Big IPOs, in facts.
Listings pull attention; facts protect it. A company on its first trading day has no quarterly filings, no insider-filing history — nothing falsifiable to read yet. What it does have is a schedule: dated events where real information starts to arrive. That schedule is below, with the behavioral base rates underneath.
On the calendar
Announced filings — no date yet
A confidential draft S-1 puts nothing on the public record except the company’s own announcement. The prospectus appears on EDGAR at least 15 days before the roadshow.
What usually happens — the base rates
First-day pops are the norm, not a signal
The average US IPO has closed its first day about 18% above the offer price across 1980–2023 (Ritter, University of Florida IPO statistics). The pop reflects deliberate underpricing and attention — it says nothing new about the business.
Attention buying costs retail money
Individual investors are net buyers of attention-grabbing stocks — names in the news, with extreme volume or extreme one-day returns — and that buying pattern predicts underperformance (Barber & Odean, 'All That Glitters', 2008). IPOs are the single most attention-concentrated event in markets.
The class lags for years
IPOs as a group have underperformed size-matched peers over the three years after listing (Ritter 1991, confirmed in updated samples through 2023). The lag concentrates in smaller and unprofitable issuers — the kind retail buys most eagerly.
Lockup expiry is a supply event with a date
When the (typically 180-day) lockup ends, insiders can sell for the first time. Expiry weeks have historically run ~1.5% below market with a permanent ~40% volume increase (Field & Hanka 2001). It is on the calendar from day one.
The first analyst wave is mechanical
Underwriters' analysts must wait 10 calendar days before publishing (FINRA Rule 2241). Coverage then arrives in a cluster and skews positive (Bradley, Jordan & Ritter 2003) — initiation-day enthusiasm is a schedule, not a discovery.
Historical base rates from published academic research, cited inline. Education, not investment advice.
See what the engine reads — and when it stays silent.
Contra scans falsifiable patterns across 800+ tickers daily and says “no view” when there is nothing to read — which is the honest answer on most IPO day-ones.