Big IPOs, in facts.
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names on the desk
IPO Desk
Lists Sep 30, 2026 · Nasdaq
List date
Sep 30, 2026
Exchange
Nasdaq
Offering
$2.5B
Price
$40–$44
Lockup expiry (est.)
~Mar 29, 2027
Calendar data: Finnhub, refreshed nightly. Verify terms against the prospectus on SEC EDGAR — the prospectus is the primary source.
Contra reads its full pattern library against filings, insider activity, and market structure. A newly listed company has no quarterly filings and no insider-filing history — so the honest output is silence. Each stage below adds something readable. That is the difference between a date you can verify and a story you can’t.
Price discovery on a thin public float. Day-one prices run on attention and scarce supply — there are no quarterly filings as a public company for anyone to read yet.
FINRA Rule 2241 bars the underwriters' analysts from publishing for 10 calendar days after an IPO. Initiations cluster when the restriction lifts and have historically skewed positive (Bradley, Jordan & Ritter 2003) — a mechanical wave, not new information.
Under the methodology effective May 2026, a new listing ranked in the top 40 by market capitalization becomes Nasdaq-100-eligible after 15 trading days. If added, index funds become mechanical buyers on the add date — a flow event with a calendar, not a view on the business.
The first hard numbers as a public company — revenue, margins, cash flow, share count. SEC rules give large filers 40 days after quarter end. This is where pattern-reading starts: filings are facts; everything before this is story.
Early investors and employees become free to sell for the first time. Expiry weeks have historically run about 1.5% below market with a lasting ~40% jump in trading volume (Field & Hanka 2001); heavy insider selling into expiry pairs with a further 3-8% of 30-day underperformance (Brav & Gompers 2003). A dated supply event — it should never surprise anyone. Date assumes the standard 180-day term until the prospectus confirms otherwise.
S&P requires 12 months of seasoning plus four consecutive profitable quarters under GAAP — rules S&P Dow Jones reaffirmed unchanged in June 2026 after a public consultation. Until then, only faster indexes (like the Nasdaq-100) can force index buying.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Every morning, Contra reads the stock, commodity, and bond markets for the patterns that move retail returns — and says “no view” when there’s nothing to read, which is the honest answer on most IPO day-ones.