The president of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Carlos San Basilio, has called for "prudence", especially among small savers, when allocating their money to companies linked to artificial intelligence (AI), given a context of very high valuations reminiscent of previous bubble episodes, such as the one experienced with dot-com companies.
During his speech at the Economy, Commerce and Digital Transformation Commission of the Congress of Deputies, he asked retail investors to carefully analyze the characteristics of investments that they find attractive and "to distrust anything that is too good to be true".
San Basilio warned of "a potential risk" derived from the combination of very high valuations in technology firms, situated "at levels that can be reminiscent of previous bubbles in the artificial intelligence environment".
However, he also highlighted "some differential elements" compared to other past episodes, as a good portion of artificial intelligence companies "are already generating considerable revenue", although this is supported by "very high levels of debt".
CHANGE IN TREND IN IPOS
The head of the stock market supervisor pointed out that "a certain change in trend" could be occurring, as companies perceive a reduction in the demands and burdens associated with listing, in addition to a greater utilization of the advantages of being in the market to carry out capital increases.
In this regard, San Basilio quantified the volume of capital increases carried out by about twelve Spanish listed companies during the first half of the year at 11 billion euros.
Even so, he recalled that the CNMV must continue to promote IPOs because "the more companies a market has, the more powerful it will be", and stressed the need to continue seeking formulas to strengthen the liquidity of securities with less international presence.
So far this year, two companies (Arteche and TSK) have debuted on the Stock Exchange and five others have joined the growth markets of Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME). At the close of 2025, three new IPOs (HBX, Cirsa, and Izertis), eight takeover bids, and six delistings were registered.
On the other hand, San Basilio pointed out that guidelines in the fixed income market are being modified: "Large Spanish companies are bringing issuance programs from other countries to Spain, which we think is good news, among other things because it means that Spanish companies have a better option than they had until now issuing abroad."