Argos: Bespoken Behavior – June 2026 | By Michael Russo
Our Store of Value Protocol is, at its core, a compensation decision. We hold a simple definition of risk: more things can happen than will happen. When the ratio of possible outcomes to actual outcomes expands well beyond normal — and when the consequences attached to those possibilities are severe — the market rarely offers sufficient return to justify taking the bet. We don’t retreat out of fear. We step back because the math no longer works in our favor. That is where we stand today. The AI IPO wave arriving this year is worth examining precisely through that lens.
Three Companies. Three Separate Offerings.
Three companies are preparing to go public in the coming months: SpaceX went public today in the largest IPO in history, targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation; OpenAI, targeting roughly $850 billion; and Anthropic, targeting approximately $965 billion. It is important to state those numbers accurately — they are three separate companies with three separate offerings, not a single enterprise. Taken together, their combined valuation approaches $3.6 trillion. That context matters, because the aggregate number is frequently quoted as though it represents a single coherent business. It does not.
What those three businesses do share is a structural problem: none of them currently makes money on a GAAP basis. According to SpaceX’s own S-1 prospectus filed this spring, the company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025 on revenue of $18.7 billion — a loss driven largely by the absorption of xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, which was folded into SpaceX in February. Starlink, to its credit, is genuinely profitable. But the company being offered to the public at $1.75 trillion is the consolidated entity — rockets, satellites, and a money-losing AI division bundled together. OpenAI, meanwhile, is projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 and does not expect to reach profitability until 2029 or 2030, while Anthropic has not yet had a profitable quarter since its founding.
The dream is being sold at a very high price for businesses that are, in aggregate, still burning cash.
The Mechanism: Your Index Fund Has no Vote.
The mechanism by which your index fund will be required to own these companies is equally worth understanding. Effective May 1, 2026, NASDAQ’s new Fast Entry rule allows newly public mega-cap companies to join the Nasdaq-100 after just 15 trading days — a sharp reduction from the previous three-month seasoning period. The exchange also eliminated the prior 10% minimum public float requirement, replacing it with a weighting multiplier of up to three times a company’s float-adjusted market cap. The Nasdaq-100 is tracked by exchange-traded funds with more than $800 billion in assets. Every dollar in those funds will be required to buy automatically, with no vote and no discretion.
The Concentration Problem Is Already Here
These IPOs do not introduce a new risk — they deepen one already present. AI-related stocks now represent approximately 45% of the S&P 500’s total market capitalization — an all-time high for any single thematic cluster within the index, according to Goldman Sachs data. An investor who believes they own a diversified piece of the American economy through a passive index fund is, in practice, running a concentrated bet on a single technological thesis. Adding SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic to that index makes the bet larger, more expensive, and harder to exit.
Technology Winning is Not The Same as Investors Winning
History draws a sharp distinction between technology winning and investors winning. The railroads transformed the American economy permanently — and nearly every investor who funded them was wiped out. The fiber optic cables of the 1990s became the internet’s backbone, long after the companies that laid them went bankrupt in the dot-com crash. The fortunes were made by those who waited and bought the same assets at pennies on the dollar. This does not imply skepticism about these businesses’ ability to achieve meaningful pricing gains in the open market; instead, we view the pursuit of price action and market performance as another sign of peak market exuberance.
The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese.
That is the pattern we are managing against. We are not predicting that AI fails. We are making a judgment that at these valuations, with this degree of market concentration, this degree of geopolitical uncertainty, and these unresolved questions about whether reported earnings across the sector reflect genuine economic activity or circular capital flows, the market is not paying us enough to take the risk. In short, we do not want to find ourselves in the position of the mouse who says “keep the cheese, I just want out of the trap!”
Our Store of Value Protocol remains active. We will return to a full risk posture when the market offers commensurate compensation for the risks present.
Sources
SpaceX S-1 prospectus (filed May 2026), Fortune/Reuters. AI IPO Tracker, aifundingtracker.com. Nasdaq Fast Entry Rule methodology, effective May 1, 2026 (Kiplinger; Charles Schwab; Ashurst). S&P 500 AI concentration, Goldman Sachs as cited by Crypto Briefing, May 2026; RBC Wealth Management, January 2026.
Important Disclosures
Argos Wealth Advisors, LLC is an SEC-registered investment adviser; registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This commentary is for informational purposes only, reflects opinions as of the date of publication, and is not investment, legal, or tax advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Nothing herein is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security or to adopt any investment strategy. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal; past performance is not indicative of future results, and no assurance can be given that any investment objective will be achieved. Statements regarding future economic, fiscal or market conditions are forward-looking, are based on assumptions that may prove incorrect, and are subject to change without notice; actual results may differ materially. Yields, index levels and other market figures are sourced from public market data and third-party sources believed to be reliable but not independently verified, and are provided for context only. Indices are unmanaged, do not reflect the deduction of advisory fees, expenses or transaction costs, may not reflect the risk profile of any Argos portfolio, and it is not possible to invest directly in an index. References to third parties are for illustration only and do not imply any endorsement of, or affiliation with, Argos. Advisory fees and underlying fund expenses reduce returns over time. See our Form ADV Part 2A for additional information about our advisory services, fees, and conflicts of interest.
