Momentum strategies based on continuations in stock prices have become increas-ingly popular among academics, money managers, and investors in recent years. While there is little controversy on the profitability of momentum strategies, their implementation is afflicted with many difficulties....

Based on a sample of 7,378 firms going public in the 1975-2005 period, we document a significant underperformance of IPO firms over the first year after going public, while there is virtually no underperformance thereafter. Moreover, by decomposing the Carhart-alpha we find that IPO...