On the Internet: Web Sites for IPOs

Web Sites for IPOs

During the technology bubble of the 1990s, initial public offerings (IPOs) became more and more common. In 1999, at the height of the bubble, there were almost 500 IPOs, which returned close to a combined 280% that year. After the bubble burst in late 2000, the number of IPOs fell to a low of only 68 in 2003. While the market still remains uncertain, IPOs are again gaining popularity. Investors, however, are proceeding with caution as the number of IPOs is increasing.

IPO Home

www.ipohome.com
IPO Home is a free Web site that offers data on IPOs including performance statistics, historical IPO information, and news. Also, an IPO Newcomer section offers educational tools for those new to IPO investing. To access all of the site’s offerings, you must register with an E-mail address. The homepage provides breaking IPO news, a featured IPO and various charts and graphs detailing IPO data.

The IPO Newcomer section is broken into four sections. The Learning Tools page includes a glossary with frequently used IPO terms and a guide to investing that discusses the process of bringing a stock public and how to invest. You can learn secrets to IPO investing, see a corporate governance checklist used to scrutinize IPOs and view a sample IPO research report in the Researching IPOs section. A directory of underwriters and information about IPO allocation is also provided in the Newcomer section.

The IPO Marketwatch page offers breaking news, the Week in Review commentaries, an upcoming IPO calendar, recent IPO pricings, IPO filings, a featured IPO and a new addition called IPO Chat. IPO Chat is a message board where members can discuss IPOs and related topics. You will also find various calendars listing upcoming IPOs, the latest IPO filings, stocks in the quiet period (the period after the SEC filing but prior to the offering during which the offering company cannot publicly discuss the IPO), stocks in the lock-up period (the time during which employees of a company offering an IPO cannot sell their shares) and companies having secondary offerings of their stock. To read company reports and detailed offering information, click the company name.

You can also view IPO summary statistics from 1997 to the present along with a summary the IPO market for the last four years. The top- and bottom-performing IPOs—calculated by the price change from the offer price to the current price—are listed along with the top and bottom aftermarket IPO performers—calculated by the percentage price change from the first day’s close to the current price.

A research center offers company reports for $30 each, which are viewable with Adobe Acrobat Reader (available as a free download from www.adobe.com).

123Jump IPO Center

www.123jump.com/ipo
123Jump’s IPO Center provides links to recent IPO news stories and various IPO lists including upcoming IPOs, and the latest filings, pricings, withdrawals and reports. The IPO Calendar offers a list of upcoming IPOs with data such as the ticker symbol, underwriters, number of shares, price range and a “hot tamale” sentiment rating. One hot tamale designates IPOs to avoid and five designates “hot” offerings. For more detailed company and offering information, you can click a company name.

You can search the site for a specific IPO by ticker, company name, state or industry. Historical performance calendars show how an IPO has performed since its offering. Data goes back to 2000 and includes the company name, ticker, underwriting company, number of shares, the latest price, offer price, IPO date and gain or loss since the offering. No overall IPO market data is provided.

This site is free.

Hoover's IPO Central

www.hoovers.com/global/ipoc
Hoover’s Online offers free access to their IPO Central. You can see a list of “IPOs on Deck” for the current week, which lists the company name and underwriter and provides a link to more detailed information. Content includes a company summary, financial statement data, recent news and industry information.

IPO Central also provides a list of IPO filings and a calendar of upcoming IPOs. IPO filings are listed for the upcoming quarter and include the name, ticker, industry, number of shares, expected price range, total amount of money for the entire offering and the expected offer date. The IPO Calendar lists upcoming offerings with the date, number of shares offered, price per share and the total offer amount.

After the offer date for an IPO, you can see follow-up data at the IPO Performance section, including the offer date and price, first day open and close price and the latest price. You can search for IPOs by quarter for the last five quarters and by month for the last six months.

The IPO Scorecard gives statistics on the entire IPO market listing the total number, total value and average value of IPO pricings for the most recent three quarters. IPO pricings by industry for the latest quarter are also given. A list of the top 10 IPO performers over a trailing 12-month period is shown with performance data through the latest closing price. Also listed are the best and worst total returns (based on the percentage change in price from the offer price to the latest quarter’s closing price), the biggest first-day gainers and losers, and CEOs who earned the largest profit from their company’s IPO.

You can search the site by company name or ticker symbol for a specific offering or sign up for a free weekly IPO Update E-newsletter.

IPO Monitor

www.ipomonitor.com
IPO Monitor is a subscription-based Web site that offers some basic IPO data for free. Free content includes lists of recent pricings and filings for the past week, secondary offering filings, an industry analysis chart and a year-end review for each of the last five years. Free data on the offerings is limited to the date, company name and the total amount of the offering. The industry analysis chart shows the funds raised by IPOs per industry over a rolling six-month period.

Paying subscribers have access to lists of companies in the various stages of an IPO lifecycle: IPO filings, a calendar of upcoming offerings, withdrawals, pricings (meaning the shares have been sold to the underwriter), and aftermarket performance.

Various E-mail alerts are also available to subscribers including: pricing alert (which notifies you when a pricing has been announced), a daily report of the day’s IPO activities, an IPO calendar alert with upcoming offerings, an aftermarket report (which gives a performance report on the most recent 100 pricings), and a weekly wrap-up. The site also lists the 10 best- and worst-performing IPOs over the past 30, 60, 90, 120 and 365 days. It also tracks the price performance of the 30 most recent IPOs with a market capitalization of at least $100 million. Underwriter reports are generated for each brokerage firm that has served as a lead underwriter for at least one deal and include a summary of all IPOs in which the broker participated. An average performance is then calculated and combined with other performance measures to rate the underwriters.

Also, lists of companies in the lock-up and quiet periods are provided along with a list of hot IPOs, the best performers in the last 90 days based on current price relative to offer price. Finally, subscribers can search the site’s database by company name, ticker symbol, SIC code, geographic location and a range of pricing dates. Subscriptions cost $29 per month or $290 per year.

Yahoo! IPOs

biz.yahoo.com/ipo

Yahoo! Finance devotes a section of its comprehensive investment Web site to IPOs. You can view lists of the latest IPO pricings, filings and withdrawals as well as read recent IPO news. The best and worst post-IPO performers over three, six, and 12 months are listed as well. You can search the database by company name or industry to find information such as the proposed ticker symbol, number of shares, price range, filing date, IPO date and links to more detailed company information. A glossary of commonly used IPO words, message boards and links to other helpful IPO Web sites round out Yahoo’s offerings.

The site is free.