US IPO Weekly Winners & Losers

The IPO market’s August recess is here. It won’t look very different from the rest of the year.

Without any major deals, IPO professionals gather insights from the Renaissance IPO Index (tracker for our IPO ETF). While the S&P 500 gained +0.4% this week, the IPO market shot up +10.1%, putting it above the recent resistance line.

In this market we treat every rally with healthy skepticism, but there’s also more chatter of IPOs prepping for a Q4 launch in case the uptrend holds.

Two small IPOs priced this week: nano-cap electric toothbrush brand Bruush Oral Care (Nasdaq: BRSH), down -46%, and Hong Kong IPO advisor Magic Empire Global (Nasdaq: MEGL), up… +2,325%, for now. Day trading has apparently become the hottest game in online gambling.

Two SPACs priced, breaking a month-long dry spell. Both blank checks initially have just 9 months to find a target, the latest incentive to attract investors.

More companies have gone public via SPAC this year than traditional IPO, at 60 vs. 47. Two SPAC mergers closed this week, including cybersecurity play ZeroFox (NYSE: ZFOX), the year’s only billion-dollar listing from an enterprise software firm. We published a piece on the company.

Another seven companies announced pending SPAC mergers. The largest is a “Web 3” play, merging with SLAC. However, the most interesting new SPAC deal has to be aerial firefighting company Bridger Aerospace, which is merging with JCIC and has a fleet of flying “Scoopers” it uses to fight wildfires.