指数基金不再安全？SpaceX IPO如何改寫被動投資規則

Original Title: Everything You've Been Told About Index Funds Is No Longer True: Phil Bak

Original Author: Quoth the Raven

Original Compiled by: Peggy

Let's talk about what's happening in the capital markets, especially what's happening with index funds. But before we do, we need to understand what a "fall from grace" really looks like. To do that, we first have to talk about Pete Rose.

Pete Rose wasn't just a baseball star; he was what almost every baseball fan pictured a "baseball star" to be. He was covered in dirt, gave it his all, tough, and tenacious. Later, he became a player-manager, the face of a team, and a representative figure for the sport itself.

But along the way, he made some mistakes. As it turned out, he made the worst mistake of that era: betting on his own sport. It's ironic looking back today, when sports betting is available on everyone's phone and bombarded with ads during every sports event. But back then, people still cared about old-school concepts like "integrity." So the league decided to make an example of Pete Rose.

Fifteen years later, a broken Pete Rose, needing to pay his bills, had to lend his remaining fame to WrestleMania. Soon, he found himself in the ring facing a 400-pound Samoan wrestler named Rikishi.

Here, I must give a word of caution: watch this carefully. Because Rikishi has a signature move called the stinkface. This move is as "classy" as its name: Rikishi would trap his opponent sitting in the corner of the ring, turn around, back up, and shove his massive buttocks into the opponent's face, sending the crowd into a frenzy.

You can look it up yourself. It's as bad as it sounds.

While Rikishi was rubbing his enormous rear end across Pete Rose's face, if you look closely, you'll see something uncommon: a certain look in Pete's eyes. It was a mixture of sadness and acceptance. It's the look of a man realizing just how far he has fallen. His eyes no longer fought angrily against his current situation; instead, they became dazed, weary, and accepting of this new, pathetic reality.

John Bogle is no longer with us. I can only imagine the look on his face if he saw what is happening to index funds today. I can only imagine it would be that same sad look. That same dazed, weary acceptance: his great invention, once standing so tall, is now plummeting into a sewer of fraud.

If you've been reading my articles for a long time, especially when I used to write more about stocks and ETFs, you can probably guess what I'm about to say. But if you're a new reader, let me fill you in on the background. Here's how things actually played out:

Low-cost investing was once a powerful narrative, placing the average investor against the greedy Wall Street;

This narrative drove capital flows into passive index funds;

Capital inflows drove performance, allowing the market-cap weighting factor—essentially a combination of an anti-small-cap factor and a momentum factor—to outperform all other factors;

Outperformance led to more capital inflows, thus closing the loop;

Options trading volume surpassed stock spot volume, and derivatives tied to the largest indices began driving prices more deeply than the index funds themselves;

Thus, valuations no longer mattered to the market.

All of this has brought us to today, and to the Rikishi moment we are now facing. That moment is the SpaceX IPO.

First, Nasdaq changed the Nasdaq-100 index rules, making it easier and faster for newly listed mega-cap companies like SpaceX to enter the index. These rule changes seem to weaken traditional index standards for free float, liquidity, investability, and replicability. Time will tell if this is good or bad for investors. But one thing is certain: it is very beneficial for Nasdaq in competing for SpaceX to choose it as its primary listing venue.

You can certainly say it's crazy to allocate stocks based on their primary listing exchange. You would be absolutely right. I've attended those roadshows. The reasons a company chooses to list on the NYSE versus the Nasdaq have absolutely nothing to do with the relative investment value of the S&P 500 or QQQ. We're talking about two completely disconnected worlds.

For example, people think buying the Nasdaq-100 means buying tech stocks, only to find Costco, Walmart, and a bunch of other things inside. They might think they can buy Oracle or Uber, but they can't, because those companies chose to list on the NYSE for reasons unrelated to your portfolio. So you miss out on them.

This is insane.

But it's always been this way. And now it's worse. Because this time, it's not just about the listing venue. All index providers have modified their index methodologies just to force companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI into the indices. If valuations still mattered, the valuation levels at which index fund investors will buy these companies would make you sick.

According to Hedgeye, the damage is as follows:

Rule changes surrounding the SpaceX IPO:

Index providers waived profitability requirements and shortened the post-listing observation window from 90 days to 5 days.

This will force over $30 trillion in passive 401(k) and retirement funds to buy SpaceX at its IPO valuation.

Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that S&P 500 funds must absorb 19% of SpaceX’s float within 6 months.

Russell 1000 and Nasdaq-100 funds will absorb 24%.

Rules originally designed to protect passive investors:

Since 2002, the S&P 500 has required companies to have 12 months of trading history and 4 consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability. Both requirements are now waived.

Nasdaq shortened its inclusion window from 90 trading days to 15 trading days.

FTSE Russell shortened its window to 5 trading days.

All three benchmark indices are now designed to buy SpaceX at its IPO pricing level.

This is the moment. The "jump the shark" moment for index funds. This is the moment when the great Pete Rose stared at Rikishi's enormous butt with a look of utter despair.

Investors are no longer just outsourcing stock selection. They have also outsourced asset allocation, IPO discipline, liquidity judgment, valuation discipline, listing venue selection, and prudence. They have outsourced all initiative in their own trading to index committees that bend with the wind.

Indices are no longer neutral. They are making active bets, and they are betting on the most bubbly companies at the highest valuation points.

Active management has never had such a good entry point. Direct indexing has also never been this important. A massive shift is finally approaching.

Everything you've been told about "smart but boring" index funds is no longer true.

Get out while you still can. Choose your own methodology, choose your own factors, choose your own stocks. Reclaim initiative over your own portfolio.

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