The Briefing: Market Jitters and IPO Planning

What a week! The stock market seemed to be doing its best imitation of a yo-yo, with hour-by-hour gyrations that made it harder than usual to predict in the morning whether it would end the day up or down. Pity any executive who is trying to plan for a public market debut later this year: Trying to guess where the market might be in six days, let alone six months, requires a strong stomach. For the record, the Nasdaq finished the week down from last Friday’s level.

It may be no coincidence that companies are no longer rushing to go public, a contrast to the situation just a few months ago. We reported this week, for instance, that Instacart is likely to wait until the fourth quarter for its public debut, which would be much later than expected. The grocery-delivery firm, whose business boomed during the pandemic, wants investors to have a sense of its growth in a post-pandemic era. For that reason, it wants the listing to occur several months after a majority of adults in the U.S. have been vaccinated.