Does IPO GMP Actually Predict the Listing Price? We Checked 124 Listings
By IPO Cracker Editorial Team · 03 Aug 2026
Grey market premium is the number most retail investors check before applying. It is also the number nobody measures. We track GMP for every IPO from bidding through to listing day, so we compared what GMP predicted against what actually happened.
The method
We took the last GMP recorded strictly before the listing date for every listed IPO where the issue price and the actual listing price are both known. Strictly before matters: a GMP captured on listing day would be scored against an outcome it already knew. That gives a sample of 124 IPOs.
For each one we asked two questions. Did GMP get the direction right, meaning a positive GMP followed by a listing above the issue price, or a negative GMP followed by a listing below it? And how far was the GMP-implied price from the real one?
The headline result
Across all 124 IPOs, GMP pointed the right way 58.9% of the time. The average gap between the GMP-implied listing price and the actual listing price was 8.8%, and 84.7% of listings landed within 20% of the implied price.
Just under six times in ten is better than a coin toss, but it is nowhere near the confidence with which GMP is usually quoted.
The split that matters
The overall figure hides the finding that should change how you read GMP.
| Segment | IPOs tracked | Direction correct | Average gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mainboard | 36 | 75.0% | 5.9% |
| SME | 88 | 52.3% | 10.0% |
On Mainboard issues GMP was right three times in four, with an average gap under 6%. That is a genuinely useful signal.
On SME issues GMP was right 52.3% of the time. That is a coin toss. Anyone treating an SME grey market premium as a forecast is reading noise.
Why SME GMP is so much weaker
The SME grey market is thin. Fewer dealers quote it, volumes are small, and a handful of trades can move the premium sharply. Late spikes driven by retail enthusiasm are common in the final session of bidding, and they frequently fade before listing day.
Mainboard issues trade in a deeper unofficial market with more participants, so the premium reflects a broader view and moves less on a single trade.
What to do with this
- Treat SME GMP as sentiment, not a price. It tells you people are interested. It does not tell you where the stock will open.
- Weight Mainboard GMP more heavily, but still as one input. A 5.9% average gap on a 20% expected gain is a wide margin.
- Watch the trend, not the number. A premium that holds steady through the bidding window carries more information than a spike on the last afternoon.
- Cross-check against subscription. In our data, subscription is the stronger predictor of the two.
The honest caveats
This is our own tracked dataset, not the whole market. The Mainboard sample of 36 is small enough that a handful of unusual listings would move the figure. GMP is unofficial and unregulated by SEBI, so the quotes we record are the best available rather than an audited price. And past behaviour constrains nothing about the next IPO.
We publish it because the alternative on offer is an unsourced claim that GMP tracks the listing price within some comfortable band. It does not, and on SME issues it barely tracks it at all.
Figures are recomputed from our live database. See the listing performance tracker for the underlying listings, or live GMP for every open IPO.