Mailbag, incl: Housing security or financial security? July 12, 2026

A listener asks whether ETF holders are being "scammed" into buying SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic at peak valuations, thanks to a new NASDAQ rule that lets megacap IPOs join the index after just 15 trading days instead of the usual 12 months. The hosts push back on the scam framing, but they don't dismiss the concern. Instead, they walk through what passive investing actually requires, why the rule change might not matter as much as it feels, and who is really benefiting from the new speed-to-index policy.

The forced-buyer problem is the feature, not the bug

Andrew Ram Page starts by stating the obvious: if you hold a market-weighted ETF, you are absolutely being forced to buy SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic the moment they enter the index. But that is what you signed up for. "The point is not to pick stocks. The point is just to throw your lot in with the biggest." Passive investing requires you to hold things you might not like — banks, for example — and the strategy only works if you accept that. You cannot have the low-cost, hands-off approach and then object to specific holdings. That said, Ram Page adds a caveat: just because passive investing has worked historically does not guarantee it will work in the future. "I wouldn't be surprised if you did terribly out of it, honestly."

The 15-day rule: scam, self-interest, or sensible?