SpaceX debut draws a crowd, but few recent hot IPOs outpace the market

Wall Street is abuzz with next month’s expected blockbuster debut of Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker SpaceX, but few of the biggest IPOs in recent years have paid off for investors who bought in when the deals came to market.

A Reuters analysis of the 50 IPOs with the highest valuations in ​the past five years shows that investors would have been better off buying an S&P 500 index fund about three-quarters of the time. The data underscores the difficulty of finding bargains among companies whose valuations have often surged long before the stock’s debut.