A wave of huge IPOs is coming, and it's bad news for regular people whose retirement savings could be used to soak up the supply.

• SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are planning to go public and sell trillions of dollars in new stock.
• The only buyer big enough is the money sitting in 401(k)s and index funds across the country.
• Index funds don't pick what they buy — they just buy whatever is in the index, creating guaranteed demand.
• To get in, the Nasdaq is rewriting its rules so these companies qualify for the indexes.
• As much as $4 trillion in new stock could get funneled into retirement accounts within months.

Outlook: SpaceX is first in line, with OpenAI and Anthropic close behind, so expect these mega-listings to start hitting index funds soon.