Monday, 15 June 2026
Monday 15 June 2026
Good morning and happy Monday! Celebrating the long weekend?
[1] We have to start with SpaceX’s IPO. The Musk-led space exploration/AI/satellite internet provider company commenced trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday. The IPO price was $135.00 and the stock closed Friday at $160.95, up 19.22% on the day.
The listing made Musk the world’s first trillionaire. If you have $1.00, you are closer in wealth to the world’s second richest man (Larry Page, co-founder of Google) than he is to Elon Musk.
In fact, Musk could buy number 2 (Page), 3 (Brin, co-founder Google), 4 (Bezos, founder Amazon) and 5 (Ellison, founder Oracle - you know, the one writing cheques for his son to support Trump on 60 Minutes?) and still have some cash left for a coffee. Truly, unimaginable wealth.
Forbes Real Time Billionaires’ List
Source: Forbes, see more here.
The retail following into SpaceX is enormous (institutional investors are institutions (!) such as Investec, JP Morgan and Allan Gray. Retail investors are individuals, such as your cousin using the money he received from his 21st birthday party to trade stocks).
It seems that Musk’s cult-like following provides enough fuel to the engines for a successful launch, but whether SpaceX will make it past orbit and close to the Moon remains to be seen. DNF believes that Houston will soon have a problem.
[2] The big question with the three massive IPOs this year (SpaceX, Open AI, Anthropic) is whether they will cause a dot-com-like crash. Here is the catalyst: when big companies IPO, they give a large amount of shares to insiders (management, employees, etc.).
These shares, however, have “lock-up periods”, periods during which insiders are not allowed to sell them (their shares are “locked”). When the lock-up period ends, if there is not enough conviction among the holders in the long-term value of the stock, many insiders offer their shares for sale on the market at the same time.
Basic economic principles suggest that if supply increases suddenly, price falls. This was (to a large extent) the impetus for the crash in the early 2000s.
Also remember, while you might look at a 20% increase in a single day and question why DNF continues to advocate against the ridiculous valuation, you must ask yourself the following question: if you were long SpaceX and made 20% on day one, would you have sold? Would you crystalize those profits or would you argue that Monday might bring another 20%? This is the ultimate emotional battle of investing, good wealth managers create strong returns over decades, not over days. Ask Sam Bankman-Fried about that.
[3] Speaking of Mr. Bankman-Fried, he has asked the Trump administration for a pardon. SBF as he is known, ran FTX, the ill-fated crypto exchange. When his exchange failed in 2022 (it turned out that his own shell companies were responsible for large portions of the transactions on his exchange), it led to a large downturn in the crypto markets and wiped about $2 trillion of value.
Sam Bankman-Fried, well known Crypto-Conman
Source: Bloomberg
After FTX went bust, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud in 2024. Key to his request for a pardon was advice received from his bunkmate in jail, Michael Avenatti, who represented Stormy Daniels in her case against President Trump.
So, we have a lawyer in jail advising a crypto scam-artist in jail about asking the President of the United States (also a convicted felon, on 34 counts, by the way) to pardon him, after fighting the same President in court while representing a porn star who the President paid hush-money to out of one of his personally-owned companies.
You actually can’t make this s&*t up.
[4] Donald Trump hosted a UFC event at the White House on Sunday evening (“UFC Freedom 250”). The hallowed property, which housed the most influential politicians in history for hundreds of years and which has served as ground zero for meetings and discussions which shaped the path of humanity, hosted men in underpants beating the lights out of each other (we are in the midst of a Simpsons episode).
The event is part of Trump’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday. Not one to miss out on a commercial opportunity, he is also selling golden coins for $11,999.00 with his face on them to commemorate the event. It seems that desecrating only one US landmark was not enough for the UFC, which hosted the pre-fight conference at the Lincoln Memorial, where fighters swore at each other’s family members and unanimously predicted their own victory. It seems that only Mother Nature is able to stop Trump, as a rain and thunderstorm almost prevented the event from taking place.
“The Claw” - the name given to the octagon built on the lawn to host the even - is taller than the White House. Trump has noted that he might never take it down.
DNF agrees.
Maybe we should have candidates refrain from “debating” each other (read: insulting each other) and instead just have a WWE style free-for-all. That is, in essence, what the US Government has become already (Kamala vs Bondi could be the title fight, with Vance vs Newsom as the appetizer).
[5] Switzerland is known for producing chocolate, cheese and Roger Federer. Voters rejected a proposal to limit the country’s population to 10 million, early projections suggest. The proposal came from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, which has long campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, a further continuation of two trends: anti-immigration stances around the globe and the rise of extremist conservative political parties.
In 2002, the country had a population of 7.3 million, climbing to 9.1 million in 2025, 27% of which are not Swiss citizens. Being “part” of the EU (sort of, not really, not at all actually) means allowing for the free movement of people, which a population cap would impede. A continuation of another trend DNF identified last week, 20% of the Swiss population is over the age of 65, and its TFR is 1.39, among the lowest in the world.
Finally, Switzerland continues to spend more on defense while planning closer defense ties with its neighbors.
[6] As we have grown quite a bit over the last few days, we will summarize three key trends from our recent reporting which we expect to continue in the short to medium term:
Continued backlash against immigration.
A decrease in populations as a result of a low TFR.
An increase in defense spending.
More divisiveness, more bullets and fewer children. Dystopian indeed.
[7] Victor Orbán, the Hungarian politician, is back. Hungary’s populist-right Fidesz party re-elected him as its leader despite his defeat in April’s general election. He won 729 of the 737 votes and ran against no one (DNF wonders who the 8 dissenters voted for).
After his victory, he took responsibility for “strategic mistakes” (?) and announced an organizational overhaul of the party. We look forward to what Mr. Orbán presents.
[8] The Knicks won the NBA Championship for the first time since 1973. They beat the Spurs in the fifth game of the NBA Finals 94-90, winning the series 4-1.
New Yorkers went ballistic, flooding Times Square and vandalizing various parts of their own city to celebrate.
James Dolan (who made most of his money by being born, statistically still the most common way to do so, his father founded HBO, amongst other things) has owned the Knicks for 27 years after buying the franchise in 1999 and apologized to fans that it took them this long to win a championship.
Across the world, and especially in America, sporting victories often coincide with political support for the ruling party, which bodes well for Mayor Mamdani. Furthermore, there is a clear pattern of increased births nine months after major sporting victories (actually), which bodes well for New York daycare centers.
In fact, after France hosted and won the FIFA World Cup in 1998, there was a roughly 11% decline in suicide rates nationwide. Further testament to the remarkable impact sport can have on society.
[9] The US and Iran said they reached an interim agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, halting a war that killed thousands of people and setting the stage for 60 days of negotiations on the fate of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Officials from the two countries will meet in Switzerland (if they have room for them) on June 19 to formally sign the agreement, a decision that suggests aspects of the deal remain unresolved. Neither side has released a text, leaving key sticking points for the next stage of talks.
We have further talks and negotiations, but no peace agreement. We hope that this leads to peace and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but that remains to be seen.
[10] Exciting week ahead. Tomorrow is Youth Day in South Africa. The day commemorates the Soweto Uprising in 1976 when thousands of students protested against the apartheid regime's oppressive education policies and the forced imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools.
Will DNF post on the public holiday? You’ll have to wait and see.
Have a good Monday!