Warby Parker Inc. WRBY, -2.40% shares jumped 34.5% out of the gate, as trading began on Wednesday. The stock is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “WRBY.” Shares were assigned a $40 reference price. With 111.5 million shares outstanding, it had a valuation around $4.6 billion at that reference price.
Warby Parker went public through a direct listing in which the reference price is based on trading prices in private markets ahead of companies filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Two direct listings, Warby Parker and Amplitude AMPL, -1.37%, went public this week, a first for direct listings. The Renaissance IPO ETF IPO, 1.05% has slipped 0.3% for the year to date while the S&P 500 index SPX, 0.51% has gained 16% for the period.