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Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

theguardian.com

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Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#81

Post by skue »

kyleee wrote: post #65
darth_avocado wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t that you’re invested in the index. The problem is that the index decided it wanted to change its rules to include companies that are not profitable. I still remember the days when you needed to be profitable for x quarters and have a minimum amount of float to be listed in an index. That changed overnight and we all know why.

Can someone make an etf that uses the older more conservative criteria for inclusion?

No need. There are already plenty of them that track the S&P — which notably decided NOT to change its rules.

Feel like many of these articles were either prewritten, lazy, or have intentionally omitted the non-impact that S&P opting to not change its rules has had, just so the headline and lede could be as sensational as possible.

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#82

Post by breatheoften »

sethops1 wrote: post #40
dehrmann wrote: post #33

Matt Levine's take was essentially that if you're in the index fund game, you want the market. You don't pick and choose what parts of the market you want--that's active management. SPCX mostly isn't an issue because most indices include the float in the weight, so it isn't really even a $1T company.

Okay then why is SPCX going to be weighted 3x its actual float in the Nasdaq? A rule made just for SPCX.

That's absolutely insane -- how the hell did anyone think that was a good idea under these circumstances ... This is an absolute scam -- why does it make sense for an index's buying volume requirement to be based on the implied value of shares that can't even be bought or sold ...?

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#83

Post by [deleted] »

asdff wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SpaceX succeeds, the gains will go to the same people who will bear the losses if it doesn’t. Both the gains and losses are privatized. The consumer/ad tech bias of HN is really showing. The app I use to share photos of my kids with my elderly relatives is worth $1.45 trillion, but somehow companies that make freaking EVs, robots, and rocket ships, and AI can’t possibly be worth that much? I’ve been in HN for 16 y…

There is no moat around what they are doing really and they have competitors in all these sectors. All it takes is another administration to come in with a brain and a spine to not just hand contract blindly to Elon.

[deleted]

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#85

Post by [deleted] »

testaburger wrote: post #73
ggm wrote: post #14

An interesting variant of "privatise the profits, socialise the losses" played wholly in the private sector capital investment space. "When you're rich they let you" is big in this because a functional board of a company about to be vested with a massive debt overhang from a serial offender (X and xAI) would surely have said "could we NOT" about this and the whole model including A and B class voting shares suggests…

Is spaceX absolutely vital for the US national security through Starlink as well as the launch of military satellites? Yes, and as a matter of fact this is also true for NATO allies, Japan, Taiwan, SK, etc in any future conflict for at least the next 5 to 10 years, just as it has been for the past 4 years in Ukraine. In addition to land based infrastructure that can be targeted in any future war -undersea cables are…

[deleted]

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#86

Post by groundzeros2015 »

4fterd4rk wrote: post #15

SpaceX has not been added to the S&P 500. They asked for the rules to be waived. S&P said no. I don't understand this article.

Less informed journalists heard about it after we did and then decided to publish what they learned on twitter.

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#87

Post by nradov »

awesome_dude wrote: post #77
testaburger wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is spaceX absolutely vital for the US national security through Starlink as well as the launch of military satellites? Yes, and as a matter of fact this is also true for NATO allies, Japan, Taiwan, SK, etc in any future conflict for at least the next 5 to 10 years, just as it has been for the past 4 years in Ukraine. In addition to land based infrastructure that can be targeted in any future war -undersea cables are…

Is it *vital* No. It's really helpful, but it's not vital. WRT Ukraine - the drones are now (AIUI) flown with a tethered fibre connection (inside the Ukraine) - because jammers have made radio traffic with drones near impossible for operators

Nope. The fiber optic drones are relatively short range, maybe up to 20km. And they can only work over land, not significant bodies of water. Ukraine is still using Starlink heavily for controlling longer range and naval drones. Starlink uses an ingenious phased array antenna system which makes it highly resistant to jamming. Recently Russia has been trying to overload Starlink satellite transceivers with powerful directional jamming but the huge size of the constellation limits how many birds they can effectively target.

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#88

Post by w29UiIm2Xz »

darth_avocado wrote: post #53
dehrmann wrote: post #33

Matt Levine's take was essentially that if you're in the index fund game, you want the market. You don't pick and choose what parts of the market you want--that's active management. SPCX mostly isn't an issue because most indices include the float in the weight, so it isn't really even a $1T company.

The problem isn’t that you’re invested in the index. The problem is that the index decided it wanted to change its rules to include companies that are not profitable. I still remember the days when you needed to be profitable for x quarters and have a minimum amount of float to be listed in an index. That changed overnight and we all know why.

A simpler solution to this would be to introduce new ETF tickers for changed rules. It's a breaking change -- version it.

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#89

Post by drsalt »

breatheoften wrote: post #82
sethops1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay then why is SPCX going to be weighted 3x its actual float in the Nasdaq? A rule made just for SPCX.

That's absolutely insane -- how the hell did anyone think that was a good idea under these circumstances ... This is an absolute scam -- why does it make sense for an index's buying volume requirement to be based on the implied value of shares that can't even be bought or sold ...?

it's not a scam if no one gets hurt

Re: Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings

#90

Post by nradov »

asdff wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SpaceX succeeds, the gains will go to the same people who will bear the losses if it doesn’t. Both the gains and losses are privatized. The consumer/ad tech bias of HN is really showing. The app I use to share photos of my kids with my elderly relatives is worth $1.45 trillion, but somehow companies that make freaking EVs, robots, and rocket ships, and AI can’t possibly be worth that much? I’ve been in HN for 16 y…

There is no moat around what they are doing really and they have competitors in all these sectors. All it takes is another administration to come in with a brain and a spine to not just hand contract blindly to Elon.

Which competitors? Blue Origin and Amazon are trying but they're way behind on space launch capability, and still using SpaceX to launch a lot of their TeraWave and Kuiper satellites. Arianespace and ULA seem to have given up and aren't even trying to compete.
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