NerdWallet Price Jumps 90% in Wake of IPO

The personal finance company NerdWallet saw its stock jump nearly 90% on Thursday (Nov. 4) in the aftermath of its initial public offering (IPO), a rise that led the Nasdaq to briefly halt trades on the stock three times.

According to Seeking Alpha, NerdWallet’s stock opened at 11:34 a.m. at $23.50 a share and soon went as high as $26.68, 42% higher than the $18-a-share IPO price. That was the first moment that prompted the Nasdaq to halt trading.

When trading started up again minutes later, NerdWallet’s price jumped even higher to $33.68, more than 87% greater than the IPO price, which caused the second pause in trading just before noon on the east coast. Finally, shares dropped back to a gain of 68.5% to $30.33 just after noon, leading to the third halt on transactions.

Read more: Report: NerdWallet Looks to Go Public With Confidential Filing

Established in 2009, NerdWallet offers financial information on things such as credit cards and mortgages. News about the company’s plans to go public first surfaced in May, with the firm looking for a valuation of $5 billion.

Also see: NerdWallet IPO Filing Shows 21M Unique Visitors Per Month

In an SEC filing last month, NerdWallet said its revenues have rebounded over the past several months, as financial services companies have tried to reach end-users using tailored offerings, and consumers have looked for financial insights about credit, mortgages and other related products and services.

NerdWallet reported that its revenues last year — $245.3 million — represented a mid-single-digit percentage point rise over the previous year’s $228.3 million.

The pace of the company’s growth has jumped about 32% as calculated through the first half of the year, reaching $181.6 million in 2021. But operating losses in the most recent six-month period were nearly $36 million, compared to $1.4 million for the same period a year ago.

The company saw an increase in monthly unique visitors as well, from an average of 16 million per month in 2020 to an average of 21 million a month during the first six months of this year, NerdWallet reported.