These 2 hot IPO stocks could be gearing up for more gains.
The IPO market went on life support after the coronavirus pandemic sparked a market sell-off earlier this year.
But since then, the market for initial public offerings has bounced back in record time, with 133-U.S. listed companies making their public debut this year through July 28 at a value of $48.2 billion.
“The IPO market is quite salubrious right now,” said Neil Kell, chairman and global head of Bank of America’s tech, media, and telecom equity capital markets.
Recent IPOs have included online mattress maker Casper (NYSE: CSPR), fintech nCino (NASDAQ: NCNO), online used car sales platform Vroom (NASDAQ: VRM), insurance company Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), and corporate information database company ZoomInfo Technologies (NASDAQ: ZI).
Of these recent IPO stocks, Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, is a fan of Lemonade.
“I really like Lemonade, it’s in the insurance business,” Schlossberg said. “I consider insurance to be sort of the dentistry of finance. Everybody hates it but everybody has to have it.”
According to Schlossberg, Lemonade is set apart from other insurance companies in its pricing and in the speed at which it processes claims using artificial intelligence.
“Their performance as far as underwriting goes still remains to be seen,” Schlossberg added. “They’re about 10% below the net-loss ratio that industry giants are doing, but I think the market is going to forgive all that because it’s really going to look at net customer acquisition. If they continue to grow, they continue to get mindshare, they will eventually get enough scale to be a very profitable underwriting concern.”
Lemonade more than doubled in its early July market debut, surging 139%. Shares dropped 6.9% after the insurance company reported its first quarterly result this week with Lemonade reporting a second quarter loss of $21 million, or $1.77 per share, while revenue rose to $29.9 million compared to $13.8 million in the year-ago-quarter.
“At the start of the quarter we significantly slowed our marketing spend, suspended nonessential hiring, and offered to defer customers’ payments,” Lemonade said in a statement. “Then we braced for impact. We expected to see a spike in churn, a drop in demand, and a hit to our cash flow. None materialized.”
Piper Sandler chief market technician Craig Johnson, however, is more interested in recent IPO SmileDirectClub (NASDAQ: SDC).
“This is a chart that’s been consolidating sideways, making in the technical world what we define as an ascending triangle,” Johnson said.
“A close above $10 would be very bullish,” Johnson said. “I’d be buying that breakout because from there it looks like you would start another leg higher, and would be among the more attractive looking names.”
SmileDirectClub shares closed at $7.84 on Thursday.