Move over Uber and Lyft; 3 promising stocks start trading today

We are almost halfway into the year and the IPO market is slowly catching up. Though some of the big IPOs didn’t inspire the kind of response that was expected, some smaller firms managed to price their stocks at the top end of their price range. Here is a quick look at three promising companies that are set to hit the stock market today.

Cloud, coffee and chemicals.

Fastly

Move over the lackluster debut of Uber (NYSE: UBER), Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT) and Pinterest (NYSE: PINS), a smaller tech firm Fastly has priced its shares at the top end of its price range of $14 to $16. The cloud-based platform, which focuses on enhancing user experience during peak traffic hours, is offering 11.3 million share at $16 apiece.

It started trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker FSLY. Fastly’s client base include Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), Airbnb, Vimeo and The New York Times Co (NYSE: NYT). The company recorded a net loss of $30.94 million in 2018, on revenues of $144.56 million.

READ: LYFT AND SIX OTHER COMPANIES WENT PUBLIC IN MARCH. FULL LIST

Avantor

Though Avantor Inc priced its shares at $14, at the lower end of its range of $14-15, the company trumped Lyft to become the second biggest IPO this year with its $7.4-billion listing. It trails only Uber, which last week went public at a valuation of $8.1 billion.

The company, which makes chemicals, clinical trial kits and lab equipment for pharma companies, will trade on New York Stock Exchange under ticker AVTR. The healthcare firm has floated 207 million shares.     

Avantor recorded 5.9 billion in revenues in 2018, compared to just $1.25  billion in 2017. The company has not been profitable.

Luckin Coffee

We have talked about this one in detail. The Chinese coffee chain unicorn that aims to trump Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) has priced its shares at $17, the upper end of its price range of $15 to $17, raising $571.2 million. If the underwriters decide to take up the full allocation, the amount could reach up to $650.8 million.

READ: LYFT POSTS MASSIVE LOSSES IN ITS MAIDEN EARNINGS REPORT

It will be listed under the ticker LK.

The company offers heavy discounts on its coffee, which can be ordered through a mobile app. Pressurized by the offers, the company posted a loss of $475 million in 2018, despite recording $125 million in revenues during the same quarter. However, in its less than two years of operation, the company has been quickly gaining popularity and market share in its home ground.

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