ClickBeta 13: SpaceX Vol and Great Music
A little background music for Friday's popcorn IPO
NOTE: This whole thing is about the latest episode of ClickBeta which you can watch over at ETF.com or Excess Returns. This version includes specific song selections and a full playlist to go along with the financial insanity. Over there, you can watch the video and avoid the music, if that’s your thing.
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It strikes me that it remains a terrible idea to sit down with people who are in fact, friends, and are in fact, deeply knowledgeable markets folks, and record the conversation without backup or editing, especially with the “nobody Googles nothin’” rule. But here we are: Cameron Dawson of Newedge Wealth, Matt Zeigler of Perscient, and I sat down to talk about the thing we’re all sick of talking about — the SpaceX IPO — and somehow ended up discussing bubble anatomy, Coheed and Cambria opening for Shinedown (a crime), and what CDs survived in Matt’s center console since roughly 1998.
We actually don’t talk much about whether SpaceX is a good stock. That’s the point — but because the capital markets plumbing around this IPO is genuinely unprecedented, and nobody seems to care much other than “some worry” articles. Everyone’s arguing bull vs. bear the trading sardine known as SPCX itself might be broken for a month. As always, here are my top quotes from the episode.
“I can’t help but think of the poor value analysts with their precious Shiller CAPE ratios who are trying to wrap their brain around something that’s gonna IPO at 100 times sales with no earnings, and what that even means. But hey, the TAM is space and time.” — Matt Zeigler
🎶 “Born to Kill“ — Social Distortion (Spotify)
Matt set the tone for the episode with what might be the single best SpaceX line I’ve heard: “the TAM is space and time.” Try plugging “literally the universe” into your discounted cashflow model. The value analysts with their Shiller CAPEs are trying to do fundamental analysis on a company whose pitch deck is essentially “we’re going to colonize Mars and also maybe deliver internet from space and also Elon might be president.” There’s no framework for this. The framework is the absence of a framework.
Social Distortion’s first album in 15 years feels right here. Mike Ness has been doing the same thing since 1978 and refusing to acknowledge that maybe the world moved on. “Some people said it couldn’t be done” — yeah, some people also said you can’t value a company at 100x sales with no earnings, and yet here we are.
“To heck with whether you think SpaceX is a good company or not. Just the trading widget that we’re going to move around is going to have bizarre, and I would say very unpredictable, supply and demand components for at least the first 30 days.” — Dave Nadig
🎶 “In Times of Dragons“ — Tori Amos (Spotify)
This is the part of the conversation where I tried to separate the two stories everyone keeps conflating. Story one: overhyped growth stock in a hot market. We’ve seen that before. Story two: a company this massive coming to market with a tiny float and (insane) accelerated index inclusion from every major index but the S&P 500, creating a cascade of mandatory buying, options chain pollution, and speculative positioning that has to happen in a $75 billion pool of shares over about 30 days. The Nasdaq 100 is literally inventing a new free-float adjustment rule just for this one stock. Nothing about this is normal.
Tori Amos writing about lizard kings and societal anxieties feels like a pretty good fit for a moment when the capital markets plumbing is being rerouted in real time to accommodate a single IPO. There be dragons indeed.
“To say that what we’re experiencing today does not have bubble-like characteristics because there are earnings actually ignores the long historical record that any time there is a technology-driven bubble, there are always real earnings. It’s just that we’re pulling those earnings into the future — we’re pulling those earnings into today.” — Cameron Dawson
🎶 “Poison“ — feeble little horse (Spotify)
Cameron came with receipts: Intel and Cisco both had 100%+ forward earnings growth in 1998-2000, right through the peak of the dot-com bubble. The earnings were real. They just happened to also be pulled forward from a future that didn’t quite arrive on schedule. The “it’s not a bubble because there are earnings” defense that dominates current AI commentary ignores literally every prior technology bubble in the historical record. Earnings are a feature of the bubble, not evidence against it.
feeble little horse’s “Will I go forever and ever in debt” is an uncomfortably on-the-nose lyric for a capex cycle that has exhausted free cash and is back asking for billions from secondaries and bond issuance.
“I can absolutely create a very credible, in the middle of the bell curve, scenario where SpaceX comes out at 1.75 and trades up to 3 trillion over the next 24 months... I can also create a path where we have a 50% sell-off next week. I mean, this is nothing but a volatility enhancer in my book.” — Dave Nadig
🎶 “Ember“ — Iceage (Spotify)
Three trillion dollars or 50% crash. Honestly both could happen on the first day of trading, and I can draw you a credible path to either one, right now, with a straight face. The range of potential outcomes is so wide that “volmaxxing” is the only honest label. You’re betting on liquidity, institutional positioning, and a huge retail allocation. Anything could happen.
Iceage is my favorite imaginary-Goth-Prom band. And Embers can start forest fires or be last light before the dark. Both readings are correct simultaneously.
“Calling something a bubble is very different than calling it a top. You can acknowledge the speculative behavior, you can acknowledge the low-quality-ness of certain things, you can acknowledge the pull-forward without saying that, like the All American Rejects, it ends tonight.” — Cameron Dawson
🎶 “It Ends Tonight“ — All American Rejects (Spotify)
When Cameron live-calls a song, my job is just to stick it in. And this is the crucial nuance that most market commentary misses entirely. Calling the environment “bubbly” is not the same as calling the top. The dot-com bubble was identifiable as a bubble for years before it actually popped.
“Maybe it’s the greatest thing ever. Maybe it does conquer the known living universe. Maybe that’s where this goes. Maybe President Elon makes this the new GDP of the solar system. I don’t know. So if you want that exposure, you should also have the plan that says lessen this on the way up.” — Matt Zeigler
🎶 “Feel the Real“ — Fcukers (Spotify)
Actual advisors have to talk to actual clients with real opinions about SpaceX (and everything else). Part of the advisors job is to deal with them and make a plan. It might be the most useful thing any of us said in the entire episode. Matt doesn’t fight the client’s conviction — he rides it to its logical extreme and then asks the only question that matters: what’s your exit plan? “Lessen this on the way up” is the operational takeaway for every advisor listening.
Fcukers make moody, dreamy trip-hop that feels like it’s dissolving the walls between the real and the feels. That tracks.
“I made it very clear to my financial advisor: I don’t wanna be on any side of this trade. I don’t think that there is an edge to be had here, so I don’t wanna be long and I don’t wanna be short. I think this is a great one to sit out.” — Dave Nadig
🎶 “One Thing at a Time“ (feat. Flea) — Courtney Barnett (Spotify)
I’ve tracked market structure my entire career. I am professionally interested in exactly this kind of event. I want to be able to watch from the sidelines without emotion so: no position. I have zero edge in this trade. (Do you?).
Courtney Barnett featuring Flea is a collaboration that shouldn’t work but does because both of them understand restraint. “One Thing at a Time” is about the discipline of stepping back when everything is screaming at you to engage.
“We’ve taken this stance of being early is the equivalent of being wrong. And what this moment requires is a great deal of discipline to know that you may not capture all of the up cycle... all this does is introduce volatility within a portfolio. It doesn’t introduce necessarily incremental return.” — Cameron Dawson
🎶 “Does This Go Faster?“ — Lala Lala (Spotify)
Cameron’s point here is backed by years of factor research: quality beats speculation over long windows not by avoiding the run-up, but by avoiding the round-trip. If you were in low-quality names in 2020, you were a genius. By 2022, you’d round-tripped all of it. The incremental return was zero. The incremental volatility was enormous. The incremental stress was incalculable.
Lala Lala asks the question of the hype-train riders: “Am I in it? Does this go faster?” The patience to not chase the rocket when everyone around you is lighting the fuse.
“So you wanna try Ayahuasca. Can we do it in a controlled environment? That’s how this feels.” — Matt Zeigler
🎶 “Cryptid“ — Cavetown (Spotify)
Perfect one-liner. Perfect closer. The best advisors don’t say no — they structure the yes. You want SpaceX? Fine. Let’s talk about position sizing, lockup awareness, rebalancing triggers, and what price you start trimming at. You want to do Ayahuasca? Fine. But we’re doing it with a shaman, in a controlled environment, with someone who can drive you home.
As for Cavetown? The world is very strange and full of strange creatures. Some of them are going to IPO at $1.75 trillion.
Plus, there was so much music discussed in this episode that we’re tagging on some touchpoints for the playlist:
Coheed and Cambria — “Searching for Tomorrow“
Bikini Kill — “Rebel Girl“
Pavement — “Spit on a Stranger“
Jimmy Eat World — “Bleed American“
Weezer + Wednesday — “We Might as Well Be Strangers“
Live — “I Alone“
Reverend Horton Heat — “Galaxy 500“
Panda Bear + Sonic Boom — “Edge of the Edge“
Click Beta is a segment of the Excess Returns podcast. Cameron Dawson is CIO at Newedge Wealth. Matt Zeigler is at Perscient. Dave Nadig writes at etf.com and nadig.com. Like, comment, subscribe, all the things below. @davenadig, @camerondawson, @mattzeigler pretty much everywhere.