Historically, IPOs both globally and in the U.S. have been underpriced. The effect of underpricing an IPO is to generate additional interest in the securities. This leads to massive gains for investors who enter the IPO early. However, underpricing an IPO results in «money left on the table». Investment banks take many factors into consideration when pricing an IPO, and attempt to reach an offering price that is low enough to stimulate interest in the stock, but high enough to raise an adequate amount of capital for the company.