Hot IPOs

Yesterday, an acquaintance asked me if I’d consider buying shares of Visa’s IPO. It’s really gotten people talking. As many of you know, MasterCard had an IPO in 2006 and shares were priced at $39. They’re now trading for $195, a 400% gain in less than two years. Hot IPOs are back.

In my reading I came across another hot IPO that might surprise you:

“I found a hot company with the most interesting story. It went public on July 4th at $25 per share. On its first day of trading, it jumped to $40, then $50. A month later, on August 10th, it was trading at $280 and on August 11th, it peaked at $310. The next day it fell to $212 and by the 15th it was down to $172, ending the year at $150. Amazon.com? Internet Capital Group? Yahoo!? Guess again. The year was 1791. The stock was the Bank of the United States, set up by Alexander Hamilton in 1790 to help restructure the new government’s $80 million of debt from the Revolutionary War and General Washington’s bar tab. And you just won’t believe it, but this hot IPO somehow ended up in the hands of 30 members of Congress, the Secretary of War and wealthy citizens. Some things never change.”
-Andy Kessler, How We Got Here