U.S. IPOs Have Raised $102 Billion Through March 10
That is according to Dealogic.
That means that the U.S. is in the middle of the biggest IPO boom since the dot-com bubble, after stocks bounced back quickly from the Covid-19 market panic.
One big contributor to this trend is special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, called blank-check companies because they go public with the purpose of finding a nonpublic company to acquire. About 80% of the IPOs this year have been SPACs.
While new public stocks have posted strong performances so far this year, fund managers say it’s getting harder to find good deals. So individual investors might want to be careful trying to trade IPOs.
Shares of U.S. SteelClimb 39% in First Half of March
U.S. Steel looks set to have a stronger first quarter than investors initially expected.
The company announced new, stronger estimates for its quarterly earnings over the weekend, in part because steel prices have climbed. One key steel-price benchmark has more than doubled over the past 12 months, as global manufacturing held up relatively well during the pandemic -- especially compared with services like restaurants and child care.
The entire steel-manufacturing sector, however, is exposed to swings in commodity prices so analysts often look past these types of broad trends. That may help explain why the stock fell 4.3% on Monday, despite the good news.
GenMark Diagnostics Rallies 30% After Swiss Drugmaker Roche Holdings Agrees to Pay $1.8 Billion for Company
If it is approved by regulators, the deal will give Roche the ability to test for multiple pathogens in a single panel of patient tests. Its respiratory-infection testing panel captures the virus that causes Covid-19 as well.
Analysts atUBSsay that Roche’s acquisition of GenMark could help it make inroads into doing more business with hospitals, which have already increased their testing capacity because of the pandemic. Roche stock gained 2.1% after the news.