IPOs: An Update

Retail news outlets are once again gaga over phenomenal listing day returns of IPOs. Investors will do well to take a step back and take in the scene:

  • Median listing day returns since 2010 has been 1.22%
  • The best year (since 2010) was 2014 with median returns of 1.435%; the worst being 2012 with -2.76%
  • Picking winners over a large sample size (the listed universe) is easier than picking from a smaller lot of IPOs
    • The code and data is on github.