Latest / Merryn Talks Money / SpaceX Emergency Podcast: FOMO is Not an Investment Strategy
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to another emergency
- 0:19Speaker 1: episode of the Marin Talks Money Market rap wh We
- 0:22Speaker 1: talk about the biggest moves in the markets this week.
- 0:24Speaker 2: And what is driving them.
- 0:25Speaker 1: I am Maren thum zep Web that is Writt Large
- 0:27Speaker 1: for Bloomberg UK Wealth.
- 0:28Speaker 3: And I'm joined Stevick's, senior reporter for Bloomberg and author
- 0:31Speaker 3: of the Money Distilled News.
- 0:32Speaker 1: Later, John, the reason for this podcast we emergency and listen.
- 0:41Speaker 1: I'm not going I'm actually not going to tell people
- 0:42Speaker 1: what this emergency podcast is about quite yet. I'm going
- 0:45Speaker 1: to do it another way. I'm going to say to you, John,
- 0:48Speaker 1: what do you think I did? Five minutes before I
- 0:51Speaker 1: pressed the button to log on to chat to you?
- 0:53Speaker 2: What do you think I did?
- 0:55Speaker 3: Did you press the back signal from an emergency podcast
- 1:00Speaker 3: untalked money?
- 1:01Speaker 1: Sure? I don't know why you can't guess this because
- 1:03Speaker 1: I did the same thing as everybody across the country
- 1:06Speaker 1: is doing today and will do tomorrow if they don't.
- 1:09Speaker 2: Leave it too late. I have sent my application for
- 1:13Speaker 2: SpaceX shares excellent, That's what I like to hear.
- 1:16Speaker 1: I know I've used Hargri's landsdown and I've very carefully
- 1:20Speaker 1: read all the stuff. I've read the bit about is
- 1:22Speaker 1: the is the SpaceX IPO right for you? I'm none
- 1:25Speaker 1: the wiser by the time I've finished reading that. I've
- 1:27Speaker 1: read the bit about you know, my W eight B
- 1:30Speaker 1: and form et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I've
- 1:33Speaker 1: read the bit how there are lots of risks and
- 1:35Speaker 1: I might not make any money and indeed I might
- 1:37Speaker 1: lose all my money And do you know what, I've
- 1:39Speaker 1: done it anyway, And I've done it because I just
- 1:42Speaker 1: want to be involved. I mean, I got I spoke
- 1:45Speaker 1: to Anna McDonald, who is the and the CIO head
- 1:48Speaker 1: of investment at Hargri's Landsdowne earlier and she said very firmly,
- 1:52Speaker 1: She's like, FOMO is not an investment strategy.
- 1:54Speaker 2: But do you know, I imply for the minimum maybe
- 1:56Speaker 2: it did well well.
- 1:58Speaker 3: So that's the resonn thing I recommendation.
- 2:01Speaker 1: No, it absolutely is not a resounding by recommendation.
- 2:07Speaker 3: What is this is for the purplicies of John lawis ticket.
- 2:09Speaker 2: This is for the journalistic integrity.
- 2:12Speaker 3: We don't like to talk about anything we haven't tried ourselves.
- 2:16Speaker 1: And also you know, I very carefully bought bitcoins so
- 2:19Speaker 1: I could say that I was participating, and may I
- 2:22Speaker 1: say you did not. And I'm also getting the impression
- 2:24Speaker 1: from you that you have not yet applied for your
- 2:27Speaker 1: SpaceX chess.
- 2:28Speaker 3: I feel I would have a few more hoops to
- 2:31Speaker 3: jump through, so so I probably point. But yeah, I
- 2:35Speaker 3: think it's not I think that it's good to see
- 2:39Speaker 3: how the actual men say that these things wants for deafinite.
- 2:42Speaker 2: I mean, I'm afraid it's too easy.
- 2:44Speaker 3: It's far too It's quite simple, isn't it.
- 2:48Speaker 1: It takes about twenty seconds, and so if you do
- 2:50Speaker 1: want them, you know, you can just go get them.
- 2:51Speaker 1: All the big platforms in the UK and in the
- 2:53Speaker 1: US have a way for you to apply for SpaceX chess.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Now you won't know how many shairs you're going to get.
- 2:59Speaker 1: You only even know the price until they hit your
- 3:02Speaker 1: portfolio on Friday morning. So I mean, I do think
- 3:05Speaker 1: that that is a strange thing for anyone to do.
- 3:09Speaker 1: It's impossible to value companies like this. The valuation rests
- 3:15Speaker 1: on forecasts made out over five, ten, fifteen years. They
- 3:19Speaker 1: rest on the revenues for SpaceX coming not so much
- 3:22Speaker 1: from its space business, which is. Of course you have
- 3:24Speaker 1: Spectacular by the way, Spectacular it absolutely dominates the launch
- 3:28Speaker 1: business in the US and hence globally. The statistic on that,
- 3:32Speaker 1: I thought there were one hundred and ninety nine space
- 3:34Speaker 1: launches licensed in the US last year, and SpaceX did
- 3:38Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty one of them, so shoo, yeah,
- 3:41Speaker 1: eighty ofcent plus absolutely dominate that market. And then they've
- 3:44Speaker 1: got Starlink, which we're using right now, by the way,
- 3:47Speaker 1: which is the bit that nine thousand satellites there. That's
- 3:49Speaker 1: the bit that actually brings in the money, right, not
- 3:52Speaker 1: enough money, but money. And then that's Britter x, which
- 3:55Speaker 1: of course is our natural home. You and I you're
- 3:58Speaker 1: better on it than I am. And then of course
- 4:00Speaker 1: there's XAI, which is is the croc chatbot. So what
- 4:06Speaker 1: we're being asked to believe now is that this is
- 4:08Speaker 1: not a space company so much as an AI company,
- 4:11Speaker 1: and the combination of space and AI is is the magic.
- 4:15Speaker 1: You can have data centers in space, solar power, don't
- 4:18Speaker 1: need to worry about all that pesky cooling and infrastructure,
- 4:20Speaker 1: and this is it. That's what that's what we're being
- 4:23Speaker 1: asked to buy into, right yeah.
- 4:24Speaker 3: I mean it's a lot of hope basically, which is
- 4:29Speaker 3: can it traditionally been what you learn musk trades in.
- 4:32Speaker 3: I mean, I'm always have going to look at a
- 4:33Speaker 3: couple of valuations from relatively sensible people this morning, and
- 4:39Speaker 3: I mean it varies a lot, I mean moren start
- 4:41Speaker 3: of valuation where they said they can it is about
- 4:45Speaker 3: what's about seven hundred and eighty billion, which is about
- 4:48Speaker 3: half or you know what Elin's looking for. Whereas as
- 4:52Speaker 3: Worth the Moiderine, who is an excellent can analyst, and
- 4:55Speaker 3: the Stacey is a very clever guy. I would say
- 4:58Speaker 3: it's pretty good you in these Blue Sky companies because
- 5:02Speaker 3: he's quite open minded, but he's also not, you know,
- 5:04Speaker 3: not stupid. And he put about one in a quarter
- 5:07Speaker 3: trillion to maybe one point three to five trillion order
- 5:11Speaker 3: as a sort of feasible kind of thing, but obviously
- 5:14Speaker 3: saying but it's still a lot more expensive than that,
- 5:17Speaker 3: so it's more he would probably wait until it had
- 5:19Speaker 3: you know, dropped a bit after the IBO, and then
- 5:22Speaker 3: he would maybe consider it. But I think that, I mean,
- 5:24Speaker 3: I think that shows you that this isn't something that
- 5:29Speaker 3: you would buy now based on the fundamentals, because based
- 5:32Speaker 3: on tell me, well, I know, I know, man, you'd
- 5:36Speaker 3: say you should have phoned me before you make these
- 5:38Speaker 3: kinds of decisions. We come on, Yeah, you can't do
- 5:43Speaker 3: it based on the fundamentals. It's basically based on the
- 5:45Speaker 3: idea that they're cony be able to hype this up
- 5:48Speaker 3: so much. And to be fair, they've got almost every
- 5:51Speaker 3: investment bank in you know, in the US kind of
- 5:54Speaker 3: working on the deal. Most of the indices of essentially
- 6:00Speaker 3: agreed that they'll take SpaceX, but with a notable exception
- 6:04Speaker 3: the S and P, which is, you know, I think
- 6:06Speaker 3: it's quite a big deal and actually quite an interesting
- 6:08Speaker 3: thing for passive investing overall, because that's going to represent
- 6:13Speaker 3: a real kind of Bui furcation. Yeah, you know, it's
- 6:16Speaker 3: it's a real decision point for you. Now whether you
- 6:18Speaker 3: buy a passive US tracker that doesn't have SpaceX in
- 6:23Speaker 3: it or one that does. And also SpaceX isn't the
- 6:26Speaker 3: only one. There's quite a few big guys.
- 6:29Speaker 1: It doesn't brings us back, John, doesn't it That whole
- 6:31Speaker 1: question that we've been asking, is this such a thing
- 6:33Speaker 1: as a passive.
- 6:34Speaker 2: Investment, And of course there isn't.
- 6:36Speaker 1: Now even if you're buying something that supposedly tracks the
- 6:40Speaker 1: S and P. You are effectively making quite a major
- 6:44Speaker 1: active choice. Yeah.
- 6:46Speaker 3: I think that's really interesting because the other day I
- 6:48Speaker 3: was chatting to your colleague Sam Mundstad the other day
- 6:53Speaker 3: about this kind of IPO. We were saying, oh, I
- 6:56Speaker 3: wonder if SpaceX might break you know, the past of market,
- 7:01Speaker 3: and in a way, I think this is actually how
- 7:04Speaker 3: it breaks it. It's very clear now that there is
- 7:06Speaker 3: no such thing as a passive investment, but this has
- 7:10Speaker 3: really kind of like hung a label on the fact
- 7:11Speaker 3: that if you if you buy the S and P tracker,
- 7:15Speaker 3: you're getting a very different kind of and and essentially
- 7:19Speaker 3: an actively and a portfolio with a certain layer of
- 7:24Speaker 3: active management on it that you know. I mean to
- 7:27Speaker 3: be clear, I approve of S and P's decision. I
- 7:30Speaker 3: think it's the correct decision. I think the idea that
- 7:33Speaker 3: you know, you should have to have a year or
- 7:35Speaker 3: so of actually being a listed company, even if you're
- 7:38Speaker 3: a huge one, makes a lot of sense. But at
- 7:41Speaker 3: the end of the day, it is there. It's their
- 7:42Speaker 3: active choice. You know, you can equally rationalize as the
- 7:46Speaker 3: Nasdak presumably does that. Well, actually this is a massive stock,
- 7:51Speaker 3: you know, it's significant. Investors will want it in their portfolio.
- 7:56Speaker 1: You'll portfolio represent the market if you don't have it
- 7:59Speaker 1: in Yeah, So that's the both arguments.
- 8:02Speaker 3: Can't you Yeah, but that's the points I notice bifocated,
- 8:06Speaker 3: So you know you can't. If you see someone on
- 8:08Speaker 3: invest and passively, I will will watch taper passive. Are
- 8:11Speaker 3: you choosing? And I think that's that's the really what's
- 8:15Speaker 3: interesting behind the philosophical level, it does mean not you
- 8:19Speaker 3: have to think about where your money's going and a
- 8:22Speaker 3: way that perhaps you can have didn't want to, or
- 8:24Speaker 3: you know, you thought it was just an auto pilot.
- 8:27Speaker 1: I supposely that's that's one thing that we need to
- 8:29Speaker 1: worry about. And then we need to worry about not
- 8:44Speaker 1: just this IPO, but the other mega ipeos that are
- 8:47Speaker 1: coming Anthropic, open AI, etctera and the extent that they
- 8:51Speaker 1: will have both on the market as a whole and
- 8:54Speaker 1: on passive, because suddenly you're going to have even more
- 8:56Speaker 1: concentrated portfolios. If you've got you a PASSIVEVTF on the
- 9:00Speaker 1: S and P five hundred, it's going to be even
- 9:02Speaker 1: more concentrated than it was before. I saw some of
- 9:05Speaker 1: the assuming they all get away as they intend to
- 9:08Speaker 1: get away, you're going to end up with the top
- 9:10Speaker 1: top ten companies taking up pushing fifty percent of the index.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Really really is new and terrifying.
- 9:16Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean when you think about it, So
- 9:18Speaker 3: the most volatile index this year has been South Korean
- 9:22Speaker 3: Cotsby index. The courseby dropped about nine percent on this morning.
- 9:27Speaker 3: That's what recording this on Wendy. And that's because everyone
- 9:31Speaker 3: was freaking out a about the US, possibly reason interest
- 9:35Speaker 3: rates because they cannap jobs figures want better than expected.
- 9:41Speaker 3: But that index is about fifty sixty percent is two
- 9:47Speaker 3: chip makers. But if you're talking about like the US,
- 9:51Speaker 3: which obviously is a much more globally significant index, having
- 9:55Speaker 3: the top ten amounting to about sixty fifty sixty percent,
- 10:00Speaker 3: I mean you are starting to get on for the
- 10:01Speaker 3: kind of concentration that leads to the kind of volatility
- 10:04Speaker 3: that we're seeing in the cost By index. So again,
- 10:07Speaker 3: I think that's a pretty interesting side effect. I think
- 10:10Speaker 3: this is also I don't know this is before we
- 10:14Speaker 3: look at the fact that the hyperscalers as in basically
- 10:18Speaker 3: the magnificence it's not quite the Magnificent seven, but all
- 10:20Speaker 3: the big tech companies are now I said, well, Google
- 10:25Speaker 3: or alphabet rather is looking to raise eighty five billion
- 10:29Speaker 3: in new shares from next quarter to spend on investing
- 10:32Speaker 3: in AHI. And then there was a rumor at the
- 10:34Speaker 3: weekend at Facebook owner Meta is hoping to do the
- 10:37Speaker 3: same thing. So if they are all flooding the marketway
- 10:41Speaker 3: equity issuance as well, you've got to think that part
- 10:46Speaker 3: of the reason that markets have gone up so much
- 10:48Speaker 3: is because they've been getting smaller. But now we're actually that's.
- 10:52Speaker 2: Changing the equatization.
- 10:54Speaker 1: For years, we've been saying, you know, a supplier is falling,
- 10:57Speaker 1: demand is rising, and that's one of the things pushing
- 10:59Speaker 1: the market up. And now suddenly we have this insanely
- 11:03Speaker 1: huge influx of IPOs and other issuance. Is there really
- 11:09Speaker 1: enough cash to absorb all this and so that's your
- 11:11Speaker 1: your first question, is there actually enough customers? But at
- 11:14Speaker 1: all is the volatility that we're already seeing. You know,
- 11:17Speaker 1: you talked about the concerns about US rates, et cetera.
- 11:20Speaker 1: But there's also a suggestion that what you've seen as
- 11:22Speaker 1: people beginning to pull some cash out of other markets
- 11:25Speaker 1: in order to have it ready for the big I
- 11:27Speaker 1: pos so you see you begin to see perhaps a
- 11:30Speaker 1: rotation as well from inside technology, from already listed companies
- 11:38Speaker 1: to companies that are about to be listed, et cetera.
- 11:40Speaker 1: There's a there's a lot going on here. It's very
- 11:42Speaker 1: hard to see exactly how it's going to play out
- 11:44Speaker 1: over a couple of the next couple of weeks.
- 11:46Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I suppose that's there's a sense because
- 11:49Speaker 3: that's another tech company for this APO talk so this morning,
- 11:52Speaker 3: the one that's bending spoons, which is not so well
- 11:55Speaker 3: in the wine, but it owns things like an EO
- 11:58Speaker 3: L and some all sort of Internet properties that it
- 12:01Speaker 3: now basically just makes money from sort of subscription type thing.
- 12:06Speaker 3: I think it's the biggest holding in the Shalian Billy
- 12:09Speaker 3: Gifford Private Capital Private.
- 12:11Speaker 2: Assets, which also has SpaceX, isn't it.
- 12:14Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also good SpaceX and that thing's got a
- 12:16Speaker 3: bit of anthropy because well and Stripe. But a lot
- 12:19Speaker 3: of the interesting ones that are about to go public
- 12:22Speaker 3: at some point. The point is just kind of a
- 12:25Speaker 3: sense that they're all going, oh, we need to get
- 12:27Speaker 3: in here before all the money's.
- 12:29Speaker 1: Gone quickly, don't you before?
- 12:33Speaker 3: Yeah, and you do wonder it's like, well, this is kind.
- 12:39Speaker 3: This is again classic top of the market behavior, even
- 12:42Speaker 3: though you know you kind of hesitate to say it
- 12:46Speaker 3: because you don't want people say okay, better all go
- 12:49Speaker 3: to cash and then everything just keeps going up. But
- 12:52Speaker 3: the point is if you did look back in like
- 12:54Speaker 3: five years time and say, oh, yeah, that was the
- 12:56Speaker 3: top of the market because everyone was rushing to get
- 12:59Speaker 3: out fast before things tipped over. So this is sort
- 13:04Speaker 3: of like classic topy behavior.
- 13:06Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Well, as we say, you your purctase is
- 13:08Speaker 2: their exit?
- 13:10Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean they're telling a lot of
- 13:12Speaker 3: these people clearly though they've been sitting on millions and
- 13:16Speaker 3: millions of dollars. And certainly if it was me and
- 13:21Speaker 3: I was like employee number whatever twelve at SpaceX, I've
- 13:25Speaker 3: been sitting there on generational wealth and I'm about to
- 13:28Speaker 3: have the chance to get out, I'm not you know,
- 13:30Speaker 3: I'm not going to carry on staying there. As soon
- 13:33Speaker 3: as that lockup is done, I'm pressing and sell on
- 13:36Speaker 3: my you know, lines down account.
- 13:39Speaker 1: And crucially, the key question then is when do the
- 13:41Speaker 1: lookups end for insiders? For SpaceX employees, they're shorter than usual,
- 13:48Speaker 1: aren't they, So I think they'll be coming up towards
- 13:50Speaker 1: the end of the year September through December.
- 13:54Speaker 3: I think there's quite a few different stages because I think,
- 13:57Speaker 3: like I mean, like Elo and Musk, I don't think
- 13:59Speaker 3: obviously I think he he's basically got to keep his
- 14:01Speaker 3: for a long time. But I think that six months
- 14:05Speaker 3: for most of the other low cups. And then there's
- 14:08Speaker 3: also there's like family and friends who I don't think
- 14:11Speaker 3: of getting a lock up at all, And you can
- 14:13Speaker 3: read around it a bit more closely, but but there's
- 14:16Speaker 3: definitely there's going to be dribs and drabs of that's
- 14:19Speaker 3: hitting the market. Yeah, for a prolonged period.
- 14:21Speaker 2: C I would say dribs and drabs might be minimalizing
- 14:24Speaker 2: a little.
- 14:25Speaker 4: John Well, I.
- 14:27Speaker 3: Don't like to sensationalize these things. No, No, you know
- 14:30Speaker 3: that obviously.
- 14:31Speaker 1: Absolutely anyway, So we will see, but everyone everyone can
- 14:35Speaker 1: can know that I will be holding.
- 14:38Speaker 2: I don't know, let's see what I get, right, this
- 14:41Speaker 2: is exciting.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Well, but I'll let you know on Twitter on Friday
- 14:45Speaker 1: how how much space X makes it into my portfolio.
- 14:49Speaker 1: And then I'll be able to either mock John because
- 14:51Speaker 1: I'm richer than him, or he'll be up to mock
- 14:53Speaker 1: me because they fall thirty percent on the day and
- 14:56Speaker 1: I'm poorer than him. Because that's how this podcast works.
- 15:00Speaker 1: I will just say before we finished on that, you
- 15:03Speaker 1: know I did as I said. I spoke to anam
- 15:04Speaker 1: do Hargris lamsdown about this earlier and as she pointed out,
- 15:07Speaker 1: FOMO is not an investment strategy. And you know, they
- 15:10Speaker 1: have been very clear about their messaging. And I think
- 15:13Speaker 1: all the platforms, all the platforms have so if you
- 15:15Speaker 1: go and look at any of the platforms where you're
- 15:17Speaker 1: thinking about buying, there's a lot of educational content on
- 15:19Speaker 1: all the platforms to try and help you work your
- 15:22Speaker 1: way around it.
- 15:23Speaker 2: And if you are interested.
- 15:24Speaker 1: In it, particularly if you are a new investor, because
- 15:27Speaker 1: I do think this is the kind of IBA that
- 15:29Speaker 1: might stop bringing in some people who think, well, I've
- 15:31Speaker 1: never invested before, but this is so exciting, I've got
- 15:33Speaker 1: to have a piece of it. If you are really
- 15:35Speaker 1: important that you read around it, think about it quite
- 15:38Speaker 1: a lot, and do remember that it's mostly in fact,
- 15:42Speaker 1: I'm going to say mostly always better to have a
- 15:44Speaker 1: diversified portfolio than not to have a diversified portfolio.
- 15:47Speaker 2: Is that fair?
- 15:48Speaker 3: Not definitely? And actually there's one statistic that I wouldn't
- 15:52Speaker 3: man can mention them before we call. There was an
- 15:56Speaker 3: interesting to you all I saw from Brent Donelli Spectral Market,
- 16:00Speaker 3: and he kind of like picked up on this list
- 16:02Speaker 3: that someone else had done, which was the largest IPOs
- 16:05Speaker 3: of the last twenty years. So like about I think
- 16:07Speaker 3: there were about thirty odds to them in the list,
- 16:10Speaker 3: and he looked at the price at which they closed
- 16:13Speaker 3: that on the IPO day, and then he looked at
- 16:16Speaker 3: what was the maximum draw down within a year, So
- 16:19Speaker 3: what was the biggest drop at any point from that,
- 16:23Speaker 3: And every single one of them had gone lower at
- 16:26Speaker 3: least at some point during that next twelve months, and
- 16:30Speaker 3: the minimum kind of dropped was twenty percent and the
- 16:33Speaker 3: maximum drop was ninety percent. And the ninety percent was
- 16:37Speaker 3: actually for Robin Hood, you know, the American Investment platform,
- 16:41Speaker 3: and obviously that's very successful now and it's you know,
- 16:45Speaker 3: it's trading much much higher than this IPO price. But
- 16:47Speaker 3: the point is, for every single one of these IPOs,
- 16:49Speaker 3: you got a better opportunity somewhere within the next twelve
- 16:53Speaker 3: months to buy it. Yeah, So I think that's the
- 16:55Speaker 3: other thing he remember is like like frequently no IPOs
- 16:59Speaker 3: might pop on the but then they quite often can
- 17:02Speaker 3: retreat again quite quietly by the.
- 17:04Speaker 2: So okay, thank you John, good point.
- 17:09Speaker 3: You're very well be be sale too late for me,
- 17:13Speaker 3: now do for me.
- 17:18Speaker 4: Thanks for listening this wish Marrin talks Money Debrief. If
- 17:21Speaker 4: you like our show, rate review, and subscribe wherever you
- 17:23Speaker 4: listen to podcasts, also be shorts. Follow me and John
- 17:25Speaker 4: on ex or Twitter at marinas w and John Underscore
- 17:28Speaker 4: step Backs. This episode was produced by Some Society, production
- 17:31Speaker 4: support and sound designed by Moses and Questions and comments
- 17:34Speaker 4: on this show and.
- 17:35Speaker 1: All our shows are always welcome. Our show email is
- 17:38Speaker 1: Merri Money at Bloomberg dot net and we would ticularly
- 17:40Speaker 1: like davrom you, if you, like me, have decided to
- 17:43Speaker 1: have a little space ex in your portfolio