No deals in holiday-shortened week
There were no new regular-way equity deals, IPOs, follow-ons or converts, priced in the holiday-shortened week, something that hasn’t happened since the week leading up to the September 1 Labor Day holiday.
There were three SPAC IPOs priced, proving the resilience of that product amid still-high rates. An investor put on their initial investment makes SPACs a convenient place to park cash.
In the largest of those SPAC IPOs, QDRO Acquisition raised US$200m on Wednesday that it plans to use to target a merger in financial services, including crypto-related assets. Quadro Capital Partners is the sponsor.
Invest Green Acquisition II and SC Acquisition II both raised US$150m through SPAC IPOs priced earlier in the week that have both targeting AI power assets.
Despite last week’s lull, IPO volumes for the year are up 16.2% over 2024 at US$34.8bn and convert volumes are up 34.1% to US$82.5bn, though follow-on issuance is down 16.8% to US$108.3bn, according to LSEG data, counting only US$50m-plus deals and excluding SPACs and issuance by foreign companies selling stock on US exchanges.
After a precipitous sell-off a week earlier, stocks rallied in the three trading sessions ahead of the US Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8% Wednesday to 23,214, paring losses for the month to 2.2%.
The big change in investor sentiment has been a turn in expectations of a rate cut in December. Expectations for a 25bp cut at the December FOMC meeting now stand at 85%, up from 30% one week ago.