Don't Panic Over Market Volatility: NYSE President

The market for US initial public offerings should look a lot more like the years prior to the pandemic-fueled boom, according to the head of the New York Stock Exchange.

First-time share sales in the US could raise about $50 billion this year, NYSE Group President Lynn Martin said at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York on Tuesday. US regulators should start publishing companies’ IPO filings in the coming weeks after a regulatory quiet period that allows firms to get their full-year financial reports audited, Martin said.

“We’re still gearing up for an active second quarter from an IPO perspective which, depending on how those deals go, we think will inform the way the rest of the year will progress,” Martin said in a Bloomberg TV interview earlier Tuesday.

Volatility triggered selloffs across global equity markets as the S&P 500 erased its $3.4 trillion post-election rally, with jitters surrounding President Donald Trump’s tariffs pushing investors into less risky assets. The benchmark has slumped 3.5% to start the week, the worst two-day slide since August, as the VIX Index jumped above 25 for the first time since mid-December.

A prolonged slump would dent hopes of a busier 2025 for IPOs, given that new companies without track records are typically seen as among the market’s riskiest equities. Still, Martin wasn’t fazed by the volatility this year.

“The only way that I think is going to get derailed is if the volatility in the market becomes outsized — and I don’t think it’ll get derailed,” Martin said.

Read More: First-Day IPO Trading Flops Threaten Next Wave of US Debuts

The IPO market has started the year stronger than the past three, albeit at a more measured pace than many Wall Street bankers had anticipated. First-time share sales in the US have raised $9.8 billion through March 4, a 36% jump from the same timeframe last year, but below the pre-pandemic norms, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

All told, companies raising money through IPOs in the US have raised $103 billion since the start of 2022, less than one-third of the cash pooled in 2021’s banner year and below the output in the year prior, the data show.

“The markets have been open for the last few years, which most people don’t want to talk about,’ Martin said. “And if I look at the IPOs that occurred on the New York Stock Exchange last year, in the secondary market they grew 58%. So the market is there for companies to go when they’re ready to go, when they have good stories to tell.”

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