Craig Stephens | Access IPOs

Also on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4VsJUZVm6…

New podcast: Retail investors were largely excluded from the Cerebras IPO due to a familiar retail foe. $CBRS The SpaceX IPO $SPCX should be better. Plus, $LIME and $QNT have filed for IPOs, and Blue Origin is considering a venture round. youtube.com/watch?v=Ncf25W…

@DallasAptGP I’m not selling any shares

"We did it with integrity" Then tell us. What percentage of the allocation at the IPO price was given to large hedge funds versus online broker retail investors? Be honest.

Space IPO update from Reuters: - S-1: as early as Wed 05/20 - Terms/Roadshow: 06/04 - Pricing: as early as 06/11 - IPO Date: as early as 06/12 - Exchange: Nasdaq - Symbol: $SPCX Nice scoop @DEER_ECHO_ @ASenjourno reuters.com/world/spacex-a…

No, it is not required to be disclosed and it rarely is in the S-1 or afterward. 5%-10% for retail is the baseline. SpaceX has indicated up to 30% could go to retail which is incredible if they follow through. Robinhood IPO was about 30%. $BLSH and $GEMI were around 30%. Though $GEMI was a disaster. ETRADE likely allocated a tiny fraction of shares to ETRADE customers and the rest to wealthiest wealth clients, presumably. I'm sure they'd be happy to reveal the allocation data to the world (not).

@AccessIPOs @EdLudlow Is it disclosed how much goes to retail on every deal? I’m assuming it’s only by which bank got to allocation. I know Etrade allocated shares to clients, but haven’t seen data on the specific allocation. Honestly I’m surprised they allocated any.

Massive thanks to @EdLudlow for asking this question on behalf of retail investors. $CBRS Oversubscribed or not, issuers and their bankers have a choice between retail investors and institutions. The bias persists. Same old Wall Street playbook.

IPOs are attractive when there's high demand and a scarcity of shares. That deal had neither. Ackman put up $10 billion of $PSUS shares available, but sold much less than that (~$5 billion). Cerebras was selling $5.5 billion of shares, and the CEO says there was $137.5 billion of orders (25X oversubscribed). Who got the $5.5 billion worth of shares? Wasn't retail.

@AccessIPOs @EdLudlow Was Ackman’s inherently low quality, or did the allocation to retail make it a bust? Ackman basically blamed the retail allocation as to why it traded poorly.

We've seen much better and consistent allocations from Fidelity over the years, for those eligible. ETRADE is usually among the worst (MS prioritizes wealth clients, not retail). Fidelity/SoFi were clearly left out of the allocation even though they took requests. And they either weren't allowed to sell their pre-IPO shares or chose not to. One member in our community has an account at MS wealth and he called to ask, they told him that only $5+ million accounts and family offices would get shares, so he didn't quality.

I'm in the process of switching from Fidelity to E-Trade today after yesterday's 0 shares on 1500 committed. Eventually will work up to MS level when more of my private market names hit. Rotated into $80k of SpaceX at Microventures after feeling left out of the CBRS IPO. Worst part is Fidelity was on the cap table - they could have given their own shares to their own clients and booked the profit... inexcusable IMO @Fidelity

@duedillengence @EdLudlow Exactly. Retail gets the lousy deals while high-demand high-quality goes to institutional.

@AccessIPOs @EdLudlow Look how it went when Ackman allocated shares to retail. It really went swimmingly…

It was available at Fidelity and SoFi. But very few investors got an allocation at either, and they 1% or less of requested. ETRADE customers got small allocations, 8%-10% request said several investors in our community. So yes, MS prioritized their wealth clients and not retail.

@AccessIPOs @EdLudlow MS puts a lot into their retail wealth channel. More than any other bank bc its such a massive part of the MS biz. I dont think this narrative is accurate - it wasnt available at Fidelity, but it was for MS retail (not e trade, actual MS)

@rohitprabhakar @Fidelity The brokers don't know how large their allocations will be until the morning of. They take requests and allocate whatever they get based on internal algorithms. In this case, underwriters kept shares close to home.

@AccessIPOs @Fidelity, why do you ask for interest submission if you were not going to allocate anything to individual investors?

Disappointing Cerebras IPO allocations across the board for retail. Most investors in our community received zero from $SOFI and Fidelity. ETRADE zero or smalls. Familiar outcome for deals solely led by $MS. $CBRS Don't chase it.

On to the next one - SpaceX IPO cnbc.com/2026/05/14/spa…

@santiayz You're the first person I've heard from that got anything from Fidelity. And in a decade of doing this, I've never heard of a Fidelity allocation below 25 shares.

@AccessIPOs I got 5 shares to rub together from Fidelity

@KampnerSam Open to hearing more about your view on this @KampnerSam

@AccessIPOs This is not a fair comparison by any stretch of the imagination

Reminder what can happen when you chase a hot IPO: $RIVN solana:4yEjcMiy6GAgrpWpUvhUXfaP1vQmJXfqJjEyxBSZpump #differentthistime

@Jcantwell Do you have any examples of IPOs up 100% the first day that stayed up 100%? I can think of one in recent memory, but it was still dangerous to chase it.

@AccessIPOs Someone with this mindset will only show you the bad charts and not the great ones.

@2025Updated Same. We were somewhat optimistic about Fidelity because they invested in the late round. Now we know that's not a factor.

@AccessIPOs I get ZERO, I’m with fidelity 10 years and have millions of assets

@Glove1Jonathan Common refrain at Fidelity this round.

@AccessIPOs Req 500 of fidelity. Got 0

@infosecatom @MinhungShih @EdLudlow Thanks for asking @EdLudlow . Trying to find the clip. They clearly didn't try their best.

@AccessIPOs @MinhungShih @EdLudlow Ed asked it but Andrew only said nobody got what they wanted and they tried their best. I think the right answer was to allocate more to retail and less to institutional. 🙃

Speaking to Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman later today. Welcome any questions you have. $CBRS

Reminder that $HOOD, Webull, @Public, Moomoo, and TradeStation were all excluded from this deal as well.