Arm Holdings Inc. is extending gains in the second day of trading for the year’s biggest initial public offering.
The chip designer rose as much as 8.5% to $69 a share, one day after its buoyant market debut. The stock notched a 25% jump on Thursday after raising $4.87 billion.
Needham & Co. became one of the first brokers to initiate coverage of Arm, giving the stock a hold rating.
The valuation “looks full,” analyst Charles Shi wrote in a note on Thursday. “Arm can grow by capturing greater value from smartphones, but not enough to support upside from the stock’s IPO valuation.”
Meanwhile, some attributed Thursday’s rally to retail investors rushing in to buy the shares.
Arm, whose chips are found in most of the world’s smartphones, garnered the most buy orders on Fidelity’s trading platform Thursday — easily outpacing demand for retail favorites Tesla Inc. and Nvidia Corp.
Owner SoftBank Group Corp. sold only 10% of Arm’s stock in the IPO, which according to Saxo Bank’s Peter Garnry led to low levels of participation by smaller investors. “This likely generated a lot of demand” from that part of the market, said Garnry, the bank’s head of equity strategy.
The surge in retail demand underscores how small traders are clamoring to get a piece of potential winners amid the frenzy around artificial intelligence, with Arm standing to benefit from the stampede toward AI chips.
The success of the IPO also bodes well for online grocery-delivery firm Instacart Inc. and marketing and data automation provider Klaviyo Inc., which are set to price their listings next week.
Read more: Instacart Seeks to Raise $660 Million With Boosted IPO Range
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