Twitter valued at $40 BILLION as post-Christmas spike in stocks helps the social media site 'triple' its IPO Twitter is having a very merry holiday season as the company's market cap has hit a staggering $40billion. Stocks in the social media company rose 6 per cent today and closed the day out just above $73 per share. That tipping point for the company, which comes less than two months after the company's launched their initial public offering means that the company would be one of the most valuable stocks on the S&P 500. Ending positively: Today's close came in above $73 after peaking earlier in the day but annalists suggest that it may stumble back down in the new year Pay day: Twitter heads Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Dick Costello were on hand when the stock launched on November 7 with an IPO of $26-per-share Twitter hit the market with an IPO of $26, meaning that today's bump brings it very close to tripling its initial value. Many comparisons have been made between the micro-blogging site and it's earlier social network predecessor, Facebook, but the success in Twitter's valuation proves that they have- at least for the moment- come out on top. Or perhaps they learned from Facebook's mistakes as the company's stock plummeted for months following their controversial IPO of $38-per-share. Facebook is on a bit of its own upswing, closing the day just below $58, but the pace at which Twitter is out doing it's social media counterparts has a number of financial analysts stumped. On the rise: Twitter per-share value has nearly tripled since it went on the public market Business Insider spoke with financial speculators who did not want to be named and a number of different options were given as possible explanations. One feasible possibility was that portfolio managers who may have overlooked the stock initially are trying to get a few shares in their pockets before the end of the year because they will likely have meetings with investors in January who want to make sure that they have a hand in the latest hot stock. A sillier theory is that eggnog-fueled bankers slipped a few tips to relatives over the Christmas dinner table, prompting a spike in the stock today. A more logical explanation is held by a third portion of analysts who believe that it is a blip that will effectively right itself after the holidays. Regardless, today's bump in the market cap means that the Wall Street Journal called Twitter one of the top 100 companies on the S&P 500.