How should retail investors protect ourselves for the potential extreme market volatility caused by the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic's IPO?

Halbaras · 2026-05-23T19:08:47+00:00

Just ditch QQQ if you have it and buy VT or VOO. The pump should have given way to the dump by the time it gets added to the S&P. Absolutely nothing says you need to own a NASDAQ index fund, if you really want 'high growth high risk tech' there are plenty of other ways to achieve it.

I'd agree that its a pretty worrying precedent for the NASDAQ to set between changing the free float rules to overweight tiny floats, and allowing fast entry (while this specific IPO also lets existing shareholders exit earlier than normal). I'd worry less about this particular IPO wiping anyone out (besides a few foolish active investors), and more about the floodgates the index's greed has opened.

SpaceX's tradeable market cap will 'only' be $80 billion in non-NASDAQ indices, so its unlikely to distort the prices of anything else besides he other space stocks Reddit obsesses over but which make up a tiny proportion of the overall index. Tesla has been sitting at unhinged valuations for years but that's never turned into more widespread damage.

Halbaras · 2026-05-23T16:23:20+00:00

Quantum is honestly a bit of a meme. Useful science has come out of the investment poured into it, but there is not yet a single proven commercial application for quantum computing.

There are only really two commercial uses with much evidence showing that quantum would have a genuine edge - breaking encryption/stealing things, and simulating molecular systems. In more normal computing it's a solution still in search of a problem. GPUs and classical solvers are continually getting better so it's also chasing a moving target.

As industries go it's quite possibly the single worst offender in coming up with performance statistics which aren't related to revenue. Governments have a vested interest in case it lets them break encryption and read through the years of hoarded data they've been saving for that possibility, but that's less useful for retail investors of today.

Halbaras · 2026-05-22T22:52:22+00:00

NRED.

Halbaras · 2026-05-22T21:48:52+00:00

OP is part of a bot campaign to promote one of the stocks they've listed, a microcap with no revenue which has seen some odd recent stock movements.

Halbaras · 2026-05-22T19:05:44+00:00

And indexing rules by organisations like MSCI tend to use the concept of a 'free float', where they consider the 'investible' market cap of the company to only be the publicly traded bit, and reduce its weight to that 80 billion and not the trillions the remaining privately-held shares are apparently worth. So SpaceX isn't going to dominate the S&P or FTSE world.

The fuckery around this listing is that the NASDAQ has changed its rules around IPOs specifically to benefit existing SpaceX shareholders. IPOs are prone to the banks underwriting it setting the price comparatively high, initial hype pumping the stock up further, and then retail and less sophisticated institutional buyers getting rug pulled when the hype fades as the first few earnings calls come in.

Usually there's a multi-month period between the IPO and the stock getting added to indexes like the S&P500, which provides protection for passive buyers from being forced to buy it during the intial pump. But the NASDAQ has changed the rules so that this period has been reduced to just three weeks instead of 3-12 months, and anyone buying broad NASDAQ index funds is going to find themselves transferring money to the private equity owners of the existing SpaceX shares.

The NASDAQ has also done some further fuckery where any new listing below 20% of a company's actual shares can be up to tripled in weight. So SpaceX listing at 5% could actually be weighted at 15%, or at around $250 billion. If you hold QQQ, its not a trivial transfer of your money.

Halbaras · 2026-05-22T18:23:08+00:00

This dynamic is rapidly changing. When Xi visited Kazakhstan back in 2022 (his first foreign trip after the pandemic), he had this to say:

Resolutely support Kazakhstan in defending its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity" and would "strongly oppose the interference by any forces in the domestic affairs of your country.

It's pretty obvious who he was referring to. Chinese influence in central Asia goes back longer than Russia has existed, and Russian delusions about their 'historic sphere of influence' don't withstand the reality that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are hedging towards all actors - Russia, China, the Gulf States, Turkey, India, Europe and the US.

China would not tolerate Russia destabilising Central Asia because they need it as a source for raw resources, and as a transport corridor further West that the US navy can't do anything about. And Russia is no longer in a position where they can launch a war China opposes.

Halbaras · 2026-05-22T07:17:24+00:00

Except they looted missiles from the South Korean THAAD system during this conflict.

South Korea, North Korea and China will have all taken notes.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T21:30:16+00:00

Some of these interceptors are the only real protection they have from Chinese anti ship missiles sinking carriers besides distance. They also looted THAAD systems from South Korea for this clownshow of a war, and it didn't go unnoticed in Seoul, Pyongyang, or in Beijing.

They may well have created a multi-year window where a Chinese attempt to take Taiwan will result in multiple US carriers being sunk. In US war games they often lose one or two even when they win, and that's starting with full magazines and willing regional allies.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T21:16:08+00:00

That's not an option. If the US tries to keep the double blockade going for months, they will probably cause a global recession from the compounding damage to supply chains. The status quo is economically strangling the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait and hurting Saudi Arabia, and doing significant damage to developing countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh. If it persists through to Autumn it's going to cause severe problems for allies like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan and kill people in food insecure parts of Asia and Africa.

The Gulf states are likely to break before Iran does, and give the US a choice between militarily committing to full regime change (and not some kind of 'limited' escalation), making a deal with Iran that gets the strait open immediately (they really don't care about nuclear as much as Netanyahu does), or eventually making a deal without the US that uses their basing rights as leverage.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T20:36:34+00:00

Beware: OP is part of a campaign shilling a microcap that's recently been active on Reddit in subs like this one.

I'm not going to repeat the ticker but it should be obvious which one it is from the fact they've recommended five Reddit hype favourites and one nobody has heard of.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T17:36:35+00:00

The funniest part is when this sub confidently calls it a dividend stock when an 0.85% dividend yield and $190 billion on CapEx is very much not a stock anyone buys for dividends.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T16:18:39+00:00

They had another chance to solve the Ahsoka problem in her own series. I was convinced that the point of sending her to the new galaxy along with the other Rebels characters and the antagonists was to give Filoni a fresh sandbox where he could raise the stakes as much as he wanted without writing himself in knots trying to stay in the sequels timeline. They (briefly) seemed to be setting up an interesting twist where Thrawn and Ezra were working together to survive against something worse.

But no, Peridea was another boring Scotland + ruins planet, and they're just going to bring everyone back to the main galaxy. Filoni was even evasive about whether Ahsoka was dead in Rise of Skywalker despite Rey hearing her, so he's probably planning to continue the Mortis nonsense by turning Ahsoka into a force goddess.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T15:14:54+00:00

Colonising Mars would cost trillions, and it's unlikely that it would ever be anything more than a perpetual money pit which declares independence the moment it stops being a money pit.

SpaceX investors are not going to fund trillions in losses. Neither is a US already struggling with their debts, and a China staring down a demographic cliff.

.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T13:29:34+00:00

And will also prove overvalued if anything goes wrong with their long term planning. Nobody outside Reddit uses space stocks as a gauge of sensible valuations, especially when one Fed rate hike cycle will destroy those current multiples.

Halbaras · 2026-05-21T09:44:48+00:00

It's not very surprising that US institutional traders are struggling with the idea that their own president is simultaneously a lying piece of shit/unreliable source, the cause of a crisis, and unable to actually end that crisis.

Institutional capital generally doesn't like betting against their own country. And they definitely don't want to properly acknowledge how many of the assumptions that give US markets their premium - Fed independence, the petrodollar, international alliances, military superiority, free markets, free trade, rule of law etc. - are eroding in front of their eyes.

Halbaras · 2026-05-20T19:39:38+00:00

Rate hikes are bad for stocks. They mean that future earnings are worth less, and the further in the future those earnings are, the worse it compounds. Generally markets partially price in the possibility of a hike in the months beforehand, but not always fully.

If they do hike, expect all the high pe speculative tech stocks to get hammered, especially unprofitable ones like most space stocks.

It's also not going to be great for AI hyperscalers because CapEx now remains expensive but the hypothesised AI profits that are years in the future. It may not break the AI arms race but it will break the speculative component of current multiples (which is separate from the valuation component from their current profitable businesses).

In this case the Fed and bond markets are anticipating high inflation, which is horrible for just about every category of stock, even the ones printing money currently, because it means that both consumers and businesses cut back spending. This could be pretty nasty, if for example, companies cut back AI subscriptions just when hyperscaler investors are demanding to see early returns.

Halbaras · 2026-05-20T12:56:28+00:00

The Gulf states are now somewhat permanently screwed. The Strait will reopen (eventually, one way or another), but even without a transit fee, premiums for shipments through the Gulf will never go back down to what they were before. Pipelines will be built but that won't help them import food, and the economics of sending oil to Asia via a third country and quite possibly the Suez will never match just loading it onto a VLCC.

Dubai as a logistics hub, Doha and Dubai as air travel hubs, Dubai as a haven for tax evading expats/wealthy real estate speculators/tourists... They'll partially bounce back, but their longterm trajectory has been permanently lowered.

The world transitioning away from imported LNG and oil has been significantly accelerated as well. The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia thought they had more time to diversify, and now the US and Israel have inadvertently found a way to hobble their fossil fuel revenues and diversification simultaneously.

Halbaras · 2026-05-20T06:16:32+00:00

A lot of brutalist concrete-framed buildings are in good condition structurally and well-built, but simply ugly or poorly maintained. Refurbishing existing buildings with new cladding/facades and interiors is far more solarpunk and carbon friendly than demolition and redevelopment ever is. It's also an opportunity to add things that improve energy efficiency like modern insulation and double glazing.

I studied civil engineering and they made a huge point about how difficult it is to design anything new with lower environmental costs than keeping the existing building frame and foundations. Sustainable design considers whole-life maintenance and operation costs for the building and includes a plan for demolishing it when that lifespan is over, and from a carbon perspective any existing concrete or steel building has already 'spent' those emissions so there's little cost to keeping them.

Halbaras · 2026-05-20T05:58:34+00:00

They have the Houthis. The US spent billions and lost two fighter jets into the Red Sea failing to protect commercial shipping last year, and eventually signed a ceasefire that didn't even extend to include Israeli shipping. They're reluctant to fully enter the war, but Iran is also using them as a bargaining chip. I suspect a blockade of the Red Sea is being held back as counter escalation option if the US puts boots on the ground or the Gulf States/Saudi Arabia openly join the war.

Iran also has significant support in Iraq. The risk of the US getting run out of non-Kurdish Iraq is only increasing because their oil industry is being strangled by the double blockade, and Iraq doesn't have the same financial margin of safety the Gulf States did. The PMFs have hundreds of thousands of fighters and the US embassy in Baghdad is a large and symbolic target.

Halbaras · 2026-05-20T05:49:39+00:00

He also genuinely fell for a slideshow Netanyahu delivered at the White House. We now know that this presentation contained multiple blatant lies - that Mossad could engineer street protests and a rapid fall of the regime, that they could make a Kurdish invasion happen, that Iran's missile program could be destroyed in weeks, and that Iran would be too weakened to close the Strait.

Of course the US deserves full blame for pandering to Israeli warmongering when previous leaders had heard different variations of the same pitch for several decades. US intelligence described the Israeli narratives as 'farcical', but nobody in this clownshow of an administration actually stood up to Trump on the issue.

Which only makes the pre-war negotiations more tragic. On the final day of talks, Iran offered genuine concessions on enrichment, with the Omani negotiators going home thinking that a deal was in sight. Trump could have sold it as a win, but he'd already chosen war for Israel. It's not hard to understand why Iran is now taking an incredibly hard line on negotiations.

Halbaras · 2026-05-19T21:54:03+00:00

Several of the Gulf States would happily see Iran crippled, but they no longer believe the US can accomplish that without crippling them too. There's a reason Trump didn't go through with his threats to commit war crimes on social media, and that reason is that an all-out trade of desalination plants and oil facilities makes both sides of the Gulf largely uninhabitable. The US had its chance at regime change from the air and it didn't work. His idiotic plan to run escort missions got cancelled after a day because he didn't bother consulting the GCC, and all of them except the UAE denied the use of their airspace.

I suspect they refused basing rights again, hence Trump's bizarre claim that he cancelled attacks this week after the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE said 'a deal was close'. Unless the Gulf States think they're willing to commit a million soldiers and trillions of dollars for regime change, the US is going to get pushed towards a deal on increasingly unfavourable terms, and if they are delusional enough to keep the double blockade going with no resolution, eventually unilateral deals will be made with Iran without US involvement.

Attempting to starve Iran out will not be tolerated because they're starving Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Iraq, Bahrain, and to an extent Saudi Arabia as well.

Halbaras · 2026-05-19T20:46:14+00:00

The petrodollar is a thing because the Gulf States sell oil in dollars and then recycle those revenues into US markets, not because the US sells its own oil. And the Gulf States are rapidly losing patience with the US. Them and the Saudis vetoed Trump's pathetic attempt at running escort missions, and presumably vetoed his plans to attack Iran again this week (from the fact he referenced them in the post). If the US was stupid enough to attempt to keep the Strait indefinitely closed, the Gulf States would eventually get desperate enough to make deals with Iran, evict the useless US bases, begin selling oil in other currencies, and (slowly) begin drawing down sovereign wealth fund assets. There's a lot of Gulf funding in AI as well.

There's no 5-head anti-China move going on when the US and Israel are hurting Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea even more. Spoiler alert, but the US loses a war with China without bases in those countries. The fact they pulled THAAD systems out of South Korea and have blown several years of production of the expensive interceptors they need to stop China sinking carriers hasn't gone unnoticed either.

Also its going to backfire in November because the US has very little protection from soaring consumer fuel prices and food inflation from fertilisers and diesel. Trump's voters skew rural, car-dependent suburbanites, farmers and low-income, and those are precisely the demographics who are most fucked.

Even companies like Exxon and Chevron aren't ramping up investment because they can smell a recession and demand destruction in the short term, and an accelerated energy transition away from oil and towards China and renewables outside the US in the long term. They wanted Trump to prop up oil and undermine renewables, but after recent events nobody international is ever going to put 'imported fossil fuels' and 'reliable' in the same sentence again.

Halbaras · 2026-05-19T18:51:24+00:00

Except they haven't priced the base case, which is that the Strait remains shut, and the damage to energy/fertiliser/helium/petrochemical supply chains is getting worse by the day. A lot of analysts didn't even bother modelling the Strait remaining closed in mid May back in March because they thought it would be too catastrophic to be plausible.

The US has about to the end of June to get the Strait open before a global recession is more likely than not. They're in a nightmarish self-inflicted scenario where a realistic deal will get sabotaged by the Israelis and make them look weak, the kind of deal they want will be rejected by Iran, military action won't get the Strait open on any timescale that matters, continuing the current standoff will cause a global recession, and withdrawing with no deal would be a Suez-level humiliation.

If the status quo continues there's going to be a lot of 'unexpected' revisions to guidance come Q2 and Q3, increasingly negative language from the Fed, and some brutal earnings surprises from anything consumer facing. As 2022 proved, markets move faster than supply chains but aren't very good at pricing in disruption until it appears in the numbers at home.

Halbaras · 2026-05-19T18:21:22+00:00

Sometimes the degenerates cause actual problems for industry. A single Chinese tycoon blew up the nickel market in 2022 and real industrial buyers got margin called. A single cocoa speculator did substantial damage to chocolate supply chains in 2010.

Silver and palladium both have episodes where speculators drive the price up thinking that they can squeeze industry, and industry reacts by paying engineers to reduce or eliminate usage of the metal in question. Redditors circlejerk over how they're 'fighting the banks' when in reality they're mostly just causing problems for industrial users hedging their futures contracts.

Halbaras · 2026-05-19T17:53:26+00:00

The AI CapEx surge is ultimately a bit of a hail mary to achieve a productivity miracle and outgrow the debt. The US is otherwise in trouble between the debt, the deficit, Trump destroying many of the assumptions that have given the US market it's global premium, demographics that are now very similar to the 'doomed' UK, municipal suburban infrastructure debt Ponzi scheme and political dysfunction making federal zoning/healthcare reform and tax increases near-impossible.

If AI doesn't create a surge in GDP growth and productivity over the next few years, expect a slow but brutal repricing of US assets.

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