Retail investors are salivating for SpaceX shares, and market watchers are wondering whether recent trading volatility may have had something to do with the Elon Musk-led company's big public debut tomorrow.

Why it matters: With SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI all expected to hit the market in the next few months, investors are watching for signs that retail money is becoming a finite resource.

State of play: Everyday investors submitted more than $100 billion in purchase orders for SpaceX shares in the company's record-breaking IPO, Bloomberg reported — far more demand than will be met.

• Meanwhile, several assets with a well-known retail base — bitcoin, bitcoin treasury company Strategy, and perhaps most obviously, Tesla — have had a fairly rough June so far.
• Analysts at Vanda Research — which specializes in tracking retail trading activity — noted yesterday that retail was on track for its third straight day of net selling of single stocks, something that hadn't happened since March 2020.

Zoom in: "Our top 2 theories for this are," the Vanda analysts wrote: "(1) AI expenditure growth is peaking (with the shift to cheaper models)."

• "(2) retail investors may be looking to build dry powder ahead of the SpaceX, Anthropic & OpenAI listings."

Yes but: The latter seems like a sensible theory, but it's hard to see clearly in the data.

• Simple regression analysis of S&P 500 stocks with low institutional ownership — a decent proxy for high retail ownership — turns up no evidence that retail-centric stocks fell more sharply over the past week, month to date, or since the June 2 market peak.

What they're saying: "Retail investors seemingly cut their losses amid tech weakness, rather than selling to raise liquidity in anticipation of prospective opportunities," writes JPMorgan analyst Arun Jain, who specializes in analyzing retail activity.

What we're watching: SpaceX may be sucking up everyday traders' attention, but there's little evidence yet that there's not enough cash to go around.

SpaceX this afternoon confirmed it sold 555.56 million shares at $135 each in its IPO, as expected.

• It's $1.77 trillion market cap nearly equals the combined value of the 29 largest U.S. initial public offerings since 2000, adjusted for inflation, which together are worth $1.76 trillion in today's dollars, Axios' Madison Mills and Erin Davis report.

What's next: Shares are set to begin trading tomorrow in what will be a critical test of investor demand ahead of an expected wave of AI IPOs.

🚕 Waymo is launching a new subscription tier for power users for $29.99 per month, starting in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, offering prioritized pickup, free cancellations and credits that build up with each ride. (CNBC)

🤝 Dana, the automotive supplier, has agreed to combine with Eaton's Mobility business in a $5.1 billion deal, forming a company with about $11 billion in sales serving commercial- and light-vehicle markets. (WSJ)

Disney and Pixar's "Toy Story" franchise has driven $16 billion in total revenue for the company over the past 30 years, according to excerpts from an economic study commissioned by the company and provided to Axios.

• 🍿 The report, compiled by impact advisory firm Steward Redqueen, comes ahead of the latest installation of the soon-to-be pentalogy, "Toy Story 5," debuting in theaters June 19, Axios' Sara Fischer writes.

💸 Follow the money: The film is expected to bring in $150 million–$175 million domestically during its opening weekend.

• That would top the roughly $120 million and $110 million brought in for the debuts of "Toy Story 4" (2019) and "Toy Story 3" (2010), respectively.

What we're watching: Sequels that have arrived years, if not decades after their original films premiered have taken the box office by storm as nostalgia continues to fuel box office attendance.

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