2018 ASX IPOs are doing much better two years on

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On an annual basis, 2018 wasn’t a particularly great year for ASX IPOs, with most finishing the year lower than where they started. But the tide appears to have turned and the past two years have been better for ASX debutantes.

Both 2019 and 2020 have been solid years for the IPO market.

But a large chunk of 2018 ASX IPOs finished the year in the red and the average drop was 16 per cent.

Fast forward to today and the average float has gained 22 per cent. A number of stocks have witnessed a reversal of fortunes in the last two years.

Here’s a list of 2018 ASX IPOs and their performance:

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

The top ASX IPO performance at 2018’s end was Adriatic Metals (ASX:ADT) with a 185 per cent gain.

Now, it is still on top and has widened its gain to over 1,000 per cent.

The company is a precious and base metals explorer and one of few with projects in Bosnia. It was recently granted environmental approval for the project and metallurgical test work has shown promising results.

On top of all this, it has ridden the hype following the silver price breakout in 2020.

Explorer Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL), known as Koppar Resources in 2018, was only 15 per cent higher, but is now up 500 per cent. It pivoted from a copper-zinc project in Norway to a lithium project in Germany and has never looked back.

Former Tesla director Jochen Rudat recently joined the team and the company has progressed a feasibility study on its project.

In second spot is diagnostic imaging provider EMvision (ASX:EMV), which was only up 22 per cent at Christmas 2018 but is now up over 900 per cent following solid clinical trial results.

On the flipside, one of the biggest losers in 2018 was meal kit deliverer Marley Spoon (ASX:MMM), which plunged 70 per cent off the back of profitability concerns.

But COVID-19 led to a reversal of fortunes and it is now up 96 per cent with restaurant-less consumers relying on Marley Spoon.

Cybersecurity stock Archtis (ASX:AR9) traded flat for several months but has surged since COVID-19 in conjunction with the broader sector.

The largest IPO of the year, Coles (ASX:COL), sat 7 per cent lower at the end of 2018 but is now up 33 per cent.

The losers

However, not all of 2018’s ASX debutantes find themselves better off than where they started.

Elixinol Global (ASX:EXL) listed at $1 and climbed as high as $4.50 in 2019 but now sits at just 15c, becoming one of the biggest victims of the cannabis crash.

Cannabis stocks ran hot in 2016 and 2017, particularly IPOs, but many fell in 2018 and 2019 as the sectors’ maturity ran slower than investors would have liked.

Dreamworld owner Ardent Leisure (ASX:ALG) sat on a modest 6 per cent gain having restructured and re-listed following the 2016 accident at its Gold Coast theme park. But with travel and tourism wiped out during COVID-19, it is now down more than 60 per cent down.

Airport transfer booking service Jayride (ASX:JAY) has also found itself a victim of the pandemic. While it ended 2018 flat, it has since shed over 60 per cent of its value – much of that in early 2020.

The biggest loser was Westfield-backed retail tech OnMarket (ASX:OMN), which delisted from the ASX at the end of 2019.

The Lowy family tried to find a buyer for the cash-burning business but having failed, opted to wind it up.

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