People frequently ask me where I get my IPO information. For the most part, IPO information providers are in a narrow market. Despite this, there are many resources you can find on the Web. Let’s take a look at them.

For a subscription of $29 per month or $290 per year, you get various reports (which are emailed to you, as well as posted to the IPO Monitor site). First, you get the lowdown on New Issues, that is, those companies that have been priced by the underwriters and traded the previous day. Then there is the New Registration section, which shows those companies that have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This report shows those companies that probably will go public in the next week. The following information is provided for each company: location, ticker symbol, number of shares, estimated offering price, and a short description of the business.

This is a long list of companies that have already gone public. You will see what types of IPOs are hot and which ones are dogs. Besides getting these reports, you also have access to the Research Library. Basically, this is a huge database of information on IPOs. For each company, you can see the following: description of the business (which is quite comprehensive), underwriters, number of shares offered, estimated offering price, names of the officers, balance sheet, income statement, and stock performance (if the company has already gone public).

Some parts of the site, though, are free. For example, you can get a list of how various underwriters’ IPOs have performed. The top is Montgomery Securities, with a 61.5 percent increase.

I use the IPO Monitor service quite heavily when researching my IPO articles.

At this site, you can download cool software tools that analyze IPOs. So far, these tools are free and in the beta stage, although the company eventually plans on charging a fee.

Hoover’s Online and Edgar Online both created IPO Central. Basically, much of the site is free. However, if you want to get more detailed information, you can purchase information from Hoover’s Online or Edgar Online.

Here are the following sections to IPO Central:

* Find an IPO: Conduct a search on an IPO using company name, keyword, underwriter, or state.

* Latest Filings/IPOs in Registration: Updated daily, this shows which companies have filed to go public.

* This Week’s Scheduled Pricings: Here you will find the estimated price and trading date of IPOs for the upcoming week.

* Withdrawals and Postponements: These are companies that have either delayed or pulled their offering.

* IPO Close-Up: Every week, you get commentary on an IPO candidate.

* Destinations: These are links to the myriad IPO sites.

* Beginner’s Guide: You’ll find links to articles to help you understand the IPO market.

Like other IPO sites, IPO Data offers free information, although not very much. First of all, you can get profiles on IPOs for 1997. You will see a company’s address, industry, offering and filing terms, underwriters, financials, business description, and use of offering proceeds. The other two free services include a listing of direct public offerings, which are small companies going public without using an underwriter, and an Online Brokerage Link page (basically, this is a list of discount brokers).

You have three options to pay for the subscription: a monthly rate of $15 per year (for a total of $180), a quarterly rate of $30 (for a total of $120), and an annual rate of $100.

Premium services include:

* Filings/Offerings: You’ll see every one for each week.

* Pipeline: These are the offerings for the upcoming week.

* IPO Database: Offers access to more than 3,000 company profiles from 1994 to 1997.

* Top IPOs: Shows the highest-performing IPOs.

* Lead Manager Rankings: You can see the number of issues and total dollar amounts for each lead underwriter for the past four years.

This site is absolutely amazing. You can easily keep track of your portfolio using this technology. What’s more, Yahoo has up-to-the-minute stories on IPOs. I go here constantly. Click http://quote.yahoo.com/ and the go to US IPOs. This is a definite bookmark. Also on this site, you can click Internet Stock Report. This is the daily commentary of Steve Harmon, the insightful senior investment analyst for Mecklermedia.

DBC.com is a comprehensive financial site and, of course, provides lots of coverage of IPOs. In fact, DBC has someone who focuses exclusively on IPO commentary. His name is Darren Chervitz and he provides incisive analysis, typically of high-tech IPOs. Actually, DBC uses much of IPO Monitor’s data, such as for recent filings and after-market performance. There is also a good IPO Links section.

Like Yahoo, the IPO Maven provides current market coverage of IPOs. You’ll also find lists of the most recent IPO filings and pricings, which can even be sent to you free via E-mail. A great feature is CEO Talk. As the name implies, these are interviews with small public companies.