Tech startups choose to stay private in IPO standoff

OVER the last several decades, there were two distinctly dark periods for US technology companies - the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000 and the 2008 financial crisis.

In those periods, investors had such distaste for risk that technology companies shied away from initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock.

Now, for only the fourth time since data has been collected, there have been no tech company IPOs in a quarter.