This is uncharacteristically poor journalism from the Economist. The graph shows excepting 2009 and 2016 there has been effectively no significant downturn, whereas the title suggests an order of magnitude change in the last two years.
> When the pandemic hit in March, initial public offerings, particularly those by technology startups, were predicted to be among the early victims. After all, who wants to go public in a once-in-a-century crisis? Quite a few people, it turns out. In the past couple of months ipos, which all but dried up until late May, have come back with a vengeance in America
And then presents a graph comparing YTD with previous years, showing more IPOs in 2020 YTD than any point in the last 15 years, with tech company IPOs in (eyeballed) the top quartile of the last 15 years.
I read this article as claiming:
1) The prediction was that IPOs would go down; they are not (any more).
2) IPO volume for YTD is historically strong, though not at '90s dot-com boom levels. (I'd have preferred their IPO volume chart to go back 25 years so that it showed the build-up to 1999, but that's a different complaint I think.)
Where are you getting the suggestion of an order of magnitude change?