Financial people are funny. Publicly, on the telly, they make their trade sound serious and statistics-based but, once let loose on the trading floor, it's the smell of blood, the collective adrenalin surge of the pack, that seem to fuel their decisions. Last week the US IPO market came roaring back.
We've seen the Philadelphia SOX surge to 260 from its mid-March low of 190 - even though most semiconductor companies are not reporting good sales - just a few are making optimistic noises.
Then, last week, we got a company selling software for restaurant reservations, and a company selling network management software getting star treatment on the Nasdaq and NYSE.
On launch day, the restaurant software company, called OpenTable, saw its shares traded at over $30 when they were launched at $20 on Nasdaq.
The network management software company, SolarWinds, saw its shares trade up ten percent on launch day on the NYSE.
There was, apparently, not much sense to the success of either launch. Just animal high spirits, and a feeling that it's nice to take a punt again.
One of the nice things about human nature is we can't wear hair shirts for long- unless we're saints - after a bit, the urge to splurge gets through to us.
These two successes will encourage others, and that's good for the IPO market. No doubt the traders are busily working on some ex-post-facto statistics-based rationalisation of their exuberance.
But that's for the birds.
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