9 December 1999: VA Linux soars nearly 700 percent on day one
VA Linux Systems, a maker of computers running the free Linux operating system, went public at $30 a share and closed its first day near $240, a gain of nearly 700 percent, a first-day record. It was peak dot-com mania. Within a couple of years, the shares traded for around a dollar as the bubble burst. The company had sales, but nothing close to justifying its first-day valuation.
The lesson: A record first-day gain usually means the IPO buyers paid the dream price.
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
Play Sixty-40