3 April 2018: Spotify skips the IPO and lists directly
On April 3, 2018 Spotify began trading on the NYSE without raising any money and without the usual underwriters setting a price. The shares simply opened at $165.90, valuing the streaming company at nearly $30 billion. Wall Street banks, accustomed to fat IPO fees, watched a major company show that the toll booth was optional. Others followed with direct listings of their own.
The lesson: Many financial rituals exist mainly to pay the people performing them; it pays to ask who benefits.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Spotify at the start of 2020 → $4,667 today, vs $2,092 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2020, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 4.7 times the money, and $2,574 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Spotify teaches: Investors can punish heavy spending in search of growth, but a company that pivots to discipline and pricing power can regain trust faster than expected.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $150 | $4,667 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Spotify? Every starting year and the full story →
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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