The Open IPO Window Was Yesterday

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" said Joni Mitchell

They say that last quarter 2005 produced the lowest number of IPOs in ages, and that plans for new issues the first half of 2006 were even worse. This is very bad news for small tech companies thinking of going public in the second half of 2006.

Today, Jan 11, 2006 - Look at the Biotech Indices and the BBH ETF - Look at the Semi ETF, SMH. (and REALLY take a close look at all the nanotechnology indices' charts - they've gone asymptotic!) A significant percentage of public and private small technology companies are in these two spaces - and those sectors are doing GREAT . . . today.

Emerging nanotech company CEOs, executives, their VCs and investment bankers should have been ready "to go" . . . today (or over the next month or two). Unfortunately, they were waiting for the IPO Window to open - - well, it's open NOW. Their waiting is wrongheaded and will cost them later this year as this tech rally begins to collapse over the next few months.

The late nineties are over. What people don't "get" is that times like that never happened before, and will never happen again. (hey . . . never is a long long time, so don't hold me to this in 2022 . . . but in the lifetime of a stock market participant (say, 20-50 years . . ), NEVER is the right word.

In the real world that doesn't include the late 1990s, IPO windows open and shut VERY quickly, and that's the world we live in today.

As I cautioned publicly in May 2004, Nanosys' opportunity was in September to November of 2004 - only after a successful Google IPO. No comment on Nanosys as a business or stock, but see how much better it would have been to announce an offering Nov 15, 2004 (with Google having already more than doubled!) . . . instead of being aborted in the summer?

You really don't know what you've got til it's gone. And this woulda, coulda, shoulda been the best opportunity to launch a successful nano or small tech-related IPO since November of 2004 . . . but did (will?) anyone do it? . . . nahhhhhhhh.

Will they be sorry they weren't ready to go now "come" May to November 2006? absolutely.