Key Calendar After SpaceX IPO: Options, Lock-Up Expiry & Index Inclusion to Drive Continued Volatility
Alina Collins
SpaceX listed at $135 a share in the largest IPO ever, but the real action starts now — options launch, staggered lock-up expiries, and diverging index-inclusion rules will shape the stock and the broader passive-investing landscape over the next two months.
How is Wall Street framing this — investment or trade?
Crosscheck Management CIO Todd Schoenberger put it bluntly: most fund managers are trading SpaceX, not investing in it.
This means → short-term money is setting the price; stock moves will be event-driven, not fundamentals-driven.
The company posted a $4.94 billion net loss on $18.7 billion in revenue last year; its market cap sits at roughly $2 trillion. Longbow Asset Management CEO Jake Dollarhide says "you can make a lot of arguments that SpaceX is significantly overvalued."
Options and lock-ups — what are the key dates ahead?
Options trading could begin as early as Tuesday, with the market expecting heavy, volatile early activity. If SpaceX volatility tracks near Tesla levels, option premiums will run about twice those of a typical stock.
Share lock-ups use a performance-linked staggered schedule, not the traditional six-month cliff — but some brokerages have imposed a 31-day minimum hold on client positions, and selling pressure may build once those periods expire.
The greenshoe — a stabilization tool letting underwriters buy extra shares at the IPO price within 30 days — gives Morgan Stanley the right to purchase up to 83 million additional shares at $135, roughly 15% of the shares already issued, providing a price floor during the first month.
Why are the Nasdaq and S&P 500 "parting ways"?
The Nasdaq shortened its waiting period for large IPOs from three months to 15 days in May; SpaceX is expected to join the Nasdaq 100 this month. FTSE Russell and CRSP have also accelerated their timelines.
S&P Dow Jones Indices, however, explicitly declined to follow suit — SpaceX will not enter the S&P 500 for at least a year. In plain terms = if you own QQQ, you'll hold SpaceX soon; if you own an S&P 500 ETF, you won't.
This reflects a fundamental disagreement between the two major indexes on how quickly new companies should be admitted — and that disagreement is widening their risk profiles.
What does this mean for passive investors?
Franklin Templeton head of global index portfolio management Dina Ting framed it sharply: "The IPO is the headline, but the real story is index methodology — what you actually own depends on which index you buy."
The largest ETF tracking the Nasdaq 100 holds roughly $600 billion in assets; the three largest S&P 500 ETFs (Vanguard, Invesco, State Street) manage a combined $3.2 trillion. BakerAvenue chief strategist King Lip notes: QQQ can include unprofitable companies; the S&P 500 skews more defensive — your risk preference now maps directly to your index choice.
That said, SpaceX's public float is under 5% of total shares outstanding. Vanguard Capital Management CIO Rodney Comegys says the stock's initial index weight will be "relatively small" regardless of which benchmark adds it.
What else is worth watching further out?
21 SpaceX-linked ETFs have already filed for listing, including a proposed 2× leveraged ETF from ProShares — some market participants see this as a signal of meme-stock-level enthusiasm.
Dimensional Fund Advisors deputy head of portfolio management Joel Schneider argues this wave of mega-IPOs is forcing advisors and investors to scrutinize how index-construction rules actually work.
This means → combined with the prospect of Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI unicorns going public, the return gap between the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 could widen further — the simple logic of "buying the market" is becoming an increasingly complex choice.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.