Wall Street Races to Turn SpaceX Into a Leveraged Retail Trade

The $15 trillion ETF industry isn’t waiting long to see how SpaceX performs · before turning it into a leveraged trading vehicle.

A wave of funds tied to Elon Musk’s rocket company is set to launch shortly after Friday’s IPO, underscoring the extraordinary buzz surrounding what many investors see as a once-in-a-generation listing.

Nearly a dozen exchange-traded funds from issuers including ProShares, Leverage Shares, Defiance ETFs, GraniteShares, REX Shares, Direxion and Tradr ETFs are slated to launch on Monday, barring any last-minute regulatory hurdles. Their products are designed to deliver twice the daily long or inverse performance of SpaceX stock and would give traders an immediate way to amplify bets on one of the most anticipated listings in years.

The near-simultaneous launches highlight the speed at which ETF issuers are moving to capitalize on the arrival of a company that has already become a market phenomenon before any shares have publicly changed hands. And with the product structures looking largely similar, issuers have been left competing on distribution, marketing reach and speed to market, where even a matter of minutes could prove decisive in the race to gather assets.

“Being first or as close to first really matters,” said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “So issuers are going to pull out every trick in the book to have their levered ETFs trading as quickly as possible following an IPO.”

More than 20 SpaceX-linked ETFs have already been filed for this year, ranging from leveraged and inverse strategies to options-based products.

Read more: Sitting Out the SpaceX IPO? Why That’s Hard to Do: Explainer

Investors likely won’t get access to the newfangled products on Friday, when SpaceX makes its public debut. Cboe Global Markets and the New York Stock Exchange, where many of the vehicles are expected to list, have asked issuers to delay their launches until Monday, according to four people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive topic. NYSE did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Cboe declined to comment.

The scramble echoes the launch of spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January 2024, when roughly a dozen firms from BlackRock Inc. to Fidelity Investments debuted nearly identical products on the same day. Within weeks, a clear winner — BlackRock’s IBIT — emerged. That fund has since grown to control roughly 60% of assets in the category.

“This is spot Bitcoin part two, but with a massive IPO and leverage,” said Todd Sohn, chief ETF strategist of Strategas Securities. “The hype meter is off the charts.”

It all highlights how Wall Street’s product machine is looking to monetize the rise of trillion-dollar tech companies. Issuers have increasingly moved to file for products before companies even go public, all in an effort to get ahead of rivals and secure a first-mover advantage.

Read more: Circle IPO Sparks ETF Rush Betting on the Hot Stablecoin Stock

ETF proposals tied to Anthropic and OpenAI — which haven’t made public debuts yet — are already waiting in the wings. If those companies pursue public listings, as many investors expect, the race to package the next generation of technology giants could become even more intense.

“This is going to be the norm going forward,” BI’s Seyffart added. “At least for large IPOs.”