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US IPO MARKET UNDER A TARIFF CLOUD

A trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump and the accompanying market turmoil has narrowed the initial public offerings window.

Among the companies that have paused their IPO plans recently are Swedish fintech Klarna KLAR.N and San Francisco fintech Chime, as well as ticketing platform Stubhub.

Companies seeking to go public need stable conditions and the CBOE Market Volatility index .VIX, often called the "fear index", is showing elevated uncertainty. The VIX is currently hovering around 30, while a level of 20, or below, is typically viewed by equity capital markets bankers as a favorable time to move forward with an IPO.

The outcomes for some of this year's most high-profile new listings have been dismal, as LNG exporter Venture Global VG.N has plunged since its January debut, and CoreWeave CRWV.O, an artificial intelligence startup backed by chip giant Nvidia NVDA.O, disappointed after its deal size was slashed and priced well below expectations.

In a research note earlier this month, JP Morgan said some of the weakness in IPOs year-to-date may reflect tariff uncertainty, but also pointed to headwinds of an ongoing "bottleneck" in exits by private equity and venture capital firms since 2022, along with high interest rates.

Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said in a recent note how this year's vintage of large IPOs perform in the coming months "will be a good reminder that disruptive companies still need to prove a pathway to profitability through growing their market share, relevance, and competitive moats."

"The bottom line is that the IPO market may remain quiet over the near term for all but the strongest companies," Colas said.

Though conservative cable news channel Newsmax NMAX.N grabbed the spotlight with its dizzying ascent, its Regulation A offering, sometimes called a "mini-IPO", wasn't made available to major institutional investors.

Below is a snapshot of notable 2025 IPOs, traditional offerings which raised at least $50 million of proceeds:

And here is the year-to-date performance of the Renaissance IPO ETF IPO.P, which tracks a basket of recent new listings, vs the S&P 500 index .SPX:

(Lance Tupper, Chuck Mikolajczak)

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