$SK Hynix - WI(SKHYV.US) listed today, so I casually asked @LongbridgeAI for its take and found some pretty interesting data. It turns out academic research has seriously tallied that traditional U.S. stock IPOs have an average first-day return of about 18.8%, while tech IPOs are even more exaggerated, with a historical average first-day return reaching 31.2%. However, for companies that have already listed in their home market and then come to the U.S. for a secondary listing via ADRs, the abnormal first-day return drops to only about 4.4%.

Why such a big difference? The reason lies in traditional IPOs lacking a public market price for reference, with information asymmetry leading underwriters to favor discount pricing. In contrast, ADR secondary listings have the immediate anchor of the home market stock price, and arbitrage mechanisms quickly suppress price deviations, significantly narrowing the room for a first-day pop. What do you all think?

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Sources:

1.Jay Ritter & Ivo Welch, "A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing, and Allocations"

2.Sudhir Nanda, Chenyang Feng & James E. Owers, ADR Listing Returns Study

3.Nasdaq, "Trends in IPO Pops" (2021)