Internet IPO Giddiness Is Gone

In every way you can measure, April was the worst month for Internet IPO
debuts in the past year.

No surprise: The spring correction that has ravaged Net stocks since
mid-March has done similar damage to the IPO market. Last year, one out of
three Internet public offerings gained at least 100 percent in their
respective first days of trading. In April, only one of the 13 Net debuts
accomplished this feat.

April’s average first-day gain of 31 percent is the lowest in at least 16
months, while the number of Internet public offerings is the lowest since
March 1999, right before the Net IPO market shifted into overdrive.

With tech stocks nosediving for the past six weeks or so, a number of
Internet companies have delayed plans to go public, most notably
AltaVista.com, the search engine/portal owned by CMGI.

And while the market has shown some signs of stabilizing in the past week,
it could be some time before the IPO market recovers. Look for May’s results
to be somewhere between the numbers produced in March and April.

Month This year 1999
January 5 4
February 27 11
March 27 13
April 13 17
Total 72 45

Average First-Day Return (By Month)

Month This Year 1999
January 160% 241%
February 126% 122%
March 99% 134%
April 31% 116%

10 Best Internet Debuts of 2000

Company IPO Date Gain
webMethods Feb. 11 508%
Crayfish March 8 414%
Selectica March 10 371%
FirePond Feb. 4 356%
Neoforma.com Jan. 24 303%
Extensity Jan. 27 256%
ArrowPoint March 31 248%
GigaMedia Feb. 17 226%
net.Genesis Feb. 29 216%
eMerge Interactive Feb. 4 215%

10 Worst Internet Debuts of 2000

Company IPO
Date
Gain/Loss
ARTISTdirect March 28 -22%
AsiaContent.com April 12 -21%
PartsBase.com March 22 -12%
ImproveNet March 16 -12%
Hanaro Telecom March 29 -9%
HealthStream April 11 -6%
VarsityBooks.com Feb. 15 -1%
SAVVIS Communications Feb. 15 0%
Pets.com Feb. 11 0%
GoAmerica April 7 0%

Here are the April Internet IPOs, listed by date, with their first-day
performances:

  • April 5 – Vyyo (VYYO), 50%
  • April 6 – i3 Mobile (IIIM), 56%
  • April 7 – Opus360 (OPUS), 25%
  • April 7 – LivePerson (LPSN), 19%
  • April 7 – G

    oAmerica (GOAM), 0%

  • April 7 Saba Software (SABA), 120%
  • April 11 – HealthStream (HSTM), -6%
  • April 12 – Corillian (CORI), 6%
  • April 12 – AsiaContent.com (IASIA), -21%
  • April 13 – SINA.com (SINA), 22%
  • April 19 – QS Communications (QSCG), 22%
  • April 20 – Embarcadero Technologies (EMBT), 60%
  • April 28 – Software Technologies (STCS), 49%


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