State-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco is finally up for trade after years of delay, and, well, investors proved to be hungry for shares. 

On its first day of trade, Saudi Aramco's market value spiked to $1.9 trillion, securing its position as the most valuable listed company in history. On the second day of gains, the valuation hit the $2-trillion target initially sought by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  

Prior to its official initial public offering (IPO), critics believed the valuation to be $1.7 trillion; it proved to be worth nearly $300 billion more. On Wednesday, only 1.5 percent of Aramco's shares were listed on the Riyadh stock exchange Tadawul; shares rose to $9.39 following Aramco's market debut, the maximum daily increase allowed by the exchange. 

The state-oil giant pulled off the biggest IPO in history, raising $25.6 billion by selling 1.5 percent of the company, beating Alibaba's 2014 market debut in New York.

In just two days of trading, Aramco outranked the world's largest companies including Apple, the second-largest company in the world with a valuation of $1.19 trillion. 

Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan described the sale as "a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom."

The IPO is the centerpiece of MBS' Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify the oil-reliant economy. The billions raised in the small sale of Aramco will be invested in other sectors in the coming year.

The IPO comes following years-long delays. Saudi Arabia first announced its plans to partially sell Aramco over three years ago. Since then, the planned listing has been shelved multiple times, but it has finally materialized. 

According to CNN, the vast majority of stock buyers are from Saudi Arabia. 

Earlier this year, the world's largest energy company confirmed its status as the most profitable company after disclosing its financial data for the first time ever. Saudi Aramco announced that it made $111 billion in profit in 2018. Thus, it beat the likes of American tech company Apple Inc., which made a profit of $59.4 billion during the same period. In fact, Saudi Arabia's national petroleum and natural gas company made more money than four corporate giants combined. These include J.P. Morgan Chase, Google-parent Alphabet, Facebook, and Exxon Mobil. Together, these companies made nearly $106 billion in 2018.

With the partial sale of Aramco, the state-owned oil giant now holds another title: Most Valuable Company. 

Why did Aramco go public? 

It all goes back to low oil prices which have hit the Saudi economy hard, forcing the kingdom to cut subsidies and strive to diversify its oil-reliant economy. Saudi Arabia has been shifting gears in recent years to reduce its economic reliance on the oil sector. It's been investing billions in other sectors, namely entertainment, in hopes of generating reliable revenue streams from those industries. 

The partial sale of Aramco is giving the kingdom more funds to work with to further develop other divisions.

Jokes are meant to be tongue-in-cheek ideas or stories with punchlines that make people laugh ... but that's not what they're based on in the Arab world. In our countries, some think that to get a few laughs you need to be offensive, sexist, and even racist. 

For decades, many have gotten away with making fun of black people, women, and minorities while passing incredibly offensive comments as "light jokes."

It's time to call things by their name. It's one thing to make a good joke that is the result of thoughtful sarcasm and the art of comedic timing, and it's completely another to offend people with revolting generalizations and stigmatizations. 

Here are a few kinds of Arab jokes that must be destroyed ASAP: 

"Syrians are famous for making jokes about people from Homs. Even though every Syrian has a Homsi friend or relative, they still have to thickly joke about them." 

These kind of jokes are widely popular, especially in the Levant, and stem from the false generalization that the people of the Syrian city Homs "have low IQ."

Exhibit A:  "What's always written in a Homsi person's shoe? Toes first." 

Exhibit B: "A Homsi man named his son 'baba' after his father."

Millions try to laughingly brush off these not-so-funny jokes when they're simply not acceptable. Why? Because they're insulting to an entire community. 

Nope, no group of people collectively share the same IQ, which practically makes Homsi jokes quite unintelligent. 

Unfortunately, racist jokes targeting black people from specific countries including Somalia and Sudan are quite common in countries all over the Arab world. As disgusting as the below examples are, they still circulate among us in 2019. 

Exhibit A: "A Somali woman went to work with frizzy hair because it was the day of the tree."

Exhibit B: "A Sudanese student went to school during a blackout so they marked him as absent."

It's time to call anyone who makes similar abhorrent comments while claiming they're "jokes" because they are as insulting and unacceptable as they are lame. 

From belittling their occupation to making fun of them, jokes about the women who help in households are the worst you'll ever hear.

Some laugh at these shameful phrases that often center around domestic helpers being "unintelligent" or "daft," when the reality is those are attributes of the people who make up these so-called jokes. 

Exhibit A: "A woman asked her Sri Lankan domestic worker if she changed the water in the fish tank so she responded: 'No madam, they didn't drink the water in there yet."

Exhibit B: "May God grant us a maid that works like turbo batteries." 

As if the mistreatment they face in our countries isn't enough, some Arab television producers think it's funny to put on skits mocking domestic workers. But let's just make one thing clear: It's anything but funny; it's just plain racist and horrendous. 

Arab women are often the target of the most sexist and misogynistic jokes. 

There are some that make fun of women's ability to drive, others further perpetuate messed up gender roles, and a few compare the intelligence of women to animals. If you're thinking things can't get any worse, they unfortunately do: 

Exhibit A: "An Arab girl asked her friend if she wanted to go on an adventure and when she asked her what it was, she responded: Going out without make up." 

Exhibit B: "What's common between women and nail fasteners? They both don't go into their homes unless they're beaten.

Seriously, who's laughing? NOBODY. 

If you're an overweight Arab person, you're bound to have heard a few despicable and offensive so-called jokes about your size. 

For some reason, many Arabs think it's hilarious to make fun of people's appearances. But let's see if it is:

Exhibit A: "A fat woman once went to the beach and caused a sea tide."

Exhibit B: "How did your friend die? His fat wife rolled over the bed." 

Laughter? Anyone? No, because these aren't jokes, they're just comments that need to be called out for what they are: Blatant insults.