Nasdaq IPO New Regulations Upgraded: SEC Grants Stricter Approval Authority, Small-scale Financing Projects Face Higher Thresholds

【BlockBeats】 Recently, the IPO approval authority of the Nasdaq exchange has been upgraded again. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has newly approved a set of rules that give Nasdaq greater discretion in approving listing applications — allowing it to directly reject projects with manipulation risks.

Specifically, the new regulation permits Nasdaq to say no in these cases: the company’s business location does not cooperate with U.S. regulatory investigations; involved underwriters, brokers, lawyers, or audit firms have problematic trading records; concerns over the integrity of management or major shareholders.

Why is it so strict? The data speaks for itself. In the past year, half of the IPOs listed on Nasdaq raised no more than $15 million. That doesn’t sound like much. The problem is that these small-scale IPOs generally perform poorly after listing — the vast majority see their stock prices drop more than 35% within a year. One failure after another, regulatory authorities have decided it’s time to act.

This set of new rules is actually about plugging loopholes. Small financing projects, due to insufficient review and incomplete information disclosure, have become a hotspot for market chaos. Now Nasdaq has been empowered with more authority to filter these out, effectively adding a more efficient screening layer to the market. This is good news for investors; for those with less solid financing, going public will become more difficult.