Wall Street’s market for new stocks has suddenly stalled, but big investors aren’t out of cash, experts say — they are simply hoarding their funds for a historic mega-deal while refusing to overpay for the rest of the pack.
asserted
they → stall → pack
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI developer behind the Claude chatbot, is targeting a valuation near $2 trillion for an initial public offering that could fetch up to $100 billion in the coming weeks.
uncertain
that → base → weeks
The deal could easily surpass SpaceX’s record $86.2 billion debut in June, cementing 2026 as the biggest year for newly raised capital in history.
“Anthropic is the lead story of the Q4 IPO market.
uncertain
Anthropic → surpass → market
Forget everything else,” said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at pre-IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.
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Kennedy → forget → Capital
“Like SpaceX, Anthropic could raise more than every IPO from both 2025 and 2024 combined, easily,” he told The Post.
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he → raise → Post
The massive deal looms large over a jittery market.
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deal → loom → market
Several prominent offerings hit the brakes in recent weeks.
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offerings → hit → weeks
Smart-ring maker Oura recently postponed its Nasdaq listing hours before it was set to price at a $15.6 billion target valuation.
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it → postpone → valuation
The company cited market uncertainty.
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company → cite → uncertainty
While demand was four times higher than the shares available, potential investors balked at the price tag and Oura’s reliance on a single product.
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investors → balk → product
Other firms have retreated, as well.
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firms → retreat → ?
Holtec Nuclear, a nuclear services provider looking to cash in on the data center boom, suspended its planned $825 million IPO on Sept. 17.
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Nuclear → look → Sept.
SoftBank also delayed the listing of data-center firm SB Energy after investors challenged a valuation topping $50 billion.
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investors → delay → billion
While some bankers argue Anthropic is sucking all the oxygen out of the room, market watchers say the pause stems from an old-fashioned fight over price and a shaky global backdrop.
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pause → argue → price
“I don’t see Anthropic as being this black hole that prevents other companies from going public,” Renaissance Capital’s Kennedy said.
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Kennedy → see → companies
“I think I would point to just the tougher market conditions that we’re seeing now.
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we → think → that
If they could get the valuation they wanted, they’d move forward.”
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they → get → valuation
Deutsche Bank analysts Marion Laboure and Camilla Siazon blamed the recent IPO delays on a broader backdrop of “uncertainty around the upcoming US midterm elections, ongoing geopolitical conflict and higher oil prices”.
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analysts → blame → elections
The analysts wrote in a client note that pushback against tech company price tags actually began this summer when investors “questioned elevated valuations” and “the sustainability of AI spending.”
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investors → write → spending
Investors are now demanding a much wider cushion to take on those risks.
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Investors → demand → risks
While traditional offerings price at a 10% to 15% discount, Kennedy noted buyers now want closer to a 20% discount.
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buyers → note → discount
“The market is making a distinction between AI-related companies and others,” Jay Ritter, a University of Florida finance professor who has studied IPOs for decades, told The Post.
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who → make → Post
While investors will pay top dollar for elite, “frontier” AI models like Anthropic, they view heavy infrastructure like data centers as a capital-intensive “commodity business,” Ritter explained.
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Ritter → pay → business
That explains why companies operating outside the tech-infrastructure bubble — like biotech startups — are still pricing deals easily.
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companies → explain → deals
They simply don’t compete with Anthropic for the same cash.
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They → compete → cash
US mutual funds, where many Americans have money invested for their retirement through their 401(k)s, alone are sitting on roughly $17 trillion in stock assets, Ritter noted.
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Ritter → have → assets
But a brutal summer for new stocks has made fund managers highly protective of their capital.
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managers → make → capital
At the end of June, the average US debut traded up 24% from its offer price, according to Dealogic data.
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debut → trade → data
By late September, that gain shrank to under 1%.
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gain → shrink → %
Broader economic pressures are giving buyers even more leverage.
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pressures → give → leverage
The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate on Sept. 16, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to a 19-year high near 5.3%.
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Reserve → raise → %
Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity’s director of global macro, recently noted that yields above 5.2% offer a compelling, safe alternative to stocks, putting heavy pressure on private valuations.
“Investors are no longer willing to pay high multiples,” he said.
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he → note → multiples
Venture-backed software companies, long the bread and butter of Wall Street’s new issues calendar, have largely vanished from the schedule.
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companies → back → schedule
Through mid-September, 109 US IPOs raised $146.5 billion, according to data compiled by Renaissance Capital.
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IPOs → raise → Capital
Whether the pipeline of upcoming stock debuts fully unfreezes depends entirely on how Anthropic performs when trading begins before Thanksgiving.
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trading → unfreeze → Thanksgiving
The company is reportedly aiming to go public around then.
uncertain
company → aim → ?
A strong debut could unlock billions of dollars for the rest of the calendar.
uncertain
debut → unlock → calendar
A stumble could freeze the banks managing IPOs well into 2027.
uncertain
stumble → freeze → 2027
“In a traditional IPO calendar, if a deal this size underperforms, that would freeze the IPO market for some period of time,” Kennedy told The Post.
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Kennedy → underperform → Post
“If investors have lost collectively billions of dollars on Anthropic, they’re not going to be too excited to participate in the next IPO sold by Goldman and Morgan Stanley.
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they → lose → Goldman
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
