Spotify's un-IPO goes smoothly

Spotify stock closed its first day of trading at $149.01 per share, giving the music streaming giant a market cap of around $26.6 billion. That's well off Spotify's opening price of $165.90 per share, but we didn't see the up-and-down volatility spikes that some had anticipated given that this was a direct listing rather than a traditional IPO.

Bottom line: The process appears to have gone smoothly, which could prompt other well-known private companies to pursue direct listings. It also is the second "unicorn" in the past month to go public at a valuation higher than what it received in the private markets, following Dropbox.

Go deeper: Spotify's un-IPO has arrived