Anthropic officially filed for its initial public offering (IPO) yesterday, potentially paving the way for one of the largest stock market listings in history. The filing comes as CEO Dario Amodei continues to warn about the potential risks artificial intelligence poses to humanity.
The company is reportedly targeting a valuation of USD 1.5 trillion to as much as USD 2 trillion.
According to its IPO filing, Anthropic generated USD 16.3 billion in revenues during the first six months of 2026, compared with USD 1.2 billion during the same period a year earlier.
The latest financial figures also reveal:
Valuation: USD 1.5–2 trillion, representing approximately 46–61 times annualized first-half revenues.
Net loss: USD 80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, including USD 72.4 billion in largely non-cash accounting adjustments. The operating loss amounted to approximately USD 693 million.
Debt: USD 6.2 billion in outstanding borrowings as of June 2026, with total reported liabilities of approximately USD 117 billion.
Future commitments: At least USD 518 billion in long-term cloud computing and infrastructure spending obligations.
At the same time, Nvidia announced plans to invest USD 3 billion in Meta, while Meta is reportedly preparing financing arrangements of up to USD 95 billion to support its expanding AI infrastructure.
Markets: wait and see mode ahead of major earnings and Fed decision
Equities: Mainly positve, driven by Tech stocks. Unusual large price swings followed several corporate earnings reports.
Bonds: Government bond yields trading almost unchanged - US 2y yield 4.74%, US 10y yield 5.00%, Japan 10y yield 2.79% - France 10y yield 4.95%
Commodities: Oil prices remain elevated, WTI around USD 101/barrel and Brent around USD 115/barrel;
Precious metals stabilized, gold at USD 4’020/oz, silver below USD 54/ozCurrencies: US dollar stronger - Japanese Yen weaker USDJPY 158 - Swiss franc mixed
Cryptos: mixed - Bitcoin back above USD 80k
Volatility: The VIX index stays above 17 - The window for relatively inexpensive portfolio hedging is still there
My View: The AI industry's race for capital continues, but access to financing is becoming increasingly selective. Recent headlines, including comments from Elon Musk, suggest that smaller neocloud companies are struggling to secure additional financing.
Meanwhile, Anthropic's anticipated valuation of up to USD 2 trillion is, in my view, increasingly disconnected from financial reality. Despite extraordinary revenue growth, the company continues to report operating losses, carries substantial liabilities and faces hundreds of billions of dollars in future infrastructure commitments.
Investors are already pricing in years of exceptional growth, improving margins and enormous future profits. In other words, perfection is priced in long before it has been achieved.
Nevertheless, I expect investors to chase Anthropic shares following its IPO, primarily hoping to realize quick speculative gains. An initial surge would not surprise me, but that would hardly justify the underlying valuation.
What concerns me even more is the growing financial interdependence within the AI ecosystem. Companies are borrowing heavily, investing in one another and committing unprecedented amounts of capital to infrastructure.
The fundamental question remains: Who will ultimately generate sufficient returns to justify these extraordinary investments?
The debt spiral continues to grow. The longer this increasingly fragile structure holds together, the more brutal and rapid the eventual correction could become.
Options Markets — A Warning Signal?
Another development deserves attention: S&P 500 put-option notional trading volume reportedly surged to a record USD 3.3 trillion, approximately 330% above the 2024 daily average.
While elevated volumes do not necessarily signal an imminent crash, they suggest increasing demand for downside protection and potentially greater market uncertainty.
Combined with stretched valuations, rising leverage and increasingly nervous investor reactions, this is another warning signal that much larger market swings could lie ahead.
The coming days could prove decisive. Major technology earnings and the Federal Reserve's decision will test investor confidence and could determine whether the recent sell-off develops into a broader market correction.
The risks have not disappeared. If anything, they continue to build beneath the surface.
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