How Investors Can Get Into Hot IPOs With ETFs and Similar Strategies

Investing

Published: May 2, 2019 10:20 am

Last Updated: January 6, 2020 5:01 am

After a turbulent and volatile 2018, there are many companies that plan to conduct initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2019. Some companies already have formally filed their S-1 and equivalent forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other companies have filed confidential data with the SEC for IPOs, and other so-called unicorn companies, those with private market valuations north of $1 billion, are all highly speculated to come public.

Unfortunately for unicorns and regular companies, the 2018 IPO market was less than stellar for investors. Barron’s even reported at the end of December 2018 that 65 of the past 100 such offerings were “busted IPOs” as their market prices were actually under their formal IPO price — and some of those are considered to be great companies.

On the other hand, 2019 has been fairly positive for the IPO market, with the likes of Pinterest, Zoom and Levi Strauss coming to market. There has to be a middle ground between a total bust and a solid win. On the other hand, the highly anticipated Lyft IPO has burned many IPO investors and has eaten away billions of dollars ahead of the also highly anticipated Uber IPO.

In an effort to mitigate this risk and concern about picking the winners or the losers with each company that comes public, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are available that offer a sampling and exposure to the IPO market. ETF Database has collected much of the information about these ETFs, among others, and made it easily accessible for those looking to get into the game.

Note that with companies constantly entering the market, these ETFs act as a revolving door, adding and deleting companies from their holdings on a quarterly basis.

Due to the nature of its holdings and the size of its assets under management, this one gets listed first. First Trust US Equity Opportunities ETF (NYSEARCA: FPX) has been around since April 2006, and it aims to track the IPOX-100 U.S. Index. This ETF is constructed and managed to provide a broad and objective view of global aftermarket performance of recent IPOs and spin-offs within the United States. These stocks remain eligible to be included for approximately four years. It was last seen to have $1.14 billion in assets under management. Its overall expense ratio is 0.59%, and it has traded up 23% so far in 2019. This fund has a total of 100 holdings. The top 10 holdings include all domestic companies:

PayPal (9.64%)
Verizon (4.29%)
Takeda Pharmaceutical (4.21%)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (3.41%)
Stryker (3.06%)
Worldpay (2.83%)
Tyson Foods (2.48%)
Hershey (2.37%)
Dow (2.36%)
Eli Lilly (2.26%)

Renaissance IPO ETF (NYSEARCA: IPO) has been around since 2013, and it aims to track the Renaissance IPO Index. This ETF targets U.S. listed newly public companies ahead of their inclusion in core equity portfolios, it is designed to hold the largest, most liquid newly listed U.S. IPOs and include the most economically significant newly public companies. Note that companies that have been public for two years are removed from the ETF at the next quarterly review. It was last seen to have $40.8 million in assets under management. Its overall expense ratio is 0.60%, and it has traded up 33.5% so far in 2019. This fund has a total of 73 holdings. The top 10 holdings include a few recent sizeable IPOs from the United States: