Wall Street's marquee event this fall is expected to be Anthropic's initial public offering. It could raise up to $100 billion and value the artificial-intelligence giant at around $2 trillion, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Those figures would top records set by SpaceX's debut in June.

Investors are still waiting for a peek at the company's inner financial workings, and the company still has key decisions to make.

Anthropic confidentially filed its IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. The next step is making that paperwork public ahead of an investor roadshow and the actual listing.

When will Anthropic go public?

Companies want investors' full attention when pitching their public stock for the first time. A late Labor Day, the timing of the coming Jewish holidays and a Federal Reserve meeting where the central bank might change interest rates could be reasons to wait to launch the offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

Waiting to unveil the IPO paperwork and list its stock until October or later could also allow Anthropic to share preliminary third-quarter financials with prospective investors, some of the people say, which could be advantageous if the company anticipates strong numbers.

It typically takes three or more weeks after sharing financial details with investors for a stock to actually list. Large IPOs typically take place before Thanksgiving to avoid the holiday lull, but there have been exceptions, including Airbnb's December debut in 2020. There are also the midterm elections coming up in early November and the stock-market swings they could bring.

Which banks will land the top roles?

Bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been working with the company and its lawyers to draft its paperwork. Both banks are expected to land top spots on the offering, with one taking the coveted "lead left" role and the other acting as the stabilization agent in charge of opening shares to trade and balancing the stock's movement on the first day of trading.

Both roles come with tens of millions in fees-Goldman and Morgan Stanley earned $100 million each on SpaceX's offering. Neither role has been finalized yet for Anthropic, the people familiar with the matter said.

Anthropic also still needs to present its financials to sell-side analysts at the underwriting banks. The analysts use the presentation to model potential valuations for Anthropic. The models, which some on Wall Street see as lofty, can factor into the ultimate valuation a company and its underwriters aim for in the IPO.

Will it list on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange?

Anthropic also needs to select a listing stock exchange-typically either the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq.

SpaceX chose Nasdaq, a huge win for the Midtown exchange over its downtown rival. A key reason for the selection was a rule-change that allowed SpaceX and other large newly public companies to join the Nasdaq-100 index months sooner than usual.

That allows the companies to be more quickly added to funds that track the Nasdaq-100, such as Invesco's popular QQQ, which can add upward momentum to a stock.