IPO interest seems to be heating up heading into the summer.
Initial public offerings (IPOs) have come back into the spotlight in recent weeks. This is largely due to the pending IPO of SpaceX, which is currently slated to begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange next week. This company is historic for many reasons and has seen sky-high valuations ahead of its public listing. Many on Wall Street expect SpaceX to surpass $75 billion in fundraising from the public offering at a valuation of more than $1.5 trillion (source: reuters.com). That would nearly triple the record for largest fundraising through IPO, which is currently held by Saudi Aramco for the 2019 public offering that raised $25.6 billion (source: dealroom.net). The record for the largest fundraise from an American company is Visa, from all the way back in 2008, when they raised $17.9 billion. While the expectations for SpaceX might be on another planet when compared to previous US IPOs, it can be helpful to understand how other large companies performed following their public listing. The table below shows the largest 11 US companies by amount raised. Note that this list does not include companies headquartered overseas, even if they trade on US markets (no Saudi Aramco or Alibaba). We have also included forward returns ranging from seven days to two years for further perspective.
While this sample size is small, the trends are still clear. The first week after an IPO typically leads to positive price action for the new stock, with these large companies gaining 73% of the time. That positive hit rate drops off drastically, albeit with some major outliers, the further away you get from that IPO. Most IPOs come with a six-month lockup for shareholders that held company stock prior to the public offering, so it makes sense to have shares sell off once that threshold is hit. However, three of the five companies on our list that have been public for at least two years saw any initial losses turn into gains two years post-IPO.
Every market environment is different. Future IPOs are also playing on a different playing field than their predecessors due to recent adjustments to index-inclusion methodologies. We do not know how these adjustments will impact the price action for new IPOs like SpaceX or Anthropic (which also just filed for an IPO), however, attention around IPOs seems to be heating up.
There have been 152 IPOs already this year, looking at data through the end of May. IPOs are rarely consistent month-to-month, but if we did continue at that pace in the second half of the year, we’d be close to the pace of the 347 IPOs seen in 2025. This puts us in the average to above-average range for historical IPO counts going back through 2000.
(data through 5/31, source: stockanalysis.com)
The uptick in IPOs over the past year has coincided with positive price action from the Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO). According to Renaissance, this fund looks to maintain exposure to the largest, most liquid IPOs that have been listed for three years or less. The fund has rattled off four consecutive buy signals since March while ascending to a new multi-year high at $58 this week. IPO has a strong 5.79 fund score and a sharply positive score direction after showing near-term improvement on its market RS chart in April. While the technical picture is strong, the fund is in an extended position. We would not be surprised to see consolidation into the low $50s from the current position, or normalization over time as the trading band adjusts. Initial support is seen between $48.50 and $47.50.
Many of the largest holdings of this fund are technology players that have seen massive appreciation this year, including CoreWeave (CRWV), ARM Holdings (ARM), and Astera Labs (ALAB). While the technical pictures are favorable, those three stocks are in or near extended territory and are generally much more volatile than the market.
One of the larger holdings that has shown more consistent improvement is Viking Holdings Ltd (VIK). This stock has a 4 for 5 TA rating and has been in a positive trend since April. We saw the stock move to an RS buy signal against the market in July 2025 and it sits in the top decile of the leisure sector matrix, all indicative of the favorable long-term technical picture. The recent price action saw VIK notch a new all-time high at $93 before pulling back to the current position at $90 this week, initiating a buy-on-pullback opportunity. Initial support is seen from $81 to $75.
