The US Stock Shortage May Be Ending

And that’s a bigger deal than you might think.

For over two decades, the total number of shares available on the US stock market has been shrinking.

That doesn’t mean there are fewer listed companies. It’s just that the overall pool of publicly traded shares has been getting smaller. And that’s because share buybacks have steadily reduced the number of shares in circulation, while companies going private and delisting have removed even more.

Together, those forces have consistently outweighed the new shares entering the market through IPOs and share issuances by existing public companies. But according to Goldman Sachs, that long-running trend could come to an abrupt end this year, thanks to a huge surge of new share issuance.

A string of mega IPOs from the likes of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could raise a record $225 billion this year. And share sales by companies already on public markets could represent a bigger shift.

Alphabet, for example, last week raised nearly $85 billion in a record raise to finance its huge AI investments. And investors lapped it up, so that’s likely to encourage more Big Tech firms – with equally as expensive AI ambitions – to follow suit. Already, Meta is reportedly exploring a share sale of its own.

This all matters. See, the stock market’s broad rally over the past decade may owe something to this shrinking supply of shares.

After all, when supply falls, and investor demand keeps rising, prices tend to go up. There’s another effect, too: when companies buy back stock and reduce the number of shares outstanding, their earnings are spread across fewer shares, mechanically boosting earnings per share.

That’s why some investors are uneasy about the trend reversing. See, a growing supply of shares could dilute one of the forces that has supported stock prices for years.

Some fund managers see an even bigger risk. Historically, waves of fundraising have often coincided with market peaks, as company insiders look to cash in on lofty valuations and as a flood of new shares overwhelms investor demand, putting downward pressure on stock prices.

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Originally Posted June 11, 2026 – The US Stock Shortage May Be Ending