Wealth Advisors Tell Clients to Wait on Anthropic IPO After SpaceX Lesson

Financial advisors report muted interest in the $100 billion offering and warn the stock may take five to 10 years to deliver steady gains.

By the Family Office Real Estate Daily Desk·Monday, November 2, 2026·3 min read

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Should I buy Anthropic stock at the IPO or wait for a better entry point?

Anthropic filed Form S-1 with the SEC this week, planning to list on Nasdaq in November under the ticker ANT at a valuation of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, targeting over $100 billion in proceeds. Financial advisors at three RIAs report that fewer than 10% to 25% of clients have inquired about the IPO, and all three CIOs recommend waiting five to 10 years before expecting steady gains, citing the SpaceX IPO's post-listing decline as a cautionary parallel.

Key facts

Anthropic filed Form S-1 with the SEC this week and plans to list on Nasdaq in November under the ticker symbol ANT, according to the article.
The Anthropic IPO is expected to raise over $100 billion and pegs the company's valuation at $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, according to the article.
Travis Poodiack, co-founder of Birch Financial Group, said approximately 10% of his firm's clients asked about the Anthropic IPO, compared with about a quarter who asked about the SpaceX IPO.
SpaceX stock debuted at $135 per share, rose to a high of $226 per share, then fell to $127 per share within about a month, and was trading at approximately $143 per share as of the article's publication date.
Anthropic owes at least $516 billion to creditors including Google, Amazon, and NScale Global, while its operating cash flow in the first six months of 2026 totaled $3.9 billion, according to the article.
Analyst Brett Arends wrote in a Morningstar note dated October 27 that similar financing commitments 'turned out badly when the technology bubble popped at the end of the 1990s.'

Wealth Advisors Tell Clients to Wait on Anthropic IPO After SpaceX Lesson — Image: editorial illustration · Story sourced from WealthManagement.com

Financial advisors say they have fielded few client questions about Anthropic's initial public offering, a marked contrast to the enthusiasm that greeted SpaceX's record-setting debut earlier this year. Anthropic filed Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week and plans to list on Nasdaq in November under the ticker symbol ANT. The offering is expected to raise over $100 billion and values the company at $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, rivaling the $1.77 trillion valuation of the SpaceX IPO, which raised $85.7 billion.

Erik Kratz, chief investment officer at Arena Private Wealth in Chicago, and Brian Glenn, CIO at Premier Path Wealth Partners in Madison, New Jersey, said their firms have seen no pickup in interest. Travis Poodiack, co-founder of Birch Financial Group in Keene, New Hampshire, said about 10 percent of his firm's clients asked about the Anthropic IPO, down from roughly a quarter who inquired about SpaceX. Some of those SpaceX inquiries converted into purchases.

The reasons for the muted response range from the absence of what Poodiack called the Elon effect to a crowded field of artificial-intelligence companies. Glenn said investors may not distinguish Anthropic from its chatbot product, Claude, or from rivals such as OpenAI, Google's Gemini, Microsoft's Copilot and Grok. SpaceX offered multiple revenue lines and stood out as one of a kind, he said, which created more buzz.

All three advisors recommend the same approach for clients considering exposure: wait. They say highly anticipated IPOs tend to follow a predictable pattern, with an initial pop followed by a decline, and they expect Anthropic to behave no differently. SpaceX stock debuted at $135 per share and quickly rose to $226 before falling to $127 within about a month. As of Thursday morning it was trading at approximately $143 per share.

Glenn said the SpaceX experience may explain some of the hesitation around Anthropic. Investors who bought at the IPO price or at the opening have not enjoyed phenomenal returns, he said, and people realized they do not miss the boat by skipping the first day. Poodiack said a long-term investor who understands that real returns may not arrive for 10 years will find little difference between buying on day one or waiting weeks or months for a lower price.

The hardest discipline in public equities is saying no to a story the headlines have already sold, family office advisor Jaf Glazer has maintained.

Kratz said artificial-intelligence companies carry their own challenges. Much of Anthropic's value was created while it remained private, so the investors most likely to reap high returns are those who held stakes before the IPO. The business is also extremely capital-intensive. Anthropic owes at least $516 billion to companies across the technology ecosystem, including Google, Amazon and NScale Global. Its operating cash flow in the first six months of 2026 totaled $3.9 billion.

Analyst Brett Arends wrote in an October 27 note for Morningstar that those with long memories will remember similar commitments and financing arrangements turned out badly when the technology bubble popped at the end of the 1990s. Kratz said the prime spots among frontier labs change quickly, and holding a top position requires spending large sums on innovation within a short period. The field was once dominated by ChatGPT and OpenAI, he said, then Gemini improved, then Claude overtook OpenAI, and now OpenAI is catching up. It remains unclear whether one company will emerge as the ultimate winner or whether the market will support a shared universe of services.

The Deployment Angle

Family Office Real Estate Daily Desk · our analysis, not the source's

Family offices evaluating the Anthropic IPO face a binary question: accept first-day dilution or wait for the post-listing reset. The SpaceX pattern argues for the latter. Shares opened at $135, spiked to $226, then fell to $127 within 30 days—a 40 percent drawdown from the peak and a 6 percent loss from the debut. They have since recovered to $143, still below the early high. That trajectory is not anomalous; it is the base case for large, hyped IPOs. A family office that waits 60 to 90 days after the Anthropic listing will likely find entry at a price equal to or below the $100 billion raise, without the pop premium.

The valuation jump from $965 billion in the May Series H round to as much as $2 trillion at IPO means public buyers are paying more than double what late-stage private investors paid five months earlier. That spread suggests most of the easy return accrued to pre-IPO holders. Operating cash flow of $3.9 billion in the first half of 2026 against liabilities of at least $516 billion yields a coverage ratio under 1 percent annualized. The equity cheque required to gain meaningful exposure—assuming a $2 trillion valuation and a target 2 percent portfolio position for a $500 million family office—would be $10 million. That capital underwrites a business model dependent on sustained high-margin revenue growth in a sector where leadership changes every 18 months.

Direct ownership via a separately managed account or a programmatic joint venture makes little sense here; Anthropic is a listed equity with no real-estate or tangible collateral to structure around. The only route is outright stock purchase, either at the IPO or in the aftermarket. Advisors recommend the latter and recommend waiting five to 10 years before pricing in steady appreciation. That holding period aligns with the time required for the company to either consolidate its position or lose it to a faster rival. The risk is not binary failure but rather grinding dilution as the firm raises capital to fund the innovation cycle Kratz described.

Family offices that do commit should underwrite three scenarios: Anthropic becomes the dominant frontier lab and revenue grows fast enough to service the $516 billion in obligations; it holds a shared number-two or number-three position in a multi-vendor market and margins compress; or it falls behind and the equity reprices sharply lower. The first scenario justifies today's valuation. The second scenario suggests a flat-to-down outcome over the next 36 months. The third scenario, which played out for several 1990s technology firms with similar financing structures, would erase most of the public equity value. Discipline here means sizing the position for the second scenario and accepting that the first may never arrive.

Questions this story answers

01Should I buy Anthropic stock at the IPO price or wait?

All three CIOs interviewed — Erik Kratz of Arena Private Wealth, Brian Glenn of Premier Path Wealth Partners, and Travis Poodiack of Birch Financial Group — recommend a slow approach. Brian Glenn said buyers who purchased SpaceX at the IPO price have not seen a phenomenal return, and Travis Poodiack said a long-term investor may see little difference between buying on day one or waiting weeks or months for a potentially lower price.

02How long might it take for Anthropic stock to deliver steady gains?

All three CIOs advise clients to expect to potentially wait five to 10 years before Anthropic stock begins to see a steady rise in value, according to the article. They say there is no reason to believe Anthropic will follow a different trajectory than SpaceX, which saw an initial pop followed by a significant decline within about a month of listing.

03What is Anthropic's debt load going into the IPO?

According to the article, Anthropic owes at least $516 billion to creditors across the tech ecosystem, including Google, Amazon, and NScale Global. The company's operating cash flow in the first six months of 2026 totaled $3.9 billion. Erik Kratz of Arena Private Wealth noted that holding a top position in AI requires spending heavily on innovation every three to four months.

04Are there ETFs that offer exposure to Anthropic ahead of or after the IPO?

The article identifies two ETFs with Anthropic exposure: the TEMA Photonics & Optical ETF (LAZR), which raised its Anthropic allocation to 10.5% after the S-1 filing, and the Corgi MANGOS ETF (MANGOS), with an allocation of approximately 9.0%. However, advisors quoted in the article say investors seeking direct Anthropic exposure specifically may as well buy the stock outright.

05Why is client interest in the Anthropic IPO lower than it was for SpaceX?

Travis Poodiack of Birch Financial Group cited the lack of an 'Elon effect' and a more crowded field of pure AI companies. Brian Glenn of Premier Path Wealth Partners said there are many competing AI brands — including OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot — which dilutes enthusiasm, whereas SpaceX was 'sort of one of a kind' with multiple revenue lines and may have created more of a buzz.

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