IPOs are some of the biggest and most notable events in the business world. An IPO takes a company from being privately held to being publicly listed on an exchange like the NYSE or NASDAQ. They’re big opportunities. One reason that IPOs are a very big deal is that demand can send prices soaring over the first few days a stock is public. This means that early investors stand to make a lot of money.
Of course, that’s not true in every case. But analysts who study these events are confident that 2020 will be a banner year for IPOs before all is said and done. Companies like AirBnb are expected to go public in 2020. People are very high on this IPO in spite of the coronavirus scare. One push factor is that early stakeholders in the company have been waiting a decade to make money on their stock in the company. There’s also an external pull factor. Given the health of the stock market overall, analysts are confident that the rising tide will lift AirBnb’s boat, too.
Accessible investing app Robinhood is also projected to go public in 2020. This app has democratized stock trading in ways that previously were unimaginable. With no trade fees for basic service, Robinhood changed the way people invest. This company made it easier for young people to get in on the stock market, and it forced platforms like ETrade to lower or eliminate their fees per stock trade. Robinhood was valued at over $11 billion in August of 2020, a huge leap from valuations of about $7.6 billion early in the year. The sky looks to be the limit for this IPO.
Of course, it’s important to understand that anything can happen when it comes to IPOs. In January and February, Postmates was a hotly anticipated IPO. Then, in July, Postmates surprised everyone, selling to Uber for over $2.5 billion instead. Food delivery competitor DoorDash is still expected to file an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2020. IPOs are hotter now than they’ve been since the first dotcom bubble. This is an exciting time for initial public offerings, but it’s also shaping up to be an unpredictable one.