That used to be case when you had to clear certain hurdles to IPO and stay listed. With the recent SPAC craze you no longer have to meet any of those. All you need is a credible narrative. In that environment, no, you shouldn’t expect stocks to have positive returns. Long-term positive return in stocks is purely a function of required rate of _cash_ return. But if an underlying business is never meant to ever distribute cash back to investors, the stock is worth exactly ZERO. In other words a ponzi scheme.