Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

 

This year’s IPO market got off to a fast start. On Tuesday morning, an amendment was posted on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s filing window announcing expected pricing terms for what proved to be 2014’s first IPO. The deal jumped onto the calendar for a Thursday evening pricing, started trading Friday morning, and popped for an opening-day gain of 12.6 percent. In the meantime, the SEC’s filing window started spitting out deal after deal plus pricing terms after pricing terms. By week’s end, the calendar had eight IPOs expecting to raise over $3.7 billion. 

“Past performance is no guarantee of future results” has been the disclaimer of the mutual funds industry as long as anyone can remember. The same can be said for the IPO market. Late last summer, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing window started giving off signals of a coming hot IPO market. It happened. Over the last three weeks, the SEC filing window started sending the same signals – again.

Two
opposing views surfaced last week about the IPO market. From some corners,
there was talk of an IPO bubble, and from others, the story was that the IPO
market was played out. The latter camp pointed to four postponements and an
empty forward calendar. That is true. There is nothing on the November/December
calendar at press time. But there are signs in Wall Street’s jungle that debunk
both views.