IPO is an acronym for Initial Public Offering. This is the first sale of stock by a company to the public. Getting a piece of a hot IPO is very difficult, if not impossible. To understand why, it helps to know how an IPO is done, a process known as underwriting. When a company wants to go public, the first thing it does is hire an investment bank. Underwriting is the process of raising money by either debt or equity (in this case we are referring to equity). You can think of underwriters as mid...