Dwindling IPOs Reward Investors With Return Bonanza

Entering 2025, it was the year of IPOs … until it wasn’t. Firms grew timid about dipping their toes into public waters as markets sputtered amid tariff threats.

But less has turned out to be more. In fact, 2025 could end up being the year of IPOs doing well, even if some firms were hesitant to come out of their private shells. New data compiled by Bloomberg found that shares in companies to debut on US exchanges this year have climbed by a weighted average of 53% — the S&P 500 is up 4.4%, so, in the words of Larry David, pretty, pretty good. Now, to see if it inspires the wave of listings investors were hoping for.

Making a Listing, Checking It: ‘Nice’

Before the champagne-popping, the hard truth: IPOs are still down. Bloomberg counted 33 of them so far, down from 41 in the first half of 2024 (excluding SPACs and small listings that raked in under $50 million).

But the performances of stablecoin fintech Circle, up more than 585% since listing earlier this month, and cloud computing company CoreWeave, up more than 300% since listing in March, have offered assurances that, despite this year’s Olympic hurdle run of risks, investor appetite for new opportunities is resilient. There are signs in some sectors that a trickle-down effect could be on the way, although that may take time:

• On the fintech front, investment management company Wealthfront filed for an IPO earlier this week, following rival Chime’s $864 million debut in its initial public offering earlier this month. This activity suggests a warming trend in the fintech public offering market. Potential billion-dollar fintechs Klarna and Plaid have both signaled they are readying IPOs, having previously been spooked by market uncertainty.
• On the digital health front, two notable care providers have gone in opposite directions: Hinge Health is up 13.8% since its debut in May, while Omada Health has tumbled 22% since its listing earlier this month. The IPO calendar for the rest of 2025 remains relatively light, and analysts don’t expect digital health listings to pick up, but fintech and crypto firms could be inclined to file — in fact, crypto exchange Gemini filed earlier this month, with many expecting Circle’s success to embolden others in the sector to follow.

We’re Number One: The 53% average returns on newly listed US companies bested the 45% in Asia, 38% in Europe and 7% in the Middle East, according to Bloomberg’s calculations.