What SpaceX can teach us about the Anthropic IPO

How are elevated oil prices and limited traffic through the Strait of Hormuz impacting the market outlook?

Market recap

• Equity markets edged higher this week on continued strong earnings results and a tame U.S. inflation print.
• The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, as gains in energy and banks were tempered by softness in consumer discretionary and some bigger tech names.
• The TSX added 1% as energy and banks pulled up the broad index.

Oil

As the U.S.-Iran conflict drags on, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains limited, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reporting last Thursday that two of their tankers had been attacked while transiting the strait.¹ Amid this supply bottleneck, oil prices remain somewhat elevated compared to their pre-crisis levels.² However, we think prices are actually fairly low given that the situation still hasn’t been fully resolved—at times, they have even gone down despite headline news being bad. Markets appear to be completely ignoring the situation, similar to how the Russia-Ukraine war is still ongoing but doesn’t appear to be a major factor for investors. In our view, there is some risk that is not being priced in, and we believe there is still room for both oil prices and inflation to go higher. That said, earnings have been so strong that we used the recent pullback in some of the big Tech names in July to increase our equity allocation. Given that the economic fundamentals still look fairly strong, we aren’t expecting much movement on interest rates in the near future; even one rate hike is unlikely to derail the earnings story, though it could affect investor sentiment. The other big question mark is the consumer—we have seen some softness there. If the U.S.-Iran conflict persists, ship traffic through the strait remains limited, and oil prices move higher, then consumer spending could be impacted and markets will have no choice but to pay attention.

Bottom line: Until and unless consumer confidence is impacted, we are remaining bullish on markets, preferring to use option strategies to protect ourselves in case any of the lingering risks suddenly materialize.

AI

Last week, Nvidia announced that it is partnering with six Wall Street heavyweights—including Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, and Apollo—to raise US$500 billion in funding for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.³ While some have interpreted this news as a good sign for the AI theme—and perhaps even the emergence of compute (AI hardware and infrastructure) as a new asset class—others have interpreted it as further proof of AI companies’ increasing leverage, which has concerned some investors. We think it’s both. All year, there have been two major stories in AI: incredible growth and worrying debt. Nvidia has played a key role in building an ecosystem that drives its own chip sales, and this initiative furthers that. While we believe it is fair for investors to ask whether this kind of capital expenditure (capex) will result in the earnings that Nvidia claims, the deal did drive some positive momentum in markets, and many of the leading AI firms just came off record earnings, which is a good signal. Also, it is worth remembering that many of the CEOs of the big Tech companies have significant ownership stakes in their own firms—and what they’re seeing is companies with strong balance sheets and phenomenal earnings. Why would they potentially jeopardize their own wealth unless they believe the reward is there? What might cause some concern is the possibility that China, for instance, could come out with a model to rival those launched by the U.S. companies, as we saw with DeepSeek last year. But we think even that would only temporarily interrupt the momentum, similar to what we saw with DeepSeek.

Bottom line: We believe the capex story is still a positive for the AI theme, as it is a sign that companies are investing in future growth—but the debt situation is still worth monitoring.

IPOs

Speaking of AI, Anthropic and OpenAI continue to barrel toward their initial public offerings (IPOs), with Anthropic reportedly targeting October for its public market debut.⁴ We expect there to be a lot of investor demand initially. But as we saw with SpaceX, the IPOs are likely to be accompanied by renewed concerns about valuations, so investors should expect volatility. Momentum at the outset may tail off over time, though the composition of owners for these companies may be a bit different than what we saw with SpaceX, which benefitted from Elon Musk’s strong following among retail investors. That said, SpaceX’s stock—which had declined since its IPO—bounced back up somewhat after the lockup period because people didn’t sell in volumes that would have been alarming to markets. That tells us that some longer-term investors got in on the SpaceX IPO, which could be a good sign for Anthropic and OpenAI.

Bottom line: Given the high valuations that have been reported, it is unlikely that we’ll be investors in either Anthropic or OpenAI’s IPOs. However, we still believe in the AI theme—it is just a question of paying the right price.

Positioning

For more insights on market risks and opportunities, check out our BMO Global Asset Management 2026 Mid-Year Market Outlook .

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Originally Posted 08/17/2026 – What SpaceX can teach us about the Anthropic IPO