Exploding Secondaries Market Hard to Pin Down, Experts Say

Market in Motion: Private Exits Lag, Secondary Market Expands

As of February 2026, investors are watching a paradox unfold: private companies stay private longer, exits grow scarce, yet a booming secondary market keeps turning. The sprawling landscape is expanding, but industry data show a wide-eyed uncertainty about its true size. This is a classic case of the exploding secondaries market hard to pin down, a phrase you hear echoed by fund managers, traders, and regulators alike.

In the current climate, buyers chase stakes in names they believe in, while sellers seek liquidity without waiting out another IPO cycle. The dynamic has global implications, but the United States remains where the most activity is concentrated and where data transparency lags most behind the size of the market.

What Is Driving the Growth?

The primary forces fueling the secondary surge are patients in the private cap markets and thinner exit channels. Here are the main accelerants driving the market now:

• Longer private lifecycles: Companies delay IPOs and strategic sales, pushing capital back into waiting hands via secondary sales.
• Fewer traditional exits: With fewer late-stage IPOs and M&A exits, investors look for alternative paths to realize returns.
• Investor demand for private exposure: High-net-worth individuals and smaller funds seek diversified access to high-growth names through secondaries.
• Complex deal structures: cocontracts and bespoke terms create opportunities for specialized buyers, even when information is not fully complete.

Industry insiders say the growth is real, but the structure remains murky by design. The same appetite that fuels demand also magnifies risk, since information on pricing and performance can be incomplete or delayed.

How Big Is It, Really?

Estimating the scale of the exploding secondaries market hard to pin down is a central takeaway for 2026. A widely cited source estimates a broad range for 2025, reflecting both growth and uncertainty:

• US direct secondaries trading in 2025: roughly $62.5 billion to $120.9 billion.
• 2024 total secondary volume: around $50 billion.
• Market concentration: the top 20 startups on the private stock marketplace Hiive accounted for approximately 86.4% of secondary trading value in a recent period.

These numbers highlight two things: size is substantial, and the margin of error in estimates is unusually wide for a financial market. The lack of standardized reporting means figures can swing for reasons other than actual liquidity shifts, from changes in deal scope to the way platforms classify activity.

Executives from major banks have begun to formalize their secondary businesses. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and CHARLES SCHWAB have all expanded or launched dedicated units to capture fee income and build pipelines in the secondary space. Yet, the bulk of activity still happens through smaller brokers and boutique outfits that operate with limited disclosure to the public or even to their own investors.

Why So Hard to Pin Down?

The label exploding secondaries market hard to pin down isn’t just a catchy phrase—it reflects structural gaps that complicate price discovery and risk assessment. Here are the core issues:

• Opaque information: Much of secondary trading occurs with shares in private companies, where financials and valuations aren’t reported with the same rigor as public markets.
• Limited disclosure rules: Public reporting requirements don’t apply in the same way to private secondary deals, leaving buyers and sellers with partial data.
• Fragmented market structure: Deals move through a mix of large institutions and tiny brokerages, creating a landscape where a handful of names can dominate headline volume.
• Asymmetric knowledge: Sophisticated buyers often have better access to information than retail investors or smaller funds, reinforcing a laddered market dynamic.

When you mix these factors with high demand for familiar brands and disruptive tech names, you get a market that can move quickly on rumor, momentum, or a single large transaction—yet lack robust price signaling and governance that public markets rely on.

We spoke with traders who describe the space as a two-tier market: a handful of blockbuster deals that shape benchmarks, and a much larger set of smaller trades where price signals are scattershot at best. The result is a system that rewards speed and selective information sharing more than standardized reporting.

Investor Takeaways for 2026

For professional and semi-professional investors, the exploding secondaries market hard to pin down creates both opportunity and risk. Here are the takeaways that matter most right now:

• Access vs. transparency trade-off: High-return opportunities may come with incomplete data and bespoke terms. Investors should weigh liquidity needs against information quality.
• Due diligence is key: When pricing signals aren’t clean, deep underwriting—ownership structure, cap table integrity, and business model resilience—matters more than ever.
• Platform selection matters: Large banks offer scale and stability, while boutique brokers may deliver access to a broader set of smaller deals. Each path carries distinct costs and risk profiles.
• Risk management discipline: Concentration risk is real, given the heavy weight of a small group of names in reported volumes. Diversification and scenario planning should be central to any strategy.

As private markets continue to evolve, the focus for many investors is not just chasing returns but ensuring that the data they rely on remains credible and accessible. The market that is growing so rapidly also demands a higher bar for oversight and governance.

Regulatory and Market Structure Implications

Regulators are paying increasing attention to the secondary ecosystem as private markets soak up more capital. The core questions revolve around disclosure standards, fair pricing, and the potential for conflicts of interest when a handful of platforms control a large slice of liquidity. Policy-makers are weighing whether to extend certain reporting requirements or create new benchmarks that can bring more transparency to private-share trading.

Industry participants caution that overregulation could dampen innovation or push activity toward less regulated channels. The balance will be delicate: enough transparency to protect investors without strangling the very liquidity that the market is providing to venture ecosystems and growth-stage firms.

Voices from the Ground

Industry analysts emphasize that the exploding secondaries market hard to pin down is a defining feature of 2026, not a temporary blip. Here are a few perspectives from the front lines:

— Kara Patel, Head of Private Markets, LANDMARK Capital: We are in a data-poor space; pricing is ambiguous and liquidity is lumpy, which makes every deal a bit of a leap of faith.

— Daniel Ortiz, Senior Analyst, MarketPulse Research: The market is bigger than a year ago, but the quality of information isn’t uniform. That combination creates mispricings that can reverse quickly if a single data point surfaces.

— Elena Rossi, Venture Portfolio Manager, NorthShore Asset Management: The concentration in top names is striking. If a few unicorns flip to public markets, you could see a cascade that changes the price signal for years.

Bottom Line: Where We Stand in 2026

The exploding secondaries market hard to pin down reflects a market in transition: liquidity is available, but the rules of the road are still catching up with the speed of deal flow. For investors, the key is to approach secondary opportunities with a disciplined framework that accounts for data gaps, risk concentration, and the potential for illiquid pockets even within a broad market of significant size.

As policymakers and market participants work to close the transparency gap, the pace of growth in private markets suggests that the secondary ecosystem will stay a central piece of the investment landscape in 2026 and beyond. The challenge remains: can we build a trusted price signal fast enough to turn the exploding secondaries market hard to pin down into a more predictable, accessible engine of liquidity?