That was almost as many IPOs that were priced in the previous two years combined. (In all of 2003, a total of 84 IPOs were priced, and in all of 2002, 85 IPOs got done.)

But more impressive was the aftermarket performance of the Graduating Class of 2004. (For the calculations of the aftermarket performances, unit offerings are excluded. In 2004, three unit offerings have been priced, which reduces the number to 155 IPOs.)

Here’s what the 2004 IPO Scorecard looked like for the year to date, as of the market’s close on Friday, Oct. 1, 2004:

* IPOs priced: 155
* IPOs closed ABOVE their IPO prices: 103
* IPOs closed BELOW their IPO prices: 2
* Average aftermarket performance: up 15.5 percent
* Nasdaq Composite Index: DOWN 3.05 percent

The Nasdaq Composite Index is used as the barometer of the IPO market. Many of the companies going public are in the technology field, like many of the stocks in the Nasdaq Composite. And about 75 percent of the IPOs are traded on the Nasdaq.

The best and the worst of the 2004 IPO market are listed below.

The Hero:
JED Oil (JDO: chart) is a Canadian-based oil and natural gas company. JED Oil priced 1.5 million shares at $5.50 each on April 5, 2004. The stock closed Friday at $12.74 a share, up 131.6 percent from its IPO price.

The Goat:
Staktek Holdings (STAK: chart) is an Austin, Texas-based provider of high-density packaged memory stacking solutions for workstations, high-end computing platforms and networking equipment. Staktek Holdings priced 10 million shares at $13 each on Feb. 5, 2004. The stock closed Friday at $3.77 a share, down 71 percent from its IPO price.

Since May, 2004’s IPOs have greatly outperformed the Nasdaq Composite. Consider the aftermarket performance of the last 101 companies to have gone public, which date back to May 12, 2004, and the performance of the Nasdaq Composite Index over the same time span.

Here’s what the scorecard looked like, as of Friday, Oct. 1, 2004:

* IPOs priced: 101
* IPOs closed ABOVE their IPO prices: 79
* IPOs closed BELOW their IPO prices: 22
* Average aftermarket performance: up 20.9 percent
* Nasdaq Composite Index (Closed at 1,925.59 on May 12, 2004): up 0.89 percent

But last week’s new-issue traffic turned out to be Wall Street’s reprise of that classic Bogey and Bacall movie, “To Have and Have Not.”

The Haves
Two of the nine IPOs were priced ABOVE their initial filing ranges. They were JAMDAT Mobile (JMDT: chart), a wireless entertainment provider, and 51job (JOBS: chart), a Shanghai-based recruitment firm.

JAMDAT Mobile priced 5.5 million shares at $16 each on Sept. 28, 2004. That was above its filing range of 5.25 million shares at $13 to $15 each. The IPO opened at $22.50 a share the next day. It sold at the day’s high of $24.32 a share before closing at $22.51 a share, up 40.7 percent from its IPO price.

51job priced 5.25 million shares at $14 each on Sept. 28, 2004. That was above its filing range of $11 to $13 a share. The IPO opened at $18.98 a share the next day. It sold at the day’s high of $22.90 a share before closing at $21.15 a share, up 51.7 percent from its IPO price.

The average opening-day gain for those two IPOs was 45.5 percent.

The Have-Nots:
The other seven IPOs, or the “have-nots,” more or less struggled in the aftermarket. Three finished their opening day above their offering prices, two were unchanged and the other two closed below their initial offering prices.

The average opening-day gain for those seven IPOs was up 1.2 percent.

Nevertheless, nine deals were priced last week.

This week, which marks the first full week of October, bankers plan to price another 19 IPOs.