IPO Arc: the rise and fall after listingIPO Arc

WLTH

AccumulationTechnology

WEALTHFRONT CORP · NASDAQ Global Select · priced Dec 12, 2025 · $485M raised · Over $250M

Offer price
$14.00
Day 1
-0.4%
close vs offer
Peak
-0.4%
trading day 1
Now vs offer
-24.6%
$10.56 on Oct 29, 2026
Off peak
-48.4%
peak to subsequent low
Lock-up expiry
Jun 10, 2026
142d ago · from prospectus

Price since listing

  • Hype
  • Distribution
  • Lock-up window
  • Valley
  • Accumulation
  • Recovery

Volume bars are coloured by lifecycle phase. Markers: lock-up and early release (orange), earnings releases (E), follow-on offerings (F), research signals (rule id and signal; arrow up = buy signal, arrow down = sell or short signal, or sell signal for deals under $50M). Current phase: Accumulation.

Performance since the IPO

  • WLTH
  • S&P 500 (SPY)
  • Typical IPO over $250m
  • Middle 50% of those IPOs

WLTH measured from its offer price; S&P 500 from the first trading day. The typical-IPO line is the median of 340 over $250m IPOs from 2014–2025, by trading day.

Company

Wealthfront Corporation is a privately owned investment manager. It primarily provides its services to individuals. It also caters to high net worth individuals, charitable organizations, and corporations. The firm invests in the public equity and fixed income funds. It also invests in mutual funds and exchange traded funds. It conducts in-house research to make its investments. Wealthfront Corporation was formerly k…

Sector
Technology
Industry
Software - Application
Country
United States
Employees
415
Market cap
$1.6B

From the prospectus

Lock-up
180 days
Early release on earnings
Yes
Price-based early release
at 125% of offer
Staggered release
Yes
Float sold in IPO
24%
Locked shares per share sold
3.2×
Backed by
Venture capital
Lead underwriters
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Dual-class shares
No
Controlled company
No
Foreign private issuer
No

Early-release terms: The Lock-up Period ends at the earlier of (i) the opening of trading on the second trading day after the release of earnings for the fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2026, or (ii) 180 days after the prospectus date. Separately, Eligible Release Parties (holders who are not Section 16 directors or officers as of the Initial Earnings Release, plus specified Index Ventures entities) may sell part of their holdings early. This requires that, after the Initial Earnings Release for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2026, the closing price exceeds 125% of the IPO price on at least 5 trading days of a 10-consecutive-trading-day period, at least one of them after that release, and that the sale date falls in an open trading window. The amount is 20% of holdings for Service Providers, 10% for Selling Preferred Holders and 5% for other eligible holders, about 12.0 million shares in total.

Extracted from the final prospectus on SEC EDGAR.

Returns vs offer, compared with 135 IPOs over $250m

HorizonWLTHPeer medianPeers below offer
Day 1-0.4%+12.8%24% n=135
Day 20-25.2%+11.6%30% n=133
Day 60-43.7%+6.3%47% n=129
Day 120-39.9%-4.6%54% n=106
Day 180-35.6%-4.1%52% n=89

Research signals

  • BuyRule T1: buy signal for 60 sessions
    May 12, 2026 · Pre-unlock quality
    Past signals (642, deals of $50M and over): rose 47% · median -2.6% · dropped 25%+ during the hold 35%
    backtest

    Buy signals passed on returns relative to IPOs of the same year, size and age, most of which fall after listing. A buy signal can beat its peers and still lose money.

  • BuyRule RL: buy signal for 60 sessions
    May 12, 2026 · Pre-unlock risk tier
    Past signals (329, deals of $50M and over): rose 54% · median +1.3% · dropped 25%+ during the hold 22%
    backtest

    Buy signals passed on returns relative to IPOs of the same year, size and age, most of which fall after listing. A buy signal can beat its peers and still lose money.

  • Sell or shortRule E1: sell or short signal for 60 sessions
    Jan 13, 2026 · Weak earnings reaction
    Past signals (186, deals of $50M and over): fell 70% · median -13.6% · rallied 25%+ during the hold 33%
    backtest

    Short-selling risk: losses on a short position have no limit and can exceed the amount put up; brokers can demand more margin, recall borrowed shares or close the position; borrow fees and any dividends are owed while short and are not in the figures shown; recent IPOs are often hard to borrow and prone to squeezes.

Rules frozen as v1; signals dated from Oct 29, 2026 are live, earlier ones show what the frozen rules would have flagged. See methodology.

The rules run independently, so one IPO can carry buy and sell signals at the same time; each label reports only its own rule's history.

Past figures cover all 4,312 signals the published frozen v1 rules produce on 2014–2025 IPOs, close to close over each signal's holding period. Returns start at the close of the signal session; signals are published after that close, so the first price available to a reader is the next session's. Only 1,192 of 2,368 operating-company IPOs from those years have usable Yahoo Finance price data; most of the rest no longer trade under their IPO ticker (delisted, acquired or renamed), so the figures probably understate declines. These are hypothetical results, not trades: the rules were selected on these same years with the benefit of hindsight, so the figures likely overstate what live signals will do. The live track record is the real test. Trading costs and borrow fees are not included. Past results do not predict future results.

Research signals only, not investment advice. Lock-up terms come from prospectuses; prices from Yahoo Finance and may be delayed or wrong.