upvote
> I'd love is some sort of trade that would eliminate my exposure to SpaceX

You can just short SpaceX of an amount equivalent to its share of your SP500 holdings. You will have to pay borrowing costs though, but on something that liquid it will be very small.

reply
Yeah. For comparison, SpaceX will be maybe half the size of MSFT. MSFT is 7.4% of the SP500 index, so for a $1,000,000 portfolio if you were to short MSFT you'd pay 0.25% on the value of that 7.4%, or $185/year.

So eliminating SpaceX exposure will cost you $100 per million of your SP500 ETF per year, or so.

reply
Shorts have unlimited risk. Buying a put is risk-defined and probably a better strategy.
reply
No, because the unlimited risk of shorting is balanced (hedged) by the unlimited upside of holding the same number of shares via the ETF.
reply
Yeah you're not wrong. I didn't think about it that way because you can't really break something out of an ETF basket, and you also don't control the ETF basket, but if you think those risks are minimal it's probably fine to just compare dollars-to-dollars.

Personally I would still probably go with the long put strategy unless the price difference is exorbitant.

reply
> also don't control the ETF basket

The ETF is this case follows the index, so there's really no surprise.

> I would still probably go with the long put strategy

Just, don't. There is a world of complexity between a simple short, and entering an option contract with non linear pnl.

reply
You cannot however sell only SpaceX shares from your ETF to cover your short's losses. So due to liquidity issues I wouldn't recommend your strategy.
reply
What are you talking about? You don't need to touch anything about your ETF. You just have to short a single name on the side.

Also there is no liquidity issue, we're talking SP500 names here, you'll pay GC, which should be around 25bps as the other comment mentions.

reply
We aren’t talking about penny stocks we are talking about a tech giant. At the scales that any ordinary investor is operating at there will be no liquidity issues with shorting it and if it is in your index fund the short and long positions will directly offset if you size it correctly leading you to have net zero exposure to SpaceX.
reply
It's not just a short, it's a portfolio of X short + X long. It's effectively canceling perfectly.
reply
There's an ETF for everything out there. (There are more ETF's than stocks). There'll be a large market for "S&P500 without SpaceX" et al, so it's seems likely somebody will fill it. It probably will have to use a worse name because of the S&P trademark.

P.S. Here's an example of S&P500 without the magnificent 7 https://www.defianceetfs.com/xmag/

reply
> some sort of trade that would eliminate my exposure to SpaceX

I think it's less complicated than you'd think.. just buy LEAPS puts proportional to your exposure.

reply
LEAPS are very expensive.
reply
Because they're long-term, yes. It'll really come down to how much you're willing to pay for monthly Elon-shenanigans-insurance.

I'm very interested in seeing how the market prices these options after the IPO.

reply
One annoying thing is that those "non-standard" ETF variants have much higher management costs than basic S&P500 / All World ETFs.
reply
Dimension funds aren’t bad
reply
Stock markets are ruled by hype and fomo. Good corporate governance has little to do with returns, unfortunately.
reply
Short term gains are hype and fomo, but if you're holding index funds long like I am, then returns have a lot more to do with performance. And given the lack of hype around ESG, it seems like an exceptional time to buy in to it.
reply
That's also the kind of thing that pension funds should be investing in. They shouldn't invest in hypes as they're by definition in for the long haul and eventually hypes always blow.

Sure you can make a lot of money but only if you know when to get out before the crash. And that's something that doesn't gel well with long term investment.

reply
Bro the index is about riding the hype and fomo and when the phenomenon progressively loses track it gets less and less quota
reply
I don't understand the lingo in your comment but my best possible guess is that I disagree vehemently with it.

Long term dollar cost averaging is not about hype and fomo. Overall pricing in equities does vary according to alternative investment routes, which is why I'm diversified into those as well.

Stonks go up. Stonks go down. Averaging over decades, ownership is about owning a share of productive output of a large portion of our entire economy, an amazing restructuring of social relations that presents an amazing opportunity for the common person, unseen throughout the history of humanity.

reply