The market offered a warm welcome to two newly public companies on Thursday.
Realogy Holdings and Shutterstock rose in their first hours on the public market, defying a broader sense of uncertainty surrounding new listings.
With Realogy, a real estate company backed by Apollo Global Management, investors are betting on a recovery in the housing market. Realogy priced its offering at $27 a share on Wednesday, the top of its expected range, raising $1.08 billion to pay down debt.
By Thursday morning, Realogy's shares climbed as much as 27 percent above the I.P.O. price to trade around $34. Shares of Shutterstock, a stock photography company, rose as much as 30 percent to trade around $22. (Shutterstock raised $76.5 million from investors on Wednesday.)
Realogy's strong debut on Thursday is welcome news for Apollo, which is holding on to a 48 percent stake. It may also be seen as positive for private equity firms looking for exits. Buyout firms are pre paring to offload a glut of companies that they bought in boom times, a task that can prove difficult.
Apollo itself wasn't so fortunate with another company, the Berry Plastics Group, last week. With investors showing little enthusiasm for I.P.O.'s, Berry tumbled in its debut and is still trading below its offering price.
