Star technology company 宇树科技 recently disclosed the results of its IPO on the STAR Market, showing that 8,734 shares offered to the public were not taken up by online investors, while institutional investors did not abandon any shares. In contrast, another high-profile tech stock, 长鑫科技, which listed earlier, also faced a significant abandonment of shares on the order of millions, with the majority of those abandoned shares also coming from online investors.
The abandonment of these two star tech stocks has drawn widespread attention, as this year, no newly listed stocks on the A-share market have fallen below their issue price on their debut day, with average first-day gains exceeding 200%. Coupled with the high market enthusiasm for star tech stocks and low subscription rates, the situation where shares are "hard to come by" contrasts sharply with some investors choosing to abandon their subscriptions.
In my view, the abandonment of shares is simply a normal reflection of market divergence. It should neither be interpreted as a "bearish" signal nor used as a criterion for judging the quality of a new stock. In fact, star tech IPOs facing abandonment is not uncommon. Looking at past cases, most of those who abandon shares in star tech IPOs are online investors (primarily retail investors), while institutional investors are relatively less likely to do so.
One notable detail is that most retail investors do not actively choose to abandon their subscriptions. Specifically, retail investor abandonment typically falls into two scenarios: first, investors fail to check their winning bid information in time and miss the payment deadline; second, investors do not have sufficient funds in their accounts after winning the bid. These reasons are unrelated to investors' assessment of the company's fundamentals, meaning abandonment cannot be interpreted as investors being "bearish".
Star tech stocks attract higher market attention, leading to a larger pool of subscribers, which includes many retail investors unfamiliar with rules like payment procedures. This objectively amplifies the number of abandoned shares. For this reason, the absolute value of abandoned shares does not accurately reflect the quality of the stock. For example, 长鑫科技 had over 6 million shares abandoned online in absolute terms, but the overall abandonment rate was less than 0.1%.
Of course, it is possible that a small number of investors actively choose to abandon shares due to concerns about new stock pricing and industry uncertainty. Active abandonment may stem from doubts about the reasonableness of the issue price, or worries about the commercial viability of technology and industry cycle fluctuations. The existence of such divergence is precisely a sign of the maturity of the market pricing mechanism under the registration system.
The core principle of registration system reform is to return the pricing power of new stocks to the market, allowing prices to truly reflect the game between buyers and sellers. Since pricing arises from this game, some investors "voting with their feet" based on their own judgment is a normal part of the market mechanism. Even the hottest tech new stock must go through the price discovery process—high enthusiasm does not equate to a safety margin, and star status does not guarantee investment security.
The ability to show divergence during the issuance stage indicates that the market is functioning, and market pricing is not being swayed by one-sided sentiment. Abandonment is also a natural reflection of investor structure differentiation and improved pricing efficiency. Market-based pricing is not a one-time game, but a process of repeated bargaining and gradual convergence between buyers and sellers. Star tech stocks, due to their advanced technology and new business models, often lack valuation benchmarks. Thus, the occurrence of abandonment also reflects the differentiated choices made by different participants based on their own judgments during the price discovery process. This adjustment helps to curb the tendency toward inflated pricing and promotes more rational valuations for new stocks.
In short, the divergence seen in abandonment is an external manifestation of the market's self-correction under the registration system. Stock pricing is a continuous process of revision, and the value of star tech stocks should primarily be realized through long-term operations. This is an important sign of the A-share market's maturation.
Comments