Initial public offerings (IPOs) are the process companies use to tap the public stock markets for capital. These offerings usually involve early stage businesses that are looking for fresh fuel for growth; many are small opportunities, but the biggest IPOs can create mammoth returns for investors.
Consider if you invested $10,000 in the IPO of Amazon.com (AMZN) back in 1997. The e-commerce company's per-share offering price was $18. There have been multiple stock splits over the years, so if you held onto your original investment, you would now own 133,200 AMZN shares. What's more, the value of your investment would be roughly $32.5 million. That's more than enough for most folks to retire on.
