There’s an important distinction between the hot backdrop for markets in 2026 and the lead-up to the dot-com crash in the late ‘90s and early 2000s: the quality of initial public offerings.
There just isn’t a frenzy of fundamentally crappy companies with no future financial prospects going public in today’s market.
The analysis: Ahead of potential buzzy IPOs this year from SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), a total of 40 deals worth $28 billion have come to market in 2026, per new data from Goldman Sachs strategist Ben Snider.
Snider wrote, “While elevated IPO activity has characterized some previous equity market peaks, the number of IPOs year to date is only on pace to reach the historical annual average of 100. In contrast, more than 250 IPOs launched in 2021 and nearly 400 launched in 1999.”
Snider lifted his 2026 IPO volume forecast to $225 billion from $160 billion.
”We expect total corporate equity supply to register $675 billion including follow-ons and other issuance,” Snider added. “However, this issuance scales to just 1.0% of US equity market cap, compared to an average of 1.5% since 1995.”
Read more: How to protect your portfolio from an AI bubble
One doesn’t have to look any further than the soon-to-IPO SpaceX to understand the difference in the quality of companies about to enter the markets.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 and has more than 13,000 employees. SpaceX’s revenue surged to $18.7 billion in 2025, up 33% from a year earlier, according to Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace intel.
The bottom line: The significant moves in shares of Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), Snowflake (SNOW), and Dell (DELL) in recent weeks have deservedly invoked fears of a stock market bubble. Those in the markets for a while may still be haunted by images of failed, overhyped tech plays like Pets.com and eToys.
But one could push back that valuations for the market (and even for these tech stocks) aren’t out of whack with a reasonable view of future earnings and cash flow. Also, markets aren’t seeing a bunch of fundamentally horrible companies coming to market to cash in on the largess.
We appreciate the reality check, Goldman Sachs.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email [email protected].
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