Both SpaceX and OpenAI's estimated free float are around 4-5% of their shares at IPO. This means that we really are talking about companies in the sub $100M valuation in term of index fund impact (assuming under $2T for each).
But it gets worse because when the lock-up period expires in 180 days after ipo (currently scheduled right before quarterly index rebalancing), it's possible that frees up more than 20% of float and it suddenly has to be weighted at the full 100% of market cap -- triggering additional automatic buying.
It certainly seems like it's set up for our retirement accounts to be the insider's exit liquidity.
In your scenario, that 100% cap would by definition be less than 5x float so it shouldn't trigger any more buying than the lock-up expiration itself did.
Do you mean if free float goes from 5% to 100%, and weighting goes from 25% to 100%, it's more "extra supply" than "extra demand"? That's a good point I hadn't considered. I'm not sure the details of the lock-up period though, it might be staggered. So if it goes from 5% float to 50% float, that's 45% of additional shares available to buy, but an addition 75% of the market cap that indices now need to weight to. But it's true this would only happen once (when free float goes from below 20% to above). Then after that the extra supply would be more than the extra demand. Or do I misunderstand?
I am sure nothing bad will happen
Are we now suggesting people get out of index funds?
Worse, will this and spacex ipo destroy the index funds?
Care to explain the mechanics? I’m an investor (both in passive and more active vehicles) and don’t understand what you mean.
They own more of bigger companies than small.
There's the option of "equal weight" or other strategies but the overwhelming majority is market cap weighted.
Index funds are also really, really big now and contain a lot of money earmarked for retirement/pensions.
In theory if you had a temporarily very frothy market into which you could sell a part of your unprofitable company to some people at a very high valuation, index funds would then mechanically move in and need to purchase and add significant support for insiders to sell into.
Due to the high valuation, index funds are required to buy SpaceX stock, which Elon will presumably slowly sell them in order not to crash the stock. The funds will be left holding the stock, while eventually the price will crash, because the company will simply not make enough money to justify the valuation.
Musk owns about 50% of SpaceX. You are saying he is planning to sell the vast majority of that holding at a gradual pace that will not be noticed by anyone but fast enough to get a high price?
Many investors haven’t figured that out yet but they will eventually and they will be the ultimate bag holders once the bubble bursts for Tesla for good.
There are other companies that are remnants of what they were but they still survive on hype. It just takes a long time for them to die. Another example of that is IBM. They are functionally done in the tech world. It just takes a long time to die other companies that fit that mold is Xerox and Kodak still floating at a much lower level, but they are functionally done.
But they are and that's the key part of the scam. The index funds will have to buy these, since they are so highly valued. Index funds in turn are very popular investment devices used by pension funds, banks, individuals etc.
I think you may not understand the problem. As noted, unmanaged/passive index funds invest using market capitalization as a metric. And anybody who is invested in these ETFs thus unknowingly buy into these astronomically overhyped companies, and once these company valuations fall (and they will), pension funds/IRAs/401k will be the bagholders.
- With the SP500 you're not that diversified because you're very exposed to the tech sector
- With a world ETF like MSCI World you're still extremely exposed to US stocks (about 70%) and of course the tech sector
Not necessarily
ETF managers execute block trades outside the normal market, sometimes through dark pools, not even reported to the public.
Fidelity, Vanguard, etc ask JPMorgan, Goldman to execute these block trades and pay them a fee. This fee can exceed the “slippage” a retail investor can face.
So I am sure this is not viable for many people as buying an ETF counts like 1 trade, but investing the same money in the underlying assets count like 10s of trades.
More seriously, I would still worry about order execution and transaction costs. You are likely to end up on the wrong side of the bid/ask spread when playing against the big boys.
If you're actually serious about this, you might as well start your own ETF. Or just buy this one I found after a quick Google: https://www.proshares.com/our-etfs/strategic/spxt Buying multiple sector-specific ETFs is another approach. I'm told that utilities are good to hold during a downturn.
ETF are just noob introduction to the stock market and great one at that but to maximize returns you want to be more specific and intentional about your picks.
Where etfs are great even after you learn a lot, is exposure to whole sectors of the industry. That’s how I treat them: one - etf - an index of how a particular industry fares.
Source: I basically live solely from investments at 30
Honestly it’s a free for all game so no one has any interest to share their secrets and methods. When you lose money I make money. Better player wins.
That's unbelievable! Even Warren Buffet only makes 19% - 20% compounded every year. That would make you one of the top investors ever.
Not really.
Plenty of hedge funds and HFT firms make 40-100% each year (before fees) over 30-40 years…
Citadel’s “stock picking ability” is 40% annual returns since 1999
They just don’t advertise this because it’ll make retail traders and passive ETF investors really sad
You could hit up juleiie from above for his/her winning method I suppose, or you put a portion of your savings into an appropriate ETF and get on with your life.
Nay, it is not just “ok”. It is imperative that you diversify if you want a strong and resilient portfolio.