4 ms·

It's more insidious than that. These IPOs aren't being rushed, they were waiting for all the pieces to be in place to force 401ks and other retirement plans to

• chinathrow 4mo ago
  How do these people sleep at night coming up with schemes like that?
  • cryo32 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  • ReptileMan 4mo ago
    They don't. They work all night to invent them.
  • adastra22 4mo ago
    On a big pile of money surrounded by beautiful women.
• giarc 4mo ago
  I get the sentiment that this is unscrupulous, however, isn't 15 days enough time to find the right price? Or will that not really happen until first quarterly earnings report, which will not occur within that 15 day window?
  • FireBeyond 4mo ago
    I mean the goal is that you have multiple earnings report to show sustainability. Meanwhile some of these companies are also lobbying to be able to only have to submit annual or biannual earnings reports, too. Everyone is looking for multiple ways to leave the dumb money holding the bag.
  • iTokio 4mo ago
    No, IPO pops, and honey moon periods are common. And there are plenty of ways to manipulate the price, such as issuing a low float to a hyper hyped stock..
  • collinmcnulty 4mo ago
    The fact that you know there’s a large pool of price insensitive buyers only 15 days away has to have some price impact.
  • lmeyerov 4mo ago
    4-8 quarters for most tech IPOs to settle. IPOs are manufactured for the good times around young co's, so not surprising, and economic stability isn't a question of days/weeks/months. And yes often a falling knife This is pretty predictably wall street & federal regulators scamming normal people, retirement funds, etc, taking their fees and exit window at everyone else's expense
    • JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      > 4-8 quarters for most tech IPOs to settle Where are you getting this timeline from?
      • lmeyerov 4mo ago
        Mostly by having a pulse for the last 10-20 years as someone in the bay area seeing it repeatedly play out as tech IPOs get dumped onto retail investors repeatedly, including the 'good' ones. Being lucky enough to participate in IPOs makes you check these wrt when to balance IPO pop exit (weeks/months) vs long-term tax benefits of holding (2yr+). - The initial pop is known to be manufactured by banks, so mostly benefits insiders, so good time to diversify. I'm conservative so sold to cover effective basis or whatever risk strategy :) - The lockup period (6mo) is a similarly known artificial event, and studies show that - Tech companies take ~8 quarters of prep for the IPO as they do financial engineering to transition from VC growth-at-all-costs to public $, and I'd expect the same for whatever nonsense they pulled to juice numbers to shake out. And that's not including oddballs like the Musk alternate universe, just normal tech companies covering up EBITDA and low interest rate madness. - Tech is especially volatile as an industry, so even more skepticism here. Eg, the latest IPO I was involved in was a successful professional social network play, and chatgpt killed it. Most/all of these are googleable things
        • JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
          Almost every retail investor has a random vibe like this about a market-timing hypothesis. They’re pretty much all cocktail conversation at best. Lock-up expiry is a real effect. Everything else you mention is Reddit stuff—trading the pop is practically a gamble.
• cdelsolar 4mo ago
  If you believe this is going to happen you can change the allocations of your retirement plans.
  • bittercynic 4mo ago
    You can protect yourself, but many won't be aware of the situation until it's too late, and institutionally managed funds won't be able to change their rules in time to avoid holding these as part of the index funds they hold.
  • yeswecatan 4mo ago
    What should we be looking for?
    • chasd00 4mo ago
      In your 401k portal/website there's usually a setting like "I plan to retire on year X". When you set that, or something similar, there's typically a managed fund that gradually decreases risk as you approach that year. When you have lots of time before retirement you can ride the ups and downs but as you get closer the less time you have to recover from a downturn so the more conservative you want your investments. If you're really worried and want to be conservative tell the portal you want to retire in 2030. That will allocate your investments to something conservative and you'll be more protected from a downturn. On the other hand, you'll also be equally protected from an upswing. /not a financial advisor
  • xboxnolifes 4mo ago
    Many individuals can, but good luck reaching out and convincing the entire country that they should look into making changes to their retirement fund allocations without sounding like a kook. There's maybe, at best, 1% of the country even aware that this might be a problem.
  • lovich 4mo ago
    I’m not sure I could. Even starting to research how to prevent being affected by these changes shows that there’s layers upon layers of systems that are being manipulated, and there are costs charged for moving the capital in my retirement account to other accounts. Saying you as in any random person can protect themself from a group of dedicated experts who also have access to levers the common person can’t pull, is kind of not believable on its face.
• noelsusman 4mo ago
  Very few 401ks offer the NASDAQ 100 as an investment option. Last I checked it was <1%.
  • alemanek 4mo ago
    Total market indexes and target date funds will include this and SpaceX on float adjusted basis I believe. The blast radius is much larger than funds that track the NASDAQ directly.
    • chasd00 4mo ago
      But isn't that what "total market" means? I don't see how if you invest in a total market fund you could declare "except for SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI". Why is it so bad for these accounts to be invested in these companies anyway? Seems pretty typical, i bet all kinds of companies are added to total market indexes each year.
      • alemanek 4mo ago
        Until recently companies that IPOed weren’t immediately added to the major indexes so there was a longer period for price discovery. This year that changed; so you have retirement funds that typically are more conservative acting as exit liquidity for these massive IPOs. I would have less of an issue if the inclusion in major indexes was delayed 6-12months but we are looking at inclusion within like 5 days for some of these indexes.
        • tonfa 4mo ago
          The float will get bigger as you wait tho, since it's common for early investors to be locked for e.g. 6 months. You can argue it's better to smooth the entry as float gets unlocked rather than being front run by all the hedge funds in a single day on a massive capitalization.
          • ojbyrne 4mo ago
• FireBeyond 4mo ago
  Very true. Anthropic just raised money at the end of last week. There's no way they could have done that without telling those investors the S-1 was prepared and awaiting their signature on the round before they hit Submit, so to speak.
• findjashua 4mo ago
  almost all 401k plans offer funds based on s&p 500, not nasdaq/russell others. s&p has also halved their trading days requirement from 1 yr to 6 months, but that's still sufficient to be past the post-ipo lock-up period.
  • anonymid 4mo ago
    I don't think the S&P has actually made a decision yet. It is in progress, though: "The S&P Index Consultation on MegaCap IPOs" is the search term
    • throw0101c 4mo ago
      What is being considered by S&P: > Stocks would become eligible for the index after six months rather than 12 months. The requirement to have a minimum Investable Weight Factor of 0.10 (roughly at least 10% of shares publicly floated) would be dropped. Companies would not be required to demonstrate profitability. * https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/some-indexes-accelerate-entry-massive-ipos https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/some-indexes-accelerate-e... Though: > Still, S&P Dow Jones reminds market participants that the proposed changes would apply only to index eligibility. The actual inclusion of new constituents remains entirely at the discretion of the index committee.
  • mixedbit 4mo ago
    sp500 has profitability requirement, I doubt LLM companies will show profits any time soon.
• exabrial 4mo ago
  >The plan is to rapidly drive these prices up in the first 15 days, get the companies listed in the NASDAQ so funds are forced to purchase them at higher prices, then leave retirement accounts holding the bag. Dumb question: why couldn't retirement accounts simply not purchase these?
  • QuotedForTruth 4mo ago
    These funds don’t invest actively (picking individual stocks). Instead they invest in indexes that track larger portions of the market. So they’ll automatically buy once the company is listed on the NASDAQ.
    • Avicebron 4mo ago
      Why do I imagine that no one whose retirement account is about to get smoked is in place to make decisions about whether or not this is a good investment
      • delecti 4mo ago
        The point of that kind of account is that most people aren't in a place to make decisions about what is or isn't a good investment.
  • moregrist 4mo ago
    Seems like there should be a market for a no-Elon/OpenAI/Anthropic ETF out there. Or one that just imposes a reasonable waiting period on adding newly-IPO’d listings.
• BoggleOhYeah 4mo ago
  This has been a thing in the CRSP indexes (ie. the benchmark for Vanguard’s VTI) forever. As long as it meets float and cap requirements, it’s inserted into the indexes five days after trading begins. It makes sense. They intend to track the market as it is. Though, you can definitely make the case that the popularization of index funds has allowed their holders to essentially become patsies to hype IPOs.
  • calgarymicro 4mo ago
    > As long as it meets float and cap requirements Even with the CRSP indexes this was recently changed to make fast-tracking for these IPOs easier.[0] > CRSP indexes were also recently changed to better accommodate fast entry . . . Previously, these screens included having at least 10% of shares qualifying as freely tradeable (known as float shares outstanding, or FSO). However, in April the methodology changed to allow stocks with either 10% FSO or approximately $3.3 billion in float-adjusted market capitalization to be eligible for index inclusion. That change is notable because both Anthropic and SpaceX are planning to IPO at well under that old 10% requirement.[1] Neither would have qualified for fast-track inclusion before, but both are virtually guaranteed to clear the absolute valuation bar. [0]https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/some-indexes-accelerate-entry-massive-ipos https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/some-indexes-accelerate-e... [1]https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/06/01/can-the-stockmarket-swallow-anthropic-spacex-and-openai https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/06/01/c...
    • BoggleOhYeah 4mo ago
      The person I was responding to was speaking to the fast-track concept, which has been a thing in CRSP indexes for a quite a while. The float requirement changes are directly due to these huge IPOs only placing small amounts of float on the market. Their goal seems to be tracking the market and making this change prevents them from excluding two notable companies from their indexes. IIRC CRSP indexes are float-weighted so they aren't going to attempt buying a ton of these IPOs anyway due to that low float. Again. Would I have made the change? No because placing that little float on the market isn't kosher IMO.
• whatshisface 4mo ago
  It is not going to take 15 days for short selling hedge funds to right-price these IPOs. It is going to take something closer to a few seconds.
  • SilverElfin 4mo ago
    Until the inevitable crash in price when the lockup of employee shares end and they dump their shares onto the market. These fresh companies shouldn’t be included into passive investing securities until 180 days at least. It’s just making the public bag holders.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • rchaud 4mo ago
    Hedge funds won't try to short the stock; the holders are almost all institutional investors and insiders who are long on the stock and have no reason to lend them to HFs betting on a price decline. What they might do is trade bespoke instruments like a credit default swap on datacenter construction deals. Stays underneath the radar of politicians and tech insiders who are invested in a particular outcome.
• throw0101c 4mo ago
  > The most recent change was the NASDAQ adopting the "fast change rule" which allows newly IPO'd companies to be listed in the index after only 15 days of trading. Official justification, and other changes besides timeframe, e.g.: > First, eligibility and company size. As multi‑class share structures have become more common, we now consider both listed and unlisted shares when determining eligibility and ranking. This allows the index to reflect a company's full economic size, while index weighting remains based solely on listed shares. This change affects who qualifies for inclusion, not how constituents are weighted. * https://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/nasdaq100-index-methodology-update-why-now https://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/nasdaq100-index-methodology-... > A new method to calculate the market capitalization of companies to determine their eligibility for inclusion in the index. It involves adding listed stock and unlisted shares that are part of different share classes. Scrapping a rule that requires companies to float a minimum 10% of their shares. Companies with a low float will receive a lower weighting on the index. […] * https://www.reuters.com/business/new-nasdaq-rules-include-fast-entry-new-listings-benchmark-index-2026-03-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/new-nasdaq-rules-include-fa...
• reacharavindh 4mo ago
  As unlikely it is to happen at scale, as a thought process - what would happen if people start selling those index funds in a mad rush? Just drives the transaction volume because those with that new money will just buy something else in the market? I know SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI will probably be a drop in the bucket in terms of scale of these funds, (free float % etc). But, is it realistic to take the money out of index funds for a bit until the price of these new stocks come crashing eventually?
  • cm2187 4mo ago
    These stocks crashing (not saying it will or won’t happen), means AI is crashing, and that will be a much broader selloff than these 3. Add Microsoft, Micron, Amazon, Oracle, Nvidia, Supermicro, Dell, etc, any company that has direct or indirect exposure to the massive AI boom (and possibly their lenders).
    • iamacyborg 4mo ago
      Just look at Corning’s lifetime chart
  • nostrademons 4mo ago
    If people actually dumped index funds for cash en masse it would be catastrophic. To attach some numbers, MSFT averages about 35M shares in daily volume, and that includes all the market makers, HFTs, etc. BlackRock (iShares) owns 593M shares of MSFT and Vanguard owns another 482M. Together, the amount of shares that index funds own is about a month and a half of total trading volumes. I'd bet that such a crash would unfold over about 2-3 days, which brings up the specter of stocks literally going "no bid", where there are not enough buyers for every seller to sell, at any price. Likely the government would step in and inject cash directly into the markets to support them in such a scenario, because a broad-index stock market crash is the modern-day bank run. Retirees carry the bulk of their savings in the form of stocks; if it disappears, we'd likely face revolt.
    • pseudosavant 4mo ago
• Dig1t 4mo ago
  They only go into the index if they are actually worth enough to go into the index. If they drop below a certain value they will naturally be kicked out of the index just like any other company. I.e. if they are not actually in the top 500 US companies then they will not be in the 500 index. The risk of any one company is balanced by all the other companies in the index also. If they really are a scam, their value will drop and they will be kicked out of the index. I still don’t understand how this means people will be “holding the bag”. Additionally if you really believe that they are a scam and their price will fall you can just short the stock to completely neutralize their effect on your 401k.
  • randbyte 4mo ago
    By the time they drop and being kicked out (if they do) the insiders already dumped their shares. Not to mention now all the index fund holders will rush to sell creating even more price pressure. Shorting (itself being a bad idea for regular investors) also breaks the mantra of passive investing, 401k or otherwise. It’s almost impossible to short right after IPO because of low float and high margin risk. These mega IPOs are just using passive investors as backstop.
• panarky 4mo ago
  Nonsense. The extremely small float of these offerings will make index weights a rounding error. Ask your LLM of choice to compare the likely value of shares to be held by index funds with the market cap of each of these companies.
  • postflopclarity 4mo ago
    except that they changed the index rules to OVERweight them because of their small float.
  • groundzeros2015 4mo ago
    I don’t understand the argument that small amounts don’t matter. Diversification doesn’t work if you throw in low quality investments you wouldn’t consider on their own. It just lowers returns.