Tech Stocks Tanking Ahead Of IPO Lock-Up Expiration

When a company goes public, it usually puts a lock-up agreement into place that prevents insiders from selling their stocks immediately after the IPO (90 – 180 days is typical), giving the price some time to settle and assuring investors that the market won’t be immediately inundated with shares. But as the lock-up expiration approaches the stock price tends to fall, and tech stocks are hit twice as hard as other sectors.

“On average, stocks traded down ahead of and through their IPO lock-up expiration; they rebounded modestly in the following month. Shares were weakest on average from -7 business days to +1b,” write Goldman Sachs analysts Robert D. Boroujerdi and John Marshall, who compared nearly 11,000 IPOs and...