The Weighing Machine in Zero Gravity
September 30 2026
Michael Keenan
Michael Keenan
Partner | Chief Investment Officer
With us since 2022
Michael Keenan is the Chief Investment Officer of 1642 Capital.
Michael is an experienced investment professional with more than 25 years in institutional fund management. Prior to joining 1642 Capital, he spent over 20 years with Bimcor Inc., the pension investment subsidiary of the Bell Canada group of companies, including seven years as Chief Investment Officer. He is a past Chair of the Pension Investment Association of Canada and sits as an independent advisor on several investment committees for pension and trust organizations. A CFA charterholder, Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts & Science (Economics) from McMaster University and an M.A. (Economics) from Western University. He believes that independence, discipline and humility are key ingredients for long-term investment success.
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To infinity and beyond.
Buzz Lightyear
While we are only halfway through the year, I am willing to bet that the defining market event for 2026 will prove to be the IPO of SpaceX. It’s an inspiring company which has achieved a series of major milestones in aerospace engineering, catalyzed the emergence of a space economy and brought “rapid, unscheduled disassembly” squarely into the modern meme lexicon.
True to the larger-than-life profile of the company and its founder, the IPO did not disappoint. It targeted a capital raise two to three times greater than had ever been tried before, it modestly ballparked it’s total addressable market (or “TAM”)at the size of U.S. GDP, major index providers changed their rules to fast-track entry, and the underwriters price-talked the market to a valuation which made it one of the ten most valuable companies in the world on the open. And with a tightly held float and strong demand, it traded up 50% in the first week. It was a smashing success, easily reaching Wall Street`s Karman line.
What does the IPO tell us about the current state of the equity market.
We can start by asking who are the buyers? In the case of SpaceX, I suspect there is a special class of buyers we can call the “believers”. These are the investors who get behind the founder, the dream, the onward march of humanity, or whatever it is the company represents to them. The investment has everything to do with the ineffable and nothing to do with the financial. They will be true through thick and thin and hold for the long-term. Capitalism needs believers; they put money behind the unknown to make it happen. More power to them. Most businesses do not attract believers. Think of the next restaurant concept, the next power producer, or the next fintech to go public. While the founders may have had a vision and pursued it doggedly, everyone else will just want to see the numbers.
Beyond the believers lies the broader investor class, which can be usefully understood along a spectrum of time horizon: traders at one end, Warren Buffett at the other, and everyone else somewhere in between. Where an investor sits reflects a mix of business model, temperament, and philosophy, ultimately expressed through holding period and tolerance for drawdown. The market has many names for the extremes—fast money versus real money, speculators versus owners, renters versus buyers, and in Benjamin Graham’s immortal formulation, the voting machine versus the weighing machine.
The voting machine is the force of market momentum. It cares most about things like narrative, sentiment, and flows. It has no time horizon that can be meaningfully disentangled from the price direction and is as willing to short a stock as to buy it. The weighing machine is the force of market gravity. It cares most about things like cash flow, moat and competitive advantage. It tries to distinguish the good investments from the good companies and to figure out the valuation at which they converge. The market cycle is the ebb and flow of the two forces, and market efficiency depends on each having its day.
The very success of the SpaceX IPO is indicative of a market where the voting machine remains firmly in the driver’s seat. The large and nebulous TAM, the uncertain future payoff, and the immense capital required to get there seem not so much an obstacle to overcome in the current market as its animating force. Investment processes which have been able to surf on the momentum (be it passively or by design) have been rewarded, while those which have tried to swim in another direction have been left behind.
The unfolding of the A.I. boom with its vast potential for transformational impact has been breathtaking to observe. For now, the weighing machine appears to be floating in zero gravity. It will make re-entry at some point, because it must, although the how and when are unknowable. It could happen abruptly or slowly, from a catalytic event, a macro shock, or just from the gradual narrowing of uncertainty which accompanies the passage of time. But the scales will come out eventually and only then we will find out how much this market weighs.
Michael Keenan, Chief Investment Officer, 1642 Capital. September 2026
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