But if SpaceX valuation drops by 2/3 before settling into a steady state, does that not mean that SpaceX is not one of the "largest X companies" but rather was overvalued?
The entire reason for these seasoning periods is to give the market time to determine what the company is actually worth to the market itself. Bypassing those rules to get it in earlier says to me that they don't believe it will settle at a price near its start.
If I IPO my lemonade stand at $1T valuation do I deserve to be in that "largest X companies" list? Or does it only make sense if I can maintain that valuation over time?
Is your assertation that spaceX just valued themselves? If your lemonade stand gets underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, and 18 other large banks then yeah, you belong on that list.
But then you're trying to time the market which goes against the passiveness approach that most people sign up to when they buy these sort of ETFs.
Well if you helped the US gov get elected than probably that lemonade “deserves” the valuation… if not, well, it’s just lemonade…