# Capital Markets - IPOs, M&A & Exchanges - Week of May 31, 2026: SpaceX Hits the Tape, Sponsors Still Won't > Capital-markets newsletter for May 24–31, 2026. The headline IPO of the decade is suddenly real and Q2 fee pools are running hot, even as Blankfein and the private-credit data flag a sponsor exit crisis hiding underneath the reopening. ## Capital Markets: IPOs, M&A & Exchanges ### Week of May 24–31, 2026 --- ```request-access variant: ghost heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` Friends, one of the strangest setups I can remember. The headline IPO of the decade is suddenly real, S&P targets are flying to 8,000, and Jamie Dimon is telling the Bernstein audience his trading book is up roughly 11 percent, and at the same exact moment, the man who built modern Goldman is on television explaining why private-equity sponsors *aren't* selling into the best financing window in history. That gap is the whole story this week, so let's pull on it. --- ## TL;DR - **SpaceX is going public into a forced-bid index window.** FTSE Russell confirmed fast-entry eligibility; Jefferies' framing is 265x 2027 EBITDA. The flow mechanics, not the multiple, are what underwriters and arb desks are now wargaming. - **Q2 capital-markets fees are tracking up double-digits, but capital allocation is frozen.** Dimon flagged JPM trading up roughly 11 percent YoY, IB up 10 percent plus. In the same breath: "I'm not that fond of buying stock at these prices." - **Private credit is the canary nobody on the Street wants to name.** April default rate hit a record 6.0 percent; non-traded BDCs saw the first-ever Q1 net outflows; GS BDC troubled assets jumped 190bps QoQ. This is not a banking crisis. It's an exit crisis. --- ## What's New **1) SpaceX has its index ticket, and the underwriters now have a problem.** On the May 27 *Squawk on the Street*, Carl Quintanilla, David Faber and Jim Cramer walked through the FTSE Russell confirmation that SpaceX will be eligible for fast-entry inclusion in the Russell U.S. Equity and FTSE Global indices, with NASDAQ 100 inclusion debated. As Faber put it, "the underwriters are going to have a lot on their plate to balance," meaning the IPO is going to print into a wall of index-fund forced buying on day one. Halo names (LUNR, RKLB, RDW) were already bid 3-4 percent intraday. This is the live ECM event of 2026 and it lands directly in the GS/MS book. **2) Jefferies put a number on it.** On May 26 Bloomberg Surveillance, Jefferies A&D analyst **Sheila Kahyaoglu** framed SpaceX at "265x 2027 EBITDA" against Musk's $26T space-economy TAM and flagged the index-inclusion mechanics as a real disruption risk to orderly price discovery. Her comp: AVEX as the most recent A&D IPO benchmark. This is the first cite-worthy sell-side math on the deal. **3) Dimon: fees good, deals not.** Via the same *Squawk* tape relaying his Bernstein Financial Services Conference appearance, **Jamie Dimon** told the room JPM Q2 trading is tracking **up roughly 11 percent YoY** and IB **up 10 percent plus YoY**, a clean read-through to GS and MS Q2 prints. But: > "Asset prices are high, including J.P. Morgan stock. So, I'm not that fond of buying stock at these prices or companies. And we're quite patient with capital." That's a CEO running the biggest balance sheet in American finance saying he won't *use* it at these levels. Read that twice. ```request-access variant: inline heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` **4) Blankfein names the elephant.** On May 29's *The Forum with Becky Quick*, former GS CEO **Lloyd Blankfein** gave the most quotable diagnosis of the PE exit problem I've heard this cycle: > "We've just had the highest equity markets ever and the best financing markets ever. And assets are getting kind of aged on balance sheets. So that must mean for people who are highly motivated to sell them or not selling them because the price isn't being met because they're probably marked." In plain English: sponsors aren't selling because the marks are wrong. He pointed to LP secondaries trading at discounts, endowment liquidations, and the rise of continuation vehicles as symptoms of the same drought. On private credit he was more measured ("I don't think private credit by itself is that substantial or that bad... I'm more worried about the kindling than I am about the loose cigarette butt") but warned the workout architecture is structurally broken: there is no Fed-convening-16-banks scenario for a private-credit blowup. You'd need "Citi Field." **5) The private-credit data caught up to the rhetoric.** On May 26's *Eurodollar University*, **Jeff Snider** aggregated the most important number set of the week, sourced to Fitch, Robert Stanger & Co., and primary GS BDC filings, all independently verifiable: - Fitch: US private-credit default rate hit **6.0 percent in April 2026, a new record.** - Non-traded BDCs experienced their **first-ever Q1 net outflows**, roughly $7B redeemed vs. roughly $5B raised, per Stanger CEO Kevin Gannon. Total Q1 redemption requests over $15B. Many funds enforcing 5 percent withdrawal gates. - **GS BDC's May filing**: most-troubled holdings rose to 4.7 percent of portfolio at cost, **up 190bps QoQ.** - New Mountain Finance bought a Q1 loan at roughly 65 cents that has since rallied roughly 10 cents, implying the prior holder dumped it roughly 35 percent below par. If you own asset-managers on the alts re-rating thesis, this is the data set that decides whether 2026 is the year the FRE multiple expands or the year the credit multiple compresses. --- ## The Debate **The bull case (which the tape supports loudly):** This *is* a durable multi-year reopening. Q2 IB and trading fees are up double-digits at the bellwether (Dimon). The IPO window has cracked open with SpaceX, and Brian Belski on the May 29 *Bloomberg Surveillance* tape argues OpenAI's public messaging has gotten "much more conservative relative to what it was 6 months ago... they're preparing to become a public company." Goldman, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley all yanked S&P 500 PTs to 8,000. GSAM's **Lindsay Rosner** notes IG credit is the tightest since 1998 and HY/EM the tightest since 2007, and even she says, "There's no pushback. There's no hesitancy" on new issuance. The whole complex (GS, MS, EVR, MC, JEF, NDAQ as listing venue, LSEG via FTSE Russell index revenue) gets paid. **The bear case (where the tape is, frankly, more interesting):** Blankfein and Snider are calling the same animal from different ends. If sponsors aren't selling because the marks are wrong, then the announced-M&A backlog and the IPO calendar are *less* leading than the bull case assumes: they reflect the deals that *clear*, not the inventory of assets that should be moving but can't. And if private-credit defaults are at a record and the marginal LP is redeeming for the first time ever, then the leveraged-finance feeder system for sponsor M&A is quietly tightening even with IG spreads at 1998 tights. GS credit strategist **Amanda Lyman** essentially conceded this on May 26: "You shouldn't be banking on a material rally in interest rates or a material tightening in spreads. You should really be owning credit for the carry and the income." Translation from sell-side-ese: this is as good as it gets. --- ## The Names in Play **GS, MS:** Direct beneficiaries of the Q2 fee print Dimon previewed. Bonus: G-SIB living wills cleared with no shortcomings, removing a regulatory overhang, and GS finally settled the 1MDB shareholder class for $500M, per *The Banker Next Door* on 5/29. Watch the Warren-vs-Morgan-Stanley exemption headline as a low-probability tail. **JEF, EVR, MC:** Jefferies put the first number on SpaceX. The boutiques are the highest-beta way to play any actual reopening; they're also the most exposed if Blankfein is right and the inventory just sits. **BX, KKR, APO, ARES, OWL:** The PE complex is the trade where both sides of the debate are simultaneously true. Earnings power on fundraising plus AUM is fine. The exit math is broken. Mark accordingly. ```request-access variant: inline heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` --- ## Read-throughs - **Boutiques (EVR, MC, JEF):** Highest operating leverage to the announced-M&A turn. JEF's SpaceX coverage is a tell: they're positioning for ECM share. - **Private-credit BDCs and asset managers (ARCC, MAIN, BXSL, GBDC, NMFC, OBDC):** The redemption-gate dynamic is real. NMFC's secondary-market loan purchase at roughly 65 cents is the kind of data point that gets aggregated into a fund-level NAV write-down two quarters later. - **Index/data franchises (LSEG, NDAQ):** FTSE Russell's fast-entry confirmation is a real, if modest, AUM-linked revenue event for LSEG and a listing/data competitive moment for NDAQ. - **The exchanges proper (ICE, CME, CBOE):** No substantive operator commentary on the tape this week. The 0DTE, OTC-to-cleared, and capture-rate threads were quiet. Worth watching whether June pre-announcements break the silence. - **Prediction markets (Kalshi, Polymarket, HOOD event contracts):** No episodes touched this in the last seven days. Last week's regulatory thread did not advance. --- ## What Changed The shift this week is the *juxtaposition*, not any one data point. A month ago, the bear case on capital markets was "rates are too high, deals won't print." This week the bear case mutated into "deals can print, sponsors won't sell," and the GS BDC filing put hard numbers on the credit side of that argument for the first time in this cycle. If you've been long the IB complex purely on the fee-pool re-rating, the debate just got a real second leg. That's it for this week. Reply with what you're seeing on your tape, especially if any of you are hearing real operator commentary on the exchanges and prediction-market side that didn't make it to the major pods. I want to be writing about CME and Kalshi next week and the shows didn't give me much to work with. --- ## Sources - [Squawk on the Street, 9AM HOUR: $1T Micron and the "Green" Chips, Goldman Ups S&P 500 PT to 8,000, SpaceX IPO "Fast Entry", 5/27/26 (CNBC, 2026-05-27)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOiI9w4XUzxpuOvmSIzUwxaBhVd0hxZXfFpWkIH4ywBoH3Hs2Ne76A4-2BOA88XD3UEdWDkvB4c-2FL4yZ65XbOGtHVuS4ZXUvgc6rFErNHnjSS5pg-3D-3D-E2w_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVsXw5w10jZRwK-2BWgQrbbVsJ7cujWD5WJT07spU7dXt5-2Ba7lFoHtIRfWjLCi5Tf0CWHhOWIIgb5eWodxI-2FhLsKM9omGzVw6V5MPje5rgB-2FBaCt2ayb741zSGSh4PWCbcOyQ-3D-3D) - [The Forum with Becky Quick, Inside the Next Financial Crisis with Lloyd Blankfein (2026-05-29)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOhiavHl-2BqNBipo6fyIixrMVO4iEL3-2BWv1cJvC75hpCTL0puxhay112nGPawEBqIdsW6tV9KukPY-2B4VXMgiajGVe8yLUmneMfChl-2BhhZ8c-2B9Pw-3D-3DrDUd_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVuoMjHFM7SRgkvmFzEnXYRDFbpg4p5VPUi1TvMpiI-2FGHb755ZDu9L4iAmrnLTCWr0MDp896lT65V-2FvQUaxzaEvVHqg5LCUVGinQhByIBEEaSlVkgEOQiFkwnzil4GVUy7w-3D-3D) - [Bloomberg Surveillance, Stocks Rise as Iran Peace Hopes Hold (2026-05-26)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOibdRBqj9COwnOoE2HQCDM6UDSVxPYlO40HHFzyBO-2FDTpVLUhAd3fdqCNoQRmKNwTFHqJ2KRa3HwkPLulYnvSAqEuc2MlMar8-2BYucET2R1tHA-3D-3DMFBJ_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVjx3Th1wPbyFVx9sVA32V1PBIRkzoH75ay3xwB9LdQG-2FZ7xZ5U1egxxNVpXO40WzkNS40wRHumIKdb-2F5R3qlwGHSgATRFCM7HO2uaq4WOuee-2BnB-2BBF0lHE1I-2Fbz3EJ06OQ-3D-3D) - [Bloomberg Surveillance, Equity and Bond Signals (2026-05-29)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOjl3rDrnsNfhTrgHlJysJEabTOhBxjqrRIOCnWN6jnZihOLavzRvOmtgk472-2BltXsTziZh96K9hofIuFasApcKUJcvV12zcDVFSCobSA-2FTsIg-3D-3DNp2M_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVgiqvYpax8ZckXScetNfD7lQmtGXLOar7IDKjfx01wjc3p5FU4FDzNIcbc-2FWrQ3J-2FWjSk1bDd-2B6fW3EX1ZWlMsmm-2FSV7D35YwjTivQm9OXQqmdOY4NjlCjhQV51KUO7bKQ-3D-3D) - [Eurodollar University, Goldman Sachs Just Confirmed the Worst-Case Scenario (2026-05-26)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgOBqBeJopolcI-2Ftx4QRvSSEseiBfa2HgmBtxRkkldH-2BWO6pIKXmSSoB8W9PnqOnptUNEXusN-2B55B13WLOJu2O3tFWf4JXt54a1B6PJck2K9g-3D-3DXvEd_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVlC4lDej5kQQxUCamXeaNzeGr1p8oAfiRhofkLuz66wpinVXn-2B42b94nsES8JllL4ayUOKs7kLGZN6NdEhd03RrnxeThDJt1zrrZSaC-2FwHHtXvYikLutERs5sTbDXnnlBA-3D-3D) - [The Banker Next Door, Bank News: CEO apologies, EOs, Living wills, Charters, Exemptions, and Fines! (2026-05-29)](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgyGoO9LN-2BMzVEyrM0MWlLlredt4tuB3xE9IgMC5WMCPeWeASA9xmq-2B62iB8FSt6dxR-2FnZDyUxexxt7FzG-2F4GC96FKXyH7a3Tyr33FEjL9Hbw-3D-3DGhK1_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXa1TbSyP2ZAcMcA6mTGpw3Nr1mK2QbvVVMMIVsVJioVsbWqdVr7NGNLc74PfFVBU2p2k6nogwpWNYI6w7SBegJFfnIJwjBVS64eyiL-2FAobSexVw8ogD5doTAyeQ6LCQ6ZPRd8Mm-2FzKJOxci-2FRgxc7m7bWCSoXzCNgTLWMsRC9yWw-3D-3D) ```request-access variant: banner heading: Run your own corpus. description: matterfact is deployed with select institutional partners. Request access to run it on your own coverage. buttonText: Request access ```