A collective sigh of relief swept across Wall Street this past Friday as SpaceX’s landmark Nasdaq launch concluded smoothly, setting a new template for trading firms and exchanges bracing for the significant IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic later this year. SpaceX, a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company, designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. Its record-breaking debut on the US exchanges dwarfed previous largest flotations by nearly three times, a sheer size that had worried market participants still recalling the disastrous stock market debut of Facebook in 2012.
Concerns were high among market infrastructure firms, including the banks underwriting the IPO, exchanges, market makers, and clearinghouses, about handling the immense volume of client orders. However, these trading systems held up to the challenge, largely skirting the technical glitches that plagued Facebook’s 2012 rollout. “People go back to the Facebook … days and ‘was this going to turn into one of those companies,’ but I honestly think the banks in the U.S. did a fantastic job,” commented Jeff Parks, CEO of Canadian investment firm Stack Capital Group, which holds nearly a third of its portfolio in SpaceX. Citadel Securities, the largest US retail market maker, reported that SpaceX’s debut generated the highest retail order activity for an IPO auction ever.
Morgan Stanley, acting as the stabilisation agent, played a pivotal role in managing SpaceX’s glitzy market opening, ensuring an orderly rollout amidst unprecedented investor demand. Trading platform Charles Schwab also observed over a million orders in SpaceX within the first few hours, a substantial figure compared to past IPOs. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman noted the extensive preparation and collaboration among all firms involved, stating, “We all worked really well together … and it came off really flawlessly.” Despite some minor issues with early trading on Robinhood, the overall process was lauded as a significant success, affirming the market’s capacity to handle colossal listings effectively.
