The IPO Market is Broken

I think this is such a sham analysis. I came away not understanding what the core tenet of the piece even was -- it seems that HFT is the villain.

What really drives the IPO market is (a) the business cycle -- i.e., how many new companies have been successful enough to attract demand for an IPO, and closely correlated with that, (b) equity multiples and relative valuations -- i.e., how attractive it is to sell equity at that point in time.

What the author doesn't mention, which is perhaps one of the real forces between a relatively smaller IPO pipe, is a significant change in regulation that makes it harder to be a public company. (Sarbox)

She also doesn't mention the enormous pools of capital available to the secondary market that provides liquidity well ahead of an IPO. It's no longer necessary to IPO for early investors / founders to get rich. See Evernote and Surveymonkey, among others.

Finally, she wants there to be more aftermarket support for company stock (presumably to fight off the evil high frequency traders making the market unstable) -- but that's exactly contra what an IPO does! You become a public company and you no longer control who your owners are. It's no coincidence that in many countries public companies are called "Anonymous Societies".

Anyway, if you can't tell, I really thought this article was BS and needed a place to vent.