Dont be surprised if SpaceXs shares fizzle following the initial Wall Street hype

What do you do when your brokerage firm notifies you that you can get in on the deal of the century, the initial public offering of Elon Musk’s SpaceX?For me, it was easy: Ignore it.Mind you, the note was enticing.I was offered a “one-day indication of interest,” a window where I could tell the firm I wanted a piece of the AI-satellite-and-rocket conglomerate that aims to colonize Mars.

Then, if I was lucky, I could get stock at the IPO price as opposed to the “pop” that comes after the deal is priced at $135 a share.One problem: I’m a reporter who covers such stocks.I don’t buy individual shares because I can move prices and I don’t want to end up like Andrew Left, the famed short seller who just got convicted of stock manipulation in California.The bigger problem: If this thing is so great, why come to me?OK — I’m not quite the bottom of the barrel when it comes to investors; I am a “qualified investor,” which means I have enough savings to meet certain risk thresholds the SEC imposes on such stock sales.

But if you know those limits, you also know that I didn’t make this year’s who’s who on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley.SpaceX was the largest IPO ever.Musk & Co.

raised $75 billion and the market valued SpaceX at more than $2 trillion.The deal was supposed to be so sought-after by the “smart money,” it was designated as four times “oversubscribed,” Wall Street parlance for more buyers than sellers.And yet I have my doubts about the quality of the oversubscription and how long the pop in the stock will last.

That’s when the irrational exuberance wears off and shares crater, as they so often do with these “hot IPOs.” The PR offensive to drum up interest had been going on for weeks, with lots of touting that everyone wants in on the next new thing.It picked up steam Thursday when the offering price was set to begin trading on Friday.What scares me is that it was also targeting the so-called “dumb money,” aka...