Should You Buy Anthropic's IPO on Day 1?

Anthropic's upcoming initial public offering (IPO) is sure to pique investor interest over the next few weeks. While management has not yet made public the exact date it has in mind, most expect the stock's debut to occur before Thanksgiving. So, investors need to start thinking about whether they want to buy the stock on Day 1, or if they'd be better off to stay patient.

I think there's a clear answer, and it's best to look at a prior IPO to see why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Day 1 hype can be powerful

When a company goes public, its management team sets an initial price for the stock, based on a specific target value for the whole company. However, that's the price that institutions and high-net-worth investors are able to get by buying at the start. For the rest of us, that share price is rarely available on the first day because usually, none of those early buyers are willing to sell at that price. Instead, the stock usually rises a fair bit until a market on both sides can be found, which results in a Day 1 pop. There are normally a few days of strong buying. Then short-term traders look to take their gains, start selling, and the price tumbles.

This pattern has been seen time and time again, most recently with the Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) IPO.

SPCX data by YCharts.

SpaceX went public at $135 per share, and its first trading price of its opening day was $150. It got up to an intraday high of just over $225 in the days that followed, then began an extended tumble that took it to a low of around $108. Then, a well-received earnings report caused the stock to rally. But even now, it's trading in the area of $140 -- below the first price at which the average retail investor could have picked up shares.

I could see this same pattern occurring with Anthropic. There is going to be a lot of hype around the stock. This is likely warranted, as it's the first of two major AI labs that will likely go public in the near future (the other being OpenAI). It's also growing its top line at an incredible pace.

During the first six months of 2026, Anthropic's revenue rose to $16.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion during the first six months of 2025. That's an astounding 1,305% growth rate. Most investors never see a figure like that, let alone from a company the size of Anthropic.

At the same time, Anthropic's losses are just as impressive. During the first six months of 2026, it lost $80.7 billion. That's about 5 times as much as it generated in revenue.

That's a huge imbalance, and it's blatantly obvious why Anthropic needs to go public: It needs greater access to outside funding through the public equity market. This could be a polarizing stock, and there are a lot of questions about Anthropic that need to be answered. As a result, I think investors would be better off investing in other AI stocks (such as Anthropic's computing unit suppliers).

Keithen Drury has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.