IPO

On Thursday afternoon, President Obama signed the JOBS Act, and among the changes it will bring to the world of business startups is one that makes use of a rising trend: The power of crowdsourcing.

The tables are turning in the casual dining industry. Outback Steakhouse, which sold itself to a private equity group, is gearing up to go public. At the same time, publicly held Benihana is looking for a way out.

The company that makes Fender guitars is going public with a $200 million IPO. The iconic guitar maker was founded in 1946 by Leo Fender, and Fender guitars were played by some of the world's biggest music stars, from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton.

Facebook's IPO has focused yet another spotlight on its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. But beyond the hoopla, there's another, quieter story to be found in the wunderkind CEO -- the lessons that can be gleaned from his life.

After a year which featured lingering economic uncertainty, and underperformance from many popular IPOs, 2012 should see some exciting activity from the more than 200 companies hoping to go public. Here are 24/7 Wall St.'s picks for the top IPOs to watch.

After reading the breathless media coverage about the rumored $2 billion Yelp IPO, I have one question: Does the online-review site make money? None of the articles made any mention, but profitability is the issue that should be first on investors' minds.

As Groupon prepares for its IPO, here's a gentle reminder to the company's original public investors: the bargain buyers. If you don't redeem those Daily Deals -- and many of us forget to after we buy them -- they're just money down the drain for you, and pure profit for the company.

The Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers got the NFL's approval this week to sell more stock to the public, but even the Pack can't compete with the buzz of another anticipated "football" stock offering: Manchester United. Certainly owning shares in a team makes for great pub talk, but is it a wise investment?

The parent company of Liberty Tax picked an awful time to announce its IPO, a day after rival H&R Block announced weak quarterly returns. But JTH Holdings' taxing dilemma wasn't last week's only head-scratching news. Here are some of the week's other biggest surprises, blunders, and just flat out boneheaded maneuvers.

Biofuels company Solazyme owns a unique process when it comes to converting algae into a fuel could replace the gas in your car -- a method that could be used to create oil on an extremely large scale and at an extremely low cost. The company has just announced it's going public: You might want to get in on the action.