"Tonight I'm gonna party like its 1999." - Prince, 1999

That door you hear opening is the technology IPO...

The NASDAQ is up 6% this year and up 32% from its March 9th low. Earnings are generally coming in ahead of expectations. And then this: A software company IPO!  Rosetta Stone Software (NASDAQ:RST) was priced in the $15-18 range and finished its first day of trading yesterday at $25. Not only did we have the first technology IPO in 9 months in North America, it finished the day up almost 50%!

I don't think we are about to have a stampede of offerings, but there has been one hell of a pile up of filed companies not getting favorable conditions to do their IPO.  They should start to test the waters in the coming weeks.  If a few of these "shelved" IPOs find a favourable market, some returns will finally come into the VC coffers and we could see this frozen tundra of a capital market start to thaw.

On the other hand, there is something called a dead cat bounce...