The amount of misinformation around this topic was absolutely nuts over the past few days. Good rule of thumb: if a YouTuber or other influencer was pitching doom and relaying this rule change by S&P as a fait accompli, stop following them.
This seems a sensible thing to do. If you change the rules on how things end up on your index, you force everyone using that index to reevaluate it. Your index is now perceived as more volatile (and probably is), and all the finance people need to reevaluate the risk of their index funds and decide if it is now 'growth', 'high growth' or whatever bucket it belongs in based on the new risk profile. And then all the portfolios need to be rebalanced. Which all takes time, more time than was being proposed. The sensible thing to do is to create a new index with the new rules.
The market is more unpredictable than it’s been in a long, long time so I hesitate to make a firm prediction but to me the odds that SpaceX will be a successful IPO over a 3-6 month window are significantly lower now. S&P inclusion basically requires funds to hold a position by default, and per their own estimates $20tn of assets are indexed/benchmarked to the S&P.
Good. Indexes are supposed to be slow-moving, precisely due to their entry requirement of sustained profitability that skews towards mature companies.
All that an inclusion of these new companies would accomplish is a bailout of their stockholders by pension funds and ETFs where millions of regular people shoulder all the downside risk.
SpaceX and OAI stock will be available through Robinhood, Questrade and all the other retail investor markets. Individuals can make an informed choice to trade it there, rather than have it automatically added to their index fund without having any say.
At this moment, there is so so much, publicly available information [1]
on the fact the SpaceX IPO is the biggest scandal in the long history of Wallstreet insiders fleecing the "Johns".
A scandal orchestrated and cheered on by the NASDAQ, as well as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan the underwriters, that if you spend any money on it, you deserve to be parted with your money.
And if you have a 401k...you are forced to buy no questions asked.
This will become such a disaster for retail, that hopefully Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and the NASDAQ too, will spend their next 10 years in court defending action group lawsuits.
Good for the SP500 but I don’t think it’s true that indexes need to be slow moving. They can serve any purpose! Comparatively I think it makes sense Nasdaq100 would want to include it earlier. Not all indexes need to be slow moving or representative of a buy and hold type strategy. Maybe you only want to capture the highest volume in daily activity for example.
Those mega IPOs are the latest grift to unload overpriced shares before the whole AI tulip bubble explodes in everyone's face.
The insiders know it, which is precisely why those IPOs are happening right now. Employees and VCs don't want to be holding the bag. small-time investors will be.
Also, SpaceX is going to unlock more and more on their float at around the same time most indexes will have to buy it. It has been engineered to socialize the losses.
I'm happy SP didn't agree to fast track any of those, unlike VTI and Nasdaq100.
I spent the weekend to rebalance all my retirement accounts to make sure none of them are going to fast track those grifty IPOs. Unfortunately, I cannot do that for my taxable accounts as it would generate a tax-event.
> What is prompting SpaceX to IPO all of the sudden?
i've wondered the same thing. I honestly think it's going to hurt SpaceX rather than benefit so there must be a reason other than furthering the mission. SpaceX beholden to the market seriously constrains them in my opinion. For a group already tasked with an unbelievably difficult mission, having to please Wall St. seems like a PITA distraction.
"Get out of debt" is funny because his whole shtick is always being in debt. But yes, his creditors are probably asking to be paid out so he needs to milk SpaceX. Luckily, he can take the company public with a tiny float so that index inclusion drives the share price through the roof, allowing him to borrow against considerably greater assets.
Nasdaq changed its rules recently so SpaceX can join the Nasdaq 100 Index, a cohort of the largest non-financial companies listed on its exchange, in just 15 trading days, down from a three-month minimum. FTSE Russell adopted a similar approach, shortening the waiting time to five trading days.
74 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 63.2 ms ] thread(It was a common misconception on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48364055.)
* https://press.spglobal.com/2026-06-04-S-P-Dow-Jones-Indices-...
* https://archive.is/15pOn
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/new-fast-tracks-account-olde...
Long listen but a very thorough and nuanced discussion by a bunch of smart investment / finance guys in Canada. No click-bait-sky-is-falling content.
It won't matter for your portfolio. Your portfolio will keep growing.
All that an inclusion of these new companies would accomplish is a bailout of their stockholders by pension funds and ETFs where millions of regular people shoulder all the downside risk.
SpaceX and OAI stock will be available through Robinhood, Questrade and all the other retail investor markets. Individuals can make an informed choice to trade it there, rather than have it automatically added to their index fund without having any say.
A scandal orchestrated and cheered on by the NASDAQ, as well as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan the underwriters, that if you spend any money on it, you deserve to be parted with your money.
And if you have a 401k...you are forced to buy no questions asked.
This will become such a disaster for retail, that hopefully Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and the NASDAQ too, will spend their next 10 years in court defending action group lawsuits.
[1] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWzTFAEAhSe/
"SpaceX IPO retail offering is worrying" - https://youtu.be/T8e2FbwN7dw
"SpaceX IPO: Nice Try Though" - https://youtu.be/IHD8BDFYyGI
"SpaceX IPO Scandal" - https://youtu.be/8rS3fTbC7TE
"Anthropic, OpenAI Should Not Be Allowed to IPO, Says Ed Zitron" - https://youtu.be/zbKDmkJPVvI
Are you suggesting index funds need unanimous consent from all owners before a company can be added or removed?
The insiders know it, which is precisely why those IPOs are happening right now. Employees and VCs don't want to be holding the bag. small-time investors will be.
Also, SpaceX is going to unlock more and more on their float at around the same time most indexes will have to buy it. It has been engineered to socialize the losses.
I'm happy SP didn't agree to fast track any of those, unlike VTI and Nasdaq100. I spent the weekend to rebalance all my retirement accounts to make sure none of them are going to fast track those grifty IPOs. Unfortunately, I cannot do that for my taxable accounts as it would generate a tax-event.
I'm personally convinced that this is Musk trying to get out of debt from his Twitter purchase.
i've wondered the same thing. I honestly think it's going to hurt SpaceX rather than benefit so there must be a reason other than furthering the mission. SpaceX beholden to the market seriously constrains them in my opinion. For a group already tasked with an unbelievably difficult mission, having to please Wall St. seems like a PITA distraction.
Nasdaq changed its rules recently so SpaceX can join the Nasdaq 100 Index, a cohort of the largest non-financial companies listed on its exchange, in just 15 trading days, down from a three-month minimum. FTSE Russell adopted a similar approach, shortening the waiting time to five trading days.
Before the flood of money from the index funds arrive, I'd love to see what's the right valuation for them.