Each day, Benzinga takes a look back at a notable market-related moment that occurred on this date.
What Happened?
On Feb. 2, 1996, Open Text Corp (USA) became the first internet search engine company to go public.Where Was the Market?
The S&P 500 was trading at 635.84 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 5373.99.What Else Was Going On in the World?
In 1996, a Mad Cow Disease epidemic in the UK resulted in the mass slaughter of entire herds of cows. The number of global internet users reached 10 million. The minimum hourly wage in the U.S. was raised to $5.15 per hour.The Beginning of Something Big
Investors today know Alphabet Inc. and its Google search engine as the dominant force in internet search and advertising. However, more than eight years before Google went public in 2004, there wasn’t a single internet search company trading on a major U.S. exchange.Open Text changed that story when it held its IPO in February 1996. Open Text led the charge of search engine IPOs and was followed by Lycos, Excite, and Yahoo within four months’ time.
