A trillion-dollar company is born

A surge in market price on the first day of trading made Chinese state-owned PetroChina the first company worth more than $1 trillion US by market value.

Following an initial public offering that raised an equivalent of $8.94 billion US, which is a record for a Chinese mainland company, shares of PetroChina listed in Shanghai almost tripled from their IPO price to hit the equivalent of $5.90 US.

The stock price surge meant PetroChina was worth more than $1 trillion US, topping Exxon Mobil Corp.'s value of $488 billion US.

PetroChina may be bigger by market cap, but Exxon Mobil's third-quarter profit topped the Chinese firm's earnings for the first six months of the year.

Only about 2.2 per cent of the company's shares are available to Chinese domestic investors, meaning demand for the stock was intense. The parent company of PetroChina retains over 86 per cent of the firm's shares.

The big surge in PetroChina shares led to a broad selloff of other stocks on the Shanghai stock exchange. The Shangai exchange index stumbled to a loss of 2.5 per cent on Monday as investors dumped others stocks to jump on the PetroChina bankwagon.