Money Minute: Twitter Makes Its $18 Billion Debut; Square Sets Its Sights on IPO

Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. That and more top money stories you need know Thursday.

The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) rallied 128 points Wednesday to another record high. The Dow is now up 20 percent for the year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) gained 7, but the Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC) fell 8 points as some tech stocks lost ground.

After months of hype, Twitter (TWTR) finally goes public Thursday -- meaning anyone can now buy shares of the stock. It priced the shares at $26 apiece, which values the company at more than $18 billion. Trading in the stock is likely to be volatile.

Twitter isn't the only IPO news today. The electronics company Square is reportedly talking with investment banks about going public next year. And there's a Twitter connection here. Square was co-founded by Jack Dorsey, who's also the chairman of Twitter, and who made hundreds of millions of dollars through its IPO. Square makes a credit-card reader that plugs into mobile devices.

Another big tech player is set to slide today. Qualcomm (QCOM) investors are looking past the chipmaker's strong quarterly earnings, focusing instead on its cautious outlook for the current period. Qualcomm makes key components for smartphones made by Apple (AAPL), Samsung and Google (GOOG) -- so the disappointing outlook could portend weaker sales for those companies as well.

Whole Foods Market (WFM) is likely to be picked over like day old bread. Its earnings rose, but fell short of expectations. The upscale grocer also lowered its sales outlook. But Wendy's (WEN) topped Street estimates and raised its outlook for the full-year.

And Gap Inc.'s (GPS) Old Navy unit has a who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire holiday promotion. The retailer will give raffle tickets to the first 500 people in line at its North American stores. One winner will take home one-million dollars. That can buy a lot of Old Navy hoodies.

-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.