Biometric ring maker Oura postponed its initial public offering Tuesday, the seventh company to delay or withdraw a listing in the third quarter as rising bond yields chill demand for new stock.
The company blamed "uncertainty" in market conditions while simultaneously claiming "strong demand" for its shares — a contradiction that drew skepticism on Wall Street.
Oura's move capped a brutal week for IPO hopefuls. Nuclear power component maker Holtec Nuclear withdrew its offering outright last Friday. Materials company Amaero postponed Wednesday, and Bamboo Insurance pushed back its listing on Sept. 22.
All four companies aimed to raise at least $50 million, according to data from Renaissance Capital. The third-quarter total of seven postponements or withdrawals is up from four in the second quarter and three in the first.
"The fact that we've had three or four in a row — a string of postponements — I think that does tell you something about the market," Matthew Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, told CNBC. "You can't really point to all four of them and say it's company-specific issues."
The delays span different sectors, strengthening the case that market conditions, not weak individual businesses, are driving the pullback. Surging bond yields have made fixed-income investments more attractive relative to the risk of buying newly public stocks.
"I've got a little bit of sympathy for market conditions as a rationale," said Jay Ritter, director of the IPO Initiative at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business. "The fact that three prominent companies are doing this does indicate that it's not company-specific."
The broader IPO market has still posted a solid year. Roughly $146.9 billion in proceeds have been raised across 110 deals, though the recent wave of postponements suggests momentum is fading heading into the fourth quarter.
For companies weighing a fall debut, the calculus has shifted. Rising yields raise the bar for what a new stock must offer investors, and issuers that miss that bar risk a weak first day of trading.
Oura's decision to cite both uncertainty and strong demand raised questions about whether the company faced valuation pushback from institutional investors. The company did not set a new timeline for its offering.
Whether the streak continues will depend largely on where bond yields head next. For now, the IPO window that looked open earlier this year is narrowing fast.
