How the Surge in Listings Threatens Historic Stock Rally

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0:33President Trump mulls a further escalation of the war in Iran. Plus, the U.S. slaps 25 % tariffs on Brazil, but leaves out beef and coffee. And is the recent surge in stock listings a sign of a market downturn? This bull market is getting a little old in the tooth. Are we getting to the point where there's a little too much exuberance and some point to these IPOs and stock sales as a sign of that. It's Thursday, July 16th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

1:16U.S. officials say President Trump is leaning toward expanding U.S. military operations in Iran after days of briefings on the options from top aides. That could include more airstrikes targeting the fortified tunnel complex at nuclear site Pickaxe Mountain or sending in ground troops to seize Iranian islands near the Strait of Hormuz. Here he was speaking yesterday at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. And we, they want to settle so badly. They don't like what we're doing. And they do want to settle. We'll find out whether or not we settle with them or we just finish it off. Trump has ordered heavy waves of strikes along Iran's southern coastline in recent days after diplomacy failed to crack open the strait, which has been at a virtual standstill.

2:01Iran has ramped up cruise missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels, which have been some of the deadliest for shippers since the early days of the conflict. Military experts say opening the strait would require thousands more troops and months of effort. But some U.S. officials say Trump is reluctant to commit ground forces. Well, as Pete Hegseth continues to revamp the country's military, the defense secretary said the Pentagon will begin screening troops for testosterone deficiency. Hegseth said service members over the age of 30 would be tested as part of their annual health assessments and can then decide if they want to receive testosterone replacement therapy if the treatment is recommended.

2:41In a post on X titled High-T Department of War, Hegseth said the aim was to keep soldiers on the leading edge of lethality. While we invest heavily in our weapons systems, platforms, and gear, our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter. We have a sacred duty to maintain that advantage, which is why we must constantly look for new ways to optimize your performance, your resilience, and your long-term health. Both men and women produce testosterone. It helps men grow hair and muscle and helps support female energy levels and bone strength. Dropping levels with age can lower muscle mass and sexual function, especially in men.

3:23Hegseth didn't say which testosterone levels would require treatment or specify if there would be separate standards for women. The Pentagon declined to comment. More than 100 House Democrats broke ranks to support a measure to cut$3 billion in military financing to Israel. While the amendment failed, with 314 lawmakers voting against it, the vote highlights a growing rift within the party over the war in Gaza. Recent polling also shows more Americans now sympathize with Palestinians over Israel, a stark turnaround from years past. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance has accused elements of the Israeli government of being behind a campaign to shape U.S.

4:03public opinion about the war with Iran and undermine peace negotiations. Speaking on Joe Rogan's podcast, Vance said some in Israel want the war to continue indefinitely and referred to an article suggesting Israel has used some of the money earmarked to drum up support for the war and improve its image abroad to pay American influencers to attack him. People are always going to try to influence the United States of America, whether they're allies of ours or whether they're enemies of ours. But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there's a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing.

4:41And oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways. You know, my response to that is, well, go to hell. I'm going to do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first. A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment.

5:01The U.S. is imposing a 25 percent tariff on certain Brazilian products after a year-long investigation by trade officials into what the U.S. called unfair trade practices. That finding allows Trump to impose duties under Section 301 of the Trade Act. Brazil's government said it rejected the tariffs and that it will go down as a milestone in the history of Brazil-U.S. relations. Brazilian beef and coffee will be excluded from the levies. We're exclusively reporting that the Trump administration is considering requiring some people applying for green cards overseas to post a financial bond of around$100 ,000.

5:38The State Department proposal aims to ensure immigrants can support themselves financially. Applicants or their relatives would receive the money back only after the immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen, a process that takes at least five years. That means the bond would serve as collateral if the green card holder who moved to the country was unable to support themselves. The plan is likely to come under criticism from immigration advocates, as most green card applicants wouldn't be able to afford the bond.

6:09Tech-heavy indexes in South Korea and Japan have been selling off today, tracking tech losses in the U.S. yesterday. Blockbuster results from Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing weren't enough to turn sentiment around before the close in Asia. The world's largest contract chipmaker saw quarterly net profit jump 77 % from a year earlier to just under$22 billion, far exceeding analysts' expectations. Asia's most valuable company also announced plans to expand its chipmaking operations in the U.S. by investing a further$100 billion in its Arizona factory. UnitedHealth also topped expectations with its latest results and substantially raised its earnings projections for the year.

6:50CEO Stephen Helmsley returned to the top job a little more than a year ago, promising major changes after a financial meltdown. And Uber has agreed to acquire Germany's delivery hero in a deal that values the food delivery company at$14.8 billion. The tie-up is expected to strengthen Uber's international footprint, where it has struggled to overcome regulatory hurdles. Coming up, despite the AI jitters, stock markets have been hitting fresh records all year. But is the influx of share sales a sign of a bubble about to burst? That story and more after the break.

7:30Investors have been cheering on the raging bull market now for more than three and a half years, over which time the S &P 500 has more than doubled. But now Journal special writer Gregory Zuckerman writes that a rush for fresh cash by some of the world's largest companies is putting the long bull market at risk. Greg, just recently we've had blockbuster IPOs, equity raises, and U.S. listings by huge foreign companies. What is that signaling? Well, it signals enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is generally good for companies, for investors, for the overall business environment. The question is, are we getting to the point, this bull market is getting a little old in the tooth, are we getting to the point where there's a little too much exuberance and some point to these IPOs and stock sales as a sign of that?

8:19So the numbers are pretty dramatic. U.S. companies are expected to issue a net$500 billion of new equities over the next year. And that compares with a net reduction of a trillion dollars of equities in recent years, mostly from stock buybacks and such. So in other words, instead of reducing the total amount of shares out there, as we've been doing year after year after year, now we're adding to the supply, which just raises concerns for investors. And among those concerns, speculation about an AI bubble. But does the surge in share sales really indicate a market slump, like markets experienced ahead of the dot-com bubble bursting?

8:57You write, maybe not. Agreed. You don't want to get too bearish here. Even the Cassandras say, don't sell everything. But there is reason for caution. The reason for caution is sort of basic supply and demand, as we all learned in Economics 101. one. When there's overwhelming supply, when there's a surge of supply and demand is constant, there could be problems for prices. And in this case, we are seeing surging supplies of stock. So far this year, we've already had about$350 billion of new shares sold to investors. That's more than the full year 2003, 2004, 2005. In late 1999 and early 2000, we did see new stock being offered, sold to investors.

9:41And that's the reason why there's some concern today. The bull market has now run for almost four years. And as companies try to capitalize on that mood, how should investors be thinking about talk that stocks are now overpriced? So as an investor, you never want to time the market. You never want to go all cash or all equities and such. What you want to do is be aware of history. And yes, this bull market is getting a little long in the tooth. We're approaching the four and a half years or so that the average bull market has existed. We've got months to go before we hit that, but we're getting there.

10:18So stocks are expensive. They're not crazy expensive, depending what metric you use. There's no way to look at this market and consider it any kind of bargain. But you also don't want to make any comparisons to the dot-com era when there were companies like pets.com and such that we're not earning anything. Today's leading companies make huge amounts of profits, the NVIDIAs of the world or the alphabets, etc. Yes, you've got SpaceX that isn't profitable and some others, but it's hard to really make any kind of comparison to the 99-2000 bubble. And yet one does worry because things are expensive, the bull market is getting old, and these things don't go on forever.

11:04Journal special writer Gregory Zuckerman. Greg, thanks for this. Of course, great to be here.

11:12And finally, as if flying didn't already come with enough drama and stress, Calci is planning to allow people to potentially hedge against their own travel woes. The Prediction Markets platform is launching contracts for users to forecast the percentage of canceled flights at specific airports within a set timeframe. Kelsey plans to use data from FlightAware to resolve the contracts with the U.S. Department of Transportation as a backup. Journal reporter Alex Osipovich says the contracts could offer travelers a different type of payout. There is potential to use these contracts to protect against the risk that you might get hit with a wave of cancellations.

11:50The way that the contract is structured is that within a particular time frame, if the percentage of flights canceled at a certain airport exceeds a certain threshold, then you will get paid some money. The wrinkle, though, is that you can't hedge against the risk of your specific flight being canceled. That would probably be too small of a market for Calci. You might be able to monitor these markets to see the likelihood of cancellation. So there is kind of an information value in it. You could say, oh, well, I guess I have a flight next week coming out of LAX. Let me go see what the people trading on prediction markets are forecasting in terms of cancellations.

12:30And that could become a metric that we start to use. Kalshi didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, while a spokesperson for FlightAware parent company RTX said it isn't involved in any prediction markets and that no company is or will be authorized to use the data collected through the FlightAware network for this purpose. And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

13:12This podcast is brought to you by ReliQuest. Cybercriminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. ReliaQuest fortifies your business with Agentic Defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliaQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T dot com.