A wave of significant fundraising by global corporations has recently emerged, with massive transactions such as SpaceX's record $75 billion initial public offering, Alphabet's $85 billion equity issuance, and South Korea's SK Hynix's more than $26 billion American depositary share offering appearing in concentration. This has sparked concerns over the sustainability of the current long-running bull market, which has lasted three years and nine months and seen the S&P 500 more than double.
Analysts point out that market collapses typically do not occur merely due to "age" or high valuations, but a sustained oversupply of new shares relative to investor demand could become a significant factor dragging down stock markets. Data from Dealogic shows that global equity issuance fundraising has reached $344.7 billion so far in 2026, exceeding the full-year totals for each of the years 2022 through 2025 (including IPOs, follow-on offerings, and convertible bonds). Among these, SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history in June, SK Hynix completed the largest equity offering by a non-U.S. company last week, and companies like AI developer Anthropic are also preparing to go public.
At the same time, the scale of share buybacks by listed companies has noticeably slowed, further increasing the overall supply of shares in the market. Elm Wealth anticipates that U.S. companies will be net issuers of approximately $500 billion in stocks and bonds over the next year, a stark contrast to the roughly $1 trillion net reduction seen in prior years due to buybacks. Rob Arnott, Chairman of Research Affiliates, noted that equity issuance often surges in the later stages of a bull market, a typical phenomenon where companies capitalize on heightened investor enthusiasm.
A defining feature of this fundraising wave is the massive issuance of stocks and bonds by AI "hyperscaler" companies to support historic capital expenditures. John Lloyd, Global Multi-Sector Credit Head at Janus Henderson, stated that these companies are projected to have total capital expenditures exceeding $800 billion in 2026, up from $450 billion in 2025, and are expected to surpass $1 trillion next year. Amazon completed an $85 billion equity financing in the first half of this year, while Oracle's cash flow has turned negative. Lloyd pointed out that prior to the AI era, these were high-quality companies with ample cash focused on buybacks, but the landscape has now fundamentally changed.
Howard Marks, Co-Founder of Oaktree Capital, believes that accelerating stock issuance and slowing buybacks alone are unlikely to end a bull market, but they reflect corporate sector optimism and investors' fear of missing out. James Paulsen, former Chief Investment Strategist at The Leuthold Group, suggested that in extreme cases, this could be a signal of an overheated market. Antti Ilmanen, Co-Head of the Global Investment Portfolio Solutions team at AQR Capital Management, noted that as long as positive news continues to flow from the AI sector, this bull market could still persist.
The current dividend yield on the S&P 500 is only 1.05%, a record low, with valuations at elevated levels. However, investors broadly believe the likelihood of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates enough to cripple the economy or markets is low, and no significant risk factors akin to 1987's portfolio insurance or the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis have yet been identified. Marks stated that current economic fundamentals feel sound, and predicting a near-term recession would be unwise.
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