Why Retail Can't Touch Private Markets

SpaceX - Buyer Beware

The average investor was excluded from the explosive upside when SpaceX was a private company. That upside was reaped by “accredited” investors The average investor is largely excluded from the IPO allotment - a few crumbs were thrown. Now, the average investor is faced with investing at $170. Academic studies show that the long-term returns of IPOs in excess of reasonable benchmarks like the S&P are modest - or non-existent.

Why Retail Can't Touch Private Markets

In this episode of Through the Noise, Cam Harvey unpacks one of finance's most consequential and least understood rules: who counts as a "qualified investor." In the US, the label has nothing to do with knowledge or credentials. It comes down to wealth. Cam traces the rule to the 1929 crash and the Securities Act of 1933, explains why its costly disclosure regime made sense then, and argues that it now locks ordinary people out of the highest-return investments, from SpaceX to OpenAI to Anthropic. With information cheaper and more abundant than ever, he makes the case for a lighter, intermediate tier of disclosure that would let far more investors participate early, diversify properly, and share in the companies shaping the future.

Who Really Wins in the SpaceX IPO?

A $1.75 trillion IPO is about to hit the market, and the mechanics behind it could leave retail investors holding the bag. In this episode of Through the Noise, Cam Harvey breaks down how SpaceX's Nasdaq debut triggers a wave of forced index-fund rebalancing, and why recently waived listing rules amplify the distortion. With only 4% of shares trading freely, a little-known Nasdaq provision counts SpaceX at three times that weight, pushing demand and the price artificially higher. Drawing on his research into the unintended consequences of rebalancing, Cam explains why the spike is only temporary, how the correction unfolds, and the asymmetric information gap that leaves everyday investors dangerously exposed. If you are tempted to buy into the hype, understand the mechanics first.

The SpaceX IPO Trap for Retail Investors

In this episode of Through the Noise, Cam Harvey unpacks his newly published Financial Analysts Journal paper, "Fundamental Growth," and applies its lessons to the most anticipated IPO of the year: SpaceX. Cam explains why traditional value and growth indices misclassify stocks, leaving investors exposed to expensive, low-growth names. He then turns to the mechanics of the SpaceX offering, a $1.75 trillion market cap with only 4 percent float, and reveals how accelerated inclusion rules at Nasdaq, S&P, and Russell will force passive funds to chase a tiny pool of shares. The result is a predictable price surge that benefits insiders while leaving retail investors holding the bag. A timely, analytic-driven look at the structural forces shaping modern markets.

What’s Going on with World Liberty Financial

In this episode of Through the Noise, Cam Harvey returns to dive deeper into the rapidly expanding stablecoin landscape. Building on the previous discussion of Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC), Cam unpacks USD1 - the World Liberty Financial stablecoin connected to the Trump family. He explores why nearly every major financial institution is launching a stablecoin, the critical distinction between centralized and decentralized tokens, and the long history of family conflicts of interest in politics from Billy Carter to Hunter Biden. The conversation then turns to the Justin Sun lawsuit involving 800 million locked WLF governance tokens, the surprising 60% Trump-family voting control, and the 75% revenue split flowing to a related entity.