The IPO Buzz: No Time to Get Carried Away

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
Wall Street begins in a graveyard, ends in a river and the road sign points “one way.” About a hundred yards east from the Trinity Church graveyard stands the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Broad and Wall Street. The deals on this week’s IPO calendar expect to trade on the NYSE.
 
One IPO is from the financial industry and the other from the technology industry. Each sector has produced more deals this year than from any of the other 10 industries.
 
June 20, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Sizing Up the Jockey

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
“If” you don’t know the horse, bet the jockey” has been the cliché around racetracks for generations. Wall Street’s new-issues calendar is much the same. This week, there’ll be five IPO ponies thundering down the homestretch. And the favorite plus two others will be booted home by the same jockey — make that the same banker.
 
June 13, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Last Call for Alcohol

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
One deal on this week’s IPO calendar strikes at the very heart of investing. There can be a difference between a company’s fundamentals and the price of its common stock. Sometimes they come together — sometimes they don’t.
 
June 6, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Cruising into June

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
The IPO market cruises into June with just two deals on this week’s calendar. None of the IPO experts are looking for opening-day moonshots. Nevertheless, the summer months of June, July and August can be busy. And given last week’s filings, it could be interesting.
 
May 31, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Latter-Day Wise Guys

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late” is especially apropos for last week’s IPO market. After sharp cuts in offering terms, the deals surged in the face of a collapsing stock market. There could be a message wrapped up inside this leading question: Have the bankers learned anything?
 
May 23, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Goldman Gossip and A Turnaround Shot

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
The old Wall Street axiom says that when people are thinking one way, look the other. In today’s IPO market, people have been badmouthing Goldman Sachs. What’s more, bankers have been overpricing their deals. And some Wall Street pros are swearing they’ll avoid private-equity IPOs.
 
May 16, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Clarity After the Fall

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
There’s something to be said about a 1,000-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Averages. It became the lead story for the media and quickly underscored the flaws in Wall Street’s trading system. Nevertheless, we’ve been there before – overextended debt, a cause of today’s worries, and overtrading. Look back 137 years and consider the following article: “The only thing new is the history we don’t know.
 
May 9, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: IPO Haves and Have Nots

 
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
In case you haven’t noticed, 2010’s IPO traffic is building. In April, 14 new issues were priced. The last time more came to market in a single month was in December 2007 with 23 deals. April’s IPO calendar raised nearly $2 billion. In addition, another 33 companies filed to go public to raise nearly $7 billion.
 
May 2, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Last Call for April’s IPOs

  
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
As April rolls into its closing week, the IPO Calendar has three deals on the launching pad. Assuming that everything gets out the door, it would bring April’s new-issue traffic to 14 IPOs, the same number as in March. The last time more deals came to market over a two-month period in the same year was in November/December 2007 with 61 IPOs. Back then, there was a reason. The stock market had been flying, but more on this later.
 
April 25, 2010 Read More

The IPO Buzz: For IPOs, Eight May Be Enough

   
By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
 
The nursery rhyme tells us Wednesday’s child is full of woe. Interestingly, Wall Street’s investment bankers plan to price all eight of their IPOs on Wednesday evening.
 
April 18, 2010 Read More