Comment by maest
4 days ago
Lmao inclusion after 15 days is going to throw off the waiting curve on index arb desks.
The market usually prepositions a lot of volume pre-add, so much that the add day is usually a non-event. But they usually have a quarter or more to preposition. 15 days is going to cause so much volatility and chaos.
And the funny thing is, the index arb desks can't really opt out of this - you can't arb all names except one in the index.
What a shitshow this would be if the rules pass as presented by Nasdaq.
Also, does Nasdaq think it's worth killing the reputation of their index for the spacex listing? An index is just a list that everyone agrees on following. Losing public trust in this list could mean the end of Nasdaq 100 as a serious contender. There are many alternatives that could easily take its place.
>Also, does Nasdaq think it's worth killing the reputation of their index for the spacex listing?
If I had to guess, they are banking on the meme-factor. Tesla is already seriously overvalued IMO b/c it's the first real meme-stock. Now, they are learning lessons from the FTX-invented low-float meme-tokens in crypto and replicate the model in stocks. The story around SpaceX with it's valid successes makes for a very good meme-stock.
So, they hope that people actually want SpaceX exposure no matter what and do not understand how cancerous those low-flow/high-FDIV launches are.
Very few here know what a index arb desk is and they won't care.
And those desks [should] have quants that are paid a lot of money to figure this out. If they don't, they will get eaten, as they should.
source: Worked on a ETF trade desk.