Twitter Shares Soar to Record on Optimism for Mobile-Ad Growth

Twitter Inc., the microblogging service that held its initial public offering last month, rose to a record for a third trading day amid optimism that the company has room to expand sales in digital advertising.

Twitter jumped 8.4% to $69.96 at the close in New York after rising 7.5% yesterday. The stock has surged 169% since going public at $26 on Nov. 6, giving Twitter a market value of almost $40 billion — larger than Time Warner Cable Inc., media company Viacom Inc. and retailer Target Corp.

Investors are betting San Francisco-based Twitter can attract more ad dollars, as companies seek to market their wares through wireless devices and tie-ins with television programming. As the unprofitable company’s sales growth outpaces that of competitors such as Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., the stock has “graduated to cult status,” according to Blake Harper, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. in Baltimore. Read more...