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Stocks are bought on hope, held in greed and sold in fear. The driving force behind these emotions is interest rates, earnings and, at times, politics. Politics from the Middle East, Ukraine and Argentina rained on Wall Street’s parade last week. The summer downpour drove the major U.S. stock market indexes down well over 2 percent each.

 

It looks like the 2014 IPO market is holding an “end-of-summer” sale this week. The calendar has 22 new issues expecting to raise $6.7 billion. We have to reach back to 2000 for a busier IPO weekly calendar. This was the week of Sept. 25, 2000. That calendar had 23 new issues expecting to raise $2.95 billion; of this group, 18 got out the door.

 

 

The IPO market has steamrolled through July’s first three weeks and is on track to produce the busiest July since 2000. Bankers have already priced 13 deals that raised $1.2 billion from the calendar for July so far.

 

 

The IPO Orchestra is getting ready to strike up the music for 2014’s second half. It is playing the same tune as it did when 2014 began: “The Waltz of The Pharmaceuticals.” Six of the 15 IPOs on the forward calendar are pharmaceutical companies.

 

“Alibaba, Alibaba, where are you?” The world wants to know. The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. And that wind will be blowing through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) filing window all in good time. Until then, we wait.