Gary Poster, with essential assists from Galyn Norwood, Phiroon Phihakendr, Jose Quijada, Pavandeep Kalra. Many of the items listed above will be in the offering prospectus, but good luck finding them quickly or understanding the business babble in which the information is couched. Prospectuses are often 50 to 80 arcane pages that require the skills of an accountant and a lawyer to decipher.
Prospectuses are also really scary.
To avoid lawsuits from disgruntled shareholders, companies tend to list in exquisite detail every possible thing that could go wrong with their business. When you are done with the document, you may wonder why anyone would even think of buying the shares. Search the World Wide Web for reports from outside analysts and compare these with your broker's. Regardless of how promising a company on the public launch pad may be, this does you no good if too few investors agree, impeding the stock's performance, or if too many agree too soon, escalating its opening price to the point where there's little room for share-price growth. Of course, when your broker makes good on your quid pro quo arrangement and calls you with a recommended IPO, there is no price, only an expected range.