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As the market prepares for the highly anticipated Twitter initial public offering (IPO), many investors will be tempted to jump in by the promise of big gains.
As we've warned you, investing in IPOs can be a very high-risk enterprise.
Winners can double or triple your money in very short order. But losers can cut your investment in half, or worse, just as quickly. Anyone who was around for the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s probably still has nightmares about the disastrous IPOs from that era.
And then there's the great difficulty that retail investors have in buying IPOs at anything close to the offer price. Anyone who tries often finds that they buy only after the IPO stock has soared, locking them out of most of the first day's gains.
But there is a way to capture the big gains in the IPO market with less risk than buying an individual newly issued stock: investing in IPO ETFs.
The fact is, despite all the headaches, IPOs often provide very hefty gains…
The eight IPOs of 2013 that should be on every investor's radar…
Just take a look at the performance this year of the Renaissance IPO index. It's up 56.6%, compared to a good but more modest 22.4% gain for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
Its performance is tracked by the Renaissance IPO ETF (NYSE ARCA: IPO), which started trading on Oct. 16.
The First Trust U.S. IPO Index (NYSE ARCA: FPX), which launched in 2006, has also done well this year, having risen 37.48%.
True, those numbers aren't as eye-popping as what you'll see from the best IPOs. Every one of the top 10 best IPOs of 2013, for example, are up at least 140% – and several are up more than 200%.
On the other hand, no one wants to be stuck with an IPO dog.
Professional Diversity Network Inc. (Nasdaq: IPDN), for example, is down 39% from its March 8 offer price. And Groupon Inc. (Nasdaq: GRPN) is down 62% from its first-day close of $26.11 back on Nov. 4, 2011.
Unless you're really good at picking IPO winners, you'll want to seriously consider investing in an IPO exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Let's take a closer look at these two IPO ETFs, because they use slightly different approaches.
Investing in IPO ETFs: Two Distinct Choices
First of all, neither IPO ETF buys in at the offer price, as most people would suspect.
About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.
In September CYCC was featured. I has continued a decline since I have not seen any followup. Is it now a hold or a sell? Thanks Harry Groth