There's new blood in the IPO pipeline.
After a sleepy January that saw just three new issues hit stateside exchanges, five companies made their Wall Street debuts in just the first three days of February.
More will come, obviously. Everyone's now picking sides on Facebook, and that's the kind of publicity that will draw even more potential debutantes into underwriter offices.
However, let's take a moment to reflect back on the five stocks that went public on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week.
| IPO | 2/6/12 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cempra Holdings (Nasdaq: CEMP) | $6.00 | $6.24 |
| Greenway Medical (NYSE: GWAY) | $10.00 | $13.50 |
| Matador Resources (NYSE: MTDR) | $12.00 | $11.94 |
| AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG) | $16.00 | $13.03 |
| U.S. Silica Holdings (NYSE: SLCA) | $17.00 | $16.35 |
Source: Hoover's
Cempra is a biotech hoping to get a pair of oral antibiotics on the market. It's one of the only two companies to close higher than its IPO price yesterday, but the company isn't exactly celebrating. Cempra was originally hoping to price its offering between $11 and $13 before settling for half as much.
Greenway provides physicians with electronic health records. It's the big winner from last week after seeing its stock pop 35% higher.
Matador is an oil and gas producer. The vast majority of its proved reserves are in natural gas which has been a tough market lately.
AVG is a Netherlands-based provider of antivirus software. It's the biggest loser of the five despite its healthy fundamentals. The rub for AVG was hitting the market at a steep valuation premium to established antivirus software rivals.
Finally, U.S. Silica Holdings is the country's second largest producer of silica that's used in solar panels and hydraulic fracturing. The stock is off to an uninspiring start, but investing in silica production holds longer-term promise.
So, keep the new issues coming. The market may not seem to be celebrating each and every arrival, but that's probably the best indicator that the open market isn't as frothy as bears may think.
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