Here's What Happened After the 5 Biggest IPOs in Stock Market History

2 hours ago 4

Johnny Rice, The Motley Fool

Wed, May 13, 2026 astatine 11:50 AM CDT 3 min read

With SpaceX targeting a $2 trillion valuation astatine its IPO this summertime and raising $75 cardinal successful the process, it volition beryllium by acold the largest nationalist debut successful marketplace history.

So it's worthy considering what happened erstwhile companies acceptable IPO records successful the past. Did the erstwhile 5 largest IPOs reward Day 1 shareholders?

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How the 5 biggest IPOs successful past person performed

Let's look astatine the largest IPOs successful caller past (when adjusted for inflation). The array beneath shows the returns for those 5 names: Saudi Aramco, NTT DoCoMo, Alibaba, Enel, and Visa (NYSE: V).

Company

Year

Capital Raised
(2026 Dollars)

3-Month
Return

1-Year
Return

5-Year
Return

IPO to
Today

Saudi Aramco

2019

$38 billion

(21%)

(5%)

(21%)

(9%)

NTT DoCoMo

1998

$37 billion

19%

(11%)

(51%)

150%*

Enel

1999

$37 billion

(5%)

3%

5%

57%

Alibaba

2014

$35 billion

20%

(37%)

88%

48%

Visa

2008

$28 billion

14%

(18%)

146%

1,912%

Data source: author's research. Note: NTT DoCoMo was taken backstage successful 2020.

A beauteous wide signifier emerges. While galore find occurrence close retired of the gate, astir each spell connected to underperform.

The lone institution to crush the marketplace was Visa; Saudi Aramco is really down since its debut, and the remaining 3 -- Enel, NTT DoCoMo -- failed to support gait with the marketplace by a wide margin.

And that's contempt being large companies. None of these companies is simply a atrocious business; rather, the expectations acceptable astatine their IPOs were unrealistic.

Red numbers connected  a screen.

Image source: Getty Images

What this means for SpaceX's IPO

The signifier successful the array isn't that large IPOs are scams, but that maximum hype tends to coincide with maximum valuation, and maximum valuation isn't the champion spot to compound from, leaving small country for mistake oregon unforeseen circumstances.

A $2 trillion IPO terms tag would mean SpaceX launches astatine astir Aramco's existent valuation portion generating less than 15% of Aramco's revenue. That's a full batch of aboriginal maturation already baked in.

If SpaceX prices anyplace adjacent $2 trillion, past says waiting done the post-IPO drawdown is the amended determination for investors intent connected owning SpaceX shares. Of course, patterns aren't prescriptions, and it's wholly imaginable that SpaceX behaves arsenic an outlier, similar Visa. It's conscionable important to beryllium clear-eyed astir conscionable however monolithic the company's valuation volition beryllium astatine the IPO and what that mightiness mean for the stock.

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