Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

 

Twas the week before Twitter (TWTR – proposed) and all through the Street, the IPO calendar was hung with all sorts of treats. There are 10 deals on tap for this week, and many are what the experts call “IPOs of Interest.”

 

Most, if not all, of this week’s initial public offerings are expected to be priced on Thursday evening for Friday morning trading. The calendar lists four IPOs plus two “blank check” offerings. They expect to raise $1.3 billion. It looks as if the IPO gods rounded up a few from this year’s hot IPO industrial sectors and dropped them onto the calendar for the same day of the week. That’s right. Four IPOs are set to be priced on Thursday – the fourth night of the work week on Wall Street.

 

The IPO circus came to town late Thursday afternoon, Oct. 3, when Twitter (TWTR – proposed) filed for its IPO to raise $1 billion. It triggered a nonstop media blitz with the IPO “gurus” coming out of the woodwork to give their “analysis,” but a few questions lingered in the background. They will soon be answered.

 

 

It has been 13 long years since the IPO bubble of Insanity-dot-com left town. But don’t look now. Another IPO bubble just might be in the making. It can be found under the heading of “Bio-IPOs,” and this year’s crop has been soaring.

 

You won’t find Moonshot Alley on any street map of lower Manhattan. It is part of a place called the IPO market. Last week, three offerings found their way onto that elusive pathway and one made into the “IPO Hall of Fame” with a moonshot opening-day gain.

 

It was Twitter here, Twitter there, Twitter everywhere, a lot of wing flapping over Twitter’s IPO, but no flying. That’s the way things work under the JOBS Act of 2012.

 

 

The post-Labor Day IPO market remained quiet last week, but U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing window was alive with IPO traffic. The signals are flashing that the calendar is coming back to life in the final weeks of Indian summer.

 

 

Except for a small bio-IPO wiggling its way into the market during the last two weeks of August, the calendar has been dormant. The IPO filing window has not.

 

Even Wall Street loves a parade – a Labor Day parade, that is – if it means the money keeps pouring in.