Internet IPO Giddiness Is Gone
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 - GoAmerica (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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