It was tale of two different initial public offering outcomes on public markets today as financial technology startup Upstart Holdings Inc. boomed on its debut while e-commerce firm Wish’s parent company ContextLogic Inc. bombed.

Upstart, which offers a lending platform that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to price credit and automate the borrowing process, debuted on the Nasdaq at $20 per share, coming in at the lower end of the company’s expected range.

Investors liked what they saw, with the company’s stock closing at $29.47 per share, up 47.35%. Support continued in after-hours trading as Upstart’s stock rose nearly 3% more.

Wish, best known for selling cheap knock-off products, did not find a willing audience. Shares in ContextLogic went public at $24 per share and dropped on debut to $22.75 per share. Things didn’t improve through regular trading as shares fell more than 16%, to $20.05.

Bloomberg reported that ContextLogic was the 31st company on a U.S. exchange to exceed $1 billion in an initial public offering this year and scored the worst debut of that group. By comparison, Airbnb Inc. surged 113% on its first day of trading Dec. 10, while DoorDash Inc. share price jumped 86% on Dec. 9.

Officially ContextLogic is spinning the poor result: Chief Executive Officer Peter Szulczewski told Bloomberg TV that market volatility should be expected in the first few days of weeks and trading and that the company’s debut. “We’re very much focused on the longer term,” Szulczewski said. “If we just focus on that, in the long run, the markets will reward us.”

One theory for Wish’s poor debut is that investors may have been concerned with the sustainability of strong IPO debuts. Kathleen Smith, principal and manager of IPO exchange traded funds at Renaissance Capital, told Bloomberg that shares in both DoorDash and Airbnb have fallen this week, teaching investors a lesson about buying at the open.

Airbnb stock rose nearly 11% today, but its closing price of $137.99 is below its first-day closing price of $144.71. Likewise, DoorDash is trading significantly lower than its first-day closing price of $189.51, sitting at $158.05 as of the close of regular trading.

The mixed reactions to the Upstart and Wish IPOs come as public offerings slow to a trickle at the end of 2020. Whether it’s a sign of things to come in 2021 is yet to be seen. Between the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and a change of government in the U.S. in January, volatility in equities markets may well be ahead.

Photo: Unsplash