Google shares jumped over $10 yesterday to close at 192.99, increasing in value nearly 3% over the day. Prices were expected to drop slightly as the six-month lock down on 177-million held by Google employees and early investors expired at midnight last night.
Trading was almost four times the average volume with 38,563,336 shares in play. Heaviest volumes were seen in the early hours with small spikes happening throughout the day. At the time of this writing, shares are trading on off-hour markets in large blocks at 193.32.
The 177-million that became available on Monday nearly doubled the amount that have become available in the six months since Google’s August IPO. Hungry investors were prepared to snatch up shares as quickly as they became available, hence the 3% increase in asking price.
For many NASDAQ watchers, Monday was seen as a sort of a Groundhog Day offering a favorable forecast on the search-sector. Investor confidence in Google remains quite high and that confidence helped the tech-board weather an otherwise lackluster day.
At the time of this writing, Google is up again, trading at 195.93.