How to invest in the SpaceX and Anthropic IPOs, and what to weigh first
A handful of the most talked-about private companies in the world are heading for the public market at the same time. SpaceX is targeting a June 12 listing on the Nasdaq. Anthropic and OpenAI are both expected to follow later this year. Wall Street has taken to calling them the "AI-3."
Clients have been asking us the same thing, in different words: how do I participate?
Here's how we think about it. Some of this is mechanics most people never see. Some of it is a word of caution. None of it is a recommendation to buy or avoid any particular fund or stock, and the right answer depends entirely on you.
First, what an IPO actually is
IPO stands for initial public offering. It's the moment a private company sells shares to the public for the first time and starts trading on an exchange like the Nasdaq or NYSE.
Until then, ownership is limited to founders, employees, and private investors like venture capital firms. Going public lets the company raise money from anyone and gives those early owners a way to eventually sell. For the majority of investors, it's the first point at which they can buy a piece of the company on the open market.
That's the headline version. The details of who gets to buy, when, and at what price are where it gets more interesting.
Who actually gets shares at the IPO price
When a company goes public, the shares sold at the offering price are handed out by the investment banks running the deal. Those banks give first dibs to their largest institutional and priority clients. Regular investors almost never get shares at that price. They buy once the stock is trading, often at a markup, on a day when the price can swing hard in either direction.
There's also a rule worth knowing. Industry regulations restrict certain financial professionals, including advisors who decide how client money gets allocated, from receiving IPO allocations at all. So this isn't a service we broker. We're an RIA, not an underwriter, and getting clients into an IPO at the offer price isn't something we can do.
One thing is different this cycle. The banks opened these deals to retail investors in a way they usually don't, and some brokerage clients are getting invitations directly. Access is wider than normal. The offer-price shares are still rationed, though, and the invitation showing up in your inbox doesn't change the risks that come next.
The data on IPOs is humbling
Jay Ritter at the University of Florida has spent decades studying how new stocks actually perform. The pattern in his research is consistent enough to plan around. New stocks tend to pop on day one. After that, over the following three years, IPOs have historically tended to lag comparable companies rather than beat them. The effect is strongest in the smallest deals.
That last point matters here. The underperformance shows up most in tiny, speculative offerings. The very largest companies have, on average, neither beaten nor trailed the market over those windows. SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI sit firmly in the mega-cap camp, so the worst of the historical IPO drag is the part least likely to apply. That's not a green light. It's a reason to judge each one on its own merits instead of on "IPOs always do X."
The merits come with real question marks. According to its preliminary S-1 (filed May 2026), SpaceX booked roughly $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025 and still lost about $4.9 billion. The combined 2025 losses of the AI-3 reportedly topped $25 billion (Yardeni Research, June 2026). A large share of the valuations being floated rests on enormous future markets that mostly don't generate revenue yet.
The low float: both good & bad
This is the part that gets the least attention and probably deserves the most.
Based on its preliminary S-1 (May 2026), SpaceX plans to float only about 4.3% of its shares to the public. Put plainly, only about 4.3% of the company will be owned by public markets. The rest stays locked up with insiders and early investors, at least initially. For contrast, look at the Mag-7 (Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, and the rest). Their public ownership runs from roughly 81% to 98% (per Yardeni Research, as of June 2026). Even at a headline valuation north of a trillion dollars, the slice that can actually trade is tiny. That thin float sets up an unusual set of dynamics once the stock starts trading, and they don't all push the same way.
Now layer on how index funds work. When a company joins a major index, every fund tracking that index has to buy it, in proportion to its weight, whether the manager likes the price or not. That's forced buying, and the index providers have been changing their rules to let these names in faster:
The Nasdaq-100 adopted a "Fast Entry" rule, effective May 1, 2026. A company large enough to rank among the index's biggest members can be added just 15 trading days after listing, down from roughly three months. For a June 12 SpaceX debut, that points to inclusion around early July.
FTSE Russell added its own fast-entry path in late May 2026, with eligibility as soon as about five trading days after listing for the largest new names.
The S&P 500 is the slow one. As of June 2026, a proposal is under consultation to cut its seasoning window from 12 months to 6 and to waive the long-standing profitability requirement for mega-caps. It hasn't been finalized. Realistic S&P inclusion is more likely late 2026 or early 2027.
How much those funds actually have to buy isn't a fixed number, though, and this is where a single headline figure falls apart. It depends on how each index decides to weight the stock, and that decision is still being worked out.
Weight SpaceX by its full market cap, as if every share were available, and it becomes a meaningful index position that forces a lot of buying. At a valuation around $1.7 trillion (the figure discussed in pre-IPO price talk as of early June 2026), that would make it roughly 3% of the S&P 500. But the S&P weights companies by the shares that actually trade, and with only about 4.3% of SpaceX floating, the realistic weight is a small fraction of that, on the order of 20 times smaller. Some indices (like the Nasdaq) apply multipliers that nudge thin-float names up from there, but nothing that closes the gap. The weighting choice is the whole ballgame. The forced buying scales directly off whichever number wins.
It's tempting to read a thin float as pure scarcity: not much stock to go around, so the price spikes when index funds pile in. The float cuts both ways, though. Because the indexes weight by float, that same thin slice shrinks how much they're forced to buy in the first place. Small float, small weight, smaller mandatory demand. The squeeze isn't automatic.
There's also a bigger question on the other side of the trade, and it's the one the scarcity story skips. The offering itself is large. With the customary overallotment, underwriters need to place somewhere around $86 billion of stock at the IPO. And the biggest mandatory buyers, the passive index funds, can't buy at the IPO until time has passed. They're only allowed to buy once SpaceX is admitted to the indexes they track, which is days to months later. So the offering has to be absorbed up front by active managers and retail investors, and at this valuation it's an open question whether there's enough willing demand to go around. Some analysts who've modeled the deal think it could fall short.
So the honest picture is two-sided, and it's mostly a demand question rather than a supply one. The forced index buying is smaller and arrives later than the trillion-dollar headline implies. The offering is large and needs real buyers on day one. And a thin float can make the stock lurch in either direction once it's trading. We don't know how it nets out, and anyone who tells you they do is guessing.
How can you buy SpaceX, Anthropic, or Open AI?
Setting the IPO itself aside, there are a few broad ways investors get exposure to these mega cap IPOs. We're describing the landscape, not endorsing any specific product or company.
Buying the stock directly on the open market once it lists. The most direct route, with all the first-days volatility that comes with it.
IPO-focused funds, a category of ETF built to hold recently public companies. These add large new names within days to weeks of listing, so they offer diversified exposure on a short lag.
Broad index funds, like an S&P 500 or total-market fund. If a company qualifies and gets added, you'll own a sliver of it automatically. The lag here is longer, as the section above lays out.
Funds that already hold private stakes in some of these companies before they go public. A small number of ETFs have started doing this. They come with added valuation and liquidity risk, since private holdings are harder to price and harder to sell, and they tend to be newer and more concentrated.
Which of these fits, if any, depends on how much you want to commit, what role it plays in your overall plan, and how much volatility you're willing to sit through.
How we approach it
We don't chase IPO hype, and we don't think "never" is the right answer for a client who wants measured exposure to companies they believe in. The middle path is to be deliberate.
A few things guide how we'd handle it. An IPO like this belongs in the small, speculative corner of a portfolio, not the core. There's usually no prize for buying at the open: with the demand picture this uncertain and a wall of insider stock set to unlock in the months after listing, the first day's price is unlikely to be the last word. Waiting for supply and demand to settle is often the cheaper move.
If after understanding the risk, you’re still passionate about investing, make sure it fits into your broader plan. Work with a financial advisor to understand the implications of how this kind of purchase would impact you in the case it works, but also if it doesn’t. The best portfolios are built around your life, what you're saving for and when you'll need it, not around whatever the market is excited about this month. A great company can still be a poor fit for your plan. Start from the plan, and let the opportunities earn their place in it.
This is for educational purposes only and isn't investment, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or fund, including any company named here. Figures are as of early June 2026, drawn from preliminary filings and press reporting, and are subject to change. Mana Financial Life Design, LLC is a registered investment adviser. Please reach out before acting on anything here.
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Stephanie Bucko and Cristina Livadary are fee-only financial planners based in Los Angeles, California. Stephanie is the Chief Investment Officer and Cristina is the Chief Executive Officer at Mana Financial Life Design (FLD). Mana FLD provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management services to help clients grow and protect their wealth throughout life’s journey. Mana FLD specializes in advising ambitious professionals who seek financial knowledge and want to implement creative budgeting, savings, proactive planning and powerful investment strategies. As fee-only fiduciaries and independent financial advisors, Stephanie and Cristina never receive commission of any kind. Stephanie and Cristina are legally bound by their certifications to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.