IPO boom, market doom?

The newsletter warns that a surge of large US IPOs — led by AI-related companies such as Anthropic — could pose meaningful market risk by flooding markets with supply when insider lock-ups expire. Goldman Sachs has raised its 2026 IPO forecast to $225bn (from $160bn) and $675bn including follow-ons; 40 deals worth $28bn have already priced to end-May. Historical patterns and index rule changes that funnel shares into passive funds raise the prospect of outsized insider selling (a back-of-envelope estimate suggests nearly $500bn of potential supply from expiring lock-ups). Separately, a potentially extreme “Godzilla” El Niño could disrupt crops (cocoa, sugar, coffee, wheat), lifting food and energy inflation and complicating central bank responses. Overall the piece is a cautionary market commentary highlighting increased supply-driven downside risks to equity markets and upside pressure on agricultural commodity prices.