News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
US stocks gain ground as SpaceX debuts
U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, bolstered by positive developments surrounding U.S.-Iran negotiations and a jump of SpaceX shares in the highly anticipated debut. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 353.51 points, or 0.7 percent, to 51,202.26. The S&P 500 added 37.16 points, or 0.5 percent, to 7,431.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 79.18 points, or 0.31 percent, to 25,888.84. Ten of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in positive territory, led by materials and financials with gains of 1.83 percent and 1.35 percent, respectively. Health care was the sole laggard, slipping 0.16 percent. Elon Musk's SpaceX made its highly anticipated public debut on the Nasdaq. The stock opened at 150 U.S. dollars per share, above its initial public offering price of 135 dollars, and surged more than 20 percent shortly after trading began before closing up 19.22 percent at 160.95 dollars. This marked one of the largest initial public offerings in Wall Street history. Shares of other space-related companies, which had rallied in the lead-up to the debut, eased on Friday, including Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines, and Planet Labs. In the technology sector, performance was mixed. Nvidia finished marginally higher, while Advanced Micro Devices rose 4.73 percent and Alphabet gained 0.53 percent. Broadcom, Palantir Technologies, Amazon and Meta Platforms closed in the red. Markets welcomed signs that the United States and Iran are edging closer to an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices extended losses, with West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery falling 2.83 dollars, or 3.23 percent, to settle at 84.88 dollars per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for August delivery dropped 3.05 dollars, or 3.37 percent, to settle at 87.33 dollars per barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan reported that U.S. consumer sentiment rebounded from a record low of 44.8 in May to 48.9 at the start of June. One-year inflation expectations eased to 4.6 percent, below analyst estimates. Investors will continue to monitor diplomatic progress in the Middle East over the weekend, and upcoming economic indicators for further direction on inflation and monetary policy.
Elon Musk Bets SpaceX Will Hit $1 Trillion In Revenue By 2030, Triple Morgan Stanley's Own Forecast
Elon Musk expects newly listed SpaceX to generate roughly $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030, well ahead of even Wall Street's bullish projections for his rocket-and-AI conglomerate. Responding on X to a Morgan Stanley revenue forecast, Musk said SpaceX "might be able to reach approximately $1 trillion revenue in 2030," adding that he would be "surprised" if revenue did not exceed $1 trillion in 2031. The brokerage's own estimates peg SpaceX revenue at $160 billion by 2028 and $330 billion by 2030, scaling to $3.4 trillion by 2040, up from the $18.7 billion the company actually booked in 2025. Musk's 2030 number is roughly three times Morgan Stanley's estimate for the same year. The claim lands days after SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history, raising $75 billion and closing its first session at a $2.1-trillion valuation, the sixth-largest U.S. listed company. The debut also made Musk the world's first trillionaire. The trillion-dollar revenue math, however, sits awkwardly against the numbers in SpaceX's own offer document. The company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025 and lost a further $8.7 billion through March 2026, with the S-1 conceding it "may not achieve profitability." Long-term debt stood at $29.1 billion at March-end. Much of the long-term growth story rests on a claimed $28.5 trillion total addressable market, of which roughly 90% is attributed to artificial intelligence rather than the Starlink and launch businesses that generate cash today. Governance adds another caveat. Musk will control over 82% of voting power through 10-vote Class B shares, a structure U.S. pension funds have criticised as leaving him effectively unfireable. ALSO READ: SpaceX Strikes Rare Deal To Pay $0 To Bankers For IPO Greenshoe Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories -- On NDTV Profit.
The SpaceX IPO Has Wall Street Debating Whether the AI Boom Is a Bubble. Both Sides Have a Point.
On June 12, SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, raising about $75 billion at a valuation of about $1.75 trillion -- more than double the size of any stock market debut before it. By the closing bell, the stock had jumped 19%, lifting the rocket-and-satellite company's value above $2 trillion. SpaceX went public in the middle of a wave of artificial intelligence (AI) spending unlike anything the market has seen, with the four biggest technology companies alone on track to pour about $725 billion into capital expenditures (much of it on data centers and chips this year) -- up about 77% from last year. To some investors, a record listing landing on top of all that spending looks like the kind of enthusiasm that shows up near market tops. To others, it's a rational response to seemingly insatiable demand that remains largely unmet. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " So, is this the top? Here's a look at both arguments. The bear case Bursts of giant, money-losing IPOs have often clustered near market peaks, and SpaceX fits the profile. The company priced at more than 90 times its 2025 revenue while posting a $4.9 billion net loss for the year -- a loss driven largely by the AI unit, the former xAI, that Elon Musk folded into the company. Yet demand for the IPO was heavy enough that the offering was oversubscribed several times over, with retail investors alone reportedly submitting more than $70 billion in orders. The backdrop looks stretched, too. The S&P 500's cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio sits near 40 -- a level it has touched only once before, during the dot-com bubble. Then there's the spending. The four biggest AI spenders -- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Microsoft, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), and Meta Platforms -- are spending so heavily that their free cash flow has plummeted. Indeed, Amazon's trailing free cash flow has fallen about 95%, to $1.2 billion, and its 2026 capital expenditures of about $200 billion look poised to outrun its operating cash flow, turning free cash flow negative for the year. To keep building, the group has leaned heavily on the bond market, and Alphabet recently announced a massive $85 billion equity raise. Meanwhile, the payoff remains hard to find. A widely cited MIT study found that about 95% of corporate generative-AI pilots have yet to produce a measurable return, and in PwC's latest global survey, 56% of CEOs said they were getting essentially nothing from their AI efforts so far.
Elon Musk Says SpaceX Could Put One Million Tons Of Payload In Orbit Within The Next Five Years
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. SpaceX and Tesla Inc.CEO Elon Musk predicted that the commercial space flight giant could exceed orbital payload timelines and expectations. One Million Tons In Five Years On Tuesday, influencer Sawyer Merritt took to the social media platform X to outline details from a new SpaceX valuation model shared by Research firm Mach33, which says that SpaceX could put over 40,000 tons of Starlink payload into orbit in the next two years, coinciding with the first datacenter satellites. Mach33 has published its new @SpaceX valuation model. Mach33 believes the current ~$1.77T equity valuation does not fully reflect the long-term upside from Starship, orbital compute infrastructure, and future SpaceX growth initiatives. "The globe below shows their base case for... https://t.co/fUiz1pQnvH pic.twitter.com/WtNh5THs1w -- Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 9, 2026 Responding to Merritt, Musk shared bullish sentiments about SpaceX's orbital payload capacity. "1M tons to orbit should be possible in roughy 5 years," the billionaire said. 1M tons to orbit should be possible in roughy 5 years -- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2026 Gene Munster On SpaceX Investor Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management touted SpaceX's upcoming IPO as an exciting event for the tech industry. He compared the commercial space flight company with Alphabet Inc., but outlined that SpaceX had an edge over Google as the latter did not make rockets. SpaceX's upcoming IPO has garnered considerable buzz, with investor Ron Baron predicting that the Musk-led company could go on to become worth $30 trillion in the future. See Also: Avoid the #1 Investing Mistake: How Your 'Safe' Holdings Could Be Costing You Big Time Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which is the lead underwriter for the SpaceX IPO, reportedly shared with prospective investors that the company's total revenue could reach over $474 billion by 2030. Datacenter Lawsuit Further illustrating the prospect of orbital datacenters for Musk is a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against SpaceX and xAI by residents of Mississippi in a federal court in the state, complaining of perpetual and inescapable noise stemming from the AI datacenters. Notably, Musk is not personally named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which includes an estimated 10,000 residents of the area.
Tesla to $475 by year-end 2026: the SpaceX-merger case - The Industry Spread
Tesla (TSLA) reaches $475 by year-end 2026 in the base case, $540 in the bull case, and $360 in the bear case, from a spot near $392 after the June 12 SpaceX listing. The base case rests less on car deliveries than on a new variable Wall Street can finally price: SpaceX's $1.77 trillion public valuation gives the long-rumoured Tesla-SpaceX merger a number, and the June 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting sets the discount rate on all of it. Tesla fell roughly 2% to $391.91 on June 12, 2026 -- the day Elon Musk's SpaceX began trading on Nasdaq at a $1.77 trillion valuation -- down from $431.65 at the start of the month. The single most important input to this call is no longer quarterly deliveries; it is that SpaceX now has a public market capitalisation, which converts years of vague "Musk conglomerate" speculation into a quantifiable merger-optionality premium that analysts can model. The thesis breaks if any one of four signals fires, listed in the Disconfirmation section. Key Levels: * Asset: Tesla (TSLA), spot ~$391.91 -- StockAnalysis, June 12, 2026 * Base case target: $475 by year-end 2026 -- aligns with J.P. Morgan's June 5, 2026 target (MarketBeat) * Bull case target: $540 -- triggered by a formal Tesla-SpaceX merger framework crystallising the conglomerate premium * Bear case target: $360 -- Barclays' Hold target, on EV-demand softness and a hawkish Fed (Benzinga) * Consensus: ~$404 average 12-month target across 44 analysts, prevailing Hold -- MarketBeat * Major support: $360 (Barclays target and prior swing low) -- Benzinga * Invalidation: a weekly close below $360 turns the structure bearish -- methodology below Methodology This call blends three inputs. First, the analyst distribution: a MarketBeat consensus near $404 (Hold) across 44 analysts, a J.P. Morgan bull target of $475 (June 5, 2026), and a Barclays Hold target of $360 -- the spread itself signals genuine disagreement. Second, the merger-optionality variable: SpaceX's $1.77 trillion June 12 listing gives a reference price for the conglomerate-combination thesis that did not exist a week ago. Third, the macro overlay: the June 16-17 FOMC -- the first under new Chair Kevin Warsh -- sets the discount rate on a long-duration growth stock. The time window is spot (June 12, 2026) to year-end 2026. Caveats: merger speculation is not a merger, the analyst targets predate the SpaceX listing aftermath, and a single-stock call carries idiosyncratic headline risk -- a Musk tweet can move TSLA more than a data print. The data: a wide analyst spread and a new reference price The defining feature of TSLA right now is dispersion. Barclays analyst Dan Levy carries a Hold at $360, implying downside; J.P. Morgan sits at $475, implying more than 20% upside; and the 44-analyst consensus lands near $404 with a prevailing Hold. That is not a market that agrees on fair value -- it is one waiting for a catalyst to resolve the argument. The SpaceX listing is that catalyst's first half: with SpaceX public at $1.77 trillion, the merger-optionality embedded in TSLA finally has an anchor, and the stock's 2% dip on listing day reflects the market digesting dilution-versus-optionality math in real time. A merger that issued Tesla stock to acquire SpaceX exposure would dilute existing holders even as it added a trophy asset -- and the market is still working out which effect dominates, which is exactly why the price drifted rather than jumped. Sources: MarketBeat, Benzinga, StockAnalysis (June 12, 2026). Targets are 12-month analyst figures; scenario ranges are analytical constructs, not probability-weighted forecasts. What is driving Tesla stock right now? Three forces, in order of weight. First, merger optionality: SpaceX's $1.77 trillion public valuation, achieved on June 12, 2026, gives Wall Street a number to attach to the long-rumoured Tesla-SpaceX combination, and that optionality is now a live component of TSLA's price rather than a hypothetical. Second, the macro discount rate: the June 16-17 FOMC under new Chair Kevin Warsh sets the cost of capital on a long-duration growth name, exactly as it does for the megacaps. Third, the core business: EV delivery trends and margin trajectory still anchor the floor. The first force is what separates this call from a conventional auto-demand model -- and why the bull and bear targets sit so far apart, a $180 spread on a roughly $392 stock. The same dynamic capped the S&P 500 into the June FOMC: when one dated event dominates, the multiple stays in suspense until it resolves. There is a better-than-80% chance SpaceX merges with Tesla post-IPO to create a Musk conglomerate -- a "holy grail" combination, said Dan Ives, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wedbush Securities. (Fortune) The mechanism: why the SpaceX listing re-rates Tesla Before June 12, the Tesla-SpaceX merger was un-priceable: SpaceX was a private company with a negotiated round valuation, not a market price. The IPO changes that. With SpaceX trading publicly at $1.77 trillion, any merger framework -- share swap, holding-company structure -- can be modelled against a real number, and the optionality flows into TSLA's multiple. The base case to $475 assumes the market gradually prices a non-trivial probability of combination; the bull case to $540 assumes a formal framework emerges and removes the uncertainty discount. This is the same discount-rate-meets-catalyst dynamic we mapped for the Nasdaq 100 into the Warsh FOMC and the Nvidia post-selloff value case -- a long-duration growth asset whose price hinges on one dated event and one structural catalyst. Steelmanning the bear: the merger may never formalise, dilution could outweigh optionality, and Tesla's core EV margins remain under pressure from price competition. What the model misses Single-stock calls built on analyst targets and catalyst optionality understate idiosyncratic risk. Tesla is uniquely exposed to one individual: a Musk decision, statement, or distraction can move the stock more than any FOMC outcome, and that risk is unmodellable. The 2024-25 period showed TSLA swinging 10%-plus on governance and capital-allocation headlines unrelated to deliveries. The merger thesis also assumes regulators would wave through a combination of two Musk-controlled entities -- an antitrust and related-party-transaction question that the optionistic targets gloss over. And the macro leg depends on the FOMC cooperating: a hawkish first Warsh meeting lifts the discount rate on exactly this kind of long-duration equity. Barclays analyst Dan Levy reiterated a Hold rating on Tesla with a 12-month price target of $360, implying downside from prevailing levels. (Capital.com) What would invalidate this call The base case to $475 breaks if ANY ONE of these four signals fires: * Tesla-SpaceX merger talks are formally denied. The optionality premium is now embedded in the price; an explicit denial from either board removes it and pulls TSLA toward the $404 consensus or lower. * A weekly close below $360. That breaks the Barclays-target support and prior swing low, turning the technical structure bearish and validating the downside case. * A hawkish first Warsh FOMC on June 17. A no-2026-cut-pathway signal lifts the discount rate on long-duration growth and caps the multiple regardless of merger news. * A Q2 delivery miss. If the core EV business deteriorates faster than expected, the floor under the optionality story gives way -- merger upside cannot offset a collapsing base business. What to watch next The June 16-17 FOMC is the immediate catalyst: Warsh's first guidance sets the discount rate for every long-duration growth stock, TSLA included. On the merger, watch for any formal statement from the Tesla or SpaceX boards -- confirmation or denial moves the optionality premium directly. Technically, $360 is the line that matters on the downside and the $431 early-June high is the first resistance on the way up. SpaceX's own post-IPO trading is a read-through too: if SPCX holds or climbs above its $135 offer, the merger math improves for TSLA holders; if it sags, the conglomerate premium compresses. FAQ What is the Tesla stock price prediction for 2026? From a spot near $392 on June 12, 2026, our base case is $475 by year-end (matching J.P. Morgan), with a $540 bull case on merger optionality and a $360 bear case (Barclays). The 44-analyst consensus sits near $404 with a prevailing Hold. Will Tesla merge with SpaceX? It is speculation, not fact. CNBC reported merger discussions around SpaceX's IPO, and Wedbush's Dan Ives puts the probability above 80%, calling it a "holy grail" combination. SpaceX's June 12 listing at $1.77 trillion gives the idea a market price for the first time, but no formal framework has been announced. Why did Tesla stock fall on the SpaceX IPO? TSLA dipped about 2% to $391.91 on June 12, 2026 as SpaceX began trading, as the market weighed merger dilution against optionality. A combination would issue Tesla shares or restructure ownership, and investors were pricing that uncertainty in real time. What would push Tesla stock higher? A formal Tesla-SpaceX merger framework crystallising the conglomerate premium (bull case $540), a dovish June FOMC easing the discount rate on long-duration growth, and a Q2 delivery beat that firms the core-business floor beneath the optionality story. This article is informational analysis only and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Foreign-exchange, commodity, and equity markets are highly volatile and can lose substantial value rapidly. Leveraged products carry total-loss risk and may exceed the initial margin posted. Past performance and historical correlations do not guarantee future results. Do your own research and consult a regulated financial adviser before making any investment decision.
SpaceX's $1.75 Trillion Gamble
"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked." -- Warren Buffett You've probably heard of SpaceX -- the company launching rockets, sending astronauts to space, and running the Starlink satellite internet service. Now, it's a public company. That means one can buy shares in SpaceX just like one buys shares in Apple or Amazon. But here's the weird part: SpaceX didn't apply to be listed as a spacecraft company. In its official paperwork, it called itself an AI services and infrastructure company. Why would a rocket builder do that? Because the stock market is obsessed with artificial intelligence. By slapping an AI label on itself, SpaceX attracted way more investors and demanded a much higher price. It was a clever trick -- but also a dangerous one. Initial Public Offering Let's break down some basics. An IPO (initial public offering) happens when a private company sells its shares to the general public for the first time. Until recently, SpaceX stayed private, owned only by big investors, employees, and other investors. When a company goes public, only a small portion of its total shares usually hit the market. That small portion is the "free float." Imagine a pizza with 100 slices. If the company listed only four slices for public trading, the free float was 4%. The other 96 slices stayed with founders, early investors, and employees. Why does free float matter? Because when very few shares are available to trade, even a small amount of buying or selling swings the price wildly. That makes the stock risky for everyday people. Most stock market indexes, like the S&P 500, require a free float of at least 10% before they include a company. SpaceX is listed with a free float of only 4% -- extremely low and a clear warning sign. The Quiet Rule Change Normally, a new public company has to wait at least 12 months before joining a major index like the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq-100. That waiting period protects investors -- it gives the market time to figure out the company's real value before retirement funds are forced to buy it. But as SpaceX prepared to go public, the Nasdaq exchange quietly changed its own rules. Now, a company can join the Nasdaq-100 in just 15 days, not three months. And they can join even with a free float below 10%. That meant billions of dollars from index funds were forced to buy SpaceX shares almost immediately after the IPO. Those funds include many people's retirement savings. In the U.S., a common retirement account is a 401(k) -- think of it as a workplace pension plan. American workers put part of their paycheck into a 401(k), and that money often goes into index funds that track the Nasdaq. So when Nasdaq changed its rules, it forced millions of ordinary workers to buy SpaceX shares -- whether those shares were a good deal or not. The Real Financial Picture Now let's look at SpaceX's actual financial health, not the hype. In 2025, SpaceX reported a net loss of nearly $5 billion US dollars. That means it spent about $5 billion more than it earned. Just one year earlier, the company was profitable -- so this was a huge reversal. The only part of SpaceX that makes solid money is Starlink, the satellite internet service. But most of Starlink's profit goes into a separate AI project called Grok, a chatbot that's losing billions. So why did the IPO value the company at an unbelievable $1.75 trillion? That's more than the entire economy of countries like Australia or Spain. The valuation rested almost entirely on AI hype, not on the real rocket business. The Political Payback Here's where the story gets uncomfortable. During the 2024 US presidential election, Elon Musk spent roughly $300 million supporting Donald Trump's campaign. After Trump won, the new administration handed SpaceX a massive government contract worth $4.16 billion from the US Space Force. In fact, government contracts now make up about 20% of its total revenue -- a huge boost just before the IPO. But more directly, at least ten senior officials from Trump's administration got to buy SpaceX shares at a low, private price before the public could. According to financial records, their holdings range from roughly $10 million to over $40 million each. The names include Donald Trump Jr. and others close to the president. When the IPO happened, those shares jumped in price. Those officials then sold and walked away with millions in profit. Many critics call this a pay‑to‑play deal: Musk helped Trump win, and in return, Trump's team cashed in on the SpaceX IPO. Connecting the Dots Let's put it all together. SpaceX renamed itself an AI company to ride the AI bubble -- even though its AI division is losing money. Stock market rules changed to force index funds and retirement accounts to buy SpaceX shares almost immediately. The company has a tiny free float of only 4%, which makes the stock price unstable. And the whole IPO looks like a reward to political insiders who helped Trump win. For ordinary investors -- especially people with retirement savings -- this is a trap. Why SpaceX Is Only the First SpaceX is just the opening act. OpenAI, Anthropic, and other money‑losing AI darlings now line up to follow the same playbook. They rebrand slightly, list with a microscopic free float, and benefit from the same Nasdaq rule changes. The goal: force index funds and 401(k)s to buy their shares before any real profitability exists. This isn't accidental. The AI bubble holds up the entire U.S. stock market -- tech giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google tie their valuations directly to AI hype. If the bubble pops, the American economy crashes with it. So regulators and exchange operators quietly rewrite the rules to pump new AI companies into retirement funds, injecting fresh money into the bubble. They keep it inflated just a little longer. SpaceX tested the model. OpenAI perfects it. And ordinary workers pay the price when the whole thing finally deflates. The Aftermath SpaceX builds amazing rockets. But this IPO wasn't about space travel. It was about using AI hype, changed rules, and political favours to make a small group of people very rich -- at the risk of everyone else's savings. Whether you live in Abuja, London, Tokyo, or Sydney, keep your eyes open. What happens on Wall Street never stays on Wall Street.
Fable 5 wake-up call; Indians chase SpaceX jackpot
Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox? Happy Monday! The Fable 5 disruption has triggered fresh calls for India to build its own AI muscle. This and more in today's ETtech Morning Dispatch. Also in the letter: ■ Househelp discount wars return ■ Indian IT eyes Europe ■ Red Hat's India play Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic After a US export-control directive forced Anthropic to cut off foreign users from its latest AI models, Indian founders, investors and AI leaders are sounding the alarm: India cannot keep depending on overseas AI infrastructure. Their message is clear: India needs sovereign AI capabilities of its own - just as it built the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and Aadhaar instead of relying on imported rails. A new supply chain risk: Also Read: US ban on Anthropic's Fable 5 & Mythos 5 to put Indian IT services firms at competitive disadvantage India's big AI bet: For now, much of India's sovereign AI ambition rides on Sarvam AI, the Bengaluru startup chosen under the IndiaAI Mission to build indigenous foundation models. But the money gap is huge. Sarvam has raised $41 million so far, while OpenAI and Anthropic together have pulled in capital worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Also Read: Anthropic ban: Sarvam AI's Pratyush Kumar warns against reliance on foreign models "We can experiment with new architectures. We can build smaller models. We can build models designed specifically for Indian languages and use cases," says Aakrit Vaish, cofounder, Activate, who was also on the advisor committee of the India AI mission. Why it matters: Indian AI startups building for global markets fear being cut off from cutting-edge models, leaving them on the back foot against US rivals. Also Read: Anthropic's Fable 5 takedown triggers India Inc push for AI self-reliance Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has listed in the US -- and Indian investors are taking notice. Data from brokers that enable US stock investing shows a clear spike in interest. Driving the news: Trading volumes on Friday and early Saturday morning in India were up by 20-25% among both new and existing investors. Roughly one in five trades went into SpaceX shares, according to Vested Finance and IndMoney data. Also Read: Elon Musk recalls SpaceX's journey from mere 10% chance of success to the world's biggest IPO What this tells us: Also Read: SpaceX: Five key moments, from first launch to Starship megarocket Long-term view: A more enabling regulatory framework via the GIFT City route is nudging more Indians into global markets. This signals both confidence in India's own growth story and a rising appetite for new-age companies worldwide. The enthusiasm around Indian startup IPOs mirrors this broader shift. Also Read: States challenge Nasdaq, FTSE Russell for fast-tracking SpaceX (L-R) Urban Company's Abhiraj Bhal, Snabbit's Aayush Aggarwal and Pronto's Anjali Sardana India's instant househelp startups are back to spending aggressively to win customers. Urban Company, Snabbit, and Pronto ramped up discounts in May after briefly dialling back incentives in April amid a worker shortage. What's happening? The trio's combined monthly cash burn jumped about 25% month-on-month to $14-15 million in May, up from $10-12 million in April, according to industry executives. The catch: That extra spend hasn't delivered a big demand spike. Sector reset: A labour crunch had briefly choked supply, forcing companies to raise prices in some markets. As worker availability improved in May, platforms swung back to aggressive customer acquisition via discounts and offers. For example: Also Read: Optimising to win, capture market share in InstaHelp: Urban Company CEO Bhal as firm reports 57x jump in net loss Europe becomes Indian IT's fastest-growing market: Europe is emerging as the next big growth market for Indian IT services, accounting for over a third of the new delivery centres opened by top firms last fiscal, as it continues to outpace North America. Red Hat sees an opening as Indian enterprises turn to AI sovereignty: Red Hat is seeing rising demand for its open-source stack from Indian enterprises that want tighter control over AI and cloud infrastructure, amid mounting worries about tech sovereignty, data governance and vendor lock-in, a senior executive said. AI workloads push data centres to upgrade fire and cooling systems: Data centres are racing to strengthen fire safety, cooling and electrical infrastructure to protect operations from sudden failures as AI-driven loads surge, said industry executives and analysts. ■ What the SpaceX IPO reveals about Gulf money in AI (Rest of World) ■ Meta Employees Absolutely Hate Mark Zuckerberg's Plan for a Companywide AI Hackathon (Wired) ■ AI riches turn Samsung factory town into luxury hotspot (FT) Explore other editions Updated On Jun 15, 2026, 07:03 AM IST
SpaceX's IPO is a done deal. What to expect down the road. | Mint
Astera Labs, up almost 300% year to date, and Reddit both experienced significant post-IPO volatility before long-term success. With SpaceX debuting on public markets Friday and rival AI giants entering the IPO pipeline, 2026 could become one of the most consequential years for capital markets in decades. Just in the past couple of weeks, OpenAI confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering shortly after Anthropic did the same, setting the stage for a trio of megacap listings that may collectively command valuations in the trillions. What's less discussed is how such outsize capital requirements, whether from record-setting proceeds at SpaceX or massive new share issuance from AI lab IPOs, could draw considerable liquidity and investor attention toward these flagship offerings at the expense of other market opportunities. For investors, the most important question isn't just valuation, it's precedent. They should remember that even the most anticipated megacap IPOs often experience sharp pullbacks after their initial surge. Reddit, a communication services company that also went public in March 2024, has experienced similarly sharp swings, much like Astera Labs. The early post-IPO period was marked by heavy volatility and wide price discovery. Looking at the weekly chart, the stock opened its first two weeks with a doji followed by a bearish shooting star, which quickly set a volatile tone as the price dropped from about $75 to $37 in just five weeks. A bullish morning star formed in the last week of April 2024, helping to stabilize the decline, with subsequent lows marked by a doji in August 2024 and a bullish piercing line in April 2025. On the upside, a peak was signaled by a bearish dark cloud cover, which also coincided with the development of a rising wedge beginning in February 2025. As with many new issues, patience after the first few weeks often proves rewarding, as the initial enthusiasm and forced flows subside and a more durable trend begins to take shape. I expect SpaceX to encounter a similar path to ALAB and RDDT. An initial surge followed by a few soft weeks, but long-term success mirroring those two, both of which were much higher a year after going public.
While Everyone Was Focused On SpaceX, I'm Buying Gold Miners (NYSEARCA:GDX) | Seeking Alpha
Space Was at the Climax of Attention This Week The world was distracted by SpaceX (SPCX). I noticed that a sector that has been performing consistently in rally mode, until it peaked in March, has David H. Lerner is an analyst with a decade of experience utilizing his professional background in software consulting and technology to identify market trends and provide long and short trade ideas. David employs a combination of technical analysis and market psychology to capitalize on narratives for outsized returns. He also utilizes "Cash Management Discipline," a simple trading style to hedge against the volatility of today's market climate.He leads the investing group Active Investors Forum where he uncovers actionable trading and investing ideas nearly every day. Other features include: long and short swing trade alerts, daily macro analysis, weekly articles, and chat for community interaction and questions. Learn More. Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of GDX either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Dow Jones Top Company Headlines at 9 PM ET: Anthropic Dispatches Staff to D.C., Racing to Resolve AI Export Restrictions | How ...
Anthropic Dispatches Staff to D.C., Racing to Resolve AI Export Restrictions Startup is seeking a deal to end export restrictions that led to shutdown of its most powerful AI models. ---- How Edikted Built a Teen Sensation on Crop Tops and Miniskirts The fast-fashion company uses vast consumer data to produce 300 new styles a month and makes its stores feel like a party for shoppers. ---- Australia's Sigma Withdraws Interest in U.K. Retailer Boots Australia's Sigma Healthcare withdrew its interest in acquiring Boots, saying a deal for the U.K. drugstore chain wouldn't meet its strategic or capital-investment objectives. ---- Amazon CEO's Talks With U.S. Officials Triggered Crackdown on Anthropic Models Information Andy Jassy shared with the Trump administration sparked an abrupt, sweeping move to halt foreign access to the company's powerful AI tools. ---- Justice Department Clears Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Deal The $81 billion acquisition by Paramount still requires approval from European regulators. ---- The 70-Year Marriage Between McDonald's and Coke Has Some Issues Changing consumer tastes and increasing competition challenge one of the most successful and oldest corporate partnerships ---- SpaceX, Now Worth $2.1 Trillion, Pulls Off Goldilocks Debut Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire as investors bought into the moonshot AI vision in a remarkably smooth IPO. ---- OpenAI Investigated by Coalition of State Attorneys General The company was served with a subpoena seekingr documents covering a wide range of its activities and impact on users. ---- BlackRock Private-Credit Fund Faces 13% Redemption Requests Shareholders asked to redeem more than last quarter, though withdrawals will be capped at 5% again. ---- Jeep Owners Face Growing Recall Reality: Park Outside, in Case of Vehicle Fires The automaker's latest park-outside fire recall campaign now includes one million Jeep vehicles. ---- Chinese Connected-Car Software Ban Shows Cracks A federal push to keep adversary-linked software out of smart vehicles on U.S. roads has "meaningful gaps," cybersecurity experts say. ---- Sleep Number Files for Bankruptcy, Plans to Combine With Sleep Country Canada Mattress maker Sleep Number has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy with a deal in hand to be acquired by Sleep Country Canada for $415 million. ---- JBS to Close Beef Plant in Pennsylvania The world's largest meatpacker, is preparing to close a beef-processing plant in Pennsylvania, the latest facility to close as a cattle shortage in the U.S. squeezes meatpacking companies. ---- Bath & Body Works' Plan to Win More Younger Consumers The company's CEO Daniel Heaf says he wants to improve products, hire more influencers, update stores and revamp digital sales. ---- A Struggling Motorcycle Brand Wants to Start a Culture War With Harley-Davidson Indian Motorcycle says its anti-DEI marketing isn't political, but some of its own riders reject the campaign (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 14, 2026 21:15 ET (01:15 GMT) Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
The SpaceX IPO Has Wall Street Debating Whether the AI Boom Is a Bubble. Both Sides Have a Point.
On June 12, SpaceX (SPCX +19.22%) completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, raising about $75 billion at a valuation of about $1.75 trillion -- more than double the size of any stock market debut before it. By the closing bell, the stock had jumped 19%, lifting the rocket-and-satellite company's value above $2 trillion. SpaceX went public in the middle of a wave of artificial intelligence (AI) spending unlike anything the market has seen, with the four biggest technology companies alone on track to pour about $725 billion into capital expenditures (much of it on data centers and chips this year) -- up about 77% from last year. To some investors, a record listing landing on top of all that spending looks like the kind of enthusiasm that shows up near market tops. To others, it's a rational response to seemingly insatiable demand that remains largely unmet. So, is this the top? Here's a look at both arguments. The bear case Bursts of giant, money-losing IPOs have often clustered near market peaks, and SpaceX fits the profile. The company priced at more than 90 times its 2025 revenue while posting a $4.9 billion net loss for the year -- a loss driven largely by the AI unit, the former xAI, that Elon Musk folded into the company. Yet demand for the IPO was heavy enough that the offering was oversubscribed several times over, with retail investors alone reportedly submitting more than $70 billion in orders. The backdrop looks stretched, too. The S&P 500's cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio sits near 40 -- a level it has touched only once before, during the dot-com bubble. Then there's the spending. The four biggest AI spenders -- Amazon (AMZN 1.24%), Microsoft, Alphabet (GOOG +0.45%)(GOOGL +0.53%), and Meta Platforms -- are spending so heavily that their free cash flow has plummeted. Indeed, Amazon's trailing free cash flow has fallen about 95%, to $1.2 billion, and its 2026 capital expenditures of about $200 billion look poised to outrun its operating cash flow, turning free cash flow negative for the year. To keep building, the group has leaned heavily on the bond market, and Alphabet recently announced a massive $85 billion equity raise. Meanwhile, the payoff remains hard to find. A widely cited MIT study found that about 95% of corporate generative-AI pilots have yet to produce a measurable return, and in PwC's latest global survey, 56% of CEOs said they were getting essentially nothing from their AI efforts so far. The bull case But the other side of the argument starts with a simple observation -- the demand is extraordinary. "[W]e are compute constrained in the near term," said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the company's first-quarter 2026 earnings call. "... [O]ur cloud revenue would have been higher if we were able to meet the demand." In other words, Alphabet is turning away cloud revenue because it can't add capacity fast enough. Behind that comment, Google Cloud revenue grew 63% in the first quarter, and its backlog (contracted business it hasn't yet delivered) nearly doubled sequentially to more than $460 billion. The other big providers are growing quickly as well, with Amazon's AWS accelerating sequentially to a year-over-year growth rate of 28%. The bulls also point out that these companies have done this before. The same cloud and data center investments that critics once called reckless have become highly profitable businesses. From that view, spending ahead of demand is how the last technology cycle was won, not a warning sign -- and Goldman Sachs projects AI-related spending will climb toward $1.6 trillion a year by 2031. So, where does this leave investors? Both sides of the argument deserve some consideration. The skeptics are right that valuations are rich and that we're still largely waiting to see profits big enough to justify this unprecedented spending cycle. And the optimists are right about demand: backlogs are massive, and they seem to keep climbing. To me, the honest read is that neither camp has won the argument yet. Which one turns out to be right will come down to the single question neither can answer today -- whether all of that spending eventually produces the profits to justify it. With all of this said, I believe investors may want to consider allocating some of their portfolio to areas that could benefit if the AI boom continues longer than expected, as well as to more conservatively valued investments, with exposure to sectors likely to be more resilient during a pullback in AI spending.
Mag 7? MANGOS? SpaceX forces name rethink on Wall Street's tech-stock moniker By Reuters
June 13 (Reuters) - SpaceX roared into markets this past week with a valuation of more than $2 trillion, surpassing two members of Wall Street's "Magnificent Seven" and raising a key question: Does the Mag 7 name still fit? And if not, what should replace it? The IPO, the biggest in U.S. history, vaulted SpaceX's value above two Mag 7 members: CEO Elon Musk's other company, Tesla, and Meta Platforms. With trillion-dollar contenders such as OpenAI and Anthropic waiting in the IPO wings, the club may soon need a name change, analysts said. With SpaceX's arrival, "it becomes very hard to keep using Mag 7 as the clean shorthand for market leadership because one of the most important companies in the world would immediately be outside the label," said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities. These groupings are not formal market categories, but shorthand labels coined by strategists, investors and the media to capture the hottest big stocks at a given moment. Such monikers have a long history, ranging from the "Nifty 50" of the 1960s and 1970s to the "Four Horsemen" of the late 1990s dot-com boom. The SpaceX IPO has set off a race to devise the next cool acronym. One sobriquet gaining traction on X is "MANGOS", which stands for Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Alphabet, OpenAI and SpaceX. That grouping is far from standardized, with some interpreting the "A" as Apple, currently the third most-valuable U.S.-listed firm. "We are already referring to it internally and the industry is picking up on it as well," said Aga Kuplinska, SVP of product development at Tidal Financial Group, which helps asset managers roll out ETFs. Dan Boardman-Weston, CEO at BRI Wealth Management, is going another way, suggesting "Magna Atoms" - the Magnificent Seven plus SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN RIDE The "Magnificent Seven" term was coined by BofA Global Research Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett in late 2023 to describe seven heavyweight technology-related stocks: Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft. With an AI boom driving stock markets to record highs and the sudden appearance of new trillion-dollar companies, the leaderboard is often in a state of flux. In a May 22 note, BofA wrote about the "AI Big 10," adding Broadcom, Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices to the original seven, reflecting the semiconductor rally of the past year. That group accounts for more than 40% of the S&P 500's weight, according to LSEG data. The labels have evolved before - from FANG to FAANG to the Magnificent Seven - each tracking shifts in companies that led the market. FANG covered Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. FAANG added Apple, and Magnificent Seven dropped Netflix while adding Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, each shift reflecting changes at the top of the market. "It's been Mag 7 for several years now. Maybe the markets are excited for something new," said Dustin Thackeray, chief investment officer at Crewe Advisors. To be sure, not everyone expects the old label to ride off into the sunset. "The Magnificent Seven label is not going away," said Dave Mazza, CEO of Roundhill Investments. "It is too embedded in how investors and the media view large-cap tech leadership. What you will likely see is additive terminology rather than replacement."
Retail investors build big dreams on small slices of SpaceX By Reuters
By Suzanne McGee, Akash Sriram and Manya Saini NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) - Individual investors eager for a piece of SpaceX's mega IPO on Friday scrutinized their e-mail inboxes and brokerage accounts to see just how big a slice of the pie they received - while others went straight to the open market to scoop them up on day one. From the start, SpaceX and its underwriters had determined to set aside as much as 30% of the shares sold to the public in the IPO for retail investors. That meant that whipping up interest and buying orders from this group was crucial. Getting an allocation to the stock was competitive, and some retail investors just dived into the market to buy. "I'm very happy with what I managed to get," said Joseph Gutheinz, who retired from NASA as an investigator to practice law. Gutheinz did not think of trying to submit an IPO allocation request but managed to buy $100,000 of shares at $161 on Friday. "It's a great investment," he said. "Win or lose, I'm happy to be invested at all." Retail buying was one of the factors responsible for the pop in the price of SpaceX shares, which surged 19% on their first day of trading, said Art Hogan, investment strategist at B. Riley Wealth in Boston. "This allocation to retail is far and away the highest I've ever seen in my decades on Wall Street," Hogan said. "It's the latest, greatest shiny object for retail investors to get into right now." The deal became "the largest and most subscribed offering on our platform to date," said a spokesman for SoFi, one of the retail brokerages involved in the selling group. The spokesman added that all individuals who met SoFi's criteria received an allocation of the deal. Net buying of SpaceX shares accounted for about 4% of all single-stock retail turnover on Friday, totaling $453 million and running at 3.5 times the pace of runner-up Nvidia. "Retail investors have shown up for SpaceX in a big way," said Vanda Research, a firm that tracks the activity of self-directed individual investors and that spent much of Friday monitoring trading in the high-profile IPO. In the first 20 minutes of trading, SpaceX shares had vaulted to second place in the ranks of most actively purchased stocks by retail investors and by mid-afternoon was in first place, dwarfing its rivals, Vanda reported. ALLOCATIONS FALL SHORT Allocations, however, for some retail investors fell short of what they sought. "Requested 250, received nothing," one of the rare disgruntled would-be investors reported on a Reddit chat devoted to figuring out who had received allocations. "Requested 555, got 10" and "requested 1,000, got 85," other Reddit posters noted. SpaceX founder Elon Musk, whom the IPO has made the world's first trillionaire, pledged in 2024 that if any of his still-private companies went public in the future, he intended to make sure that retail investors, especially holders of his other public company, Tesla, would have priority in accessing the new deal. "Loyalty deserves loyalty," he said in a post on X at the time. Already, some fans of Musk and SpaceX are providing further signs of their commitment and conviction. Clint Sorenson, chief investment officer of Ascentis Asset Management, told Reuters he offered all of his firm's clients who had invested in SpaceX via private investment vehicles before the IPO the opportunity to hedge their exposure to the stock now that it is publicly traded. No one took him up on the idea, he said. "Everyone wants to keep holding and celebrating right now; no one wants to even think of hedging their risk because they believe in the story so much," Sorenson said.
Kevin O'Leary Says Trying To Pick Between OpenAI, Anthropic And SpaceX IPOs Is A Mistake: 'Buy Them All'
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Investor Kevin O'Leary said investors should avoid trying to predict a single winner among the highly anticipated IPOs of OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX, arguing that owning all three may be the smarter long-term bet. O'Leary Calls For Diversification As AI IPO Wave Approaches Speaking on Fox and later elaborating in a post on X, the "Shark Tank" investor said the race among leading artificial intelligence companies is too uncertain to justify betting on just one name. "Don't try and pick winners because you have no idea," O'Leary said. Instead, he suggested treating the companies as a sector-wide investment opportunity and building diversified exposure across the group. His comments come as OpenAI filed confidentially for an initial public offering, joining Anthropic and Elon Musk's SpaceX among the most closely watched potential listings on Wall Street. Why O'Leary Likes SpaceX, Anthropic And OpenAI O'Leary described SpaceX as both a bet on Musk and on Starlink, the satellite internet business that he said is already generating profits. "Buying a piece of Elon has never been a bad investment, period," he said, praising Musk's track record of executing ambitious projects. He also highlighted Anthropic's growing appeal, revealing that he rolled out Claude across his organization after allowing employees to evaluate competing AI tools. "I use it every day. I really like it," O'Leary said, adding that Anthropic currently appears to be performing strongly in the AI software race. While he did not single out OpenAI's products, O'Leary said the ChatGPT maker remains one of the most important companies in the industry and deserves consideration alongside its rivals. With companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI potentially heading toward IPOs, investors are already debating which one will be the biggest winner. My view is that trying to pick a single champion is a mistake. SpaceX gives you exposure to Elon Musk and the success of... pic.twitter.com/TMbgKYGEC2 -- Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) June 10, 2026 Trending: Avoid the #1 Investing Mistake: How Your 'Safe' Holdings Could Be Costing You Big Time IPO Enthusiasm Grows As Warren Raises Concerns The expected listings have generated significant investor excitement, with SpaceX reportedly valued at roughly $1.8 trillion and Anthropic near $965 billion.
Mirae Asset Shares Fall on SpaceX IPO Allocation Failure
Mirae Asset Securities recovers after initial drop; related stocks decline Shares of Mirae Asset Group affiliates are declining in early trading on the 15th following news that Mirae Asset Securities, which participated in the initial public offering (IPO) of U.S. space company SpaceX, failed to secure even a single share allocation. As of 9:38 a.m. on the same day, Mirae Asset Securities was trading at 53,100 Korean won, up 1.34% (700 Korean won) from the previous trading day. Mirae Asset Securities had initially fallen by over 3% immediately after the market opened, dropping to the 53,000 Korean won range, but later turned upward. Related stocks are also declining. Mirae Asset Life Insurance is down in the 2% range, while Mirae Asset Venture Investment is showing a decline in the 18% range. Earlier, Mirae Asset Securities participated as a domestic underwriter in the subscription for SpaceX's IPO shares. However, it was reported that the company failed to secure the final allocation. Originally, SpaceX had planned to allocate 2,314,815 shares out of the 555,555,555 Class A common shares it sold in this offering to Mirae Asset Securities. However, it was reported that Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriter, completely eliminated the allocation of IPO shares that were initially planned for Mirae Asset Securities and others during the final allocation process.
SpaceX soars. Get out while you can, folks!
Much has been made of Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire following SpaceX's trading debut. But how will he handle bringing the secretive company into the glaring light? Days after tipping a bucket on the SpaceX IPO in Crikey, this embarrassed long-term owner of one SpaceX share is happy to acknowledge that the newly minted paper trillionaire Elon Musk has so far proved the sceptics wrong, after SpaceX's surprisingly smooth and strong trading debut on Friday night. But having made so many outlandish promises and predictions in order to extract US$75 billion from public investors, Musk now has to steer the notoriously secretive SpaceX forward in the full glare of public markets exposure -- with quarterly reporting, annual meetings and a daily measurement of the share price.
SpaceX Rings the Bell While Gold Hits Zero
Two numbers stuck with me from this conversation with Doug. SpaceX went public and minted the world's first trillionaire. And the gold miners' sentiment index hit zero -- literally zero, a number Doug says he's never seen. Euphoria on one side of the market, total despair on the other. On SpaceX: the stock opened at $135 and ran past $171, up about 30% on the day. Elon's stake alone was worth roughly $867 billion at the IPO price -- add Tesla and he's well past a trillion. Doug's glad it held, and so am I, because a SpaceX flop would've taken the rest of the market down with it. But neither of us is mistaking the party for health. When IPOs spike like it's 1999, somebody's ringing a bell at the top. We'll see if anyone's listening. (We also spent a minute on how absurd a trillion is. A billion pennies stacked would reach from New York to Palm Beach. A trillion gets you to the moon and back -- twice.) Then the part of the market we actually care about. On January 29 the gold miners' bullish index hit 100. On June 10 it hit zero. Doug's response is the only sane one I can come up with: it can't go lower, so he's buying, not selling. Oil's down there with it -- West Texas around $80, Brent around $84 -- even with Hormuz shut for more than 100 days. What's holding it down is China, which has quietly pulled close to 5 million barrels a day out of its imports. I asked Doug how that's even possible. Neither of us has heard a good answer. On inflation: official CPI ticked up to 4.2%, producer prices hotter still, and Doug's "personal CPI" is worse -- $140 for a simple dinner for three. Kevin Warsh runs his first meeting as Fed chair next week. The question I keep circling back to: who lends the government money for 10 or 30 years at 4-6% when the only exit from the debt is the printing press? The listener questions ranged wide: Costa Rica -- Doug lived there for months and has cooled on it. The place that pioneered the gringo-friendly tropics has gotten expensive and touristy. His pick in Central America today, if forced: maybe Panama. Tokenized gold -- Kinesis, Tether Gold, and others let you spend gold off a debit card backed by audited vault metal. Doug likes the concept -- it makes gold money again -- with one question I share: is it really yours, and can you actually redeem it? Ivanhoe Mines and Ebola -- A deadlier new Ebola strain is in the Congo. Doug's not worried about Ivanhoe; Katanga is effectively cut off from the outbreak zone. Lutnick, stablecoins, and Epstein -- Doug doesn't trust anyone orbiting Trump, and he doesn't think the worst of the files ever sees daylight. Humanoid robots -- Some 200 robot companies in China are racing on cheap EV battery tech. Doug's bet: five years from now we each have one standing behind us, doing what it's told.
Morning Wrap: ASX 200 to rise as S&P 500 climbs on SpaceX debut and US-Iran announce peace deal
Major US benchmarks closed higher and near session highs as Iran peace hopes and SpaceX's debut buoyed risk appetite Strong breadth with all sectors (except Healthcare) higher, Equal-weight S&P 500 (+0.91%) outperformed the cap-weighted benchmark by 41 bps SpaceX's record listing reopens the mega-IPO window, with former Nasdaq chief Robert Greifeld predicting OpenAI and Anthropic could follow with public debuts this year (YF) Chip and AI names were mixed, with pressure on ASML, Super Micro and Marvell, while Schwab strategists noted nearly half of 2026 US earnings growth is concentrated in tech (SCFR) Big stock swings signal choppy markets, driven by AI jitters and major IPOs influencing index movements (WSJ) Global banks limit hedge funds' leveraged bets on SK Hynix and Samsung amid concerns after rally and recent volatility(BBG) US bank stocks hit record high on Iran deal momentum, upcoming IPOs (BBG)
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SpaceX Bars China and Hong Kong Investors From Its Record IPO, Citing US Export Rules
The exclusion ties to ITAR defense rules, and analysts call it a sign of US-China decoupling. SpaceX, Elon Musk's space company, has excluded investors from mainland China and Hong Kong from what is set to be the largest IPO in history -- a rare restriction that several analysts read as a sign that the separation between the U.S. and China is spreading from trade into capital markets. The company is listing today on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, priced at $135 a share for a valuation near $1.75 trillion, with lead banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citi. Underwriters were instructed not to accept orders from investors in mainland China and Hong Kong, including private-banking clients, citing regulatory and compliance risks. The move -- first reported by Bloomberg and Reuters on June 5 as SpaceX began its roadshow, and followed up by the New York Times on June 11 -- is described as the first known instance of investors from those regions being effectively shut out of a major U.S. IPO. What ITAR Is, and Why It Forces the Issue The stated driver is U.S. export control. SpaceX's rockets and satellites fall under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR -- the U.S. rules that govern sensitive defense and aerospace technology and classify items like its Falcon and Starship rockets alongside military hardware. Because ITAR can impose strict compliance obligations and penalties around who gains access to controlled technology and the companies that build it, the underwriters' simplest way to manage that risk is to screen orders by jurisdiction and reject those from mainland China and Hong Kong. Users in those regions trying to reach SpaceX's website have reportedly been met with an "Error 1009" block. The restriction also fits a broader U.S. push, on national-security grounds, to tighten investment and technology transfer to China across advanced sectors including AI, aerospace, and semiconductors. It is worth noting the barrier is not entirely one-directional. Foreign investment is itself tightly restricted or off-limits in China's own space sector, which is closely regulated by the country's military -- so neither country currently grants the other open access to its most sensitive aerospace assets. How Beijing and Chinese Analysts See It From the other side, the curbs have drawn pushback. China Daily, a state-run outlet, reported that Chinese experts called the restrictions "baseless," describing them as a case of "capital decoupling" in which the U.S. is extending national-security concerns from physical technology into the capital markets themselves. Those experts argued the curbs could raise fundraising costs for U.S. companies that lose Asian capital, while urging Chinese firms to take note of the trend without pulling back from global markets. The framing of the moment as "decoupling" is contested and depends heavily on who is describing it; what is not in dispute is that a large pool of Asian capital has been formally locked out of a marquee listing. Why This Looks Like a Template, Not a One-Off The pattern extends beyond SpaceX. OpenAI, which filed confidentially for its own listing this month and is targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion, is among the strategic-technology firms expected to face similar restrictions on Chinese capital when it reaches public markets; Anthropic, which filed on June 1, sits in a comparable position. Because all three have defense or national-security exposure through government work, observers expect the SpaceX approach -- underwriters screening out Chinese and Hong Kong orders -- to recur. A former White House technology-policy official told the New York Times the move is a clear signal that the U.S.-China split is underway not just in trade, but in technology and capital. The Access Gap Becomes Its Own Market Shut out of direct participation, Chinese investors have been chasing the listing by proxy. Reporting describes a scramble into Chinese aerospace firms and potential SpaceX subcontractors such as satellite-antenna makers, commercial-space ETFs, and offshore brokerage accounts -- and, more strikingly, into crypto-based instruments built to mimic exposure. These products are typically tokenized stakes in special-purpose vehicles, or tokens that simply track a company's value without conferring shares or voting rights. To buy them, many investors first convert renminbi into stablecoins such as USDT, a step that itself runs against Beijing's ban on converting fiat currency into crypto, then purchase the tokens on offshore platforms. The result is that the access gap itself becomes a market opportunity, with intermediaries selling synthetic exposure to the very deal those buyers cannot legally join. For SpaceX, the exclusion is a calculated trade-off rather than an existential one: U.S., European, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian capital remains fully accessible, and the offering has been reported as heavily oversubscribed. But as the first major U.S. listing to draw the line this explicitly -- with OpenAI and Anthropic lined up behind it -- the deal may be remembered less for its record size than for what it signals about how strategic American technology will go public in an era of restricted investment. Frequently Asked Questions Why are Chinese investors barred from the SpaceX IPO? SpaceX's underwriters instructed banks not to accept orders from investors in mainland China and Hong Kong, citing U.S. export-control compliance. Because SpaceX's rockets and satellites fall under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), screening out investors from those jurisdictions is a way to limit the legal risk those defense-technology rules create. What is ITAR? The International Traffic in Arms Regulations are U.S. rules that govern the export and handling of defense and aerospace technology, classifying items such as rockets and certain satellites alongside military hardware. Companies subject to ITAR face strict compliance obligations, which is why SpaceX's banks moved to restrict who could buy into the offering. How big is the SpaceX IPO? SpaceX is listing on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX at $135 per share, valuing the company near $1.75 trillion and raising roughly $75 billion -- which would make it the largest initial public offering in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's 2019 record. Some analysts, including Morningstar, have argued the valuation runs well ahead of the company's fundamentals. Are other companies expected to restrict Chinese investors too? Possibly. OpenAI and Anthropic have both filed confidentially for IPOs and, like SpaceX, have national-security exposure through government work. Observers expect that strategic-technology listings of this kind may apply similar underwriter restrictions on Chinese and Hong Kong capital, which is why the SpaceX deal is being viewed as a potential template.
With smooth SpaceX debut, Wall Street sets new template for mega IPOs By Reuters
By Anirban Sen, Nivedita Balu and Saeed Azhar NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) - A collective sigh of relief swept across Wall Street after trading for SpaceX's landmark Nasdaq launch went smoothly, setting a new template for the trading firms and exchanges that are bracing for the giant IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic later this year. SpaceX's record-breaking debut on Friday dwarfed the previous largest flotation on U.S. exchanges by nearly three times. The sheer size of the launch had worried market participants who had lingering bad memories from the disastrous stock market debut of Facebook in 2012. However, trading systems at the banks underwriting the IPO, exchanges, market makers, clearinghouses, and other market infrastructure firms held up to the challenge of processing millions of client orders. "People go back to the Facebook ... days and 'was this going to turn into one of those companies,' but I honestly think the banks in the U.S. did a fantastic job, the SpaceX crew did a fantastic job telling the story when they did their rounds. And as you can see it went extremely smoothly," said Jeff Parks, CEO of Canadian investment firm Stack Capital Group. Nearly a third of Stack's portfolio is SpaceX, in which the company began investing in 2021. He was referring to the turbulence that surrounded Facebook's ill-fated IPO, when technical problems turned a landmark listing into one of Wall Street's most notorious trading fiascos. It left investors and brokers in limbo for hours and ultimately cost market makers hundreds of millions of dollars. According to Citadel Securities, the largest U.S. retail market maker, SpaceX's debut generated the highest retail order activity for an IPO auction ever. A Citadel Securities spokesperson said the firm handled the majority of the retail orders for SpaceX. Morgan Stanley, the so-called "stabilization agent" for the glitzy market debut, had the key role in managing SpaceX's market opening. The bank had to ensure an orderly rollout even as it grappled with unprecedented investor demand. A stabilization agent typically buys up shares in the open market to shore up stocks that witness steep declines on opening day. One of the lead underwriters advising SpaceX, who requested anonymity as the matter is confidential, said the IPO was a monumental event for the exchanges and the banks and crucial to get right. Trading platform Charles Schwab said it has seen well over a million orders in SpaceX in the first few hours of trading, which is a significant figure in comparison to past IPOs, according to a spokesperson for the company. Reuters reported on Thursday that Wall Street traders, brokers and exchanges had been stress-testing their trading systems for several weeks leading up to the blockbuster IPO. SpaceX shares "are not going up in huge blocks, but they're bleeding higher, and a lot of that is due to a little bit more of a boring and softer opening print than a lot of folks expected," said Mike Dickson, head of research & quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments. "I'm a little surprised there's not more volatility, given a lot of the oversubscription headlines." SMOOTH ROLLOUT Past trading debuts for large IPOs have often faced delays because exchanges must match enormous volumes of buy and sell orders before determining an opening price. For SpaceX, the stock started trading shortly before noon on Friday. That was relatively early compared to the recent IPOs of Cerebras Systems and Quantinuum, which opened later in the afternoon on their respective debut days. Barring some issues with early trading on Robinhood on Friday, Wall Street largely skirted the technical glitches that hampered Facebook's rollout in 2012 - much to the relief of Nasdaq, the market makers, and investors. "We all worked really well together. We did a lot of preparation with our banking partners," said Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman in an interview with CNBC on Friday. "We made sure that we were talking to all of the firms throughout the process of preparing for this, and it came off really flawlessly."
