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Strategies & Market Trends : IPO Boycott -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KevinMark who wrote (35)	11/26/2000 7:02:15 PM
From: Gofer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61

Looks like you're getting your wish ... `In all my years of following the IPO market since 1956,'' Fitzgibbon said, ``I've never seen any week in which every deal tanked.' FULL ARTICLE: IPO Market Slows to a Trickle By David Howard Sinkman and Jed Seltzer Nov 26 5:06pm ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - New stock offerings have shrunk to a near halt because of a stock market slammed by weak corporate earnings and the unresolved presidential election. ``The IPO market is down and dirty,'' said John Fitzgibbon, IPO editor of financial information provider WorldFinanceNet.com. ''The key is the Nasdaq index, which is the barometer of the IPO market -- and the IPO market is a follower, not a leader.'' The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) on Friday rallied more than 5 percent but is still down over 30 percent since its close on Sept. 1. That's why major underwriters, as of the market close on Friday, had scheduled only one initial public offering (IPO) for next week: biotech company Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc. under the proposed symbol ``RIGL'' (RIGL.O), led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. But even the Rigel offering has been hit by the wobbly stock market. Morgan Stanley last week cut the offering's size to around $37.5 million, down from an earlier $81 million. Last Tuesday, the lead underwriter rescheduled the Rigel offering into the next week. Many IPOs have been priced at the bottom of their expected price range or even below that range. Rather than postpone the offerings in a jittery market, some underwriters have for the most part decided to cut the estimated range and get the deals done at bargain prices. The IPO market appeared to rebound in early November, but concerns over the election, earnings and energy -- ``the 3 Es'' -- have sent the Nasdaq tumbling. Institutional investors have since abandoned the IPO market, Fitzgibbon said. The uncertainty surrounding the U.S. presidential election has highlighted the concerns over earnings and energy, he added. But there's light at the end of the tunnel, especially if the Nasdaq has hit bottom and if the U.S. Federal Reserve signals it's done raising rates, other market watchers said. ``If the Nasdaq firms up, it will be a more favorable environment to bring private companies public,'' said Gail Bronson, the senior analyst at IPO Monitor and a start-up executive in Palo Alto, Calif. But for the immediate short term, continuing worries have plagued the new-issues market. Rigel Pharmaceuticals cut the size of its planned initial public offering to 5 million shares from 9 million, and dropped the price range to $7 to $8 per share from $8 to $10. The underwriters are slated to set the final price on Tuesday, Nov. 28, and the stock should start trading on Wednesday. BOTTOM OR BELOW RANGE Rigel is following a familiar pattern. For instance, Woburn, Mass.-based Beacon Power Corp. (BCON.O) was forced to lower the price range for its IPO to $6 to $8 per share from $11 to $13 per share. On Nov. 16, the shares of energy storage systems supplier Beacon were priced at $6 per share -- at the bottom of the already lowered range. International telecommunications IPOs have suffered the same fate -- priced at the bottom of the range. On Nov. 20, Telekom Austria (TELA.VI) (TKA.N) was priced at 9 euros ($7.64) per share, or $15.29 per American Depositary Share, at the bottom of the estimated range, while Spain's Telefonica Moviles S.A. (TEF.MC)(TEM.N) was priced at 11 euros ($9.33) per share, near the basement of its expected range. Neither have moved up since their debut. Instead, at the close of Friday's holiday-shortened stock trading session on the New York Stock Exchange, both settled below issue price. Telekom Austria ended at $14-1/16, or $14.0625, and Telefonica Moviles settled at $9-3/16, or $9.1875. ``In all my years of following the IPO market since 1956,'' Fitzgibbon said, ``I've never seen any week in which every deal tanked.''