The second quarter saw the return of foreign firms launching IPOs on US exchanges, including three Chinese companies, signaling growing investor appetite for riskier stocks.

Bankers are not surprised IPOs have picked up first in the United States and China.

"If you look at the list of IPOs, it is dominated by the US and China and countries that have been most aggressive in stimulating their economies," said Jeff Bunzel, managing director for equity capital markets at Credit Suisse.

Those efforts will keep US buyers interested in China.

"It's not surprising that in a growing economy such as China's, we will see a lot of IPOs. The institutional market is starved for quality growth companies," Hantho said.

For now, the modest streak of successful IPOs is prompting some companies in the pipeline to think about going public themselves.

"Hopefully we'll see more filings and a pick-up in the latter half of the year. Based on the conversations we are having, we will see a significant pickup in IPOs going into 2010," Carnoy said.