When a company announces it’s IPO (initial public offering) to investor’s, there is always a certain amount of buzz created surrounding the situation. VMware has done this and will begin trading tomorrow under the symbol VMW at a price of $29.00 per share. This is potentially a good opportunity for investors.

Buying stock in a company when it first comes on the market is a lot like buying it at any other time. The stock will either go up, down, or stay the same price. The one benefit an IPO has over stocks that have been on the market for awhile is the excitement about them. The excitement and anticipation cause large amounts of people to want to buy the stock and demand often exceeds supply which drives the price up.

At the same time, purchasing stock in a company that has been on the market for a period of time gives the purchaser the advantage of seeing trends in the stock’s price and a little bit easier time trying to predict what is going to happen to the price in the future. Also, having been on the market for a period of time tends to eliminate huge intraday fluctuations and erratic ups and downs in the price.

At any rate, I am glad to see a company whose product has major usefulness for users of open source software get this type of publicity and be available as an investment opportunity.