When it comes to the IPO market, one might think that super-cool companies are the ones that will be the top performers. In reality, that is far from the case. Instead, ordinary companies are often the ones that win big.
Just look at hot names like Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) and Pandora (NYSE:P). All went public in 2011 and all have been pretty big flops. This year in particular, Facebook‘s (NASDAQ:FB) IPO was a dud despite its huge user base and buzz.
Plus, countless IPOs had botched offerings on the systems side of things in 2012, including WhiteHorse Finance (NASDAQ:WHF). With both of these things is mind, it’s easy to see what helped this year’s IPO stars shine: They sailed smoothly onto the market and focused on traditional market segments.
So which companies were the standouts? Here’s a look at the top five:
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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