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Remember all the anxiety, nervousness, and terror in 2008? The stock market was crashing, but that was the least of many folks worries. Many Americans lost their houses, their jobs, and their ability to put food on the table.

Just before Christmas 2007, iconic investment bank Bear Sterns made history. It wasnt thegoodkind of history. Bear, which had survived the Great Depression, reported its first loss in 80 years.

Its stock went into free fall, plummeting from $90 to $30. The bloodbath was just beginning.

Its collapse threatened the American financial system. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) rushed to save Bear Sterns. On March 16, 2008, it bought what was left of Bear for just $2 per share.

Keep in mind, Bear traded for over $150 just a year earlier. Anyone holding its stock was wiped out. Then in September, Lehman Brothersanother legendary Wall Street bankdeclared the biggest bankruptcy in US history.

Panic gripped the market. The S&P 500 plummeted 44% in six months. Many investors remember the sickening feeling like it was yesterday.

We all lived through 2008. Dozens of books have been written about the financial crisis. Filmmakers have told the story from every angle. Hollywood produced great movies likeThe Big ShortandMargin Call.

But theres an incredible story from 2008 that few people know. Im not talking about the few clever investors who made a killing during the financial crisis. Hedge fund managers like John Paulson and Dr. Michael Burry made fortunes betting on the collapse of the housing market.

Those stories make for good entertainment, but lets be real, 99.999% of people didnt make a penny in 2008. Most individual investors were lucky not to lose half their portfolio. But you could have made a fortunebuyingone of the worlds biggest financial companies during 2008.

Visas been around since the 50s. You probably see its logo every time you open your wallet. What most people dont know isVisa went public during the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis. Visa held its initial public offering (IPO) on March 19, 2008.

Talk about bad timing. Bear Stearns had been sold for pennies three days earlier. Lehman Brothers was sliding toward bankruptcy and would shut its doors just six months later. The stock market was racing towards its worst crash in 20 years. And the S&P 500 had already plummeted 17% in six months leading up to Visas IPO.

And lets not forget, this was the financial crisis, and Visa is a financial stock. Its no exaggeration to say Visa chose theworst possible time in the past 90 yearsto go public.

Against all odds, Visa pulled off a massively successful IPO. It raised $17.9 billion, making it the biggest IPO in US history at that point. Visas stock surged 28% on its first day of trading.

Keep in mind, the S&P 500 plunged 38% in 2008. Many financial stocks tanked 90% or more. Some went to zero! Yet Visa jumped 55% during its first two months as a publicly traded company. And has gone on to surge 1,151% since its IPO.

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The S&P 500 is up just 137% over the same period. So, Visas crushed the market by more than seven-fold since its IPO. If you had the stomach to buy Visa in 2008, you couldve made a killing while everyone else was losing their shirts.

Visa had no direct exposure to the 2008 credit crisis. Unlike banks and mortgage lenders, Visa didnt take extreme risks in the mid-2000s. Its business was never really threatened by the financial house of cards that crumbled in 2008.

But if youve been following my essays, you knowIPOs often take on a life of their own. Typically, when markets crash, most stocks get dragged down. Even stocks that have nothing to do with the core crisis are often hammered.

Procter & Gamble (PG)which sells toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoois the furthest thing from a financial stock. Yet it plunged 40% during the crisis. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)another consumer staples stockfell 35%.

IPOs are different. Because theyre brand new stocks, they often buck the market like few other stocks can.

Grand Canyon Education (LOPE)a private, for-profit universityIPOd in November 2008, two months after Lehman went bankrupt. LOPE more than doubled within two months. Like Visa, it kept soaring. Its surged 1,227% since it IPOd.

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If you take one thing from this essay, it should be that therightIPOs can deliver huge returns during any kind of market. Most folks dont realize this. They think IPOs are a bull market only play.

And a lot of folks think the current bull market in stocks is on its last legs. I get it. The S&P 500 hit new all-time highs last week. And record high stock pricesfeeldangerous.

A centurys worth of data proves that record highs are nothing to fear. Still, many investors just dont feel good about buying stocks at all-time highs. It feels financially irresponsible.

My suggestion: aim to own a handful of high-quality IPOs. This can set you up to profit no matter how the market performs.

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Link:
Worried About Record Stock Prices? Invest In IPOs - Forbes