Nasdaq-100 Inclusion, Lock-Up Risk, and the Real Math Behind AI Stock Momentum

By the middle of 2026, the AI trade had stopped being a contrarian bet and become the consensus. Nvidia posted full-year revenue north of $215 billion, up roughly 65% year over year, and is preparing to roll out its next-generation Rubin platform in the back half of the year. SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history and is set to join the Nasdaq-100 on July 7, a mechanical event that forces more than $800 billion in passive index fund assets to buy the stock regardless of valuation. Palantir, CoreWeave, Oracle, and a long list of AI infrastructure names have ridden the same wave. If you already understand what a forward P/E ratio is, what passive fund flows do to a stock on inclusion day, and why a lock-up expiration matters, the rest of this article is for you. If those terms are unfamiliar, this is not the place to start; a broader introduction to AI and investing will serve you better first.

The interesting problem in 2026 is not identifying that AI stocks have run hard. Everyone already knows that. The interesting problem is separating the names where the fundamentals are catching up to the price from the names where the price is running purely on narrative and forced buying. Nasdaq-100 inclusion is the clearest example of the latter mechanism worth understanding in detail, because it is frequently misread as a signal of quality when it is really just a plumbing event. When a stock is added to a major index, funds that track that index are contractually or structurally required to buy it, not because they have made an independent judgment about the company’s prospects, but because their mandate requires them to hold whatever is in the index. SpaceX’s inclusion is a textbook case: the $800 billion figure being cited is not new capital deciding SpaceX is undervalued, it is mechanical, rules-based buying that will occur regardless of where the stock is trading that week. This kind of inflow can create a real, sustained price floor in the short term, but it says nothing about long-term fundamentals, and it can mask underlying risk for investors who mistake the buying pressure for validation.

That risk becomes concrete when you look at what typically happens after the inclusion-driven buying is absorbed. SpaceX’s own lock-up period, the contractual window preventing early investors and insiders from selling their shares, begins expiring in August 2026, just weeks after the Nasdaq-100 inclusion event. This is a pattern worth internalizing for any high-profile IPO: the stock often sees a wave of index-driven and momentum-driven buying in the weeks immediately following listing or inclusion, followed by a supply shock when insiders who have been unable to sell finally get the opportunity to do so. Whether that supply shock overwhelms ongoing demand depends on factors that are genuinely hard to model in advance, including how much of the insider base actually chooses to sell immediately versus staged over time, and whether the AI infrastructure narrative driving the stock remains intact. An investor who bought purely on the inclusion catalyst without accounting for the subsequent lock-up expiration is making a bet on timing that has nothing to do with the underlying business.

The more durable question, and the one that separates a sound thesis from a speculative one, is whether AI infrastructure spending is being matched by AI infrastructure revenue at a pace that justifies current multiples. Nvidia’s numbers are the strongest evidence in favor of the bull case: revenue growth in the mid-60s percent range, a genuine monopoly-like position in the GPU training market, and a credible next-generation product roadmap already announced rather than merely promised. That is a fundamentally different risk profile than a company whose valuation rests primarily on an AI narrative without matching revenue, of which there is no shortage in the current market. The distinction matters because the tech sell-off in late June 2026 was a reminder that even genuine AI bulls have started pricing in bubble risk, and a broad rotation out of speculative AI names can happen even while the strongest fundamental names continue to perform.

For anyone building a position in this space, the practical framework worth applying is threefold. First, separate index-mechanical demand from organic demand, and never mistake the former for a fundamental signal; treat inclusion events as a known, time-limited liquidity event rather than a reason to hold long-term. Second, map out lock-up expiration dates for any recent IPO exposure in your portfolio, because these dates are public, predictable, and historically associated with elevated volatility, meaning they are one of the few genuinely knowable risk windows available to retail investors. Third, weight revenue growth and gross margin trends more heavily than narrative strength when comparing AI infrastructure names against each other, since the gap between companies actually monetizing AI compute and those simply benefiting from being mentioned alongside AI has been widening, not narrowing, as 2026 has progressed.

None of this constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell any specific security, and nothing here should be treated as personalized investment advice. Position sizing, risk tolerance, and time horizon are individual to every investor, and AI infrastructure names in particular carry concentration risk given how correlated their price action has become with a small number of shared narratives. Anyone acting on the ideas in this article should do their own diligence against current public filings and disclosures before making a decision.

Sources:

• SpaceX (SPCX) catalysts: Nasdaq-100 inclusion, AI revenue, and lock-up risks, Investing.com, https://ng.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spacex-spcx-catalysts-nasdaq100-inclusion-ai-revenue-and-lockup-risks-93CH-2584677
• Best AI Stocks to Buy Now, Morningstar, https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/best-ai-stocks-buy-now
• Best AI Stocks to Buy in 2026: 10 Top Picks and How to Invest, The Motley Fool, https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/information-technology/ai-stocks/
• Prediction: The Nasdaq’s AI Rally Has More Room to Run, The Motley Fool, https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/05/05/predict-nasdaq-artificial-intelligence-ai-growth/
• Best AI Stocks Of 2026, Forbes Advisor, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/best-ai-stocks/

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. The author is not a licensed financial advisor. Always conduct independent research and consult a qualified professional before making investment decisions.

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