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Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho slammed the criteria for winning the Ballon d’Or during a press conference to preview his team’s Sunday afternoon clash against Malaga.

Broad-market index funds in U.S. retirement accounts are poised to increase their holdings in SpaceX at the next rebalancing. That comes despite a 31% decline in July 2026 and insiders recently gaining permission to sell shares, according to a Morningstar report.

When lockup restrictions began lifting on August 6, 2026, 911.5 million SpaceX shares became eligible for sale for the first time.

That wave mechanically expands the company’s float-adjusted market capitalization, the metric major indexes use to size positions.

The next scheduled rebalance is the Nasdaq-100’s September 2026 quarterly rebalance, which TD Securities projects could lift SpaceX’s weight in that index from about 1% to above 3.5%.

FTSE Russell’s next scheduled reconstitution is on December 11, 2026.

How unlocking insider shares forces index funds to buy more SpaceX

SpaceX was added to the Russell 1000 and Nasdaq-100 within weeks of its June initial public offering (IPO), and the December rebalance will decide how much more of it those index funds hold.

The eligible shares that were unlocked represent 143% of the 639 million shares available to public investors shortly after SpaceX’s IPO, Morningstar reported. 

If those shares enter the public float, SpaceX’s float-adjusted market cap would increase 2.43 times with no change in the stock price.

That expansion would push SpaceX into the Russell 1000’s top 100 holdings at roughly 0.20% of the index, alongside CVS Health and Pfizer. 

For context, SpaceX’s $1.4 trillion market cap carried the same 0.08% Russell 1000 weight as Delta Air Lines’ $57 billion valuation, analyzed by Morningstar. The disparity reflected the relatively small number of SpaceX shares available for public trading.

“Index funds will be forced to buy more SpaceX stock just as insiders are selling,” the firm warned in the report. Buying is triggered by float expansion, which is why passive demand can rise in the same quarter the stock falls by 31%.

How SpaceX entered retirement accounts in weeks

SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, raising approximately $75 billion at $135 per share in the largest IPO in Wall Street history. Underwriters held an over-allotment option that could have pushed the total toward $86 billion, but it was not fully exercised.

Within 15 trading days, Nasdaq’s new fast-entry rule placed the stock inside the Nasdaq-100, triggering about $4.3 billion in forced buying from funds tracking the index alone, JPMorgan estimated.

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Owen Lamont, senior vice president at Acadian Asset Management, criticized the compressed timeline before SpaceX listed. “Bad idea. That’s too short for price discovery to occur,” he wrote in a March 2026 analysis.

FTSE Russell added SpaceX to the Russell 1000 during its June 26, 2026, reconstitution. At July 31, 2026, prices, the float expansion could lift SpaceX’s Russell 1000 weight to roughly 0.70% after the rebalance.

SpaceX entered major stock indexes within weeks, forcing retirement funds to buy billions despite critics warning the timeline was too rushed.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Analysts see SpaceX trading well above fair value

Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens initiated SpaceX coverage with a fair value estimate of $63 before the June 12 IPO, lowering it to $62 on June 16, placing the stock among the most overvalued names in the firm’s coverage.

After the second-quarter results on August 5, 2026, Owens reaffirmed the figure and noted that shares were trading at roughly twice his valuation, Morningstar’s earnings analysis indicated.

Second-quarter revenue hit $7.8 billion, up 92% year-over-year, but SpaceX still posted a $541 million net loss, according to the SpaceX Q2 earnings release. 

It lost nearly $5 billion in 2025 on $18.7 billion in revenue, largely from a $6.35 billion operating loss in the AI segment that Starlink’s $4.4 billion in operating profit could not offset, Morningstar S-1 analysis showed.

George Noble, who previously ran the Fidelity Overseas Fund and worked under Peter Lynch, told Business Insider that SpaceX and Tesla represented “two of the best shorts in the market” and pegged fair value for both at roughly $30 per share, implying 79% downside for SpaceX at recent trading levels. 

He flagged the way passive index funds channeled retirement savings into the stock as a core structural concern.

The S&P 500 is not joining the SpaceX buying spree

One major benchmark has stayed on the sidelines. The S&P 500 rejected a fast-track inclusion proposal in June 2026, keeping its one-year seasoning period and profitability requirements in place.

Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist at B. Riley Wealth, told CNBC that S&P’s refusal to bend its rules for SpaceX reinforced the index’s institutional credibility.

It speaks highly of the credibility of S&P Dow Jones Indices to be rules-based and make sure there’s profitability before entrance to the index. Making exceptions because companies are so large and have been private so long yet are still not profitable, didn’t make a great deal of sense

SpaceX cannot enter that index before June 2027, and ongoing losses could push the date further. 

Bloomberg Intelligence data puts direct passive tracking of the S&P 500 at roughly $7.5 trillion in assets. Another $3.4 trillion in actively managed funds use the index as their benchmark, without current SpaceX exposure.

What growing SpaceX exposure means for retirement accounts

Millions of Americans who never bought a share of SpaceX already own it through their 401(k) or IRA index funds.

The Nasdaq-100, Russell 1000, MSCI USA, and Morningstar US Total Market all hold SpaceX and are expected to increase their weightings at December’s rebalance. 

At a 0.14% weighting, Vanguard’s $2.3 trillion Total Stock Market ETF alone held over $3.2 billion in SpaceX as of late June. 

When 911 million newly unlocked insider shares enter the float calculation, those positions grow automatically, none of it flagged on a quarterly statement. 

That means retirement portfolios are mechanically adding to a stock Morningstar values at roughly half its trading price, with ongoing losses and further lockup tranches ahead.

The S&P 500 remains the one major benchmark that excludes SpaceX, and actively managed funds retain discretion over whether to hold it.

Related: Top analyst sees trouble looming for SpaceX stock

In January, Mark Zuckerberg and his top executives gathered at his Hawaii compound for their annual leadership retreat. What they planned there never made it to the public. Until now.

Reuters published a special report on Aug. 26, based on scores of internal documents, recordings, and more than 20 interviews, that lays out what Zuckerberg was actually trying to do and why it fell apart.

Meta Project OT plan to replace employees with AI agents

The initiative was code-named Project OT, short for Organization Transformation. The plan envisioned an “AI native” future for Meta, in which AI would take over much of the work performed by thousands of human employees, with smaller, “talent-dense” groups of human staff overseeing virtual workers, Reuters reported.

Some teams were being evaluated for cuts of as much as 60%. The restructuring was designed in two waves. The first would begin in May. The second would follow in November, targeting a broader set of roles across the company, according to Reuters.

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Meta employed roughly 79,000 people at the time. A 20% reduction, which was among the scenarios being discussed, would have eliminated around 16,000 jobs, according to Barchart.

On the night of May 19, hours before the first wave of layoffs was scheduled to begin, Zuckerberg pulled back. Meta proceeded with roughly 8,000 job cuts, about 10% of its workforce, the following day. The November wave was canceled.

Zuckerberg subsequently told remaining employees he did “not expect other company-wide layoffs this year,” Reuters noted.

Why Meta’s AI replacement plan unraveled

The reversal came as internal data was raising serious questions about whether the technology was working.

Employees were generating far more code using AI tools. Code changes to Meta’s software platforms and infrastructure rose 220% year over year. But changes resulting in new or upgraded features that users could actually see rose just 36%, IBTimes reported.

The productivity gap was only part of the problem. Meta had also introduced tracking software on U.S. employees’ devices, capturing keystrokes and mouse clicks to train AI agents to reproduce human workflows.

The move contributed to what Reuters described as an open revolt among staff, who had become convinced that the company’s AI transformation initiatives were partly aimed at replacing them.

Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth clashed with some employees about how the company was handling the transition. Internally, Meta was simultaneously trying to identify what it called “Irreplaceable Talent,” a designation intended to protect key personnel from cuts, even as it was exploring broad reductions elsewhere, according to The Globe and Mail.

Meta confirmed the existence of Project OT after Reuters presented its findings, describing it as a yearlong project focused on cost-cutting, redesigning team structures, and shifting staff into new priority areas, including producing training data for its AI models.

Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth clashed with some employees about how the company was handling the transition.Benjamin/Getty Images

Zuckerberg’s CEO agent and Meta’s AI strategy

While the company was pulling back from its most aggressive workforce reduction plans, Zuckerberg was building something for himself.

He has been using a personal AI agent, described internally as a “CEO agent,” that allows him to retrieve answers he would typically have to go through multiple layers of staff to get, Euronews reported.

That detail is not incidental. If the CEO’s own AI agent can compress decision chains that previously required layers of staff, the same logic applies everywhere in the organization. Zuckerberg told analysts on a January earnings call that he was already seeing projects that used to require big teams now accomplished by a single talented person, according to Barchart.

Meta’s internally developed AI-native groups have reporting structures with as many as 50 individual contributors per manager. Employee use of AI tools is now factored into performance reviews. The direction of travel is clear, even if the pace has slowed.

What Meta’s AI workforce shift means for employees and investors

For employees, the lesson from Project OT is that the risk of AI displacement at Meta is real and ongoing, even if the most aggressive version of the plan was walked back. The company is still restructuring around the premise that AI can absorb work that humans currently perform.

For investors, the more pressing question is the productivity problem the internal data revealed. Meta has spent aggressively on AI. Code generation is up dramatically. But the products users actually see have not kept pace.

That gap between AI investment and user-facing output is the number that matters most heading into Meta’s next earnings cycle.

The Oakland trial over alleged addictive design targeting children is already weighing on the stock, as TheStreet reported.

A workforce strategy that generated internal unrest and produced mixed productivity results adds another layer of complexity to a company that is simultaneously fighting a major legal battle and trying to remake itself around technology it has not yet fully proven.

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The U.S. labor market seemed to be on upswing after a surge in new employment early this year — but a summer slowdown in hiring and fewer help-wanted ads suggest it won’t get any easier to find a job.

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Located deep inside the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the northwest corner of Lake Superior, Isle Royale is one of the most remote national parks on the U.S. mainland.

Getting there is only possible by seaplane or a ferry from Minnesota or northern Michigan while the park itself is a single rugged island without any roads or cars.

As a result, only 29,091 recreational visitors came to Isle Royale in 2025, compared to the millions who come to popular parks like Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and Yellowstone. Most who make it out to Isle Royale are either hardcore wilderness hikers or scientists research its wolf and moose populations (the isolated nature of the park makes their predator-prey relationship an invaluable study tool for scientists).

Isle Royale National park closes four campsites over wolf threat

With ferry and seaplane companies offering limited trips in a single day, most who come out to Isle Royale end up staying several nights on a campsite or the island’s only hotel, the Rock Harbor Lodge.

Higher rates of wolf activity this year have led to the National Park Service (NPS) shutting down four campsites before the end of the summer season. With extreme weather making the island largely inaccessible during the winter months, Isle Royale closes to visitors between November and April every year.

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“Starting Aug. 28 and continuing until the park closes on Oct. 31, tent and group campsites and hammock use will be prohibited at Three Mile, Daisy Farm, Moskey Basin and Caribou Island,” the NPS said of the decision to close four campsites prematurely. “Tent and hammock camping are not permitted anywhere within these campgrounds. Off-trail camping zones surrounding these campgrounds will also be closed until the end of the season.”

32 remaining campsites spread throughout Isle Royale currently remain open throughout October although the NPS has had to suddenly close down different locations for limited periods three times this year as wolf activity rose.

Isle Royale National Park is home to a unparalleled population of wolves and moose.Shutterstock

“Reports of wolves being interested in tents at these campgrounds”: NPS

“The park continues to receive reports of wolves being interested in tents at these campgrounds, pawing and digging at tents and entering tents to drag packs and sleeping pads away,” the NPS statement reads further.

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Three Mile and Rock Harbor campgrounds have seen the highest rates of wolves coming up to tents and, as a result, the park installed a cage in which campers were required to store their backpacks. The park already requires any food, trash, and items with a strong scent to be kept in storage lockers throughout the stay.

As wolf activity rose, it became easier to close several campsites in the eastern part of the park entirely. Due to Isle Royale’s isolated nature, it has limited rangers and rescue staff to respond to emergencies.

Park Superintendent Denice Swanke also said that the closures are a precautionary measure while for those staying at the lodge or other camping grounds, fall remains “a lovely time to visit the park.”

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Cruising giants Royal Caribbean and Carnival dominate the world of cruises that leave from South Florida and sail around the Caribbean.

Still, it didn’t take long for Margaritaville at Sea to build a smaller but very loyal community of cruisers. This comes four years after the cruise line themed around Jimmy Buffett’s island-vibe restaurant and resort brand launched in 2022.

The cruise line currently has a fleet of two passenger ships, the Margaritaville At Sea Islander and the Margaritaville At Sea Paradise. It sails out of Tampa and Palm Beach, with itineraries that include Key West and Mexico, as well as Caribbean destinations such as Aruba, Curaçao, and the Dominican Republic.

The 3,460-passenger Beachcomber will also join Margaritaville’s fleet as its newest and largest ship with a maiden sailing out of Miami on Jan. 9, 2027.

Margaritaville at Sea will start sailing out of Galveston by October 2027

As part of its efforts to reach sailers from different parts of the country, the cruise line also just announced that it will start sailing out of Galveston on the Gulf Coast of Texas in October 2027.

The new embarkation port was announced together with the Port of Galveston, which confirmed that it signed a contract to add Margaritaville At Sea to the six other cruise lines sailing from the city. The contract is for one year with the option to renew for two additional five-year terms, depending on how things go.

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With mroe than 3.6 million cruise passengers passing through it in 2025, the Port of Galveston is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the U.S. and the ninth-busiest in the world.

The sailings will embark on itineraries stopping in the Caribbean and Central America, although Margaritaville At Sea has not yet confirmed which of the three ships in its fleet will sail out of Galveston.

Specific sailings and the opportunity to book one’s spot will also become available closer to the start date.

The Port of Galveston processed more than 3.6 million cruise passengers last year.Getty

“Trade Texas highways for open water”: Margaritaville At Sea on new Galveston homeport

“Our new Galveston sailings will make it easier than ever to trade Texas highways for open water, island time, and a few Boat Drinks along the way,” the cruise line said in announcing the new embarkation port.

Margaritaville At Sea chief executive Christopher Ivy also called Galveston “an important and growing cruise gateway” that is “a significant step in the continued expansion of our brand.”

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The Margaritaville brand expanded to more than 30 restaurants and 40 resorts and vacation property communities by leaning into Buffett’s original “5 o’clock somewhere” song lyric to create a vibe built around island fun, music, and permission to slow down and enjoy the moment.

The cruise expansion was envisioned as a more budget-friendly option for smaller groups of travelers with a common interest in alternatives to major cruise lines.

Many of the restaurants, bars, and lounge areas on the ships are also a blast for hardcore Buffett music fans, featuring names like the “Cheeseburger in Paradise Burger Bar,” the “Havana Daydreamin’ Sports Bar and Lounge” and the “Bubbles Up Lounge and Champagne Bar.”

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Nvidia (NVDA) just posted another banger earnings report on Aug. 26, blowing past Wall Street’s expectations as sales more than doubled and adjusted profit handily cleared estimates.

Then Raymond James raised the temperature further when the firm’s 5-star analyst Simon Leopold dropped an eye-popping new Nvidia price target, which is comfortably above other major Wall Street forecasts. 

Investors responded with force post earnings, as, per Bloomberg, Nvidia stock jumped 8.7% the following session to $227.9. This added $442 billion in market value, while finishing just below its record close after another punishing choppy stretch.

Moreover, it’s important to note that Leopold’s call lands after Nvidia stock has gained nearly 21% year to date and around 8% over the past three months, according to Seeking Alpha, despite concerns that AI spending, competition, and elevated memory costs might slow the company’s momentum.

Leopold believes Wall Street is still underestimating Nvidia’s massive scale and sees supply, rather than customer demand, as arguably the biggest obstacle ahead.

Nvidia’s $515 target towers over the rest of Wall Street 

According to TheFly, Raymond James analyst Leopold bumped its price target to a Wall Street high of $515 from $352, a massive 46% increase, while reiterating a Strong Buy rating.

Using Nvidia’s latest closing price of $227.98, the target implies 126% upside. More strikingly, it values Nvidia at $12.4 trillion, assuming share count remains broadly unchanged. 

That’s over twice the company’s current $5.49 trillion market capitalization. 

What’s interesting is that Leopold’s call is remarkably aggressive even within an overwhelmingly bullish analyst community.

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Wall Street’s consensus is at $322.95, with forecasting ranging from $180 to $515. Leopold’s target is over 50% higher than the consensus target.

JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and UBS all bumped their targets following the report, but none came remotely close to Raymond James. Even Evercore’s exceptionally high $465 forecast is 10.8% below Leopold’s call.

Here’s a list of major bank analysts’ ratings following the earnings report: 

Raymond James: $515 price target, implying 125.9% upside.

Evercore ISI: $465 price target, implying 104% upside.

Bernstein: $400 price target, implying 75.5% upside.

JPMorgan: $320 price target, implying 40.4% upside.

Citi: $315 price target, implying 38.2% upside.

Morgan Stanley: $300 price target, implying 31.6% upside.Source: MarketScreener.

Clearly, the difference isn’t simply a more generous valuation multiple. Leopold is modeling an earnings and sales trajectory that’s comfortably higher than Wall Street’s current assumptions.

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold raises Nvidia’s price target after blockbuster earnings.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Why Simon Leopold sees $1T in Nvidia revenue

At the core of Leopold’s argument is that for Nvidia, the problem isn’t demand; it’s actually supply. 

Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 sales skyrocketed 106% to $96.2 billion, exceeding Leopold’s $92.3 billion estimate. Moreover, adjusted earnings climbed 120% to $2.22 per share, while data center revenue leapt up 117% to $89 billion, representing 92.5% of total sales.

The outlook was perhaps more consequential. 

Nvidia guided for $108 billion in October-quarter sales, topping Wall Street’s $104.86 billion expectation, and projected 70% revenue growth for fiscal 2028.

Analysts had modeled only 44% to 45%, and management indicated demand might support growth closer to 100%, but memory shortages and other components continue constricting shipments.

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Jensen Huang summarized that shift directly:

“AI has reached its inflection point. It’s doing useful work. Its tokens are productive and profitable. Now, compute is revenue.”

He also talked about the immediate obstacle: “Our entire supply chain is challenged.”

For Leopold, that constraint is linked to deferred sales instead of weakening interest. If Nvidia can continue to secure more memory, packaging, networking equipment, and manufacturing capacity, it will convert the lion’s share of existing demand into sales.

He believes that dynamic may eventually push annual sales toward $1 trillion by January 2029, over 33% above FactSet’s consensus of just under $750 billion.

Vera Rubin strengthens that argument even more. 

The platform entered production with massive orders from every major hyperscaler and AI cloud provider. On top of that, Nvidia expects Rubin to generate nearly 20% of data-center revenue this quarter. Moreover, its Vera server CPU is scaling quick, with orders pointing to a $20 billion run rate and sales expected to more than double in fiscal 2028.

Additionally, Leopold expects non-hyperscaler sales to grow faster than hyperscaler sales, broadening Nvidia’s growth beyond Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) to AI laboratories, enterprises, and specialized clouds.

Nvidia’s $515 target demands near-perfect execution

Raymond James’ $515 target is best described as a bull case, not a price that investors might chase after Nvidia’s post-earnings bump.

Leopold is applying a 22-times multiple to his calendar 2028 earnings estimate, which implies $23.41 in earnings per share. At Nvidia’s current price, the stock trades at around 9.7 times that distant estimate, which makes it attractive if those forecasts prove accurate. However, small changes in either assumption could dramatically alter the valuation. 

If 2028 earnings fall 20% short and investors apply an 18-times multiple, the resulting value drops to around $337, a lot closer to Wall Street’s consensus target.

Several risks could lead to that outcome. 

Nvidia made a whopping $279 billion in supply and capacity commitments in securing scarce components, according to WSJ reporting. 

Those commitments might support growth as demand remains strong but might become burdensome if AI infrastructure spending slows down. Rising memory costs are expected to push gross margin from 75% toward 71% to 72% before a potential recovery next year.

Moreover, it’s important to note that Nvidia is an investor, supplier, and financial backstop for its own ecosystem. Its guarantees include more than $105 billion connected to SB Energy, per Reuters, and an OpenAI data center project, along with $3.5 billion of maximum exposure linked to other AI-cloud leases. 

These arrangements can deepen customer loyalty but also blur the distinction between independent demand and demand backed by Nvidia’s balance sheet.

Other risks include one customer representing a sizable 16% of quarterly sales, growing competition from AMD and hyperscalers’ custom chips, and an October-quarter outlook that includes no data-center sales in China.

Existing shareholders can still reasonably maintain a core position but should avoid allowing the massive price target to justify the excessive concentration. New investors might be better served building exposure gradually, and tracking assumptions behind Leopold’s strong model 

The key markers will be Vera Rubin reaching nearly 20% of near-term data-center sales, fiscal 2028 growth remaining around 70%, gross margins stabilizing over 72%, and supply availability improving and non-hyperscaler growth remaining robust without increasingly aggressive financing.

Related: Jim Cramer resets investors biggest Nvidia fear 

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