Healthcare Stocks Topping The IPO Leader Boards During Q3

According to Triad Securities, 40 companies saw their stocks trade for the first time on a public exchange during the third quarter. On average, deals opened higher by 13 percent than their indicated prices, marking a decrease from the 17 percent average seen in the second quarter.

Of all the sectors, healthcare IPOs saw the strongest performance in the quarter, based on opening price versus issue price. The sector saw 15 unique IPOS with an average change indicated price to open of 26.2 percent.

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A Closer Look

As an example, Global Blood Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that engages in discovering, developing and commercializing therapeutics to treat blood-based disorders, saw its shares open at $34.65, 73 percent above the expected price. The stock has seen some volatility in the weeks following its initial offering, but are still nearly 12 percent higher compared to its opening day.

ProNai Therapeutics proved to be the second largest opening-day gainer in the quarter, as its stock opened 68.7 percent higher versus its offering price. The third largest gainer was Rapid7 Inc RPD, a provider of security data and analytics solutions and was the only company within the information technology sector to hold an IPO.

Finally, Triad Securities noted that given ongoing commodity and global economic concerns, they are not expecting a surge in IPO activity unless already public companies issue an overall positive third quarter print. Following a seasonally quiet end of the year, there could be "pent-up demand" from both companies and investors for IPOs in early 2016, that is if the markets stabilize by the new year.