US IPO Weekly Winners & Losers

Volatility looks like the one constant of this year's IPO market.

The US IPO Index contracted -5.8% this week, nearly wiping out the prior week’s gains, vs. -3.4% for the S&P 500. Tech and fintech dragged down the IPO index, with app monetization platform AppLovin off -27.5% amid an analyst downgrade. Battered Chinese fintech Lufax led the winners gaining +17.3%, alongside US coding platform GitLab up +12.4%.

This coming week we’ll release our must-read 2022 IPO Annual Reviews.

Our analysts and I agreed that 2022 is looking like a “reset year.” Interest rates once again reflect a reasonable cost of capital. Issuers no longer expect crazy-high valuations or lock-up exemptions. Investors aren’t so quick to value companies at >20x sales, and profits matter.

There’s one more major reset on the horizon. The next earnings season will give public companies a chance to correct overly optimistic financial forecasts.

One small IPO priced this week: Lab-grown diamond firm Adamas One (Nasdaq: JEWL) raised $11 million and traded up +5%. A few other micro-caps are on the calendar, shifting around due to market conditions and extra Nasdaq scrutiny.

Vietnam’s leading electric vehicle maker VinFast (Nasdaq: VFS) submitted its F-1, the biggest US IPO filing months. We expect it can raise at least $1 billion, likely in January.

This week the largest pending SPAC merger fell apart. Digital currency firm Circle, which is behind the USDC stablecoin, terminated its $9 billion SPAC merger with CND. On the other hand, a whopping nine SPACs announced new mergers. The largest was X-Energy, a developer of small modular nuclear reactors merging with AAC, valued at $2.2 billion.

Thanks to the recent China rally, our International IPO Index has strongly outperformed over the past month. Stay in the know with our International IPO Winners & Losers newsletter.