Investors appear to trade wrong Zoom company shares before IPO

Shares of Zoom are in high demand on Thursday morning but there’s one problem: It appears to be a case of mistaken identity.

Zoom Technologies (ticker ZOOM) is not the company Zoom Video Communications (ticker ZM) that began publicly trading Thursday on the Nasdaq.

Rather, Zoom Technologies is a tiny Chinese wireless communications company that “does not have significant operations,” according to its profile on Yahoo. But within two hours of trading, shares of ZOOM surged more than 80%, with trading volume that was quadruple the amount of shares that change hands on the average day. The stock later returned most of those gains, ending the day up 10.2%.

Zoom Technologies also has a market value of just $14 million and began 2019 trading at 1 cent a share. At a high of $5.50 a share in midday trading, the stock was up more than 47,000% this year.

Zoom Video Communications stock is in high demand Thursday, as the shares made their debut on the Nasdaq at $65 a share – nearly double the $36 a share the company priced its IPO at Wednesday.