SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) — It’s an annual ritual upon Wall Street - the fourth quarter IPO convenient time, whenever a fluster of companies make their debut on the public markets ahead of New Year’s. But given today’s vaporable market, and the horrible performance this month of what seemed sure to be a no-brainer IPO in Rackspace (RAX), you have to wonder what good of year-end make a hollow we might get.

Clearly, 2008 has been one beneficial to the record books in the sheer paucity of companies that have made it out the way - 43 so remoter, into a denser consistence a stunning 75% compared to the same time last year. We’d need 14 companies a week to go public between now and the end of the year to catch last years’ 273 completed beginning public offerings.

That’s not going to happen, but some companies will get out. Even in the depths of the 2001-2003 IPO drought, 70 to 80 companies went public, and excluding last year’s boffo numbers, 200-plus IPOs have been the norm. Where 2008 will end up in that wandering is anyone’s guess, but now is about the time at the time a company of necessity to have filed to even have a shot at going public in the fourth quarter.

So what companies are brave enough to file? Who is going to lead the year-end charge?

"One of the groups is alternative energy," says Paul Bard, a senior algebraist with IPO research firm Renaissance Capital. "First we saw solar companies go public, at this moment with Boone Pickens and others bringing respect to it we are starting to take care it broaden to wind and other choice energy companies." Of the last 17 companies to toothed for an IPO, almost one-third are green energy companies.

Wind companies that be favored with filed recently include First Wind Holdings (it’s picked WNDY as a ticker), a Newton, Mass-based company that owns, develops and operates wind farms across the United States and in Canada. Another is Noble Environmental Power, which flipped the switch this year on strange wind farms in New York and has other projects under unfolding across the U.S.

If you include its electric cars business, lithium ion battery collection A123 Systems is another alternative energy company that would like to get out prior to the end of the year. The company is based in Watertown, Mass., with technology spun out of MIT and venture backing from blue-chip VCs Sequoia Capital and others. A123 is one of two companies subject to contract to develop batteries for General Motors’ (GM, Fortune 500) Chevy Volt plug-in electric hybrid, due to hit the showrooms sometime in 2010.

That’s a good story to vend, and A123 is already causing chatter among the IPO investing set. "Their growth is potentially opposite to the charts," says Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of IPO Boutique, which provides study for hedge funds and high net-worth individuals. "What I especially same is that the proceeds are going toward expanding manufacturing and productive off debt, as adverse to paying opposite insiders."

The other assign places to that could lead us out of an IPO drought at the expiration of the year span different kinds of industries but have size in common. Analog chipmaker Avago, which filed in opposition to an IPO just last week, is a KKR-buyout that used to be part of Agilent (A, Fortune 500). The Singapore-based copartnership has raked in $2.4 billion in revenues over the past 12 months.

McJunkin Red Man, a pipe and fittings supplier to the oil and gas industry, took in $4.3 billion in revenue the highest 12 months while hospital and rehab clinic operator Select Medical had $2 billion in revenue. In like a jittery market, these large, mostly profitable companies (Avago has situated a defeat so far this year) may be the kind of relatively safer lay that investors are looking for.

An outlier in the big-and-safe-is-better theory is Russian seek congregation Yandex. While it hasn’t filed yet, the Internet company, which is bigger than Google in Russia, is widely rumored to have existence looking at the fourth abide for an IPO, and has the name and the growth to pull it off. Because it is based overseas, Yandex also has fewer hoops to jump through, and could file in the advent weeks or months, and still make the 2008 deadline. Yandex representatives could not be reached for comment.

Whatever happens in the fourth quarter, it’s likely to be a good indicator as being 2009. The stock market is typically a leading indicator for the administration as a whole, and IPOs are perhaps the market at its most forward-looking. If the market starts seeing signs of a general restoration nearest year - even if it is late 2009 - we could is it possible discern a bit of a rally in the IPO market in the next quarter. If that restoration gets shoved off farther and farther into the future, we could be in for a much longer IPO drought.