Are we in a bubble?

[Gregmal]

2 hours ago, Spooky said:

 

It's a little sad. I would have loved to own some Space X before it was merged into twitter and xAi as a pure play space exploration company (at a reasonable valuation of course). 

Not advice at all, but Pre-IPO stuff is so easy to access now. You generally dont even need to spend the previous $100k or $20k minimums anymore. A decade ago, it was a nightmare and not worth it unless you could justify $30-50k in setup costs/fees. Now you can just go to any number of credible outfits and invest. 

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Not advice at all, but Pre-IPO stuff is so easy to access now. You generally dont even need to spend the previous $100k or $20k minimums anymore. A decade ago, it was a nightmare and not worth it unless you could justify $30-50k in setup costs/fees. Now you can just go to any number of credible outfits and invest. 

It’s easy to an access but you don’t know what you are buying. You have no financials.

[Gregmal]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

It’s easy to an access but you don’t know what you are buying. You have no financials.

Well, if you gave one the financials, or just(in the event you actually wanted to own SpaceX) bought at or around the latest funding valuation without any numbers, Ill gander the later did better. Private market investing involves risk. I've always been OK forgoing my own personal opinion on "the numbers" in lieu of just riding with what the mega well funded outfits that invest in these type of things decide its worth.

 

Put another way, if company XYZ had a funding round where it raised billions in capital from Fidelity, Benchmark, Sequoia, etc...how am I not an arrogant fuck thinking "nah my analysis is better"? My general rule of thumb has been if I want to own something, and I can find a few decent private market shops backing something, to just roll with it. 

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Well, if you gave one the financials, or just(in the event you actually wanted to own SpaceX) bought at or around the latest funding valuation without any numbers, Ill gander the later did better. Private market investing involves risk. I've always been OK forgoing my own personal opinion on "the numbers" in lieu of just riding with what the mega well funded outfits that invest in these type of things decide its worth.

 

Put another way, if company XYZ had a funding round where it raised billions in capital from Fidelity, Benchmark, Sequoia, etc...how am I not an arrogant fuck thinking "nah my analysis is better"? My general rule of thumb has been if I want to own something, and I can find a few decent private market shops backing something, to just roll with it. 

Fair, but do you get access  to desirable private investments to the same terms these well informed insiders do? I think in most cases you do not.

[dwy000]

9 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Well, if you gave one the financials, or just(in the event you actually wanted to own SpaceX) bought at or around the latest funding valuation without any numbers, Ill gander the later did better. Private market investing involves risk. I've always been OK forgoing my own personal opinion on "the numbers" in lieu of just riding with what the mega well funded outfits that invest in these type of things decide its worth.

 

Put another way, if company XYZ had a funding round where it raised billions in capital from Fidelity, Benchmark, Sequoia, etc...how am I not an arrogant fuck thinking "nah my analysis is better"? My general rule of thumb has been if I want to own something, and I can find a few decent private market shops backing something, to just roll with it. 

That same group saw it take 2.5years for Uber to trade back to its last private round valuation. Wework IPO'd at $10bn valuation after a final round at $47bn. None of them base their valuations on financials.  They base it on what the next funder will value it at

[Gregmal]

1 hour ago, dwy000 said:

That same group saw it take 2.5years for Uber to trade back to its last private round valuation. Wework IPO'd at $10bn valuation after a final round at $47bn. None of them base their valuations on financials.  They base it on what the next funder will value it at

That’s how you access these before they go public. Of course there’s post mortem analysis where it worked or didn’t work. It’s purely take it or leave it. Folks want to get in, that’s what you have to do. 

[dwy000]

23 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

That’s how you access these before they go public. Of course there’s post mortem analysis where it worked or didn’t work. It’s purely take it or leave it. Folks want to get in, that’s what you have to do. 

It was more a reference to the idea that we shouldnt question things that Sequoia and Benchmark invested in. Those guys tend to get most of their ownership and upside from investing in the Seed and A rounds.  The rest of the rounds are them managing new investors towards an exit that maximizes their early investment as opposed to caring what kind of return the D and E round investors get. Those are generally the sucker rounds. 

Edited May 24 by dwy000

[Gregmal]

1 hour ago, dwy000 said:

It was more a reference to the idea that we shouldnt question things that Sequoia and Benchmark invested in. Those guys tend to get most of their ownership and upside from investing in the Seed and A rounds.  The rest of the rounds are them managing new investors towards an exit that maximizes their early investment as opposed to caring what kind of return the D and E round investors get. Those are generally the sucker rounds. 

How early you get in is a different game. Given today’s situation where many of these things stay private longer than before, you have to be flexible. Ripple is a good example. You can buy in for maybe $130-150 a share vs a $250-300 valuation/last funding round. I’ll take that bet, although I did it originally at like $25-30 a share.
 

For every Ripple there’s Epic games which did a round at $50b iirc and today it’s available at $15b. But in reference to the original comment, people have had access to SpaceX for a decade. And even once popular, say 3-5 years ago, there was always an “I know better” aspect at $100b, $300b, $500b, etc. 

 

Folks are free to invest. I was just pointing out that “it’s not public” isn’t an excuse anymore. 

[Sweet]

On 5/23/2026 at 2:38 AM, Gregmal said:

Not advice at all, but Pre-IPO stuff is so easy to access now. You generally dont even need to spend the previous $100k or $20k minimums anymore. A decade ago, it was a nightmare and not worth it unless you could justify $30-50k in setup costs/fees. Now you can just go to any number of credible outfits and invest. 

Didn’t know this was an option for us retail.  Any outfits that you would recommend?

[Spekulatius]

20 minutes ago, Sweet said:

Didn’t know this was an option for us retail.  Any outfits that you would recommend?

EquityZen is one that is available but you need to be accredited investor , so not exactly retail.

[SharperDingaan]

Like it or not, everyone is going to have significant exposure to SpaceX once the stock is in the various indices; add it to the Mag 7 ... and total exposure is maybe in the 15-30% range - can't get much bubblier than that. The TSX, back in the day, when Nortel was doing its thing ...

 

Back then, as it will again be tomorrow, the conservative solution was to buy the index fund of some other market ... that didn't have as much exposure; and talk down Nortel. SpaceX will now make even Europe look good 

 

Of course, the 'hope' is that the combined SpaceX/Mag 7 index weighting, results in a large enough 'too big to fail', that it comes with an implied put on all the globes central banks. The antidote is smaller weightings in the other market indices, and a significant US market sell-off (mid-term election results, extended Iran war), that would benefit everyone.

 

Volatility; make it your friend 

 

SD 

[Gregmal]

2 hours ago, Sweet said:

Didn’t know this was an option for us retail.  Any outfits that you would recommend?

Equityzen, Forge Global and Hiive. 

[Sweet]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

EquityZen is one that is available but you need to be accredited investor , so not exactly retail.

 

2 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Equityzen, Forge Global and Hiive. 

Ty both

[ajlomb1011]

SOXL chart is at meme coin levels

[Spooky]

Equity risk premium basically gone.

[Marco Van Basten]

28 minutes ago, Spooky said:

Equity risk premium basically gone.

How is it calculated?  Thank you.  

[Spooky]

5 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

How is it calculated?  Thank you.  

It’s the gap between the S&P 500’s earnings yield (inverse of P/E ratio) and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note.

 

Here is the full WSJ article the chart is from: https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-risk-premium-for-holding-stocks-over-bonds-is-vanishing-95be5b9d?st=TUqyPP&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Edited May 26 by Spooky

[Parsad]

8 hours ago, Spooky said:

Equity risk premium basically gone.

 

What does this tell us?

 

Look at 2008...what did it tell you?

 

Look at 2020...what did it tell you?

 

Only negative risk premium in 2000 really indicated something amiss.

 

Otherwise every other time, some catalyst had to cause a dramatic correction...what is the catalyst?  Is it close or far out?

 

Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

5 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

What does this tell us?

 

Look at 2008...what did it tell you?

 

Look at 2020...what did it tell you?

 

Only negative risk premium in 2000 really indicated something amiss.

 

Otherwise every other time, some catalyst had to cause a dramatic correction...what is the catalyst?  Is it close or far out?

 

Cheers!

Catalysts is probably the AI bubble popping. Maybe combined with some geo political event (similar to 2001). Who knows?

[Parsad]

3 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Catalysts is probably the AI bubble popping. Maybe combined with some geo political event (similar to 2001). Who knows?

 

Exactly...we don't know what or when.  So stand pat, move to cash if that makes you feel better, or keep hunting for cheap individual stocks/investments.  But you can't make any real decisions from that chart.  Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

47 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

What does this tell us?

 

Look at 2008...what did it tell you?

 

Look at 2020...what did it tell you?

 

Only negative risk premium in 2000 really indicated something amiss.

 

Otherwise every other time, some catalyst had to cause a dramatic correction...what is the catalyst?  Is it close or far out?

 

Cheers!

Keep in mind that 2008 and 2020 had very depressed earnings which reduced the equity risk premiums for those years. We have record earnings now that are bolstered by the AI boom. Memory prices have multiplied even thigh they generally move down over time (due to Moores law even though we lately diverged from the trajectory as progress on feature sizes has slowed).

 

Sp as any single numbers, it has to be interpreted in context.

[ajlomb1011]

1 hour ago, Parsad said:

 

Exactly...we don't know what or when.  So stand pat, move to cash if that makes you feel better, or keep hunting for cheap individual stocks/investments.  But you can't make any real decisions from that chart.  Cheers!

Your “Cheers!” At the end of every post comes off as very cocky and annoying, maybe think about changing that. You sound like a tool.

[Malmqky]

10 minutes ago, ajlomb1011 said:

Your “Cheers!” At the end of every post comes off as very cocky and annoying, maybe think about changing that. You sound like a tool.

 

How do you think this post makes you sound?

 

We all need some positivity in our lives, especially us! (Nintendo and CSU shareholders)

[Parsad]

19 minutes ago, ajlomb1011 said:

Your “Cheers!” At the end of every post comes off as very cocky and annoying, maybe think about changing that. You sound like a tool.

 

Maybe you're in a bad mood or having a bad day, but go back to just posting about the subject matter at hand...instead of the asshole you just revealed yourself to be.  Cheers...and if that sounds cocky or annoying, I don't give two shits!  

[ajlomb1011]

5 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Maybe you're in a bad mood or having a bad day, but go back to just posting about the subject matter at hand...instead of the asshole you just revealed yourself to be.  Cheers...and if that sounds cocky or annoying, I don't give two shits!  

Nah I’m just saying how it is, adding it at the end of every message makes it seem very fake