Stocks enjoyed a robust rally on Monday—except for the two newest stocks to go public via direct listing, Palantir and Asana. For the fourth consecutive day, both stocks lost ground. Palantir is now down 5% from its close last Wednesday, while Asana is down 13%. Both are down much more from their highs on their opening day.
The weak performance of the two stocks isn’t a ringing endorsement of direct listings, at least for enterprise companies that aren’t household names. Because direct listings don’t involve the kind of marketing that occurs in an IPO, companies with high-profile brands have been seen as better candidates to go the direct listing route to the public market. There were hopes that Palantir and Asana could break the mold: The evidence suggests so far they couldn’t.
