In a surprisingly strong year for initial public offerings globally, Japan’s 2020 market debutantes enjoyed their best opening share performances since the dot-com bubble era, helped by a groundswell of retail investors hungry for tech issues. The average initial pop for IPOs in the Japanese market this year was nearly 130%, the most since 1999. Image-recognition software maker Ficha Inc. came second with an 806% gain, followed by internet-of-things developer Tasuki Corp., which rose 655%. Stay-at-home tech plays and cloud computing upstarts especially found 2020 to be the perfect time to tap the public markets. Individuals accounted for 20% of total trading value on the Tokyo Stock Exchange this year, up from about 16% in 2019.

Source: Mint December 29, 2020 03:11 UTC