(03-19) 13:58 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Visa Inc. ignored the bear market on Wall Street and carried out the biggest-ever U.S. initial public offering in style, with its shares surging 28 percent Wednesday in their first day of trading.

Investors clamored for Visa stock, seeing the San Francisco credit and debit card processor as the dominant player in one of the world's fastest-growing businesses - the use of plastic instead of cash and checks for everyday payments.

"This is a very good company going public in a difficult market, and people are pretty pleased with the way it's acting," said Mark Lehmann, head of equity trading at San Francisco's JMP Securities. "There are a lot of portfolio managers putting money to work in this stock."

Visa shares closed Wednesday at $56.50, up $12.50 from the $44 IPO price. They had risen above $60 before settling in the afternoon. Volume was heavy, with more than 175 million shares changing hands.

Visa's IPO price was above the $37 to $42 range projected in company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company sold 406 million shares in the offering, raising just under $18 billion.

If the IPO underwriters exercise their option to sell another 40.6 million shares at the offering price, Visa will raise about $19.7 billion, before subtracting fees and other costs. That far surpasses the $10.6 billion AT&T Wireless IPO in 2000, previously the biggest U.S. initial offering.

Even with the enormous quantity of more than 400 million shares to unload, Visa's IPO orders swamped the supply of shares available, several people close to the deal said.

"They priced the deal above the proposed range because there was lots of demand," said Nicholas Einhorn, an analyst with Renaissance Capital, a Connecticut firm that tracks the IPO market. "That's impressive, given how rocky the stock market has been."

With the IPO oversubscribed, institutional investors got only a portion of the shares they sought. And some small investors were skunked altogether.

Oakland resident Bruce Folck, a Fidelity Investments brokerage customer and an experienced IPO investor, put in an order to buy 200 shares in the offering. Tuesday night, Fidelity sent an e-mail asking him to confirm that he was willing to pay the IPO price, which he did. But he was left empty-handed.

"I woke up this morning hoping, hoping, hoping," he said Wednesday. "But there was nothing and I saw the stock was up $16. I was furious."

At Fidelity, demand for Visa IPO shares was high relative to the number of shares the brokerage was able to get for its retail clients, spokesman Steve Austin said.

"Our allocation was carried out as fairly and equitably as possible," he said. "It was designed to evaluate customers based on their relationship with Fidelity."

Representatives of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriters in the IPO, declined to say what proportion of shares were set aside for retail investors.

In IPOs, when demand exceeds supply, "The guys who get pushed out are the retail investors because the banks give priority to their biggest customers," Einhorn said.

Investors jumped into Visa after eyeing the performance of payment rival MasterCard, which has quintupled in price since its IPO two years ago. Visa's IPO shares were valued more expensively than those of MasterCard, measured relative to earnings. But market watchers say the stock has plenty of room to grow.

"Visa is a global card Goliath that ... owns one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world," Morningstar analyst Michael Kon wrote in a research note. "It is very hard to build any network, but duplicating Visa's is almost impossible."

Kon estimated Visa shares are worth $74 per share, given the size of the company's business, its market position and its growth prospects.

Big banks are getting a huge windfall from Visa. For most of its history, the company was a membership association owned by banks that issued Visa cards. Last year, it converted to a for-profit corporation and the banks became shareholders. More than $10 billion of the IPO proceeds will go to buy out part of their stakes.

JPMorgan Chase stands to collect about $1.25 billion, Bank of America will receive about $625 million and Wells Fargo about $273 million from selling shares, according to regulatory filings.

As part of the offering, Visa chief executive Joseph Saunders - who rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning - was awarded options to buy 831,444 Visa shares at the IPO price plus an outright stock grant of 12,025 shares. On paper, those grants were worth roughly $11 million based on a price of $56.50 per share. He is prohibited from exercising the options or selling the shares immediately but must wait until they vest, which takes place in stages over three years.

E-mail Sam Zuckerman at szuckerman@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Can you REALLY beat depression by talking to a computer?

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There is an alternative: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a so-called "talking therapy" designed to help alter negative thought patterns. It does help - if you can get to see a therapist.

Unfortunately, patients often face waiting up to 18 months for talking therapy treatment; it's estimated the health service needs another 10,000 therapists to meet demand.

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Therapeutic: There has been a recent surge in local health authorities buying computerised CBT packages

The Government announced last week it was going to spend nearly £200million on training therapists over three years. But that's a long wait for patients.

In the meantime, there is another treatment for depression that is not only free of side-effects, but could be supplied to every GP practice in the country within a few months - and at a fraction of the £300 million being spent every year on depression drugs, let alone training therapists.

Not only that, but it works.

Indeed, two years ago, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) recommended it should be available to everyone in the country.

The problem is, very few doctors know anything about it.

The "wonder" treatment is CBT delivered via a computer. While this might sound impersonal and futuristic, there's good evidence that getting CBT from a computer is as effective as seeing a therapist.

Recently, a study of computerised therapy by City University, London, found that three out of five depressed patients needed only eight weekly sessions to be cured.

So how does it work? "At first, it seemed odd - I couldn't see how it could possibly help," says 40-year-old Caroline, a manager at a dental practice.

"But after taking medication - without any real improvement - for several years, I was willing to try anything.

"You log on to a website with a password. At the beginning, a voiceover explains what depression and anxiety are and how they come with particular thoughts, like 'I'm out of control' or 'I'm no good,' and certain behaviours, such as avoiding doing the things you used to enjoy," says Caroline.

"You then form a list of the thoughts and actions that describe you.

"You also watch short videos of people talking about how they benefited from the programme - a teacher who couldn't cope with his classes or his own homework marking exercise books; a single mum who was deep in debt and felt guilty for shouting at her kid.

"You then do exercises, like writing down the three things that are problems for you - such as sleeping or keeping your temper or getting out of bed.

"As a guide, you see how the people in the short videos did the exercises."

The idea behind it all is that although your problems feel like one big impossible burden, actually they come in three definite parts. What's happened (for instance, you've lost your job), what you feel about it (very worried), and what you do about it (stay in bed).

The first thing CBT teaches you is that although you can't change what has happened, you can change how you feel and what you do about it.

If you're depressed you have lots of negative thoughts about yourself - how you are hopeless, how you never finish anything and so on. CBT helps you to explore other ways of thinking about what has happened.

The computer programme does this by getting you to do practical exercises. For instance, asking how you would feel if your friends didn't turn up to meet you at the cinema as arranged.

If you assumed it was because they didn't like you, it would prompt you to think of other reasons they might not have turned up, such as missing their train.

Once you are thinking and feeling differently about what's wrong, it's only a small step to start imagining the different actions you could take.

"Suddenly your problems are not so unique," says Caroline.

"Just setting them out makes them seem manageable. I got some useful ideas about how to deal with the negative thoughts I was always having about being so hopeless."

This was in stark contrast to the kind of help Caroline had from her doctor. "He gave me some pills, but they made it worse," she says.

"Then he told me I'd get over it eventually and I'd have to live with it until then."

Three years ago, Dr Peter Crouch, a GP in Swindon, became one of the first to offer the treatment.

"We prescribe drugs at our practice as well," he says, "but I have noticed that the programme does seem to have a more lasting effect.

"Afterwards, even if a patient has had a bad experience that you'd expect to trigger depression, they often handle it much more effectively."

And the flexibility of computerised CBT (cCBT) is a major benefit, he says.

"For those with minor symptoms very few services can be delivered within a few minutes of consultation and in the patient's own home.

"It is also discreet - it allows a businessman who wants to keep his condition quiet to log on to the programme on his own computer."

Swindon is one of the few health authorities that offers the therapy (through 30 GPs). Barbara Stapleton, who works in mental health in Swindon, says she is amazed there hasn't been a proper push to make cCBT available.

"The figures suggest it has cut GP visits and brought down drug prescribing," she says.

A Nice report estimated that making computerised treatment widely available would save £126 million a year. (The company behind the programme says it could get it to every GP for a total cost of £10million).

But so far the treatment is available in fewer than 5 per cent of English primary care trusts.

Caroline lives in Manchester, where the local primary care trust does fund cCBT.

"We're finding that when people are asked to rate their level of depression they reduce it by about half after following the programme," says Nicky Lidbetter, who has been helping patients use cCBT.

"If this was a cancer drug, imagine the hullabaloo with those kinds of improvement rates if it wasn't being given to people."

The cost of an eight-week course of treatment is £65 per person. The cost of an eight-week course with a therapist is £750.

In the past two months, there has been a surge in local health authorities buying cCBT packages and it will soon be available in nearly 30 per cent of primary care trusts in England.

But why isn't it more widely available?

Health Secretary Alan Johnson recently noted that the Nice recommendation on computerised therapy is "mandatory."

"Patients who are dissatisfied with the non-availability of treatments to which they are entitled," he wrote, "should consider raising their concerns with the established NHS complaints procedure."

Computerised therapy is a curious way of delivering treatment. But everyone agrees it is effective and badly needed.

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