Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

The best thing about this week’s IPO calendar is most of the deals are to be priced Thursday evening for Friday’s trading. By then, hopefully, the stock market’s four-week sell-off will have been snapped.

If you think an 11-day sell-off of 10.4 percent in the Nasdaq Composite Index spooked bankers, think again. The forward IPO calendar started filling up and, during the first two weeks of the year, they added nearly as many deals to the IPO pipeline as they did during the first two weeks, collectively, over the last five years.

The gates to 2008’s IPO market swing open this week with just two offerings on the agenda. One is a popular deal everybody loves – a “blank check” offering –- and the other is a carry-over from the past.

By the end of the year, 2007’s IPO market was looking more and more like Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” There were some jackrabbit aftermarket performances among this year’s offerings. But the real story was the surging number of “blank check” offerings -– the tortoises. All traded around their offering prices -– no aftermarket pops and no aftermarket flops.

Happy Holidays from the staff of IPOScoop.com.

 

The IPO Buzz column will return next week.

 

Wishing all of our readers and subscribers a happy, healthy and safe holiday break!

NetSuite is the big buzz in this week’s IPO calendar, but nature tends to side with the hidden flaw. The sobering factor is the deal is coming to market as a Dutch auction, which usually doesn’t produce opening-day moonshots.

The IPO Express is gearing up for its last significant run of the year. Bankers hope to price as many as 15 deals this week, another four next week and that should be it for 2007.

There’s no question that the Fed wrote the script for last week’s surging stock prices. But here’s what many missed. Just around the corner from Wall Street is an alley called IPO Lane, where bankers were busy stuffing the new-issues calendar. If all goes as planned, this month could very well be the busiest December for the IPO production line in this decade.

The spotlight last week belonged to Macy’s 81^st annual Thanksgiving Parade. An estimated 3.5 million people turned out to cheer as the storied balloons and floats made their way along the parade’s 3.3-mile route from 77^th Street and Central Park West, down Broadway and on to Herald Square.

This week’s focus in New York City will be on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. That closes the securities markets on Thursday and for Friday -– who cares? (Friday’s abbreviated trading session is scheduled to end at 1 p.m.) Nevertheless, there is an IPO calendar. Whatever gets priced will be done on Monday evening for Tuesday morning’s trading and then it’s off for the rest of the week.