a 1 range and pretty soon may even get in between that. >> exactly. >> another 10 to 15 minutes i think. back to you. >> a viewer wrote in, good i can go to the bathroom. we'll take a short break. dow is up 56. s&p 2016 alibaba's first trade in just a minute.

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show you a little time lapse here that's happened since the opening bell and moving in on 1 hour 50 minutes as we await alibaba's opening trade and we're told it could be anywhere from 10, 15 minutes away. that is the latest. kara swisher of recode is still with us. but but also want to bring in dan rosensweig.

of course he inked that 1 billion dollar deal tween yahoo and alibaba. >> it's pretty remarkable it was almost nine years to the day where yahoo signed the deal. and to think how far the internet has come and global internet and jack ma and joe and the team have been able to accomplish is pretty extraordinary. i don't think anybody would have imagined it be this big ever, let alone this quickly. >> dan, it strikes me that jack ma is now the biggest business figure in china possibly ever. and we've got all this uncertainty about how exactly china is going to interact on the global stage, when it comes to tech, when it comes to business. how important is jack ma do you think? and how much control he's able to exercise over the company and his interactions with the chinese government and his

credibility when he says hey trust me that this is going to be a good investment for the public around the world. >> like kara who i was listening to. i agree when he says it he means it. he's a man in integrity and have says what he believes. however there are many things he is not in control of as it relates to the chinese government. but it's a strange situation. e-commerce and commerce are something the chinese government would like to see happen. and also jack is very rapidly and alibaba are becoming the global face of chinese business. icate balance for the oing to be government to try to do things that would restrict their success on the world stage. because he is the most visible business person on the world stage for china. so i think he's got probably more leverage than a traditional business person might in china. certainly than any american company would in china. but it doesn't mean he's out of the woods. >> dan we hope you will stick around. go don't go anywhere.

kara is also withis. and carlos. >> hi how are you. >> that $85 target is in the rear view mirror with an indication, 91-92. >> yes. it just shows how much confidence people have on the evolution of the chinese consumer and the role alibaba will play over development of the internet in china. not surprising. i think people are betting on people spending more in china and people smend spending more on alibaba. >> just wrote in at this price, alibaba is going to be worth 20% of the entire s&p retailing sector market cap. are we in a dangerous territory now. >> i don't think i would classify it as dangerous territory at all. i think it just shows, again, the potential of the dominate internet and the e-commerce

company in what is going to be the largest internet and e-commerce company in the world. they have between 70 and 90% share of e commerce so many opportunities in cloud in payments in media. this company is, you know, the key player in what is still a very early internet market. and what this valuation reflects is all this potential. >> bob, as post eight. i'm trying to see over the heads of all these traders, bob. >> quite the crowd. and nobody is going anywhere. final numbers are not in yet. 91-92 is the indication. that is when you start getting interested in size. what is the pair? and what is still out there to buy. >> importantly we are starting to see volume come in at these levels. we've got 35 million shares paired to buy at the higher end and importantly we still have residual 4 millionish to buy

after that. which is good support level at the high end of the range. >> and you said before you do want to see buyers out there. you don't want to satisfy every buyer. you want to see the stock ideally have a move to the upside at the open. >> and it's meant to be a very controlled process communicated to the entire market so everybody know where is the stock is going to open and they have the opportunity to express their interest. as much liquidity as possible is trying to be gathered here. and when they feel as though they have got that match, then they will open the stock. >> and importantly thing is this is not a static process. this is dynamic. so even as we are indicating the numbers and the amount of buyers still been satisfied, there may be other buyers jumps in at that time who are watching what is going on. so the point is this is completely dynamic. but you can see slowly but surely buyers and sellers coming together. >> and it's really exciting to be able to see the amount of liquiddy given the size of this transaction still coming in.

and these are all people underallocated and still want to buy at these levels which is a great sign for the company there is a great market opportunity in front of them. >> ten minutes? >> i was just told another 15 minutes. so we'll see. >> you're amnnoying me now. i already went out with 10 to 15. >> i'm only doing what imtold. >> guys? bob we'll await that first trade and back to carlos. when you think about day two for the company. obviously these things are manufactured to have a pop on day one. but at a market cap over 200 billion, how do you see the stock settling out over the coming days and weeks? >> well i think, you know, in the future the evolution of the stock will depend on what happens to user growth on the platform. and most importantly how much every new user is spending. they have added a lot of new

users recently and we should see people who joined the platform learn how to use it and spend more and with the mobile devices and that will very soon show inspect the results and drive the evolution of the stock. so if people are using alibaba to buy more things, more service, more goods, this stock will work. >> carlos, thanks for your time. joining us from bern stein with that $85 target. looks like they will beat it on day one. we'll find out out. you talked at length about alibaba's operations, what should we start putting on our radar even if we are aiming high in terms of expectations? >> you mean of buying? what they would buy? >> anything right now. they can buy you, carl. let's see. if they are in the u.s. they

would look at pinterest, i would assume because it is in the shopping space. the catalog space. they could look at yahoo itself if they wanted to. they could look at almost anything. and i think probably you are just going to see them consolidate power more in china. they have stiff competitors and they are all converging together. and everyone is in each other's business much more so than here. so you will see in communications right away and payments to me is their biggest opportunity is whether they can do payments. and you see apple moving strongly into that area and google and amazon. so you will see a lot of the competition there. so there are all kind of areas they can move into. >> speaking of apple, we've seen them partner with chinese companies as they seek to expand in china their biggest growth market. how important is their relationship with alibaba going to be going forward as they move

into commerce with things like apple pay and as they want to expand their footprint there. >> they are a competitor with the payments because alibaba has ali pay and other things. and same way ebay is a competitor. you know, they could do some partnerships, co-op tigs and some fighting and i think payments will be big all over the world as we move from the charge card economy into this phone economy using phones for payment. which is nefinevitable. so who is going to dominate that. in that way you think alibaba should get a device. they have been doing things around the edges like that. so you could be as creative as you p want when you are an investment banker and thinking where they should go strategically. >> the dow is up 50.

the s&p at a new high at 2015. it's getting more crowded over there bob. >> we are getting close. 92-93 are the implications and we are starting to hear even in between. >> we just did i think our tenth indication and 92-93. now they are saying 92.50. you have more liquidity coming in 40 million shares and they called in the family and they are at the point of sale. >> so we're getting close when they do that. traditionally first trade is made by -- achieve executive of course. >> achieve executive here at the nyse. >> talking about 92.50 here. and this is dynamic. there are people standing by who may be putting additional orders are as we can hear shoutouts

from people who are still yelling out orders so this is not a completely closed process. >> and again as we feel we are getting close all the buyers and sellers know that as well. so that is the opportunity to get in any liquidity in the final moments and we want all that reflected in the book. and that is what we're trying to do. attract as much liquidity as we can at the opening. >> five minutes? >> feels as though in that range. >> we're standing by and right on top of things. i see jo sai who ease moved over to the front there. they have all started pushing their way towards the front there. i can't quite see jack ma. but joe has just moved right to the front there and standing right by the designated market maker. jo sai of course the executive chairman of the company. so we are right there and it's interesting. a lot of indication scott when i kept bugging you how long will this take?

you just kept saying leave me alone. but i wouldn't be surprised of two hours. and it is exactly two hours and we are probably less than 5 minutes away. >> this is the time range we actually expected. so i think we're good. >> carl, i think we are 3, 4 minutes away. come back us to as soon as we get close i'll give a shoutout to you. >> never let it be said bob you don't know how to build the drama. >> 2 hours, 1 minute and a few seconds as we await the opening trade. kayla, are this is a big event and obviously people are treating it as such but i wonder how much of this is going exactly as it is supposed to. the way this machine was supposed to work. >> i think the machine was built weeks ago. this is how the process worked. i had a source tell me 68 actually last week. of course we have to wait until everything is dun and dusted and it be the accurate formal number but the markets played a big role as well. you talk about the dow diagram

up nearly 50. s&p and nasdaq up as well. the vix is one of the indicators. that's below 12 and understood writers are very glad they woke up and saw scotland will still be a part of the united kingdal. these are evented that could have a much different effect were they different. >> and shareholders are still number three but they are feeling pretty good today, at least those that they chose. and chose i think is the right word. jo, sai, i know from speaking to people went through every one of 1700 names yesterday. to decide who would get what and make sure it was who they wanted and that they would be shareholders for some time. they are being rewarded immediately. there may start been a little chirping you might think. 68? maybe you could have gone 75 or 78. you left some money on the table but as underwriters will tell you this is asymmetric risk.

you definitely don't want to be going down. so you are obviously much happier watching it go up substantially. >> the chirping a about 68. so few selling shareholders in this year. yahoo being the main one here that of course maybe the chirping would have come from them. but from the company standpoint i'm told they did not care about the price. they wanted the proceeds, yes. but 68 versus 75, they wanted to create value for investors. you heard jack ma in the 9:00 hours. he said we did not want disappointed shareholders. that was very important in this process. >> one of those shareholders, glenn solomon of the ggb capital. a managing partner there. they were an early investor and we bring in glen this morning. at this indication i have to get your reaction. what do you make of this? >> you know it is a great company and a great day for the company. i think the pricing reflects enthusiasm among investors globally. i think you are seeing demand global for this kind of deal.

it is an incredible company. once in every ten or 20 year type company so i'm not surprised there is a lot of demand. >> do you worry -- we are getting obviously, and this has been going on for weeks, skepticism about the longevity of the business model, skepticism about the health of the overall market, skepticism of liquidity and supply, having to absorb such a large new issue. how do you get past those concerns? >> from a business perspective, we've been with the company over a decade as shareholders and have seen it grow from really early stage to where it is today. i think one of the leverage of growth continue to be china for this company. if you look app consumption in china it is roughly a third of gdp versus two-thirds in the u.s. so nowhere to go but up. ecommerce as a percentage consumption in china has nowhere to go but up. no retailer or walmart in china

to defend. and you are going to see ecommerce grow in china and alibaba is going to be a big beneficiary of that. plus global market which is represent big opportunity. a lot of your guests have talked about the u.s. and investments they are making in the u.s. we are seeing those working with the company on many of those and believe that represents another big opportunity for the company for years to come. >> dan rosensweig former ceo at yahoo helped ink alibaba in. if you are there selling some shares, also holding some what kind of opportunities to you see there with this opening in the 90s perhaps higher. what is the pressure to sell and do even more with the money? maybe return more to shareholders or buy something huge? >> i think the pressure is going to be enormous with all the great work that marissa has done. she's been there now two years.

she's got more capital than the company has ever seen i think collectively in its history. and i the operation business has not really been transformed yet. and so investors are either going to demand that -- they are going to demand she use the capital for something. either grow the operating business or to say she's not going to grow the operating business and give it back to them. so i would imagine that the pressure inside yahoo that they probably haven't felt the last two years was a they have been benefitted from yahoo japan, and benefitted from the alibaba deal and just the belief that marissa was going to be bringing some excitement back to yahoo. i this i those things are now going to be exposed and say okay, here is the operating business. here is your cash. how are you going to get the best return for investor? either give it back or do a interest transformative acquisition or do a series of acquisitions that change the company. but i think she's going to be

feeling tremendous pressure. >> bob a few moments ago said it was essentially imminent, the latest indication, 92-93 and we have talked a lot about what that would value the company at relative to other large american companies. essentially the market cap of a walmart or other companies that have been around for much longer and profitable for much longer and obviously have much firmer rooting in the united states at least. >> but which is in the sights of jack ma. he said look we want to change business the way that walmart changed business over the last 15 years. we want to build the infracture so china can ship 200 million packages a day. this is a company with big ambitions and it's striking how humble even amid all of that jack ma seems. dan rosensweig, humility was the word that popped up of jack appeared on air. but alibaba as massive as it has

become, how do you describe the company and ambitions given what you hear. >> jack is very chinese in his culture and nature, which means he thinks long-term. americans think 13 week quarters or couple hundred years. they think thousands of years. jack has had a long-term vision for the company. i don't think he's clear of what each of the next stepts will be. but he has tremendous patience is is willing to wait out difficult situations to go after the bigger prize. and i think this is very personal to him to be ultimately the biggest player in the internet space which makes imone of the biggest players on the world stage. although he's humble. don't confuse that with his competitiveness and willingness to compete on the highest levels and go for the biggest stage. that's really what this has always been about for him. and you talk about how walmart changed american business or the train system changed commerce, none of the things necessary for

alibaba to be successful in china, payments of any kind. they didn't have credit cards, they didn't have checks. they didn't have shipping. they had nothing. and he's built, or the entire infrastructure has been built as a result of alibaba. so he's a pretty amazing man. and i would not bet against him. >> kara swisher. want to go back to you with a question. silicon valley has been tentative about china. google famously getting around too much direct investment in china. what is the impact you think of this ipo and the scale alibaba is going to achieve through it on the psychology here? does it make people want to get into china more despite the concerns? or does it make people want to back off and say hey there is a big dog over there. don't want to go in. >> silicon valley completely missed china for the most part because of the difficulty of investing there i think. think went in a number of times. ebay, yahoo before the alibaba

investment. and facebook is still not there. there are possibly plans to move there. but they have missed had market and this is a gigantic and important market so i think they should probably be worried about these companies heading this way. they can be protected only so much by regulation. if people offer great products worldwide and globally it is a great idea. in the meantime maybe the chinese companies won't be as successful here. you county assume success because companies are successful in china. the it's very different market. the other markets are south america, india, europe to an extent. so the question is who can move onto the entire world stage more significantly. the only significant world player really is google and apple. so you have to think about who can really compete against anybody in china at that point. and google certainly can in that country. >> that is a really good point. >> glen, you look at the indication today and i just wonder, does ggv kind of kick

the dirt in retrospect having to divest which it divested? >> you know when yahoo came in, shareholders were asked to sell and we were part of that group and we believers in joe and jack and what they were trying to do were more than happy to oblige. that was a good return. but obviously return to today has been even better. and just going back to something that kara mentioned. i think this is a day for silicon valley to wake up and see what is going in china. i mentioned china is a big opportunity for alibaba still. and i think you are going to see more good companies coming out of china. there's already been several ecommerce players come to u.s. vip shops and vd.com just going on. so i think you are going to see a continuing stream of the great companies coming o out of china and it's time for silicon valley to take note. >> i'm wondering if you are a -- cart right now big e-commerce up

and coming in india, are you watching this and thinking i'm next? >> we are not investors in flip cart. we focus in china and the u.s. but i've got to believe that companies like flip cart and others trying to dominate local markets are looking at this and trying to learn from it. jack did the same looking at what ebay and amazon were doing in the u.s. when he built his business in china and successfully defending those companies from their market. i think you will see the same out of flip cart and other companies. they will learn from the incumbents and figure out how to adapt their models to the local market and try to win. >> all right it's difficult -- i'm not sure how much of this is transferring to the cameras but there is a buzz afoot at post eight. and bob are you there and what just happened? >> what is happening is it's getting close. it's 92-93. but looks for the buzz closer to

93. >> at 93 we have a little over 40 million paired with a couple million to buy and we are actually getting close. >> again with the point here. 40 million paired means the buyers and sellers are paired off at $93. that is over with. and there is only 2 million other buyers currently out there that have not been filled essentially right now. >> right. >> that is a very small number. >> well that actually tells you there is support at that level. and it sounds like there is additional buying interests, which is great. >> it also happens in these enormous deals. as we get close. sounds like 2 or 3 minutes away. and then at the last minute i can hear behind me several people shouting out additional orders who have been standing around waiting to see how close we ge. >> you will hear them say we are actuallying close and some time they will say the book is frozen. and when that is communicated we'll have ten seconds before the stock open. that is what we'll hear soon. >> i've heard them already say

they are getting close. normally they don't say until the numbers are getting very small. hold on. >> so additional more liquidity coming in. 46 million. again in the last moments here additional liquidity. >> we were paired at 93 a moment ago. now we are paired at 46 million. additional 6 million buyers just in the moments we have been standing here have been paired off at 93. >> and we are expecting hundreds of thousands of orders to be coming in at that opening. >> how many orders does that 46 million represent at this point. >> upwards of 400,000 orders which is about 40 times more than what we did in the twitter ipo. so a significant amount of liquidity and lot of orders coming in. >> that is a very good point. so we have already. the nyse have already processed 40,000.

>> almost 40 times more orders at the open than the twitter ipo. >> so this is orders of magnitude bigger than twitter, which itself was an event. >> absolutely. well obviously this is the largest ipo in history. 25 billion dollars. it is going to be the most significant single transaction that we'll have in some time. >> 46 million at $93. only 2 million are still left at buyers though. >> that's what we're hearing. >> we're getting very close. i'll give you a quick shoutout when we get right near it. >> it's interesting carl to note until today yahoo was the only real way to play if you believed there was great growth if alibaba. yahoo shares have more or less been flat despite what is 401 million shares they would hold after the offering. value in excess of 46 billion dollars. for a company with a $42 billion

market value. i would note fthere are a numbe of people shorting yahoo to hedge the alibaba position. you don't want to sell alibaba and you probably will get punished by the underwriters if you do. but you can short yahoo to create a hedge. so that may create selling pressure on yahoo which otherwise is a very positive development for the company today. >> and yahoo the volume leader on the s&p as of this moment. >> kara, i'd love your take on what something kblen just said and that is the front of u.s.a. today is the alibaba wake up do you think they need to be afraid? >> well they should have been afraid for a while. they have been barrelling through for quite a while. i think silicon valley is such a parochial place even though it's so powerful that they tend to ignore a little bit what's going on globally. i think they were surprised a little bit at what's app and when facebook bought it and they

just don't pay attention because they are so interested in themselves. so i think they really have to pay attention to other global leaders in the experiment space. and the internet has been largely a u.s. phenomena in terms of power. and now there is a another group of powerful companies that are equal to the ones that are here. google amazon and apple and others. i think that is a good thing. the question is where are the next global powers going to come from? india, south america? and it will be interesting to see whose really where the next area emerges. >> i just want to take a moment kara. let the cameras pick up some of the sound from post eight. for as many people that are on the floor when they are calling these indications, you can hear a pin drop.

bob is inside the post. we've done a lot of these. but there is nothing like getting the kind of access and information and insight bob is getting from some of these market makers on a issue that's taken probably a little longer than some expected. >> there will be a lot of analysis about where the demand is coming from. but there is retail demand picking up. td ameritrade, 70% of that a facebook which is surprising given that alibaba is not yet a household name. so certainly there is demand from are e tail side as well. back to bob inside post eight, as things are developing rapidly. >> so what you have been pointing out here carl is what we call some of the town criers out here. we have fellas on the floor with particularly booming voices who

can get the indications out to the whole crowd to make sure everyone hears. this is a very old fashioned, and yet scott, high-tech process at the at the same time. the man you were hearing in the background is yelling out the latest indications is still 9 -93. and i think close to 93 and we have close to 47 million shares paired off. >> squeezing out the liquidity. and all these orders are coming in electronically from around the world and all of that is processed at the central order book here at barclays whose managing that process. and again we are trying to get as much liquidity as possible and then the people are the ones ultimately who are deciding the price and time in which we open. >> 20 minutes ago we were talking 10 to 15 minutes. and what's happened is as it got closer we're not moving in the price range anymore. we've stuck at 92-93 and what's

happening is people see it narrowing and they are putting in additional orders. that is what's delaying this. this is a dynamic process. while we are standing here people are yelling out new indications. you can hear perhaps behind us peter, the stentorian voice town here talking about now size indications. >> and 92.60. so they are trying to tease out the last little bit of the liquidity. finding it how much volume is there and how much to buy at those levels so we're in the 10 cent increment now. >> part of the classic transparence process. we started at a $3 price range, then to 2, then to 1 and now we are very close. 92.60 to $93 roughly. and when you get that close we are really imminent. >> not likely you post another indication range nor would you

narrow it from here. everything else now is going to be communicated to the crowd and communicating to their clients so this is a very orderly process here to open the stock. >> so we are likely to see what, north of 50 million shares on the open. that will be somewhere around the first print. bear in mind 320 million shares was the ipo price. so we'll see, what, 15 to 20% of the stock trade right -- of the ipo trade right at the open. >> it could be likely a lot of these large transactions you could see the entire deal size turnover in the first day of trading alone. a is significant amount of liquidity will come in even after we open the stock. >> the important thing here, 320 million shares we likely given the interest will probably trade the whole amount in a single day. >> we very much could. >> patty? >> hey bob. 92.60. and we are in that range.

92.60 to 93. >> 47 million again. additional liquidity coming in here at the last moments and now we're very close. >> so just being close. patty murphy is standing there staring at that screen. >> very very close, then you know we are there. >> -- bite him at any moment. and -- standing right behind him a man very instrumental in initiating the negotiations that brought them down there. in the crowd behind i can see jo sai, behind them maggie woo, the cfo. >> and -- >> who ran the whole ipo process as well is standing here. and it's all getting very close. jo sai is standing there very intently and listening. it was fascinating to listen to

jack ma explain how how much he learned just standing here in this booth and the process today. >> we are about to get going. >> this is the point where the broker is yelling out saying we're close. and then hold on. someone puts in another order. that is what's going on right now. so the important thing here, we're waiting for the final moment. and -- >> patty? >> still giving me no indication. the important thing is 92.60. frozen. okay. this is it. alibaba is going to open in 10 seconds here and we are going to get an indication right now. [ cheers and applause ] alibaba, the largest ipo in history opens at $92.70. largest ipo in history opens at 92.70. 320 million shares opening at

$68. with that agree shoe -- >> what is porn rigimportant ri is a very orderly process right at trading and you are seeing significant volume and liquidity come in and now is the point in time where everybody has the opportunity to buy into the ipo. this is lengd legendary. >> and we have a very smooth opening climb. there is circuit breakers. limit up, limit down. >> in the first microsecond of trading the circuit breaker limit up limit down have been published out. it's 10% range once opened up. we're trading very rapidly. millions of the shares trading hand rights now. >> carl over to you. what a beautiful transparent process. >> they are calling it price discovery at its purest and most human form, bob.

alibaba the giant in b 2 b weapon ports. search engine, cloud computing is now a public company on the new york stock exchange, a firm founded 15 years ago in a apartment in hong jo china. jack ma and his friends got together $60,000 and it's now worth 200 billion plus. the scope just pointed out that it's worth more than some of the banks that have actually brought it to market like a j.p. morgan for instance. >> of course a lot of those banks have seen their value come down post the financial crisis. they issued a lot of stock. still they are valuable institutions, but the fact that the biggest ipo ever is now currently traded above 95 dollars a share is a 40% increase from the initial price. >> what a moment for markets and

investors coming full circle, or 180 degrees from the facebook ipo which was also a hugely hyped tech ipo. did not go smoothly at all. this looked like theictu of wel well-managed financial transactions right here. we saw it open. we saw the excitement. we heard people shouting out. there were people involved and not just computers in bringing this massive tech issue to market. >> watching this with bated breath. there was a collective exhale among all of them as soon as we did see the opening hit $92.70 and still a steady rise. now above 96. >> i think perhaps what some were even guessing not just the open but the close still hours away. what takes my breath away is alibaba is roughly valid at the same market value as walmart. and having spent a lot of time

on walmart in the past of course it was also a company that began in the smaller towns and that focused on customers and had a founder name sam walton. but to think that this company, which already does 7.2 billion in revenue last year and about almost 5 billion in adjusted -- is nonetheless stunning but it is growing at a much more rapid clip than walmart. >> and how old is walmart. >> since the early '70s. >> and now the conversation will begin about what now do they set their eyes on? do they start buying big companies? what about the thousands of employees in china who are now very wealthy all of a sudden and may have dreams of their own. what kind of companies do they create and potentially bring to market down the road? >> e we live in a time of giants, particularly in tech. think back to a decade, a decade and a half ago microsoft cast a shadow over the entire tech landscape and people thought one

or two companies would dominant. now apple today has the iphone 6 that people are talking about taking over the world. facebook's come back massively from its position at ipo a couple years ago. you have alibaba and s&p buying and its largest transaction every in over 8 billion dollars ever. passing the torch to a couple of deputies who are now ceos at oracle. who thought 2014 would be a time of ambition like this after the run in 2013. >> kara swisher in washington. i know you called it just a transaction. but at this moment, what can you say about this in the big picture? >> i'm sorry. i can't gush about tech stocks. i know i should be all giddy but i can't do it. i'm sorry. i think it's interesting they have all this money to spend. iflt looking at the market caps of a bunch of u.s. companies. twitter is 31 billion. yahoo, 41 billion.

it's a bargain. ebay, 65 billion. netflix, 27 billion. it's interesting what they could look at and their ambitions. whether they can get their hands on them is another question. but there is plenty of buy out there and it could be interesting if they use this currency in an aggressive fashion. i'm not sure they will but they certainly could. >> we are just a couple minutes before noon here in new york. we should note it is almost midnight in hong jo china where alibaba's headquarters are. i would love to be a fly on the wall inside the auditorium where all the employees are gathered to watch this very first trade. seeing wealth created from years of hard work. so no doubt they are in jubilation mode right now. >> we tend to see things from the u.s. perspective. but there is a shift happening towards china here with all its implication, good, bad, scary, exi exciting. we'll see what happens next.

>> does any of this have an impact on the degree to which u.s. companies will have a path in china? china sees the success of this, are they more willing to let our companies play too? >> -- willing to let u.s. companies play as a result of this. i think -- you know, i think u.s. companies look at china. they look at india. they look at big markets. because here we have 318 million people and it is an easy economy, across every state. it is very difficult to do in the rest of the world country by country. but china and india are huge landscapes and it's been difficult for companies other than making investment in places to succeed there. so what are the big next landscapes you can go after? i think u.s. companies will continue to do what they are doing. i don't know that this is the wakeup call that everybody thinks. i think that u.s. companies did try very hard to fin