I used to daytrade IPOs like crazy during the 2006-2008 period. From what I read from the many IPO boards that I participated, you need to have an account with

I used to daytrade IPOs like crazy during the 2006-2008 period. From what I read from the many IPO boards that I participated, you need to have an account with the underwriters of the IPO in order to get allocation. Usually, these premium accounts have higher fee and your balance must be above some amount ($50k-$100k). When there's an IPO you can ask for shares, and the underwriters use this information to gauge how hot the IPO is and adjust the offer price. When they allocate you shares, you can decide to take it or not. Some people say they rank you based on how often you fulfill your promise, so if you always ask for shares but seldom buy you won't get allocations for hot IPO. I don't have these types of accounts so I never get pre-IPO allocation, but what I did on IPO day was continuously refreshing the page to catch when it's first open (IPO usually open b/w 10am-12:00). You can almost always buy at lower price than the offer price within the first 15 minutes. Most IPOs (~80%) close lower than the offer price on the first day, and they continue to go down after that, you don't want to touch these. The remaining 20% are hot, and you know they're hot b/c the underwriters keep bumping the offer price up. I only played these and for very short term, from only a few minutes to a few days. I'd time when the price starts bouncing back after the first 15 minutes, probably b/c more people realizing the stock is opened to the public and buy in, and buy 300-400 shares. After about 20 minutes of insane rising, the price will start to level out. At this point, I'd sell half of the shares to lock in the profit (~5% gain). I'd keep the rest for the next day, if the stock closes lower than open price then it shows weakness, I'd get out and never look at it again. If it's higher, I'd keep it for 2-3 more days. With this strategy I was able to make a lot more than my day job. There used to be 7-8 IPOs every week, and a couple of those are hot so I was able to test this strategy for awhile. There were weeks that I made 20% on a position just over a few days (if I remember correctly the IPO was STV). There haven't been a lot IPOs since then and I haven't followed the market lately. May be it's time to start watching again.