FOR A COMPANY THAT specializes in cuisine notorious for riling the innards,
Chipotle Mexican Grill (
CMG) served up a pretty tasty debut Thursday. Now the question is whether investors will have a case of indigestion once the first-day feeding frenzy has passed.
Chipotle, the Denver-based Mexican-food chain that was spun off from McDonald's (MCD), enjoyed one of the nicer debuts for a new stock since Chinese Internet company Baidu.com (BIDU) more than quadrupled in initial trading in August. Chipotle sold 7.8 million shares at $22 apiece, above the expected range of $18 to $20 a share. That range had been raised recently from original price talk of $15.50 to $17.50, thanks to solid pretrading demand. Hikes in price ranges almost always lead to stronger buying when stocks open. There's an old Wall Street saying about IPOs: "Raise the price, double my order. Cut the price, cancel my order." Indeed, the shares have traded sharply higher on the New York Stock Exchange, more than doubling once they opened.
SmartMoney.com © 2006 SmartMoney. SmartMoney is a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones Company, Inc. and Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All quotes delayed by 20 minutes. Delayed quotes provided by S&P Comstock. Historical prices and fundamental data provided by Media General Financial Services. Mutual fund data provided by Morningstar. Mutual Fund NAVs are as of previous day's close. Earnings estimates provided by Zacks Investment Research. Insider trading data provided by Thomson Financial. Upgrades and downgrades provided by Briefing.com. 
