Are the queuing listings of AI giants the "last hurrah" for the US stock market?

An IPO feast comparable to the peak of the internet bubble is taking shape. Three AI giants, OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX, are racing to the public market, each aiming for a valuation of one trillion dollars. The combined scale is sufficient to reshape the landscape of the US stock market. This unprecedented wave of listings is not only an ultimate stress test for the AI investment logic but also will become the biggest variable in the direction of risk assets this year.

On May 22nd, according to an article from Wall Street Insights, OpenAI has prepared to secretly submit an IPO application to regulatory authorities. It may go public as early as September this year, with a target valuation of over one trillion dollars and plans to raise about 60 billion dollars, which will more than double the 25.6 billion - dollar IPO record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.

Meanwhile, its competitor, Anthropic, is also advancing its own listing plan and has disclosed that its revenue in the second quarter is expected to double quarter - on - quarter to 10.9 billion dollars, and it is expected to achieve quarterly operating profit for the first time. Deutsche Bank pointed out in a research report that "the way these two IPOs are implemented is likely to be a major swing factor in the direction of risk assets this year" and is a macro - theme that must be closely monitored.

However, beneath the glamorous valuations, the financial profiles of the two companies are completely different. OpenAI had a revenue of 5.7 billion dollars in the first quarter, but its adjusted operating profit margin was - 122%, meaning it lost 1.22 dollars for every 1 dollar of revenue generated. It is expected to achieve positive cash flow as early as 2029 - 2030. Anthropic had a revenue of 4.8 billion dollars in the same period, and it is expected to jump to 10.9 billion dollars in the second quarter, with an expected operating profit of about 559 million dollars, having already reached the threshold of profitability.

Analysis points out that the two companies are competing on the same stage but present completely different business logics, posing a rare choice for public - market investors.

The Largest IPO in History: How Shocking the Numbers Are

Deutsche Bank pointed out in a research report that whether it is OpenAI or Anthropic, the scale of a single IPO will exceed twice the amount raised by Saudi Aramco's IPO in 2019. Even after inflation adjustment, it will easily become the largest IPO in history.

Deutsche Bank said in another research report that if OpenAI achieves its target valuation of over one trillion dollars, it will become the 14th largest company in the world by market capitalization, second only to Berkshire Hathaway and surpassing Eli Lilly and Company.

In contrast, Berkshire had a revenue of over 370 billion dollars and a net profit of 67 billion dollars last year; Eli Lilly had sales of over 65 billion dollars and a profit of 21 billion dollars. OpenAI is not yet profitable, with an annualized revenue of about 30 billion dollars and only a few thousand employees.

From the perspective of market capacity, Deutsche Bank believes that the total market capitalization of the US stock market is currently about 70 trillion dollars, five times that at the peak of the internet bubble. The market's absorption capacity is much stronger than in the late 1990s.

At that time, an average of nearly 500 companies went public each year, while the average in this decade is only about 120, and listed companies are generally more mature today.

In addition, the single - IPO scale of 60 billion dollars is only slightly lower than the total amount raised by US IPOs in 1999 and 2000 (both about 65 billion dollars), equivalent to half of the record 119 billion dollars in 2021.

The "Siphon Effect" of the Giants and the Massive Redistribution of Passive Funds

As these giants enter the public market, their siphoning effect on the liquidity of the US stock market has raised high alert on Wall Street.

The concentrated listing of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, combined with the newly introduced "fast - track inclusion" mechanism of the Nasdaq, is brewing an unprecedented massive redistribution of passive funds, that is, the siphon effect of AI giants.

According to an article from Wall Street Insights, JPMorgan Chase estimates that if SpaceX's target valuation reaches 2 trillion dollars and 50% of its shares are ultimately in circulation, passive funds will have to sell about 95 billion dollars of their existing holdings of the eight major technology stocks on Wall Street (NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, Meta, Tesla) to make room for new positions.

Todd Sohn, the chief ETF strategist at Strategas, pointed out that since the initial proportion of publicly traded shares in an IPO is usually only 5%, and ETFs track trillions of dollars in assets, this extreme imbalance between supply and demand will make the index inclusion process "a bit crazy", and passive investors may have no choice but to buy at high prices.

Valérie Noël, the trading director at Syz Group, said that the market has started to bet that existing large - cap stocks will face downward pressure.

According to information disclosed on March 28th this year, OpenAI's public listing will be a substantial referendum on the entire AI investment logic. The information shows that OpenAI's revenue reached 13.1 billion dollars in 2025, but it is expected to have a net loss of 14 billion dollars in 2026.

At the same time, OpenAI has promised to invest about 1.4 trillion dollars in infrastructure construction before 2033. If S&P Global, FTSE Russell, and Nasdaq adopt the fast - inclusion rule, it may force about 24 - 48 billion dollars of passive funds to buy immediately after the listing.

Facing such a large - scale capital restructuring, whether they are active or not, the investment portfolios of ordinary investors will be passively reshaped as the rules change.

Deutsche Bank pointed out in a research report that the way these IPOs are implemented will be a major swing factor in the direction of risk assets this year. The analysis from PitchBook is even more straightforward:

There has been a "systematic quality inversion" in the private market - the companies with the highest valuations score the lowest on the business quality indicators that are truly priced in the public market.

For ordinary investors holding index funds or ETFs, it is difficult to stay out of this game: whether they are active or not, their investment portfolios will be passively reshaped as the index rules change.

For active investors, when the S - 1 filing is made public and all financial secrets are laid bare, the market will face a clear choice: to believe in a company that has found a profitable model or a giant that asks the market for a few more years and hundreds of billions of dollars to explore the possibility of profitability?

The answer will determine whether this carnival is the starting point of a new cycle or the last dance before the feast ends.

Polar Opposites: Anthropic's Profitability and OpenAI's Huge Losses

Although their valuations have both soared, the financial situations of the two leading AI companies present completely different pictures. Anthropic has started to make a profit, breaking the traditional view that huge expenditures of AI companies will drag down their near - term profitability.

According to an article from Wall Street Insights, on Wednesday local time, according to The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic's revenue in the second quarter is expected to more than double to 10.9 billion dollars, and it will achieve an operating profit of about 559 million dollars.

Anthropic's gross profit margin has jumped from 38% to over 70%. Its CEO, Dario Amodei, once joked that the revenue growth has become "too hard to handle".

The company's success is mainly attributed to the explosive demand from enterprise customers for its programming tools. About 85% of its revenue comes from enterprise and developer customers, and this model has a clear willingness to pay and low service costs.

In contrast, OpenAI is still losing money.

According to an article from Wall Street Insights, data shows that OpenAI's revenue in the first quarter was 5.7 billion dollars, but its adjusted operating profit margin was - 122%, meaning it loses 1.22 dollars for every 1 dollar of revenue earned.

About 85% of OpenAI's revenue is related to ChatGPT consumer subscriptions. Although it has 55 million paying users, there are more than 900 million weekly active users behind it. The large pool of free users has created a huge black hole of inference costs.

OpenAI is expected to achieve positive cash flow in 2029 or 2030. Its CEO, Sam Altman, and the CEO of the application business, Fidji Simo, are trying to shift the focus to commercial customers that can directly generate revenue.

At the IPO narrative level, the two companies are telling completely different stories. Anthropic has verified quarterly profit data, and its story can be compared to that of Salesforce or ServiceNow, following the logic of an enterprise - level software company.

OpenAI needs to convince the market that AI agents, image generation, and even advertising business will ultimately convert the massive consumer traffic into profits.

In Sam Altman's plan, the ChatGPT advertising business may bring about 102 billion dollars in revenue by 2030, but this requires time, and time is precisely the most scarce resource for OpenAI when it is sacrificing profits for growth.

Are AI Giants' Concentrated IPOs Essentially Throwing the "Hot Potato" to Retail Investors?

According to an article from Wall Street Insights, in the view of Joachim Klement, the managing director of Panmure Liberum, this wave of AI giant IPOs is essentially a "risk transfer", a cash - out action that transfers the early - stage investment risks on a large scale to retail investors, pension funds, and other institutions.

He believes that companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are accelerating their listings when investor sentiment is high, aiming to cash out at a high valuation before the hype fades. Early institutional investors can exit the public market unscathed, while retail investors and pension funds who take over will face the risk of the financial logic finally returning to reality.

He directly defines this process as "an action to transfer investment risks on a large scale from current holders to those willing to pay for the story".

Klement cited Greenspan's 1996 warning of "irrational exuberance" as a reference - there were still three years until the bubble burst at that time. He judges that the AI hype is still expected to continue in 2026, and it is unlikely that ultra - large - scale cloud computing providers will cut their investments; but "the impossible math" will eventually return to reality, "maybe not in 2026, but it may come in 2027 or 2028".

This article is from the WeChat official account "Wall Street Insights", author: Dong Jing. Republished by 36Kr with permission.