An IPO Surge Hides Behind The Fog Of War

Published on April 7, 2026

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While Investors remain fixated on the Iranian conflict and the extreme volatility of oil prices, a historic wave of AI-driven IPOs is quietly building in the background. When the geopolitical fog clears, AI-related IPOs may become an important market narrative for the remainder of the year.

As an appetizer, Anthropic, the Claude maker founded by former OpenAI researchers, is targeting an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2026. While still early, the company is expected to raise more than $60 billion at a valuation between $400 and $500 billion. Such a valuation would rank it as the second-largest venture-backed IPO in history. The company most recently closed a $30 billion funding round at a $380 billion valuation in February 2026, backed heavily by Alphabet and Amazon.

The main course offering will likely be Elon Musk's SpaceX. SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC on April 1st, targeting a June listing at a valuation that could exceed $1.75 trillion. As the graphic below shows, Polymarket bettors assign a 27% chance that it eclipses $2 trillion, making it the 6th-largest publicly traded company in America. Needless to say, but it would shatter every public market record. The valuation is bolstered by the recent merger of SpaceX and xAI, creating what Musk described as:

the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on and off Earth

For investors, the question isn't whether this IPO will be historic; it will be. The question is whether the AI premium baked into the valuation is earned or aspirational.

An IPO Surge Hides Behind The Fog Of War

What To Watch Today

Earnings

No notable earnings releases as of today

Economy

Market Trading Update

Yesterday, we discussed the technical backdrop of the market. Furthermore, on Monday, we discussed why investors should consider fading this rally. That is still likely a prudent course of action, but we should also consider the possibility of a different outcome.

Over the last few weeks, the selloff has been an exhausting grind lower, and the headlines have been brutal. But markets don't always wait for the all-clear signal before turning higher, and right now, enough catalysts are building beneath the surface to suggest the worst of this decline may be closer to over than most investors think.

The most immediate one is earnings season. Q1 reporting kicks off in earnest this week, with the big banks leading the way. Whatever the macro backdrop, corporate results have a way of cutting through the noise. If companies come in with solid numbers and, more importantly, don't gut their forward guidance, the market will have something concrete to buy against. Investors are already positioned defensively. It doesn't take much good news to move a market that's coiled that tight.

Share buyback authorizations are also quietly building. Several large cap companies that suspended repurchase activity during the February volatility are now working through board approvals to restart programs. That matters because buybacks function as a mechanical floor. Companies don't announce $5 billion repurchase programs and then sit on their hands while their own stock trades at a discount. That demand shows up in the tape, and it tends to show up consistently.

Beyond those two factors, sentiment and positioning themselves argue for a bounce. The AAII bull-bear spread has collapsed to levels last seen during the 2022 trough. Put-to-call ratios have surged. Retail and institutional investors alike have been reducing equity exposure for weeks. When everyone who wants to sell has already sold, which means you don't need good news to stabilize prices, you just need the bad news to stop getting worse.

Iran remains an overhang, and I'm not dismissing it. A genuine escalation could reset this entire picture in a session. But geopolitical shocks that don't produce a direct economic rupture, think supply chain disruption rather than full-scale regional war, historically resolve faster than the market prices at the moment of peak fear. Furthermore, markets have already been pricing in the expected impact of the current conflict by resetting valuations. We're not calling the bottom here. What we're saying is that the setup for a meaningful relief rally is forming, and investors who are waiting for certainty before acting will miss most of it.

Pay attention.

Energy vs. Technology

Over the past month, the energy sector has been grossly overbought while technology has been among the most oversold sectors. Last week, the tide turned. As we share below, courtesy of SimpleVisor, energy (XLE) saw its absolute and relative scores move from extremely overbought (the upper-right corner) toward fair value. At the same time, technology (XLK) moved from the bottom left corner to a very slightly overbought level.

The question is whether this shift is durable or just a short break from the value-growth trend, which has weighed on large-cap technology since November. Answering the question is extremely difficult amid the barrage of Iran and oil headlines, which are heavily impacting the market. That said, when volatility no longer thrives on Iran and oil prices, that question will become more important for investors.

The Stock Market Rally: Buy It Or Fade It?

Last week, the stock market rally was one of the best performances in nearly a year. The S&P 500 surged 3.4%, the Nasdaq climbed 4.4%, and the bulls declared the correction over. As I have stated before, having watched markets for more than 35 years, I have come to recognize the difference between a relief rally and the end of a corrective cycle. So far, this remains a relief rally until overhead resistance is broken through and successfully retested. The question that matters now is whether the stock market rally has the institutional support to break through those resistance levels, or whether Monday’s open will reveal the reversal was already finished before most investors realized it started.

The answer, based on every technical and macro lens I use, points heavily toward the latter.