--- title: Why IPOs Are Everywhere Right Now — and What It Means for Investors description: IPOs are back in a big way as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic fuel a new market frenzy. authors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 453 covers: - Investing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum editors: - name: Katherine Peach role: Associate Editor url: https://money.com/author/katherine-peach/ bio: Katherine Peach is an associate editor with a focus on news and email at Money. She didn’t always intend to write about money. She’s a classically trained pianist who dreamed of becoming an archaeologist. However, in 2007 Katherine began working in financial publishing as an editor for Agora Inc. (Apparently, unearthing ideas about improving your personal finances isn’t such a bad career alternative!) Katherine’s writing and editing work has been featured in Investing Daily, Clever, Investor Junkie, The Palm Beach Letter, Truth & Plenty, Independence Monthly, NICHE, AmericanStyle, AntiqueWeek, Millennial Money, Money Done Right, TheStreet, Sure Dividend and many others. Katherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient Studies with concentrations in Archaeology and Ancient Languages and a minor in Literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. education: University of Maryland, Baltimore County at_money_since: 2025 articles: 14 covers: - Investing - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes published: '2026-06-11T15:41:28.000Z' modified: '2026-06-11T15:41:28.000Z' section: Investing tags: - News word_count: 691 canonical: https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Megaphone with ai, stocks, space x related objects coming out of it.](https://img.money.com/2026/06/News-IPO-2.jpg) You can't log on to the internet these days without seeing *something* about an initial public offering, or IPO. News, commentary and memes about IPOs from SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI are flooding social media feeds — and driving the discourse for the first time in years. What's changed? Why is everyone talking about IPOs all of a sudden? Angela Lee, a Columbia Business School professor who teaches venture capital and personal finance, says it's partially because "we've had an atypical few years" in terms of IPO volume. [Data](https://www.sec.gov/data-research/statistics-data-visualizations/initial-public-offerings-ipos/ipos-number-proceeds) from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that 492 companies went public in 2020, followed by 1,078 in 2021. Then the number of IPOs dipped, cratering at just 169 in 2023. It's finally rebounding, so Lee says part of the reason we're seeing so much buzz is that "it feels like 2026 is coming out of that drop." Investors are largely optimistic about the stock market. Lee says folks have become accustomed to the low-interest-rate environment (or at least have gotten past their post-pandemic "we need to wait and see what happens" phase) and the economic upheaval caused by global events (or at least have "a broader acceptance of some of the geopolitical uncertainty"). Case in point: The Nasdaq — the second-largest stock exchange in the world — closed at an all-time high in late May. So did the S&P 500, an index that tracks 500 of the biggest public companies in the U.S. "People like to sell IPOs when the market is high," says Neil McDonald, the U.S. CEO of Moomoo, a trading platform. "Nobody wants to bring an IPO when the market's down, because it's going to be priced low." Joel Shulman, CEO and CIO of ERShares, says the downturn of previous years has led to a backlog. Companies have been "waiting, waiting, waiting," and although there are lingering concerns about what'll happen with the job market, Iran war and overall economy, many firms have decided the time is right to take the plunge. That includes three high-profile companies: [SpaceX](https://money.com/spacex-ipo-index-funds-401k/), which is expected to IPO on Friday; Anthropic, which filed for its IPO on June 1; and [OpenAI](https://money.com/when-is-openai-ipo/), which filed Monday. These are "massive companies with a lot of potential," Lee says. "That's why they're buzzy." ## These aren't typical IPOs All three have massive valuations, a term that refers to how much a business is worth. Anthropic is valued at $900 billion. [*The* *Wall Street Journal* reports](https://www.wsj.com/business/spacex-ipo-would-raise-75-billion-281b0886) that SpaceX is tracking for $1.75 trillion. These are much bigger numbers than we're used to seeing. "For the first time, we're going to have companies valued with a T," Lee adds. One of the main reasons companies go public is to access capital. Anthropic, for example, needs a ton of artificial intelligence infrastructure to keep supporting services like Claude. In fact, it recently [agreed](https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/anthropic-will-pay-xai-1-25-billion-per-month-for-compute/) to pay xAI — yup, as in Elon Musk's company — $1.25 billion per month for compute (aka processing power). Going public opens up a new channel of cash to help offset these and other expenses. McDonald says another unique thing happening is that everyday investors are primed to have access to these IPOs. Usually, [90% of shares](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/ipo-share-allocation-process) of popular IPOs are reserved for institutional investors. But both OpenAI and SpaceX have [indicated](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/musk-rewrites-ipo-playbook-with-large-slice-spacex-stock-retail-investors-source-2026-03-26/) they'll make a significant portion of their shares available to retail investors. Even so, backing these trendy IPOs is not necessarily a financial move you should make. "The average investor should ignore this," Lee says. It's common for companies that IPO to struggle after their first day(s) listed on stock exchanges. A 2021 analysis found about two-thirds of IPOs underperformed the market three years later. "Just because something goes public does not mean it's going to appreciate," says Shulman. Everyday investors are generally better off keeping the bulk of their portfolios in ETFs and index funds that include these buzzy companies as opposed to funneling money into potentially volatile single stocks, Lee adds. If you have a solid financial foundation and can't resist the excitement, you can try investing a very small portion — maybe 5% of your total portfolio — into IPOs like these. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Investing", "item": "https://money.com/investing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "IPO", "item": "https://money.com/ipo/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why IPOs Are Everywhere Right Now — and What It Means for Investors" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/", "name": "Why IPOs Are Everywhere Right Now — and What It Means for Investors", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2026-06-11T15:41:28.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/ipo-boom-2026-explained/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2026-06-11T15:41:28.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Why IPOs Are Everywhere Right Now — and What It Means for Investors", "articleSection": "Investing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2026/06/News-IPO-2.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-IPO-2" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Julia Glum", "url": "https://money.com/author/julia-glum/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/julia-glum/#author", "description": "Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. 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