Experts question valuation of Twitter at $26 a share: but what would you have made if you had put $1,000 into these internet giants...?

Twitter shares begin trading today amid concerns the social media giant is heading for another Facebook-style bubble.
In the most hotly anticipated technology stock market listing since Facebook last year, Twitter will sell shares for up to $26 (£16), valuing the group at up to $18billion (£11.2billion).
The share price is above the range of $23 to $25 (£14.30 and £15.60) announced on Monday.

Data shows how much other major American technology shares have risen since flotation

But it comes as one of Britain’s leading auditors said the group was over-valued. The company, which has more than 230 million users, is also yet to make a profit since it was launched seven years ago.


‘I think we’re in bubble territory,’ said BDO’s valuations director Tomas Freyman, who has previously advised clients whether to buy into the group.
He warned that Twitter was being more highly rated than Apple, which is a ‘real business selling real products’.
Twitter's public debut is the most highly anticipated since that of Facebook, in May last year. But it has priced itself at a mere fraction of Facebook's initial $104 billion(£65bnillion) valuation, in a likely attempt to avoid Facebook's fate of taking more than a year to surpass its initial public offering price.
Twitter is offering 70 million shares for sale, along with an option to buy another 10.5 million.
Mark Mahaney, from investment bank RBC Capital Markets, said he expected Twitter's shares to rise after listing.
He told the BBC: 'Just as Google, Amazon and Facebook have become internet utilities, so too may Twitter.
'As a public, real-time, conversational and distributed platform, Twitter is becoming an essential service for consumers, businesses, media companies, and advertiser.'
One of the major challenges facing Twitter as a new public company will be to generate more revenue from outside America.
While more than 75 per cent of users are outside the US, just 26 per cent of its revenue comes from abroad.
The data above shows how much other major American technology shares have risen since flotation.
Amazon, which listed in 1997, will have turned a $1,000 investment into $239,045, while Google’s 2004 listing will have produced $12,072.

Shares in Facebook, which tanked within days of listing, have finally passed their float price and will have turned $1,000 into $1,269.