Twitter closes first day on NYSE near $45 per share

Unless you're not on social media at all, then you probably know today marked Twitter's first day as a public company.

Without even having to compare the San Francisco-headquartered business to other tech companies (say, Facebook, for example), it's safe to say that Twitter had a stellar debut.

The micro-blogging service that launched back in 2006 was supposed to open at $26 per share when the bell rang at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning.

With 70,000,000 shares up for grabs, Twitter's estimated value was pegged at more than $18 billion before it could even go public -- rather astounding (if not unbelievable) for a company that has yet to turn a profit.

Regardless, investors were eager to get their hands on shares, spiking the initial price up to $45.10 per share, an increase of 77 percent and valuing the company at $31.6 billion.

By the closing bell, Twitter shares stayed close to the starting gates at $44.90 per share. The high of the day was $50.09.

Naturally, given an IPO of this magnitude, there is plenty of buzz about who is getting rich quick today. In reality, that's going to take awhile to sort out while institutional investors clamor over each other and the hype dies down.

But as MarketWatch points out, there are at least three newly minted billionaires (if they cash out) walking around today, including Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Ev Williams.

In fact, Dorsey and IPOs seem to be going hand-in-hand this week following reports that the entrepreneur's other brainchild, Square, is on its own path for a market debut in 2014.

Chart via Yahoo Finance