Looking back at 2010, the IPO market was pretty subdued compared to the boom years. You'd normally see 300-400 new companies going public, but that year barely cracked 100 deals. Market uncertainty was everywhere, so a lot of companies that had their IPO in 2010 actually ended up being pulled by their bankers before they could list. But here's the thing - despite those rough conditions, some of the companies that had their IPO in 2010 turned out to be absolute monsters. We're talking +50%, +100%, even +200% gains from their offering prices.

What struck me most was how differently these IPOs behaved compared to the dot-com days. Back then, hot IPOs would pop on day one. But the companies that had their IPO in 2010 did something different - almost all of them came out flat and only started moving weeks or months later. That changes how you should think about chasing IPOs. Forget calling your broker on day one. Better to wait and actually study what you're buying once it's trading.

Take Motricity. Solid mobile software play, right? I had it at $7.50 and thought $10 was reasonable. But momentum traders pushed it to $17 and treated it like a high-growth stock. Problem is, sales growth was maybe +30% for 2011, and the market itself was already mature. Same energy with Molycorp - the rare earth story got people excited after China announced export limits, but they missed the obvious: rare earth deposits exist everywhere, they're just not mined because China was cheap. Once China changed policy, mines in Australia and Mongolia would just come back online. Yet investors valued the company at $2.5 billion with no revenue expected until 2012 or 2013.

Qlik Technologies doubled from its June debut and looked expensive at 60 times forward earnings. But dig into the numbers and you see sales growth was already slowing before the IPO, would slow more after, and eventually plateau at +22%. This wasn't some emerging growth story - it was just big enough to go public.

Some of these companies that had their IPO in 2010 only made sense if you believed in long-term tailwinds. China Lodging looked absurdly pricey at 50 times 2011 earnings, but that was betting on years of Chinese travel market growth. HiSoft was the same play on Chinese IT development. Both would crater if China hit any bumps.

Out of the whole list, Jinko Solar actually looked reasonably priced even after a +250% run. Trading at 7x forward earnings while other solar stocks had gotten way more expensive. That was the one that actually looked like it had room to run. Everything else looked ready for a serious pullback once the momentum crowd got bored and moved on.