Mit einer Flut von Mega-IPOs und riesigen Folgeemissionen ist einer der "Kernhighlights" des US-Aktienmarktes inmitten dieser massiven Kapitalbeschaffungen verschwunden.

SpaceX has carried out a record - breaking stock market listing, OpenAI and Anthropic are on the verge of huge IPOs, and Alphabet plans a capital increase of $85 billion. A wave of stock financing on a scale comparable to the era of the Internet bubble is currently sweeping the US capital markets. A central structural driver that has propelled the US stock markets upwards in the past twenty years is gradually dissipating.

On June 15th, Bloomberg reported that data calculated by JPMorgan shows that IPOs, capital increases, and other stock issuances will, after deducting buy - backs, introduce approximately $1.5 trillion in new supply into the US stock markets in the next two years. This will be the strongest net stock issuance cycle since at least the late 1990s. At the same time, a study by Goldman Sachs shows that the net stock supply in the US stock markets may return from negative to almost zero in 2026 – an indicator that has been continuously negative since 2003 and one of the most important structural supports for US stocks in the past twenty years.

The core logic of this change is as follows: The immense capital demand caused by the AI arms race forces companies to shift from "stock buy - backs and reduction of the outstanding stock volume" to "large - scale stock issuances and public capital raising". The era of de - equitization, once referred to as "stock QE", is over, and a new era of re - equitization begins. This means that the long - neglected supply variable will once again become a key factor for the market direction.

01 Twenty Years of "De - Equitization": The Long - Standing Tailwind for US Stocks is Dying Out

In the past nearly twenty years, the US stock market has had a prominent structural feature: The stock supply has been steadily decreasing. The S&P 500 companies alone have written off a total stock value of nearly $12 trillion through stock buy - backs. The companies have collectively played the role of the largest market buyer, and many high - quality companies have decided to remain private in the long term, further restricting the investable supply in the public markets.

Robert Buckland, the former strategist at Citigroup and the inventor of the concept of "de - equitization", compared this phenomenon to "quantitative easing in the stock market". He noted that the continuous reduction of the freely available stock volume was a long - term factor that supported stock prices in the past twenty years.

However, this logic is completely overturned by the AI wave. According to Citigroup data, the net stock buy - back volume of super - large companies (hyperscalers) decreased last year. Vincent Deluard, the global macro strategist at StoneX Financial, described this change as a three - phase development:

"First, profits and free cash flows were used, then companies started taking on debt, and now all resources are being utilized – cash flows, debt, and stocks."

A study by Goldman Sachs shows that the net stock supply in the US stock markets may return from negative to almost zero in 2026 after being negative for over twenty years. George Pearkes, the macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, qualified this as "end - of - cycle behavior" and directly said "From this perspective, this is a rather negative sign."

02 The Super - IPO Wave: SpaceX Launches, OpenAI and Anthropic Follow Closely Behind

Last week, SpaceX carried out the largest IPO in history with an issuance volume of $75 billion. On the first trading day, the stock price rose by 19%. This is just the beginning.

Reports indicate that since the beginning of this year, about 160 companies have announced plans to raise over $120 billion through IPOs, exceeding the total of the past two years. Including capital increases of listed companies, the new stock supply in the first half of this year has exceeded the mark of $360 billion, which is the highest value for the same period in five years.

The huge IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to take place one after another in the next few months. According to calculations by Ned Davis Research, the three companies, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, could together raise over $170 billion in a short period.

It is remarkable that the initial issuance ratios of all three companies are extremely low – SpaceX has sold less than 5% of its shares, which is below the usual level of 15% to 20% for IPOs. Once the lock - up period expires and more shares enter circulation, the market will be exposed to a greater supply shock.

Ned Davis Research estimates that bringing just a small portion of the shares of these three companies to the public market would be sufficient to offset the total stock buy - backs of S&P 500 companies in a year.

Jon Gray, the president of Blackstone, said that the listings of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI marked that the IPO market "is finally on solid ground". He also announced that Blackstone has taken three companies from its portfolio public this year and has seven more in the pipeline.

03 Alphabet Leads the Capital Increases: Tech Giants Transform from "Largest Buyers" to "Largest Sellers"

Parallel to the IPO wave, there is a massive capital increase by already - listed tech giants.

Alphabet is the most representative example. This parent company of Google has long been the largest buyer of its own shares. However, now it plans, after a massive debt - taking in the US, Japan, and other markets to finance its AI expansion, a stock issuance of $85 billion, which could become one of the largest capital increases in history. Companies like Meta are also evaluating the possibility of supporting their AI spending plans through stock financing.

The logic behind this change lies in the change of relative financing costs. The current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is around 25, which is an unprecedented high in this century. This means that the cost of stock financing has become cheaper compared to debt financing.

Since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to the highest level in twenty years in 2023, the advantage of stock returns (the reciprocal of the P/E ratio) over bond yields has been steadily increasing. Even when the Federal Reserve subsequently started cutting interest rates, this situation has not fundamentally changed. John Luke Tyner, the portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, directly said:

"It seems that many people are using the market for financing, and it is likely that they are doing so not because they believe their stocks are cheap."

04 Who Will Take on the Stocks? Retail Investors and Money Market Funds Become Key Variables

In the face of the immense supply, the central question in the market is: Who will foot the bill?

Currently, the optimistic sentiment dominates. According to Bloomberg, retail investor turnover currently accounts for about one - fifth of the total US stock turnover, which is double that of 2010. SpaceX has distributed up to 20% of its IPO shares to retail investors, which is above the usual level.

Kristina Hooper, the chief market strategist at Man Group, summarized the current market sentiment as "FOMO (fear of missing out) and fear side by side, with FOMO prevailing in most cases".

The huge volume of nearly $7.9 trillion in money market funds is also regarded as a potential source for taking on stocks. Investors say that it is still unclear when this flood of stock and debt issuances will overwhelm the market.

However, the concentration of demand makes some market observers cautious. Jim Bianco, the president of Bianco Research, said:

"There is an unlimited investor appetite and an unlimited willingness to finance in the field of AI, but outside of that, other companies essentially stand still."

Kevin Foley, the co - head of the Global Investment Bank at JPMorgan, also admitted that the current capital market activities are "quite concentrated" and warned: "The world is changing rapidly, and there are still risks that remain unresolved."

In history, massive stock issuances are often accompanied by large investment booms, whether it is in the railway, canals, or telecommunications networks. But history also shows that such waves often end with a bubble.

Noah Weisberger, the chief US stock strategist at BCA Research, found in a study covering 40 years of market history and about 12,000 IPOs that the S&P 500 usually performs worse in the 12 months after a large IPO than in other times, with a median increase of only 8% and even negative returns in about 20% of cases.

"A series of extremely large IPOs are coming, which only intensifies the concerns. These are not small issuances that the market can quickly absorb. They could become a significant resistance for the market."

Charles Lemonides, the founder of the hedge fund ValueWorks, compared the current situation to the late 1920s and 1990s, when the wave of innovation led to speculative stocks and massive financings. "On the way up, companies seek money, and investors are happy to give it to them because it's a gold rush that everyone wants to participate in."

Robert Buckland directly said that he had been waiting for the stock supply to actually increase as a signal to go against this bull market. "Now it is actually increasing."

Inigo Fraser Jenkins, the co - head of Institutional Solutions at AllianceBernstein, took a rather moderate position and said that the increase in stock issuances should be understood more as a risk factor for limiting future returns and increasing volatility than as a turning point that fundamentally changes the market structure. "It restricts the path to success to some extent."

This article is from the WeChat account "Hard AI", author: Technology development expert. Published by 36Kr with permission.