How 126 IPOs Listed: Listing-Day Gains Report, August to October 2026

Between 17 August and 12 October 2026, 126 IPOs that we track made their market debut: 54 on the mainboard and 72 on the SME platforms (50 on BSE SME and 22 on NSE Emerge). This report asks one plain question about them: where did each stock open on listing day compared with its issue price?

That is a different question from our earlier study on how accurate GMP is, which compared grey market quotes with listing prices. The grey market plays no part here. These are the listing outcomes themselves, counted and sorted.

How we measured it

• Issue price is the upper end of the price band. Where an issue was priced lower, or where employees or retail applicants got a discount, their actual gain would differ.
• Listing price is the opening price on listing day as recorded in our database, one figure per IPO.
• Listing gain = (listing price minus issue price) divided by issue price. A ₹100 issue that opens at ₹112 has a listing gain of 12%.
• Sample: our dataset held 129 records for this period. Three IPOs had been recorded twice under two names (Acevector and Snapdeal, Purple Style Labs and Pernia's Pop-up Studio, and two entries for Maharaja & Speedex India), so we merged them, leaving 126 distinct IPOs.
• We show medians as well as averages. A few very large openings pull the average up, and the median is a better picture of a typical listing.

The headline numbers

Three things stand out:

• The average is about six times the median. A typical IPO in this period opened just 2.7% above its issue price. The 16.4% average is lifted by a small group of very large openings. Anyone quoting "average listing gains" for this period would be describing an IPO that was not typical.
• Close to two in five did not open higher. 48 of the 126 (38.1%) opened at or below the issue price.
• The typical SME listing was flat. The SME median was 0.3%, and the middle half of SME listings opened between -0.5% and +12.9%. For mainboard listings the middle half ran from 0.0% to +29.3%.

The full spread

The two segments have different shapes. Mainboard listings spread out into the 10% to 50% range, where 22 of the 54 (40.7%) landed. SME listings bunch around zero: 44 of the 72 (61.1%) opened somewhere between -10% and +10%. Then the SME segment has a thin tail at both extremes, and that tail has a mechanical cause.

Why SME openings stop at +90% and -20%

Seven SME IPOs opened at exactly 90.0% above issue price, and an eighth (Sollfege Smart Electronics) at 89.8%. Five opened at exactly 20.0% below. That bunching is not a coincidence.

SME stocks open through a special pre-open call auction on listing day. NSE capped the opening price found in that auction at 90% above the issue price in a July 2024 circular, and a July 2025 circular (No. 93/2025) added a floor at 20% below the issue price. In our data the BSE SME listings stopped at the same two limits. Mainboard IPOs have no such band, which is why the single largest opening (+111.3%) and the single largest fall (-27.3%) in the whole sample were both mainboard issues.

SME IPOs that opened at the +90% cap:

SME IPOs that opened at the -20% floor: Sham Foam (₹130 to ₹104), Fascinate Textiles (₹151 to ₹120.80), Fly-Hi Maritime Travels (₹102 to ₹81.60), Pind Hospitality (₹99 to ₹79.20) and TNA Solutions (₹70 to ₹56).

For these twelve, the listing gain tells you where the auction limit sat, not the full extent of demand or supply. Prices were free to move further once normal trading began. It also means the SME averages above are squeezed at both ends; without the band, the SME spread would likely have been wider.

The biggest openings

Mainboard:

SME, below the cap: Qualiance International opened at ₹224.90 against an issue price of ₹127 (+77.1%), Technocrats Plasma Systems at ₹230 against ₹132 (+74.2%), and Kwick Forensic Solutions at ₹150 against ₹90 (+66.7%).

The weakest openings

Mainboard:

SME, above the floor: Himalayan Solar opened at ₹85 against ₹103 (-17.5%) and Dudani Retail at ₹25 against ₹29 (-13.8%), both on 5 October 2026.

Month by month

The mainboard median fell from 21.7% in the second half of August to 7.3% in September and 4.5% in early October. None of the 12 August mainboard listings opened below issue price; by early October, 11 of 34 listings across both segments did. The SME median stayed near zero throughout.

Read this table with care. The August and October groups are small (12 and 10 mainboard listings), October covers only twelve days, and listing results depend on the individual issues that happened to come to market in each window. The table describes what happened; it does not explain why, and it does not say what the next month will look like. Our companion study on subscription and listing gains looks at one factor that moved alongside these numbers.

What this does and does not show

This is a record of opening prices. It does not show what happened after the first trade. A stock can open strongly and fall through the day, or the reverse, and our follow-up study on prices 30 days after listing shows how far many of these stocks moved in the weeks that followed. For how the listing-day session itself works, see our IPO listing day guide, and for how the two segments differ in rules and risk, see SME IPO vs mainboard IPO.

Honest caveats

• Short window. About eight weeks of listings, in one market phase. A different two months could look quite different.
• Our coverage. These are the IPOs in our database. We aim to track every mainboard and SME issue, but a small SME issue could be missing. Three duplicate records were merged before any calculation.
• Issue price assumption. We use the upper end of the price band. Discounts to employees or retail applicants, where offered, are ignored.
• Recorded prices. Opening prices are as captured by us and may differ by a few paise from an exchange's official figure, or between NSE and BSE for dual-listed issues.
• The SME band. The +90% cap and -20% floor shape the SME numbers at both ends, as explained above.
• No forecast. Nothing here predicts how a future IPO will list.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice. GMP is unofficial and can change quickly. Read the RHP and consult a SEBI-registered adviser before investing.