125 initial public offerings have been priced so far this year. A total of 12 IPOs priced and 6 new filed the week of August 1st, 2005. Of the last 50 IPOs 32 are currently trading up, 9 are down and 9 are trading flat with their offer price.

There are 14 deals scheduled to price this week, hoping to raise about $8 billion.

Baidu.com's debut gain of 354% ranks 18th in IPO history and also marks the strongest ever performance of an overseas offering. To track such skyrocketing performances in the IPO market, we must turn back to the dot-com boom of 1998-2000. All of the other top 20 performances again date back to the period between 1998 and 2000.

IPO PERFORMANCE – Advancers and Decliners

Advancers

In one of the most expected IPOs of the year, China's leading Web search engine Baidu.com (BIDU: chart) priced 4.04 million American Depositary Shares at $27 per share, above a previously revised range of $23 - $25 on Wednesday, due to a strong demand. The company had originally planned to sell 3.7 million ADS within a price range of $19 - $21.

Goldman Sachs, CS First Boston and Piper Jaffray were the underwriters on the deal. The company sold 3.21 million shares and the selling shareholders offered 831.7 thousand shares.

Comparisons between the Beijing-based company and world search leader Google Inc. had sparked strong interest in the offering. Google paid $5 million for 2.6% of the company and competes directly with its own site in China.

Microsoft and Yahoo are also working on similar search engines for the Chinese market. According to the current valuations, the market is expecting the company to outperform Google in the coming years.

Google is trading at 87 times its 2005 earnings and other Chinese portals Sina.com and Sohu.com are trading at 27 times their 2005 earnings.

Five-year-old Baidu, whose name comes from an ancient Chinese love poem, is the clear leader in China's search market that was worth about $150 million last year but is forecast to grow rapidly in the next few years.

Founded by two American-educated Chinese engineers, Eric Xu and Robin Li, the Chinese search engine company is the most visited search engine site in China.

Baidu’s shares gained 354.8% to close at $122.54 per share on Friday.

Chip designer Advanced Analogic Technologies (AATI: chart), priced its offering of 10.6 million shares at $10, above its proposed $8.50-$9.50 range, raising $106 million. AnalogicTech offered 9 million shares, and selling stockholders sold the remaining 1.6 million shares of common stock.

The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase additional 1.6 million shares to cover over-allotments. Morgan Stanley managed the deal assisted by Merrill Lynch, Piper Jaffray, SG Cowen and Thomas Weisel.

The company generated $1.63 per share earnings in 2004.

Shares of the company gained 15.5% in market debut on Thursday. AnalogicTech’s stock closed at $11.10 on Friday, up 11% from its IPO price.

Medical device company AtriCure Inc. (ATRC: chart) priced its offering of 4 million shares at $12, the low end of its proposed $12-$14 price range. UBS Investment Bank and Piper Jaffray were the lead managers on the deal. The company has grown from less than $2 million in revenue in 2002 to $20 million in 2004. The company lost $1.36 per share in 2004.

The company’s shares closed at $14.08 on Friday, up 17.3% from the IPO price.

Unica Corporation (UNCA: chart), a software provider, priced 4.8million shares at $10, the mid-point of its originally proposed range. Deutsche Bank and Wachovia Securities acted as lead managers on the deal.

3.75 million shares were offered by the company and 1.05 million shares were sold by stockholders. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to 720 thousand additional shares to cover over-allotments.