Miss Out On These Hot IPOs? Here’s Your Second Chance

The trading action of 2014 thus far has been truly strange. A hot IPO market led to many impressive one-day gains for newly public companies. But many of those same stocks are now falling like a stone. So if you’re the type that waits for inevitable pullbacks in hot new issues, your opening is at hand.

#-ad_banner-#These stocks are getting especially hard hit for several reasons. First, they were initially bought by investors looking for quick gains, not great long-term investments. Second, many of them are on a path for continued operating losses, and investors fear that a market mood shift will keep these firms from raising more capital.

Open-ended losses are an especially strong concern for biotechs, which are basically built to lose money until a key drug is approved or partnerships is inked. So plenty of recently surging biotech IPOs have fallen sharply. Here’s a quick list of some that have already fallen from 30% from their post-IPO peak.

The stock price chart for Dicerna Therapeutics highlights the bipolar investor attitude toward this group.

Other biotech stocks that have fallen far from their recent peak include:

• Mediwound (Nasdaq: MDWD)
• Akebia Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AKBA)
• Applied Genetics (Nasdaq: AGTC)
• Versartis (Nasdaq: VSAR)

To be sure, it’s hard to peg a fair value for a development-stage biotech firm. A few of these companies will turn out to be home run investments, while most of them will crash on the rocks of disappointing clinical trials. 

So look at these pullbacks as an opportunity to take ample time to assess them. You can get a better sense of each of these firms’ business models as they will soon be holding their first-ever conference calls as public companies. 

It’s not just biotechs that are suffering from the post-IPO hangover. A handful of other newly public stocks have been sucked down by this tough market, including:

• Care.com (Nasdaq: CRCM)
• Intrawest Holdings (Nasdaq: SNOW)
• Varonis Systems (Nasdaq: VRNS)
• Coupons.com (Nasdaq: COUP)
• Paylocity (Nasdaq: PCTY)
• Borderfree (Nasdaq: BRDR)
• Aerohive Networks (Nasdaq: AERO)
• Tarena (Nasdaq: TEDU)
• GrubHub (Nasdaq: GRUB)

The good news is that these companies have tangible revenue streams, and in most instances, a path to profitability, and therefore won’t suffer as badly as biotechs if the capital markets slam shut. Of these companies, a few stand out as potentially solid rebound candidates.

Intrawest
This company had all the trappings of an appealing IPO — until it recently lost the support of funds that bought into its offering this January.

The operator of seven ski resorts is benefiting from a tightly controlled market that it shares with Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) and Canada’s Whistler Blackcomb (Nasdaq: WSBHF). Intrawest has historically pursued pricing strategies below its peers, but management is now in the process of raising prices without seeing a noticeable drop in demand. Demand for seasonal ski passes appears to have risen more than 20% compared with the prior winter. 

Thanks to a recent pullback, this is also the bargain-priced stock in the group. Shares trade for less than eight times projected fiscal (June) 2015 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), while those rivals trade for around 10 times forward EBITDA. Merrill Lynch sees shares trading up to $18, representing roughly 50% upside.

As a few added catalysts, a recent history of operating losses means the Intrawest carries a hefty chunk of Net Operating Loss carry-forwards (NOLs), which will shield future profits form taxes. And the company owns more than 1,100 prime undeveloped acres that is valued at around $3.50 a share. 

Coupons.com
Here’s an unusual statistic: Online coupons account for only 1% of the retail of all coupons offered — but 10% of coupons redeemed. 

Coupons.com is the online leader in the category, known as digital freestanding inserts (DFSI). Roughly 1.3 billion of its coupons were redeemed last year. The company appears to have seized the first-mover advantage, as it is six times larger than its nearest competitor. 

Here’s a second unusual statistic: More than half of all people under 30 have never clipped a coupon from a newspaper or magazine. This company clearly has demographics on its side. 

Though sales are growing at a pace of 25% to 30%, profits won’t likely arrive before 2015, which may explain why shares have slid from $33 on the first day of trading a month ago to around $20 today. That pullback signals that the IPO froth is gone, and investors who bought this stock on its IPO now have a second chance. 

Risks to Consider: All of these IPOs will also face the eventual 180-day lockup expiration, so investors may want to book any rebound profits before then.

Action to Take –> The IPO pipeline was expected to remain quite strong, but the market pullback may lead the doors to close. These companies were lucky enough to get in ahead of time, but were unlucky enough to witness dismal post-IPO trading. 

Over the next month, I will be giving those busted biotech IPOs, as they spell out their drug development opportunities. For now, investors are best off focusing on the non-biotech companies that have more tangible business models.

P.S. When you get in on the ground floor of a promising new company, the profits that follow can change your life forever. Andy Obermueller, the Chief Investment Strategist behind StreetAuthority’s premium Game-Changing Stocks advisory, is always on the lookout for stocks just like these. Click here to learn more about his latest favorites.