AI giant Anthropic (ANT), the developer behind Claude, is set for its Nasdaq listing with shares expected to start publicly trading on Nov. 19. This IPO will give investors a glimpse and a potential stake into one of the fastest-growing companies in the field of AI.
The sale would be substantial, with 825 million shares sold at $70 to $78 a share, which means the fully diluted share value will be around $1.4 trillion when it hits the market.
More Top Stocks Daily: Go behind Wall Street’s hottest headlines with Barchart’s Active Investor newsletter.
The headline number is not only a part of the story there.
Anthropic's revenue has surged, its latest models have withstood systems from the big boys, and seven more technology companies have taken part in another private placement valued at $26 billion.
However, the company is also committing itself to massive computing expenses that may exceed today's requirements one day. I would rather believe that the first week is more about the commercial momentum that Anthropic has with investors who are ready, willing, and able to pay a lot in advance for future AI profits, than it would be to believe that great demand at the outset translates to a catch offering three to five years later.
November 19 Puts Anthropic's Massive Valuation to the Test
ANT's valuation story is very intriguing.
In May, Anthropic was valued at $965 billion; the IPO valuation suggests a value upwards of $1.4 trillion on a fully diluted basis. That would imply a 45% increase; however, the figures are based on different sharing of the number of shares. The stock's initial valuation has moved up because it is expected that the share price will increase due to the adoption of Claude as well as growing revenues, not because it was bought and sold at a higher price.
The company's fully diluted value of $78 is $1.4 trillion, which is about 17x the company's run-rate revenue of $81 billion, meaning investors are required to consider further business expansion and margin improvements going forward.
With the current filing, the company's equity offering could be worth $64.4 billion at $70 to $78 per share, or 825 million shares. Tech giants Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), Broadcom (AVGO), Micron (MU), Microsoft (MSFT) and TSMC (TSM) will each be buying $26 billion worth of stock at the IPO price. Bankers were eyeing a higher offer price for the bank in a possible further lift of its valuation, in a report published on Nov. 11 in the Financial Times.
Revenue Is Booming, but Infrastructure Commitments Loom
Anthropic growth is staggering. Anthropic brought in $16.96 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 1,127% from a year earlier.
Profits are where it gets trickier. Adjusted operating income hit $2.46 billion, a big swing from an adjusted loss of $1.28 billion a year ago. But the reported operating result was a $567 million loss. The gap comes from about $5 billion of short-term compute costs and $2 billion of non-cash charges tied to donations. Investors should keep both versions in mind, because they tell different stories.
Cash is coming in, but it’s going out faster. Operating cash flow was positive $6.57 billion over the first nine months of 2026, a turnaround from a $2.02 billion outflow in the same stretch last year. Still, investing activities used up $36.55 billion.
The bigger question mark is the bills. The latest filing lists roughly $900.9 billion in compute and infrastructure commitments, including $70.7 billion due in the next 12 months. Much of Anthropic’s customer revenue depends on usage rather than long-term contracts, so if demand cools, sales could fall short of the capacity payments the company has agreed to make.
Anthropic isn’t a one-product story. Claude Code helps developers write and debug software, while Claude Cowork handles multistep office tasks across files and apps. The newly released Fable 5.2 model scored 69.9% on Anthropic’s own FrontierSWE v2 coding benchmark, versus 65.5% for GPT-6 Astra.
CEO Dario Amodei has said the mission is to help humankind “chart a safe course through this technological evolution.” Whatever you make of that line, the product lineup points to a company chasing customers well beyond chatbot users.
Wall Street Sees a Wide Range of Outcomes
On Wall Street, the tone is generally positive, though the bears are especially harsh. On the bullish side, the Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley underwriting team looks so impressed with demand, they're looking to float the IPO at a price tag higher than $78 per share.
However, not everybody's a believer. The aforementioned liabilities would make it the “most ridiculous IPO of 2026,” said the research firm New Constructs. The research firm cited the risk stemming from Anthropic's $895 billion in long-term compute commitments and how those might take a considerable toll on its customer base, which notably has no long-term commitments of their own. New Constructs took its critique one step further and said, “We don’t think Anthropic has a viable business.”
Michael Burry isn't buying it either. In a Substack post last month, Burry wrote that Anthropic is not just priced for optimism. In his words, it is “betting its entire existence on that optimism.” He also pointed straight at the $895.4 billion in compute commitments listed in the prospectus. That number dwarfs even the most bullish revenue projections.
Burry also flagged the “take-or-pay” contracts with hyperscalers. Those deals mean Anthropic could end up paying for compute it does not even need, which would crush margins and hurt its edge against rivals. He said he has “no plans to pursue shares of Anthropic” and does not expect to be a shareholder anytime soon. It is a sobering counterweight to the analyst cheerleading.
I see it as a stern counterweight to the analysts' euphorics. Burry is potentially early. He might be wrong. But his cautionary note is a reminder that this isn't a done deal when it comes to this IPO. Who is right will be determined on Nov. 19.
On the date of publication, Nauman Khan did not directly have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
More news from Barchart
Wall Street Remains Overwhelmingly Bullish on Nvidia Stock as Jensen Huang Resigns, But That Could Change Quickly History Shows the QQQ ETF Could Plunge 50%-70%, But Modern Investors Have New Tools to Protect Themselves and Still Profit Dear Future Anthropic Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for November 19 Jensen Huang Just Resigned From Nvidia. Your Investment Could Still Lose Another 22%.