Good news and bad news about the latest big IPO

Last month, we said that NGM Biopharmaceuticals’ pending IPO would offer “a springtime referendum on investor sentiment.” Using that rubric, NGM’s actual IPO results this week suggest investors are of two minds.

On the one hand, NGM priced its shares at the top of its expected range and raised more than $100 million at a valuation that exceeded $1 billion, which is positive. On the other, NGM’s IPO immediately broke the offering price on Thursday and closed more than 8 percent below where it started, which is negative.

Meanwhile, the nine biotech companies that have gone public in the shutdown-truncated 2019 window are still faring well, up 6% on average and about 12% at the median.