There's a wave of initial public offerings building before the summer slowdown.
Following the six IPOs that priced on Wednesday, three more priced overnight; all three increased their share sizes. Two of them are biotech, which has returned in a big way after a quiet period.
The big IPO of the week, financial service's provider Markit up-sized its IPO, pricing 53.5 million shares (above the 45.7 million shares expected) at $24, the midpoint of the price talk range of $23–$25.
That's a healthy $1.28 billion raised, making it the fifth largest IPO of the year after IMS Health's $1.3 billion deal.
Ardelyx, which specializes in gastrointestinal diseases, priced 4.3 million shares (above the 3.6 million expected) at $14, the midpoint of the $13–$15 price talk. Separately, Zafgen, which focuses on obesity, priced 6 million shares (above the 5 million shares expected) at $16 — the high end of the $14–$16 price talk.
Next week will be one for the record books: 16 IPOs are expected to raise roughly $2.8 billion. Only two other weeks since 2000 have seen such levels, according to Renaissance Capital: there were 17 deals the week of 12/11/06, and a similar level in the week of 12/13/04. During the last IPO tsunami, in 2000, there were weeks where there were 26–27 IPOs.
Big deals next week include ServiceMaster's $700 million NYSE IPO (think Terminix--termite and pest control, janitorial services, home inspections, residential cleaning, furniture repair); GoPro's $410 million NASDAQ IPO, scheduled to price Wednesday night for Thursday trading; and arts and crafts specialist Michaels $500 million NASDAQ IPO scheduled to price Thursday night for Friday's trade.
Elsewhere, the Intercontinental Exchange is spinning off Euronext, as promised, in an IPO tomorrow. Euronext is the pan-European exchanges in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon. The institutional order book will close today and should price tonight. The stock is expected to begin trading on Friday on the Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels exchanges under the symbol "ENX."
--By CNBC's Bob Pisani