It's really concerning given how the indexes are changing rules to fast-track SpaceX being forced into index funds. S&P is also working on updates to S&P 500 to force it down everyone's throats quickly and algorithmically.
Probably finding an ESG-focused ETF would do it. ESG basically meant "good governance, we follow laws" which translated into better governed public companies that therefore had better returns, as one would expect. Really weird how it was politicized into something entirely different...
Long term dollar cost averaging is not about hype and fomo. Overall pricing in equities does vary according to alternative investment routes, which is why I'm diversified into those as well.
Stonks go up. Stonks go down. Averaging over decades, ownership is about owning a share of productive output of a large portion of our entire economy, an amazing restructuring of social relations that presents an amazing opportunity for the common person, unseen throughout the history of humanity.
Sure you can make a lot of money but only if you know when to get out before the crash. And that's something that doesn't gel well with long term investment.
You can just short SpaceX of an amount equivalent to its share of your SP500 holdings. You will have to pay borrowing costs though, but on something that liquid it will be very small.
Also there is no liquidity issue, we're talking SP500 names here, you'll pay GC, which should be around 25bps as the other comment mentions.
I think most people trade synthetic, just because it's faster and you don't have to wait for settlements, but maybe that is different if you trade onshore (I am a foreign investor).
Anyway if you are synthetic your margin is most likely shared between shorts and long on the same instrument, so no, you wouldn't be called.
Personally I would still probably go with the long put strategy unless the price difference is exorbitant.
The ETF is this case follows the index, so there's really no surprise.
> I would still probably go with the long put strategy
Just, don't. There is a world of complexity between a simple short, and entering an option contract with non linear pnl.
You are not entering a contract with a long put. You are buying a contract that, if you want, you can just let expire with no obligation to do anything. It's effectively simple insurance (as opposed to a short position, which is an actual liability, which will eat you alive in exceptional circumstances).
Yes you are, and options are complicated. Actually, the mere fact that you think they are "simple insurance" is enough proof to me that you probably don't understand it enough to safely buy one.
> You are buying a contract
Oh right, you've bought a PUT, now the fun part: you have to manage your position/exposure, could you enlighten me how you do that?
Could you explain me why buying a SpaceX PUT in a high IV regime (e.g. soon after IPO) will have it drop 40% when the IV decreases after 1 month, even though price moved in my favor? It should be simple, it's just a simple insurance product right?
Seriously. Someone, likely not super financially literate, ask a simple question about how to neutralize a stock exposure, and your answer is to advise buying options? Just stop.
Look, I think you're missing my point a little bit. Let's simplify it to risk, since that's what kicked off this conversation.
Your pension or whatever holds an ETF that (soon) contains some SpaceX shares. You buy a put option on SpaceX direct. What's the absolute worst thing that could happen?
Your pension or whatever holds an ETF that (soon) contains some SpaceX shares. You short sell a SpaceX share. What's the absolute worst thing that could happen?
So eliminating SpaceX exposure will cost you $100 per million of your SP500 ETF per year, or so.
I think it's less complicated than you'd think.. just buy LEAPS puts proportional to your exposure.
I'm very interested in seeing how the market prices these options after the IPO.
P.S. Here's an example of S&P500 without the magnificent 7 https://www.defianceetfs.com/xmag/
Personally, a company should be making money before adding it to the index.
I would assume this is not an ETF but sth else?
They’re free-float adjusted so entities like SpaceX are valued only by what’s available on public markets. And Vanguard (and its funds) are owned by its investors, which makes it seem implausible that the rules would be rewritten in a way that would damage investors.
High level, it's concerning to observe this unfold while almost every asset class is at its peak and there is no one willing to purchase (office real estate [1] [2], private equity [3], us equities [4], crypto, etc). Late Stage Capital Markets when you've exhausted greater fools available.
[1] Office Real Estate Is Facing ‘a Year of Reckoning’ in 2025 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-12-18/commercia... | https://archive.today/fTPSY - December 18, 2024
[2] Blackstone Is About to Take a 54% Loss on Iconic Seattle Tower - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-29/blackston... | https://archive.today/fcA8W - May 29, 2026
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049024 (citations)
[4] BlackRock Scales Back Equities After ‘Generational’ Earnings [Peak S&P] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-29/blackrock... | https://archive.today/lMIcH - May 29th, 2026
> Historically index providers were in the business of making these sorts of quality decisions, so that index funds were not forced to buy stocks they didn’t like.
> These rules create some tension between the idea that an index is a list of all the stocks and the idea that an index is a list of all the good stocks. Historically, it didn’t matter all that much: The point of the stock market is to tell you which stocks are good, so a company with a high stock valuation should be a very good company, so it should get a high weighting in both the Index of Good Companies and the Index of All the Companies.
> But SpaceX — and also maybe OpenAI and Anthropic in their coming IPOs — will probably break that link. SpaceX will probably (1) do all sorts of stuff that index funds hate and that index providers have specifically tried to exclude and also (2) be gigantic, because the market loves it.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-05-26/ind...
What exactly is the risk to normal investors if that’s the case? If it’s all a big scam then they will trade lower and they’ll naturally be kicked out of the index.
This is a rule that will apply to all new companies. When Anthropic and OpenAI go public they will also benefit from the rule. Do you think the media/public will be just as outraged when they do it?
The goal of the S&P 500 is to keep the index representative of the US market. They have in fact changed rules in the past when market conditions have changed. These mega IPOs are an entirely new market condition, as private companies have never been this big before listing in history. So large that they immediately fall into the top 100 or 500 largest companies in the country.
There’s also the fact that Nasdaq is a private company and it now has competition from the new Texas exchange. SpaceX is actually dual-listing on TXSE and Nasdaq. Nasdaq needs to keep these giant IPO companies happy because if they don’t they will list on the competitor exchange which would be disastrous for Nasdaq (supercharging their competitor).
These things affect each other as well. Nasdaq wants to make sure they get the IPO on their exchange, so they include them in the Nasdaq 100. S&P 500 doesn’t want to be outdated by missing a trillion dollar company from their index, while other exchanges like the Nasdaq 100 include them.
There’s a real case to be made that this is just self interest on the part of the exchange and the other index providers.
These greedy capitalists are after the pension funds + retail investor (ETFs in particular) through IPOs but there's no profitability in sight.