Yeah, obvio:

Remember the dotcom bubble? At the 1999 peak, 388 US companies went public, raising $57bn. A generation later it remains a tech-financial cultural touchstone, with the number of floats never getting near that level since. However, the post-Covid market mania helped 251 companies go public in 2021, and the likes of Rivian, Roblox, Warby Parker, Bumble and Robinhood raised a record $115bn — almost twice the money raised in the peak dotcom bubble year.

yeeee-haaaawh:

"SpaceX alone is expected to raise about $75bn when it goes public later this month. That wouldn’t just be the most raised by an IPO ever, it would be more than raised by ALL the floats of 1999 combined.""SpaceX alone is expected to raise about $75bn when it goes public later this month. That wouldn’t just be the most raised by an IPO ever, it would be more than raised by ALL the floats of 1999 combined."

SpaceX's 75bn is sweet #1496896, Google's 80bn AI extravaganza is dope #1501158, OpenAI sexy #1501568

Sure, sure, sure, a lot of them go the shitcoin route of listing a vanishingly small sliver such that you can get, uh, a large headline valuation. Yes, yes, corporate finance logic; clever bankers.

This has understandably led to fears that the market could suffer severe indigestion. Even one of these big IPOs could be enough to cause a mild case, but the combination could prove painful. That big IPO years tend to presage big downturns has exacerbated those concerns.

In other words: finance going back to FINANCING real-world stuff?In other words: finance going back to FINANCING real-world stuff?

if we’ve read Goldman’s report correctly then its analysts are predicting total US equity supply of $1.175tn in 2026, consisting of $225bn of IPOs, $450bn of other corporate stock sales, and another $500bn gradually dribbling out from corporate executives and early investors in the IPOs. At the same time, the AI data centre spending splurge is weighing on corporate buybacks, which has been the single biggest pillar for equity demand over the past decade-plus.

Well, AI = "real-world" is, I suppose, a stretch but fiiiine:

if the SpaceX IPO belly flops then the wider reverberations could be severe, given its sheer size and the number of big investors that need it to go well. But that may be tricky for the bank’s analysts to say, given that Goldman snagged the coveted IPO’s lead-left position . . .

Love to see it.

archive: https://archive.md/N7Dc0