IPO rush puts bubble watchers on alert, Goldman panel says
A Goldman Sachs report says 2026's IPO wave has split market strategists over whether new listings are flashing a bubble warning.
By Frankie Delgado · News Reporter
3 min read
The IPO market is roaring again, and one portfolio manager says investors should treat the rush of new listings as a warning light on the dashboard.
Goldman Sachs put the question to three market voices in its latest “Top of Mind” report: Ben Snider, the bank’s chief U.S. equity strategist; Jay Ritter, director of the IPO initiative at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business; and Owen Lamont, senior vice president and portfolio manager at Acadian Asset Management.
The debate comes as Goldman estimates IPO gross proceeds will reach a record $225 billion in 2026. The bank’s report asked whether the boom in initial public offerings is a late-cycle signal and whether markets can absorb so much new stock.
Lamont sees one horseman riding in
Lamont sounded the loudest alarm in the Goldman discussion. He acknowledged that rising equity issuance may reflect the funding needs of artificial intelligence, which has become a major force in corporate spending.
Still, Lamont told Goldman that earlier bubbles were often tied to new technologies and were accompanied by waves of issuance and capital spending, with companies tending to sell shares when they think their stock is richly priced.
Lamont laid out what he calls “The Four Horsemen of the Market Bubble”: overvaluation, bubble beliefs, equity issuance and surging inflows. By bubble beliefs, he means investors buying stocks they think are expensive because they expect prices to keep climbing.
The phrase echoes the dot-com era, when Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel and Dell were labeled the four horsemen during the 1998-2000 boom, according to the Goldman discussion.
By Lamont’s framework, today’s IPO activity checks at least the issuance box. He also cautioned that IPO waves can continue for years, which means they may signal the start of a bubble rather than its final act.
One thing gives him some comfort: Goldman’s report said there have been few extreme first-day jumps in new listings, a sign that the most feverish speculation may be missing for now.
The calmer camp has numbers
Snider took a more relaxed view. He compared the roughly $75 trillion value of the U.S. equity market with the $700 billion in corporate issuance he expects this year, according to the Goldman report.
Snider also argued that IPO supply has its own brake system: if buyers do not show up, companies will have a harder time bringing deals to market.
Ritter also sounded less worried than Lamont. He acknowledged that heavy issuance has historically pointed to weaker future market returns, but he cited $1.6 trillion in cash returned by U.S. companies to investors through buybacks and dividends in recent years.
Goldman’s report also said many recent IPO companies are more profitable than those seen in earlier IPO booms.
Lamont’s worries are not limited to stock issuance. Goldman chief credit strategist Amanda Lynam has warned about risks tied to market saturation and concentrated groups of issuers, the report said.
Lamont also criticized some index providers for adding large IPOs sooner than before, with Goldman citing Nasdaq’s recent inclusion of SpaceX.
Goldman editor Jenny Grimberg noted in the discussion that IPOs tend to lag the market in their first few years. Lamont’s takeaway was patience, delivered with a grocery-aisle punchline: “IPOs are like bananas: they need to ripen before they’re ready to eat.”
This story draws on original reporting from MarketWatch.