The Market for New Issues: Impact of Offering Price on Price Support and Underpricing

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the pattern of first day returns to initialpublic offerings is consistent with the hypotheses of underpricing and price support. We examine two different periods, 1975–1984 and 1996–2002, and find that in each case the measures of price support and underpricing are substantially affected by the initial public offerings' beginning price. During the period 1975–1984, the mean and standard deviation of returns to the price supported group are nearly always zero regardless of price, whileg the mean of the returns to the underpriced group is smile-shaped: high for low-priced and high-priced stocks but lower for stocks offered at intermediate prices. The patterns are different in the most recent data: the mean and standard deviation of both the price supported and underpriced groups are smile-shaped. For the lowest priced stocks, the measures in the later period mirror those for the 1975–1984 period, but for more expensive stocks the measures are substantially higher. The results apply to the first day returns of both firm commitment and best efforts offerings. Once price is taken into account, other than the difference in the probability of price support, the differences among offering types seem to be of secondary importance in explaining first day returns.