SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic lining up to go public: Who will foot the bill for the largest IPO wave in history?

GLJ Research analyst Gordon Johnson issues a warning: the current super IPO wave sweeping across US stocks has exceeded any period in history in scale, while the capital available in the market to absorb new equities is stretched thin. History repeatedly shows that record-breaking stock issuance is usually not a signal of market prosperity, but a sign that the top is near.

Johnson posted on the X platform, noting that the US IPO fundraising scale for 2026 is expected to reach about $200 billion, not only surpassing the combined total during the internet bubble years of 1999 and 2000, but almost double the $119 billion peak of speculative activity in 2021.

With SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic all preparing for IPOs, and major tech giants such as Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle recently announcing massive equity financings, the supply of stocks in the next three to four months might flood the market at a rate of about $100 billion per month.

However, the capital available to support this supply is much tighter. Johnson pointed out that the US adds about $39 billion in monthly savings. “You cannot use $39 billion in cash each month to absorb $100 billion in stock; the math simply doesn't add up,” he wrote.

Johnson’s conclusion is straightforward: Large-scale stock issuance does not create demand; it only pulls liquidity out of the existing market. In his view, the record-breaking issuance may indicate that companies and insiders believe now is a good time to unload shares—investors should take heed.

Issuance Scale Breaks Historical Records, Surpasses Internet Bubble Peak

Johnson's analysis starts with a set of alarming data. He points out that US IPO fundraising by operating companies in 2026 may approach $200 billion, exceeding the combined total of the 1999 and 2000 internet bubble peaks, and greatly higher than about $119 billion during the speculative peak of 2021.

Johnson did not interpret these numbers as evidence of market strength, but as warning signals. “This chart should make you stop right away,” he wrote. In his view, every historical record-breaking stock issuance has occurred alongside excessive optimism, often followed by significant market pullbacks.

Not Just IPOs: Total Stock Supply Severely Underestimated

Johnson emphasizes that merely looking at IPO data severely underestimates the actual size of current stock supply. IPOs are only one category of equity financing; there are also follow-on offerings, continuous issuance plans (ATM programs), and major shareholders selling on the secondary market.

In the past two weeks, a series of large tech companies have announced equity financings: Alphabet completed around $84.75 billion in stock issuance, Meta proposed equity financings in the tens of billions, Oracle announced about $20 billion in equity as part of its larger financing scheme, and Super Micro Computer completed $7 billion in stock and convertible bond financing.

Combining these financings with the IPO pipeline, Johnson estimates that in the next three to four months about $100 billion in stock supply will flow into the market each month, writing:

“This is not ‘attracting’ capital, but draining market cash bit by bit.”

Staggering Supply-Demand Gap: Savings Growth Far Outpaced by Issuance Pace

The core of Johnson’s argument is a simple supply-demand arithmetic problem. Based on about $17.93 trillion in disposable income and a 2.6% savings rate, the US adds about $39 billion in monthly savings—while the estimated valuation of SpaceX alone is about $80 billion, with OpenAI and Anthropic following close behind. The supply-demand gap is obvious.

Johnson points out that stock issuance does not create new money out of thin air. Large IPOs or follow-on offerings require investors to reallocate existing capital—every dollar invested in a new stock is a dollar pulled from other market assets.

Within this framework, super-sized offerings not only fail to attract incremental funding, but actually compete for current liquidity and put pressure on existing stock prices.

Johnson compares a monthly issuance of about $100 billion with a US annual savings total of about $1 trillion, concluding that this wave of issuance could exhaust the market’s entire cash reserves.

History’s Repeated Warning: Issuance Peaks Often Precede Market Turning Points

Johnson explicitly cites two historical cases as evidence: the 2000 internet bubble and the 2021 SPAC boom. He argues that in both periods insiders sold large volumes of stock when investor enthusiasm was high, followed by significant market declines.

He specifically points out that 2021 saw record-breaking stock issuance, and later that year the market began to weaken, with 2022 turning into a grim bear market. Although Johnson acknowledges that today’s environment has many differences from those times, he believes the basic supply-demand relationship remains unchanged.

For Johnson, the central question investors face is not whether SpaceX, OpenAI or Anthropic represent exciting business prospects, but: faced with this unprecedented wave of stock supply, does the market have enough capital to absorb it without causing substantial impact to existing asset prices?

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