The $1.5T IPO Wave Is Set To Threaten Decades of Buybacks
For a generation, the smartest move in corporate finance was subtraction. Buybacks shrank the public float, companies stayed private longer, and shares got more valuable simply by becoming rarer. That era is ending fast. Fueled by AI’s appetite for capital, a historic wave of mega-IPOs is reversing the dynamic — and testing whether the market can absorb them.
- JPMorgan projects $1.5T in net new equity entering US markets over the next two years — the strongest issuance pace since at least the late 1990s.
- SpaceX already completed the largest IPO in history at $75B — and with OpenAI and Anthropic set to follow, the three could raise $170B+.
Follow the capital: The equity boom comes after AI exhausted every other funding source. Cash ran out first, then debt, leaving share sales to settle the difference. Even Alphabet, a former buyback connoisseur, is now planning an $85B share sale to keep pace — but it comes with a catch: more supply isn’t always welcome. Amid this supply surge, BCA Research found the S&P historically posted a median 8% return in the year after mega IPOs, with returns going negative about 20% of the time. Add in lockups, and another wave of shares hits the market all at once.
