Which IPO should you apply for?

Three things to look at

How much upside looks likely. This site rates each listing on how much room there seems to be between the offer price and where it might open. Treat it as a starting filter, not a forecast.

How suitable it is for a beginner. This reflects how easy the business is to understand and how much risk is involved. For a first application, something you can actually explain to yourself is worth more than something exciting.

How much money it needs. This varies enormously between listings. Check it before anything else — there is no point falling for a company you cannot afford to apply for.

Work out the money as price times 100

Applications are almost always in units of 100 shares, so the cash you need is the price per share multiplied by 100. An offer price of 1,000 yen means 100,000 yen; 3,000 yen means 300,000 yen.

Listings running in the same week can range from tens of thousands of yen to several hundred thousand. Starting with one at the lower end is sensible while you learn how the process feels.

Start with businesses you understand

Choosing a company whose business you can follow makes it far easier to judge the risk and the prospects. A familiar industry beats an impressive-sounding one you cannot picture.

If you use the service yourself, or know the sector, you can form your own view about whether it will grow. If you read the description and it means nothing to you, that is a reason for caution rather than a detail to skip past.

Applying for everything is a real strategy

Despite the framing of choosing, applying for every listing you can is a perfectly sound approach. Losing costs nothing, and more applications means more chances.

The constraint is money. At brokers that require funds upfront, the number of simultaneous applications is limited by your balance. That is when the three factors above become a way to set priorities rather than a way to choose one.

There will be another one

New listings appear almost every month. Passing on this one costs you very little, because the next opportunity is close behind. Applying for something you do not understand because it sounds popular is the mistake worth avoiding.

What to do now

Compare the listings currently open and see how much each one would require.