Haus Talk gains nearly 7% in respectable debut
The PSE’s newest real estate developer started the day trading in the red; the first trades came across at P1.45/share, which is about 3% down from Haus Talk's [HTI 1.60 6.67%] P1.50/share offer price.
It did not take long for the demand to overtake, though, and sure enough, 45 minutes later, the stock was trading up 10% at P1.65.
Around 11:45 am, the stock hit an intra-day peak at P1.73/share (up 15%), before settling back to the P1.70/share range. The price fell back as far as P1.55/share heading into the close before a last-minute little pump pushed it up to P1.60/share.
The volume was pretty heavy; HTI was the third-most traded stock on the PSE by value, with over P350 million worth of HTI stock changing hands throughout the day.
MB BOTTOM-LINE
The first few moments were pretty intense, as it looked (for a brief moment) like the stock might slip beneath the waves and test the underwriter’s “no stability fund” strategy.
Thankfully for HTI IPO investors, the stock attracted a surprising amount of demand and safely rose clear of its offer price pretty quickly. This is a good result for ICCP, HTI, and all the IPO buyers that backed the stock. It’s also a good result for those (like me) who want to see a future that doesn’t include some kind of silly stability fund requirement.
Imagine for a second that HTI pulled a Medilines Distributors [MEDIC 1.18 1.67%] and just absolutely tanked yesterday.
The public sentiment wouldn’t have been “HTI and ICCP mispriced IPO”, it probably would have been, “hOw cAn tHe pSe aLlOw tHiS tO hApPeN?”
Despite this first day of successful trading, there’s still no guarantee that it’s all up up up from here.
While it’s certainly possible for the stock to go on a heater, it’s also possible for the wheels to fall off tomorrow, or later this week, or next week, or next month.
Just look at AllDay Marts [ALLDY 0.62 1.59%]: that stock hit the ceiling on its first day (up 50%), but just 6 weeks later the stock was trading below the IPO offer price.
The lack of a stability fund wouldn’t be a material problem for HTI unless the price retreated back to the P1.50 offer level.
Stability funds don’t protect gains, they only attempt to protect IPO buyers from potential losses relative to the IPO price for the first month of trading (which wouldn’t have helped in ALLDY’s case anyway). So, let’s see what happens! Good luck, HTI holders.
--
Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
- Latest
