US IPO Weekly Winners & Losers

The US IPO market outperformed the S&P 500 for the fourth straight week in a row.

Despite Friday’s pullback, the IPO Index rallied +3.0% this week compared to +1.6% for the S&P. Global shipper ZIM Integrated Shipping led the winners, up +22.8%, while Chinese freight platform Full Truck Alliance landed at the bottom, off -14.5%.

Year-to-date, the IPO index has returned +20.1%, almost triple the S&P 500. In this market, the right investing attitude is cautious participation. Past downturns are instructive, including the whiplash in 2008-2009 when the IPO space had multiple big drops and rallies before the bull market ultimately took hold.

In any case, more IPOs will look to strike now that the iron’s… less cold.

One notable IPO priced this week. Chronic disease biotech Structure Therapeutics (Nasdaq: GPCR) upsized its offering at the high end, and rocketed +73.3%. Excluding micro-caps, that is the best first-day pop for a US company since 2021.

Another first in over a year: Three US IPOs are expected to raise $100 million or more next week. The group includes a solar equipment maker (Nextracker), a hypertension biotech (Mineralys), and a Chinese play on self-driving cars (Hesai).

One notable IPO joined the pipeline, frac sand producer Atlas Energy, confirming what I mentioned last week about an upcycle in energy listings.

The SPAC market is chugging along, and this week we saw the largest deal announcement since 2021. L Catterton Asia Acquisition (Nasdaq: LCAA) agreed to acquire luxury sports car brand Lotus at a $5+ billion valuation.