Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +4.06%) went public on June 12. It was the largest IPO (initial public offering) in history by two metrics: The company raised a record $75 billion, and its market value was a record $1.7 trillion at the IPO price of $135 per share.

As of June 30, SpaceX trades at $170 per share, about 26% above its IPO price and 16% below its post-IPO peak. But Wall Street thinks the stock is undervalued. Among 11 analysts following the company, SpaceX has a median target price is $227 per share, implying 33% upside from its current price.

If the Wall Street consensus is correct, $10,000 invested in SpaceX today would be worth about $13,300 by July 2027. But history says the stock could plunge in the coming months. Here's what investors should know.

Image source: Getty Images.

SpaceX values its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion SpaceX is best known for its reusable rockets and satellite-based broadband, but the company actually breaks its business into three operating segments: space, connectivity, and artificial intelligence (AI). Those segments are discussed briefly below:

Space: Revenue comes from launch and mission services. SpaceX has a competitive advantage in cost efficiency. Its Falcon 9 rocket lowered the cost to reach orbit by 85% compared to the historical average, and the next-generation Starship will reduce costs by 99%. Connectivity: Revenue comes from satellite-based broadband internet and mobile services. SpaceX operates the world's largest satellite constellation (Starlink) as measured by subscribers and orbital satellites. Artificial Intelligence: Revenue comes from infrastructure and application services. SpaceX subsidiary xAI operates massive data centers that collectively form a supercomputer called Colossus, which itself is the largest AI training cluster in the world. In the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX's revenue increased 15% to $4.7 billion. Connectivity services accounted for 70% of total sales, while the space and AI segments each contributed about 15%. However, SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.3 trillion. That was a much steeper loss than $528 million in the same quarter last year, primarily due to soaring R&D costs in the AI segment.

Going forward, SpaceX is arguably the company best positioned to build and deploy orbital data centers (i.e., space-based data centers) due to vertical integration that spans rockets, satellites, and AI. CEO Elon Musk says orbital data centers are the only logical way to scale AI compute in the long run, as abundant solar energy and cold temperatures could overcome the power and cooling constraints that limit terrestrial data centers.

With that in mind, SpaceX values its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion. That figure includes $370 billion from the space segment and $1.6 trillion from the connectivity segment, but the company attributes the remaining $26.5 trillion to the AI segment.

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SpaceX is twice as expensive as the most richly valued stock in the S&P 500 SpaceX is undoubtedly an interesting company with lofty ambitions, but that doesn't necessarily make it a smart investment. Prospective investors trying to determine whether SpaceX belongs in their portfolios should consider two massive headwinds:

Stocks that go public with large market values have historically performed poorly. Among the 15 largest U.S. IPOs since 2006 (by market value at the IPO price), the average stock fell 50% at some point during the first year. The average stock also finished the first year 33% below its IPO price, according to data from First Trust and Bloomberg. SpaceX's sales totaled $19.3 billion over the last four quarters, and its market value is currently $2.3 trillion. Those numbers bring its price-to-sales (PS) ratio to 114. That is an absurdly expensive valuation that very few companies have ever achieved. For context, Palantir Technologies is currently the most richly valued stock in the S&P 500 at 54 times sales. SpaceX is literally twice as expensive. Meanwhile, SpaceX is also growing much more slowly. Palantir reported revenue growth of 85% in the first quarter, while SpaceX reported revenue growth of 15%.

Here's my honest opinion: Investors should avoid SpaceX right now. Wall Street's median target price may prove accurate, but large IPO stocks have typically crashed during their first year of trading in public markets. That outcome is especially likely with SpaceX given its incredibly expensive valuation.

On June 12, SpaceX (SPCX +4.06%) completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, raising about $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their overallotment option. Less than a month later, the company is about to become something more than just a hot new stock, but also one that millions of people will own indirectly without ever choosing to buy it.

Before the market opens on July 7, the company will join the Nasdaq-100, the index that sits behind the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ +1.70%) and a long list of 401(k) and retirement-plan funds. More than $800 billion is benchmarked to that index, and all of it now has to make room for Elon Musk's rocket company.

Here's what that actually means if you hold a Nasdaq-100 fund.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why some funds will have to buy SpaceX stock An index fund doesn't pick stocks. It holds whatever its index holds, in the same proportions, and leaves the judgment calls to the rulebook. So when the Nasdaq-100 adds SpaceX, every fund tracking it has to buy the stock -- not because a manager decided it was a bargain, but because the index says so.

That forced buying is the whole story here. J.P. Morgan estimates it at about $4.3 billion, and much of it will likely happen after the close on July 6 -- the day before the change takes effect. This means that a fund built to track an index can't wait for a better price.

What makes this unusual is the speed. SpaceX qualifies just 15 trading days after going public -- a fast-track entry under the Nasdaq-100's new rules, which allow certain IPOs to be added after 15 trading days without meeting the usual seasoning requirement. SpaceX would not have qualified under the old rules.

S&P Global, by contrast, has said it won't relax its own rules and will wait at least a year before weighing SpaceX for the S&P 500. And because this is a fast-track addition, no current member is being dropped to make space. The index will simply hold more than 100 names for a while.

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Your slice is smaller than it looks At a valuation of more than $2 trillion, SpaceX is one of the most valuable companies in the country, so you might expect it to enter the index as one of its largest members. It won't.

The Nasdaq-100 uses a modified weighting method that doesn't simply weight stocks based solely on market capitalization. The stock is estimated to enter the Nasdaq-100 Index at a weighting of less than 1%.

So what should a passive holder of any fund tracking the NASDAQ-100 expect? In the near term, a one-time bump in buying around July 6 and 7, and then a small position in SpaceX (indirectly, of course), whether you wanted it or not.

Personally, I wouldn't change a thing in my portfolio because of this. But it's worth knowing that your Nasdaq-100 fund will now hold a piece of a barely public, money-losing company at a wild valuation. This is just part of index investing.

Of course, just because SpaceX stock looks overvalued today doesn't mean it won't pan out to be a good investment over the long haul. But it also doesn't guarantee that it won't be a poor investment. One thing is certain, though: shares have traded extremely volatily since they went public. The stock has traded as high as $225.64 and as low as $147.11. Today, it's trading at $169.44. Investors should expect this volatility to continue. But since it will initially be weighted at less than 1% of the index, its impact on Nasdaq-100 tracking funds should be small.

Everyone knows the Nvidia story. The bigger opportunity may be what's coming next.

John Conca talks about SpaceX (SPCX) and its role in the greater space economy. He says as big a name as SpaceX is, he believes the results will vary as volatility continues to grip the stock.

SpaceX is joining the highly tracked Nasdaq 100 Index next week. It's already part of the Russell 1000 Index.

Less than two weeks after its initial public offering (IPO), Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +4.19%), or SpaceX, went back to the capital markets. This time through debt. On June 22, the company priced its inaugural bond offering of $25 billion -- the largest investment-grade bond sale of the year -- after reportedly receiving $90 billion in orders from institutional buyers. The demand was real. The implications are worth understanding.

What SpaceX actually did SpaceX raised $25 billion through five tranches of senior unsecured notes, with maturities ranging from 2031 to 2056 and interest rates spanning 5.35% to 6.65%, locking in decades of additional debt obligations.

The notes are unsecured obligations that rank equally with all other existing and future unsubordinated debt. Unsecured means bondholders have no specific claim on any SpaceX asset -- no rockets, no satellites, no Starlink infrastructure -- if the company faces financial stress. They stand in line with every other creditor.

The primary use of proceeds will be to repay the $20 billion bridge loan SpaceX took out in March when it absorbed xAI and X. The remainder will go to general corporate purposes, which means Starship development, Starlink expansion, and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why the stock fell On June 22, the day SpaceX announced the bond sale, shares dropped 16.4%.

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CNBC the next day reported the $90 billion in demand. Two things explain that gap between bond demand and stock performance.

First, the bond market priced in risk that the equity market hadn't yet fully acknowledged. The 2036 tranche is priced 1.4 percentage points above U.S. Treasury yields -- roughly 0.4 percentage points wider than the average spread on comparably rated BBB debt. In plain terms, bond investors required a premium to own SpaceX debt over similarly rated companies. That premium is the market's way of saying the SpaceX story carries more execution risk than a typical investment-grade issuer.

Second, the bond sale confirmed something the IPO prospectus had disclosed, but the retail investor frenzy had glossed over: SpaceX needed the money. This company that just raised $86 billion in an IPO and then borrowed $25 billion more within two weeks carries $29 billion in long-term debt before it has built a single revenue-generating AI data center. CFRA analyst Keith Snyder put it directly in an interview with Yahoo! Finance: "They need to invest every dollar as efficiently as possible."

What this means for long-term investors The bond sale itself is not a red flag. It is standard capital structure management -- using long-dated, lower-cost debt to refinance a short-term bridge loan before it matures in September 2027. Companies like Amazon and Microsoft have used the same playbook to fund infrastructure at scale.

The question for SpaceX investors isn't whether the company is able to borrow -- $90 billion in bond orders confirmed it is. The question is whether the AI infrastructure it is building with that borrowed capital will generate the returns needed to justify a stock that, even after its recent sell-off, still trades at more than 100 times trailing revenue. Some analysts have a $250 price target on the stock that closed Monday at $164. Others have a $310 target. The range is wide, which reflects how genuinely uncertain this business model is at its current scale.

What the bond sale clarified for me is the version of SpaceX investors are buying: not a rocket company that became profitable and then expanded into AI, but an AI-infrastructure conglomerate that happens to own the most successful launch business ever built, carrying debt it will repay through 2056.

Here's my take: The debt load and execution uncertainty are real, and anyone treating SpaceX like a sure thing is ignoring what the bond market already priced in. But for investors with a long horizon, the sell-off toward IPO prices may be the entry point worth building a position around -- one layer at a time.

SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) is surging back again after a brief fall from its highs. SPCX stock is up by almost 11 days in the past five trading sessions and is likely set to continue moving higher in the coming days as the broader rally shows no sign of stopping.

In fact, many analysts (retail and the suits) are certain the stock is moving to $3 trillion or higher.

Fundamentally, you don’t want to take this deal. SpaceX is bleeding cash, is too big, and its AI division is behind all its competition… and so on. On the other hand, many believe the stock will retain its premium perpetually. Analysts have been bashing Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) year after year, and it hasn’t made Tesla fans any less enthusiastic about TSLA stock. The same effect could drive SpaceX to $3 trillion. Let’s see what needs to take place in order for that to happen.

SpaceX is less and less space every day If SpaceX only contained Starlink plus the launch division, you’d be looking at a sub-trillion business. Starlink will face competitive pressure from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS). It is only because of xAI’s inclusion that SpaceX is surging.

You should keep in mind that no matter how “bad” Grok or xAI looks on paper, it is still the closest generative AI pure-play the market has. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the second-closest pick, but most of that business is still boring software. On the other hand, SpaceX offers you an all-flashy business under one roof. The only non-flashy business is X/Twitter, which was absorbed alongside xAI.

xAI’s uselessness to the average user is useful for SpaceX The AI division inside SpaceX is far behind OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Several Chinese open-source models trounce Grok with a fraction of the cost. Thus, Grok is severely underutilized relative to its massive computing capacity. And I’d argue this is actually a good thing.

Instead of becoming a money pit, xAI became SpaceX’s largest money-maker right before the IPO.

xAI signed a 300 MW contract with Anthropic at $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, cancellable only with 90 days’ notice. Claude is so heavily used that I do not think Anthropic will cancel this anytime soon. xAI also signed an agreement with Google for $920 million per month from Oct 2026-Jun 2029. This is a shakier deal as Google falls behind on Gemini, but Google needs that compute if it ends up doubling down and spending more to catch up with Anthropic.

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Combined, you are looking at $26 billion a year in high-margin revenue per month.

SpaceX’s neocloud AI is special What’s special here is that most hyperscalers are struggling to build data centers, and it’s taking them years. On the other hand, Elon breezed through Colossus 1 and 2 within months through loopholes and bypassing industrial timelines.

The compute-rental income flows almost dollar-for-dollar to gross profit because the data centers were already built. In fact, SpaceX still has more spare capacity to sell. SpaceX’s filing says “we expect to enter additional similar services contracts” due to the excess capacity.

Will SpaceX get to $3 trillion? xAI won’t see $26 billion as profit, no matter how high the margin is on its own. It lost $6.4 billion last year, and it’s probable that you’re going to see similar or higher core operating losses this year. That leaves it some $20 billion (give or take) in profits. If you stack Starlink, launches, and everything else on top, you’re likely looking at $30 billion a year in profits for all of SpaceX, if we are to be liberal. Both Anthropic and Google contracts need to run as-is for at least a year.

That’s 100x forward earnings, which is very much achievable. Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) set the precedent that even 200x forward earnings is achievable if you can convince Wall Street you’re on the extreme cutting-edge.

Thus, I’d say $3 trillion is more likely than not if this rally continues through 2027. Moreover, if xAI can sell that excess capacity, even $4 trillion won’t be too far-flung, depending on how much compute they can sell.

That said, I do not think Wall Street will perpetually pay triple-digit forward earnings multiples. The rally will end someday, and SpaceX will likely settle at a reasonable low-to-mid double-digit premium in the 2030s. Perhaps even earlier, if the AI bubble bursts.

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Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +4.19%) had no shortage of buyers during its first days on the market. It surged from its first-day open of $150 on June 12 to over $225 on June 16. SpaceX's share price has fallen almost as quickly, back to $153 by the week ending June 26, but it's still one of the most popular stocks by trading volume.

Despite all the excitement, buying SpaceX stock right now is a risky move, and not just because of its staggering valuation.

Image source: Getty Images.

The macro environment is shaky The U.S. annual inflation rate rose to 4.2% in May, its highest level since April 2023. Two-thirds of consumers said they plan to cut back on spending because of rising prices, according to The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Survey. In a separate University of Michigan survey, over half of consumers said high prices were weighing down their personal finances.

As a rocket company, SpaceX might not seem particularly vulnerable to a slowdown in consumer spending. But its only business segment that turns a profit, connectivity, is anchored by Starlink, a satellite internet service that sells to consumers and small businesses. Lower consumer spending could lead to slower subscriber growth and higher cancellations, hurting SpaceX's biggest source of revenue.

Sky-high spending Any dip in revenue would be a serious issue for SpaceX, as it carries significant debt and is spending heavily on Starship, satellite constellations, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Capital expenditures in 2025 totaled $20.7 billion, of which $12.7 billion was allocated to its AI business. Capex in the first quarter of  2026 has already hit $10.1 billion.

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To SpaceX's credit, its revenue has grown significantly over the last three years, including by 33% to $18.7 billion in 2025. But its losses have also been growing, with the space company reporting a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025 and $4.3 billion already in Q1 2026.

SpaceX flagged in its S-1 that it expects capex and operating expenses to increase in the future, and that failure to maintain or increase revenue could keep it from achieving profitability. This is already a company with a stretched valuation, given its $2 trillion market cap. It needs rapid growth to justify that, and any negative news could cause it to plummet.

Should you hold off on buying SpaceX? Between Starlink, the launch business, and AI, SpaceX has three businesses with growth potential. Potential doesn't pay the bills, though, and right now, this is an unprofitable, cash-hungry company recently trading at more than 100 times sales. Insiders also can't sell their shares yet, and the economy is looking fragile.

SpaceX is an interesting investment, but it's not one I'd make today. Instead, consider putting it on your watch list and reviewing the next couple of earnings reports to see how it does, rather than buying today while volatility is high.

Talk of a potential 40% market crash is popping up in financial headlines these days, and it has enough surface logic to be taken seriously.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX +4.07%), best known as SpaceX, just completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in U.S. history, raising $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation. Anthropic has confidentially filed for an IPO targeting $30 billion at a valuation of roughly $965 billion. OpenAI is expected to follow next year. As exciting as all these big-name IPOs might be, they could also trigger a big drawdown, according to financial commentator Mark Hulbert.

Hulbert's analysis draws on academic research by Harvard economist Xavier Gabaix and the University of Chicago's Ralph Koijen, who found that every dollar withdrawn from U.S. equities causes total market cap to shrink by $5. Applied to the roughly $200 billion these three IPOs are expected to raise, that multiplier implies a $1 trillion hit to market value -- and separate GMO research correlating IPO volume with forward returns puts the 12-month decline closer to 40%.

Most data makes a 40% crash scenario look unlikely -- while making a more targeted, painful correction in specific pockets of the market look very real.

Image source: Getty Images.

The real mechanism U.S. money market funds currently hold approximately $8 trillion in assets. Total U.S. equity market capitalization exceeds $50 trillion. The combined raise of all three IPOs represents roughly 0.4% of investable U.S. equity capital. Ed Yardeni, whose 50-year track record as a market strategist commands attention, ran that math explicitly in a client note and concluded that the effect on the overall pool of available investment capital is "manageable" -- in other words, the market is large enough to absorb these offerings without a systemic shock.

What the investment banks underwriting these IPOs (and collecting billions in fees to bring them to market) are correctly recognizing is that the capital is there. What they're understating: The question isn't whether the money exists. It's which money moves, and what it moves out of.

Fund managers getting allocations to new positions don't wire cash from savings; they sell existing positions. And they don't sell randomly. They sell what most closely resembles what they're buying. SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are AI and tech companies, so the capital funding their debuts is coming out of AI and tech portfolios.

You already saw it once this year, when the Nasdaq dropped 4.18% on June 5 -- its worst single day since April 2025 -- in the week before SpaceX priced its IPO. The jobs report got the headlines, but the real driver was hedge funds selling richly valued chip stocks and AI infrastructure companies to make room on their books for SpaceX.

If Anthropic and OpenAI follow within the next 12 months, the same mechanism will run again. Twice. Nvidia (NVDA +1.61%), AMD (AMD +7.28%), and the AI infrastructure businesses that absorbed the June correction, could face another round of selling. And that pricing pressure could fuel doubt in the markets about whether the likes of Alphabet (GOOG +1.08%) and Amazon (AMZN +0.46%) will continue to spend so aggressively on AI infrastructure -- which would justify even more selling.

The S&P 500 won't be adding SpaceX, Anthropic, or OpenAI for at least another year, despite reports that the benchmark index might relax its rules requiring 12 months of trading history as well as positive earnings. However, the Nasdaq did amend its rules in May, allowing megacap IPOs to enter the Nasdaq-100 -- and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ +1.66%) ETF, which tracks it -- within 15 days of listing. SpaceX is projected to land somewhere in the 0.5% to 1% weight range almost immediately.

Passive managers tracking QQQ become forced buyers regardless of their view on the valuation. That's real demand, and it helps the IPO. But index additions displace existing constituents, and the displacement falls hardest on whatever's already overweighted. In QQQ, that's Nvidia, Microsoft (MSFT +1.07%), and Apple (META 0.79%).

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What a 40% scenario looks like Every S&P 500 decline of 40% or more on record -- 1929, 2000, 2008 -- involved leveraged investors being forced to sell assets to cover losses, which pushed prices lower and triggered more forced selling in a cascade. The sell-offs did not come from a crowded IPO calendar. The dot-com comparison is instructive precisely because it runs counter to the 40% crash thesis: Markets peaked before the IPO pipeline began to overflow, not because of it. The valuation problem came first; supply just accelerated a process already in motion.

That's a more specific and more actionable problem than a 40% headline. If you're overweight in Nvidia, AMD, or other AI infrastructure names, the question isn't whether to sell. It's whether your time horizon is long enough to absorb another round of mechanical selling unrelated to the underlying businesses. The rotation pressure is real, but I think it is temporary. The companies printing money on AI compute aren't going away. Know what you own, and decide in advance how much drawdown you can sit through, so you're not making that call in the middle of it.

SpaceX SPCX shares are pushing higher as investors aggressively position their portfolios ahead of the aerospace titan’s highly anticipated inclusion into the Nasdaq-100 index on Jul. 7.

The upcoming milestone is fueling intense market optimization, as institutional traders race to get ahead of massive index-fund buying.

SpaceX stock’s performance this morning reflects an encouraging rebound in what has been a high-stakes, volatile journey since its market debut earlier this month.

SPCX climbed to an all-time high of nearly $226 on Jun. 16, before experiencing significant profit-taking that dragged shares down to a low of about $147.

SPCX stock is extending gains on Tuesday primarily because of its fast-track entry into the Nasdaq- 100 index, scheduled for next Tuesday.

Because passive index-tracking funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including Invesco QQQ Trust, which commands over $800 billion in global assets, are legally required to accurately mirror the benchmark index, they'll be forced to buy SpaceX worth billions of dollars in the weeks ahead.

Wall Street analysts estimate this mechanism will trigger a massive wave of mandatory buying.

Specifically, JPMorgan experts project the Nasdaq-100 inclusion alone will generate roughly $4.3 billion in structural passive inflows, which could drive SPCX much higher in the near-term.

Investors are loading up on SpaceX shares also because Elon Musk’s space infrastructure and AI giant is slated for near-term inclusion in FTSE Russell’s US and global benchmarks, including the Russell 1000 as well.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, this secondary indexing event could unleash an “additional” wave of passive buying.

Because SpaceX’s publicly tradable free float remains relatively tight following its IPO, analysts believe this “multi-billion-dollar” wall of institutional money chasing a limited supply of available shares could create structural buying pressure.

This will likely corner short sellers and orchestrate a breakout in SPCX over the next few weeks.

Despite the post-IPO turbulence that often plagues massive market debuts, the long-term outlook for SPCX shares remains rather bright.

A strong combination of structural index-fund buying and revolutionary commercial expansion positions this aerospace giant for a bullish second half of 2026.

By anchoring its valuation in both physical space exploration and digital connectivity, SpaceX is successfully capturing the imagination of both retail and institutional investors.

The company’s strategic pivot toward consumer mobile telecom via its potential partnership with Charter Communications highlights a management team that refuses to rest on its laurels.

In short, as billions of dollars in passive capital prepare to flood into SPCX over the coming weeks, the stock is gaining a powerful institutional floor and may be warming up for significant further upside through year-end.

Key Takeaways CHTR shares surged 9.4% after reports of talks with SpaceX about a potential mobile partnership.CHTR's Spectrum Mobile growth could gain from satellite-backed coverage in underserved areas.CHTR trades below industry valuation metrics with expected 18.8% earnings growth this year. While SpaceX (SPCX - Free Report) has been hogging the headlines in recent weeks, shares of Charter Communications, Inc. (CHTR - Free Report) soared 9.4% on June 29 after reports suggested the cable and broadband provider has held discussions with SPCX over a potential mobile partnership. The report fueled investor optimism that closer collaboration with SPCX's satellite capabilities could strengthen Charter's wireless ambitions and improve connectivity in underserved areas, complementing its existing broadband network.

Charter has been navigating a landscape where cord-cutting remains persistent as consumers increasingly favor streaming platforms over bundled pay-TV packages. At the same time, operators have relied more heavily on broadband and mobile offerings to offset declines in video subscribers. The industry has also been investing aggressively in network upgrades to defend market share against fiber expansion and fixed wireless access services.

Despite these headwinds, Charter has continued to position itself as more than a cable television provider. Its Spectrum Mobile business has delivered steady customer additions, highlighting growing demand for bundled broadband and wireless services. A partnership involving SpaceX could further enhance Charter's long-term strategy by expanding mobile coverage and potentially enabling satellite-backed connectivity in hard-to-reach locations. Such a move would also reflect the broader convergence of terrestrial broadband, wireless and satellite communications.

Comparison With PeersCHTR currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The rally marked a welcome change for Charter after a challenging month. While it has outperformed the broader Zacks Cable Television industry over the past month, it has risen a 2.5% against a 7.2% fall for the industry. The stock has faced pressure as investors remained cautious about slowing broadband subscriber growth, intense competition from fiber providers and the continued shift away from traditional cable television. CHTR has, however, outdone peers like Comcast Corporation (CMCSA - Free Report) and Naspers Limited (NPSNY - Free Report) , which have declined 3.3% and 1.4%, respectively, over the same period. CMCSA and NPSNY also carry a Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Resilience of CHTRCHTR appears attractively valued relative to its industry. Its forward P/E of 3.11, well below the industry's 5.80, suggests the stock trades at a significant discount. Its PEG ratio of 0.23 versus the industry's 0.57 indicates investors are paying less for each unit of expected earnings growth. Backed by an expected 18.8% earnings growth this year, the valuation implies the market may be underpricing CHTR's growth prospects, provided it delivers on earnings expectations. The company is expected to report its second-quarter 2026 earnings on July 24, before the market opens.

Bottom LineLooking ahead, investors will likely focus on CHTR's ability to sustain broadband growth, expand its mobile subscriber base and improve profitability while managing competitive pressures. Any formal agreement with SpaceX could create new opportunities to differentiate its service offerings and accelerate innovation. Although challenges from cord-cutting and fierce broadband competition are unlikely to disappear, Charter's evolving business model suggests it is increasingly focused on becoming a diversified connectivity provider rather than relying on the shrinking traditional cable TV business. If execution remains strong, the company could be better positioned to capitalize on the next phase of the communications industry's evolution.

© Joe Raedle / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The post-IPO boom phase for those red-hot shares of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX) didn’t seem to last very long, peaking at just north of $200 per share before plunging as low as the low-$150 levels, well below the day-one opening close. Indeed, if you didn’t buy on the first day of trading, patience was rewarded quite quickly. With shares a few dollars above where they were on day one, though, the big question is whether it still makes sense to buy before the stock is added to the Nasdaq 100.

Indeed, that S-1 prospectus was packed with profound innovations, some of which, at least in my humble opinion, are quite ambitious and could take many years longer than excited investors expect. Indeed, orbital data centers aren’t going to happen overnight. And questions linger as to whether the model is practical enough to evolve into a profitable business anytime soon.

SpaceX is full of promise, but the premium bakes in a lot As for asteroid mining, who knows when that will be a thing? In many ways, a big bet on SpaceX shares requires a big leap of faith and utmost confidence in Elon Musk. There’s no shortage of people who’ve been more than willing to pay up in the first week of trading.

As the Nasdaq 100 starts buying while insiders get ready to offload their positions in a few months, investors had better be prepared for extreme levels of volatility in both directions. At this juncture, it’s not hard to imagine that many investors have already piled into the stock with the expectation that the Nasdaq 100 will need to start loading up at market prices.

Add the limited float that’s trading around, and I do think that patience is the best move when it comes to SpaceX. In due time, more shares will be made available, and my guess is that the initial glimmer from that packed S-1 prospectus will begin to fade, as focus shifts from what’s possible to the challenges facing the firm in the present moment.

Will AI CapEx jitters weigh down SpaceX shares? Indeed, AI-related CapEx has not been taken well by the market of late. And as we gain more clarity into the trajectory of the financial situation, I do think that there’s more than enough fuel for a correction to IPO prices of $135 per share. Who knows? Maybe a Fed rate hike or two could be enough for investors to fall out of love with some of the market’s most expensive, growthy tech stocks, including the likes of SpaceX.

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For long-term thinkers who just have to have a piece of SpaceX in year one, I do think that the moment to pounce has a pretty high chance of arising at some point in the second half. Any way you look at it, 104.0 times price-to-sales (P/S) is a ridiculously high price to pay for any stock, including one with unbounded ambitions. My worry is that the market might start souring on SpaceX shares once we learn more about how much CapEx will be in the cards in the years to come.

Indeed, SpaceX is serious about being a combatant in the AI wars. And the price to play is, indeed, steep. AI data centers do not come cheap, and SpaceX is the only firm that’s building on the ground and up in the sky, where the costs could be astronomical (no pun intended).

The bottom line While I do find SpaceX to be a profoundly ambitious company with invaluable, unique assets and a wide moat, I just can’t justify the valuation. Once more shares trade hands and the price of admission cools off a bit, I might give the name a second look. But, for now, I’m in no rush to buy at over $160 per share.

Though I do understand why some would want to initiate a starter position right here, given the FOMO (fear of missing out) and the potential for the firm to enter some sort of growth inflection point if Elon Musk’s ambitious projections do prove realistic.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and SpaceX didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

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Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.18%), more commonly called SpaceX, has taken investors on a roller-coaster ride during its first couple of weeks as a publicly traded company. This likely surprised nobody, since there was so much hype before the IPO on June 12. But what about the coming months? By the end of 2026, SpaceX's stock will have had time to stabilize, but I predict it won't be in a place that bulls love. 

Image source: The Motley Fool.

How big is the market's appetite for risk? When you have a company like SpaceX, which isn't producing any profits, isn't growing super-fast, and is mostly promising investors a share of a big future, how well the stock does relates directly to the market's risk appetite. This can change by the day, and currently, we're in a downturn for risk appetite.

The move to caution may increase as we get closer to November's midterm elections. And growing skepticism about corporate spending on artificial intelligence (AI) could further dampen investors' appetite for risk. SpaceX is partly an AI company as a chunk of its business is xAI, the company behind Grok. SpaceX acquired xAI not long before it went public, and it's raising significant money to build out its AI computing footprint.

Like many of the AI hyperscalers, there hasn't been a meaningful return on investment yet, and it's a lot of spending now to secure the future. However, the difference between SpaceX and some of the hyperscalers is that it doesn't have as strong a base business to generate cash.

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This could be the Achilles' heel of SpaceX's stock. Its current cash cow, Starlink, can't fund all of its parent company's aspirations in AI and space exploration. This may cause the sentiment for the shares to turn negative, sinking their price. But by how much?

Wall Street's current estimates for 2026's revenue are about $37 billion. Expensive stocks trade for 20 times sales. Best-in-class stocks with huge upside and a safe market may trade for 30 to 40 times sales.

If SpaceX traded for 50 times sales, that would price the stock at a market cap of $1.85 trillion, assuming it hits analyst growth projections, and that would be down about 14.5% from Monday's close. That same drop would put the share price at $140, below the stock's opening price of $150 on June 12. I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX shares are far lower than that in six months.

SpaceX NASDAQ: SPCX will bypass traditional public market seasoning requirements to enter the Nasdaq-100 index on July 7. This regulatory shift triggers an estimated $4.3 billion in forced institutional buying just weeks after the initial public offering. Paired with a rumored terrestrial backhaul partnership that positions Starlink Mobile to immediately challenge legacy telecom providers, SpaceX commands a near-term liquidity catalyst capable of temporarily overriding structural valuation headwinds.

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Index Gravity Squeeze: Front-Running the $4.3B Fast-TrackUsually, a newly public enterprise waits months or even years to join major market indexes. Nasdaq recently amended its eligibility framework, allowing mega-cap initial public offerings (IPO) to enter the Nasdaq 100 after just 15 trading days. For SpaceX, a $2.10 trillion aerospace sector giant, this fast-track inclusion fundamentally alters the immediate supply-and-demand dynamics.

When a stock enters a major benchmark, passive funds tracking that index have no choice but to buy. These institutional funds do not evaluate price-to-sales ratios or profitability metrics. Their sole mandate is to replicate the index weight accurately.

SpaceX Today

$164.05 +10.82 (+7.06%)

As of 06/29/2026 04:00 PM Eastern

52-Week Range$147.11▼

$225.64Price Target$212.67

J.P. Morgan modeling indicates that the July 7 reconstitution will require approximately $4.3 billion in mechanical passive inflows from benchmarked funds such as the Invesco QQQ Trust NASDAQ: QQQ. This incoming capital heavily compounds the estimated $3 billion SpaceX already absorbed from a recent fast-track inclusion into the Russell 1000 index.

This immense institutional buying pressure currently meets a structurally constrained supply of shares. Post-IPO lock-up agreements restrict early investors and executives from immediately liquidating their equity.

Approximately 20% of insider shares will become eligible for sale only after the first public earnings release on Aug. 6. The absence of this float severely restricts available liquidity leading into the July index event.

When billions of dollars of indiscriminate capital chase a capped share count, the resulting friction creates a highly predictable pre-inclusion price squeeze. Smart active managers often front-run these events, accumulating shares beforehand and forcing prices higher as the passive index funds scramble to secure their required allocations before the closing bell.

Ground Control to Charter CommunicationsBeyond the immediate mechanics of index arbitrage, a massive shift is occurring in how broadband and mobile data reach global consumers. Executive-level negotiations are reportedly advancing between SpaceX and Charter Communications Inc. NASDAQ: CHTR to route Starlink Mobile traffic through established terrestrial networks.

Understanding the significance of this move requires examining the massive capital expenditures required by traditional telecommunications. Legacy operators spend tens of billions of dollars laying fiber-optic cables and erecting cell towers to maintain their regional monopolies. Starlink Mobile aims to bypass much of this physical infrastructure by beaming connectivity directly from low Earth orbit to consumer devices. Space-to-ground data transmission requires foundational ground-based routing to handle heavy consumer traffic loads efficiently without severe latency.

Securing ground-based backhaul through a partner like Charter Communications allows Starlink to scale operations as a direct-to-consumer wireless provider instantly. SpaceX can challenge terrestrial network monopolies without bearing the prohibitive costs of building physical infrastructure.

This dual approach of dominating the orbital layer while piggybacking on existing terrestrial fiber rapidly accelerates the timeline for market capture against incumbent wireless carriers like Verizon NYSE: VZ and AT&T NYSE: T. The broader space infrastructure sector benefits heavily from these macro tailwinds as satellite broadband capabilities reach pricing and speed parity with legacy fiber networks, unlocking a massive new global subscriber base.

SpaceX Valuation Floats in the ExosphereAggressive physical and technological expansion requires monumental capital, and fixed-income markets are eager to fund it. SpaceX recently settled a five-tranche, $25 billion unsecured senior bond offering, stretching debt maturities out to 2056.

Institutional order books peaked near $90 billion, demonstrating robust willingness to finance heavy space-based capital expenditures. The proceeds explicitly retire a $20 billion bridge loan tied to earlier xAI infrastructure acquisitions, eliminating near-term maturity risk and securing a longer operational runway for massive satellite deployments.

Still, SpaceX’s current stock price reflects immense future expectations rather than current operational efficiency. At around $165 per share, the market capitalization sits at a towering $2.1 trillion. With annual sales of $19.3 billion, SpaceX commands a staggering price-to-sales ratio of 108. Investors are effectively paying roughly $108 for every single dollar of revenue SpaceX currently generates. Earnings data from May 7, prior to the public listing, showed a $1.27-per-share quarterly loss, contributing to an estimated $4.9 billion annual net deficit.

SpaceX (SPCX) Price Chart for Tuesday, June, 30, 2026

Institutional coverage is increasingly highlighting this fundamental disconnect between price action and core business metrics. Analysts at Morningstar explicitly labeled the $2 trillion valuation as stretched, assigning a much lower fair value of $780 billion. Argus Research recently initiated coverage with a cautious Hold rating.

These financial models warn of potential multiple compression once the Aug. 6 lock-up expires and restricted shares flood the open market. Bondholders are also scrutinizing the lack of current profitability, leading to slight weakness in secondary-market trading as credit spreads widen relative to risk-free Treasuries.

Brace for Re-Entry on August Lock-Up ExpirationThe immediate trajectory for SpaceX relies heavily on market mechanics rather than traditional earnings growth or deep value metrics. The $4.3 billion mandatory allocation from index trackers creates an undeniable short-term demand shock. Strategic investors often capitalize on this exact type of market structure, recognizing that forced institutional buying creates price inefficiencies that operate completely disconnected from fundamental valuation models.

Simultaneously, the broader space sector remains highly attractive as direct-to-device satellite communication transitions from a conceptual technology to a commercially viable reality. Strategic partnerships that provide terrestrial backhaul validate the Starlink business model and open up massive new addressable markets previously locked down by regional telecom providers.

Investors looking to navigate this specific environment might consider closely monitoring the daily trading volume leading up to the July 6 closing bell. The mechanics of index inclusion offer a clear, near-term liquidity catalyst for SpaceX, but cautious market participants may prefer to wait for the Aug. 6 lock-up expiration to assess how early insiders handle their newly liquid equity before committing long-term capital to the aerospace leader.

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When Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.18%) opened to the public on June 12, it started trading at $150 per share, closing the day at just under $161.

Because of the price movements throughout that day, however, the returns, and in some cases losses, for anyone who bought shares on June 12 will vary greatly. Still, it's possible to look at a few different scenarios and what those shares may be worth.

Image source: Getty Images.

Investing $5,000 in the SpaceX IPO For the returns for the SpaceX stock price, we'll use the June 26 closing price of $153.23. But first, we'll start with what that $5,000 investment may have bought investors. Since the price traded all over the place on IPO day, we'll look at three potential price points at which shares may have been bought: $150, $160, and $176.

With such high demand for the stock, CNBC reported that investors were having difficulty getting their full orders filled at $150 per share. As one example from that report, one investor using Robinhood Markets requested 1,000 shares but only received 17.

That means, most likely, many investors were paying above $150 and up to $176, with a little more than $176 being the highest the stock price reached on the day. With the stock price closing just under $161, some investors may have bought shares around there, waiting until near the end of the day to see how things played out before making a move.

The early returns Anyone who bought $5,000 worth of shares at $150 per share would have bought roughly 33 shares. With shares trading at $153.23 at the end of Friday's close, that $5,000 investment would be worth $5,107.

Anyone who invested $5,000 and bought at around $161 would have received 31 shares. Those 31 shares were worth $4,750 at Friday's close.

Finally, anyone who bought $5,000 worth of shares at around $176 would get a little more than 28 shares, making that investment now worth roughly $4,351.

Among the scenarios listed above, many investors may be looking at early losses or only slight gains. The good news for anyone who hasn't sold is that those gains or losses are still just on paper. SpaceX hasn't traded for an entire month yet, so its long-term potential is still evolving.

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As a company with capital-intensive operations with bold plans to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in space that is also losing money, investing in SpaceX is about what's possible in the future.

Focusing on the risks SpaceX will face, the rewards it can capture, and the volatility shareholders will need to stomach is more productive for shaping an investment decision than focusing on recent gains or losses.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.18%) went public early this month with a record-setting debut. The company raised $85.7 billion in all and ended its first day of trading at a record market cap of $2.1 trillion, the highest-ever for a company just out of the starting gate. The stock has been volatile since its historic debut and currently trades near the roughly $161 price it commanded at the end of its first day of trading.

Investors have a new reason to be bullish. After the market close on Friday, Nasdaq announced that SpaceX would be added to the Nasdaq-100 beginning on July 7, marking one of the quickest ever additions to the high-profile index. This follows changes to the inclusion criteria, which were updated just last month. The Nasdaq-100 tracks the performance of the roughly 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

News of its inclusion has shareholders wondering anew what the stock could be worth in six months. History offers some compelling clues.

Image source: Getty Images.

A vote of confidence?Being added to the Nasdaq-100 is certainly a momentous development for SpaceX, and some might even see it as a vote of confidence for the company. Its inclusion will increase demand for the stock, as index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the index will buy shares to reflect the index's changing composition.

That said, any increased demand -- and resulting boost to the stock price -- will be short-lived. Once the obligatory purchases are made, investor attention will return to SpaceX's prospects and financial performance. In all likelihood, the stock's volatility will continue for the foreseeable future.

It's all about the BenjaminsTo be clear, SpaceX's future performance will depend on the company's financial performance, which has yet to live up to the hype. In 2025, the company reported revenue of $18.7 billion, up 33% year over year, but posted a net loss of $4.9 billion under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The results are slightly better on an adjusted basis, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $6.6 billion -- so the company has yet to generate a profit.

However, SpaceX has been making progress on that front. The company's artificial intelligence (AI) segment, xAI, has inked several notable deals, signing agreements with Anthropic, Alphabet, and AI start-up Reflection AI, totaling $27.8 billion in annual revenue -- so SpaceX is already on track to surpass last year's performance.

History is the best teacherWhile the company's recent deals and inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 are certainly positive developments, investors are curious to see how SpaceX will fare by the end of the year, and history offers some tantalizing clues.

Truist equity analyst Sam Grelck compiled data from the 30 largest IPOs over the past 15 years. More than half of these newly minted stocks were underwater by the end of the first week. Within six months of the IPO, 17 of 30 stocks were in the red. For context, SpaceX stock has already fallen below its IPO price of $150 and is trading only slightly higher now.

CoreWeave had the best track record of the bunch, up 217% after six months, but was down as much as 65% during the year. Rivian Automotive was the worst-performing stock of the bunch, down 77% in the first six months after falling as much as 88% before the first year came to a close. The full data is illustrated in the chart below.

Image Source: Truist.

It's clear that the range of possible outcomes is vast. If SpaceX follows the example set by CoreWeave, for example, a $10,000 investment could be worth as much as $31,700. However, if it follows the road that Rivian took, that same $10,000 investment could be worth as little as $2,300.

One factor weighing against SpaceX is the stock's pricey valuation. The company currently has a market cap of $2.1 trillion. Using its 2025 revenue, the stock is selling for 112 times sales. Adding the new deals highlighted above to the company's first-quarter 2026 sales of $4.7 billion, SpaceX is on track to generate $38.6 billion in revenue this year, so it's still selling at roughly 54 times forward sales. It has a long way to go before its valuation could be considered reasonable.

For context, Palantir Technologies, which is often bashed for its high valuation, sells at 37 times forward sales, highlighting the growth expectations for SpaceX.

As the above data shows, newly public companies -- particularly high-profile issues -- tend to lose altitude during their first year. While SpaceX could be the exception that proves the rule, I wouldn't bet my hard-earned money on it.

There's been a fair bit of volatility around Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.18%) within just its first few weeks of trading. The stock, also known as just SpaceX, briefly reached astronomical levels that put its valuation higher than Microsoft's, as it approached $3 trillion in market cap. It ended up retreating back to around the level it was at on its first day of trading, as there have already been big swings thus far.

There could be even more volatility ahead, as the Nasdaq has recently loosened rules around which stocks can join the Nasdaq-100. SpaceX could be eligible to join the index after just 15 trading days, and that means it could be part of the index as early as next week.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why this could lead to a surge in SpaceX's stock The Nasdaq-100 rebalances regularly to reflect changing valuations. The index is comprised of the 100 most valuable non-financial stocks on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap. With SpaceX already at $2 trillion and among the most valuable companies in the world, it's a lock to join the index. And now with the Nasdaq making it easier to do so, it's simply a matter of time before it happens.

The day that it joins the index is expected to be July 7. Once that happens, many portfolios will have exposure to SpaceX simply by owning exchange-traded funds that track the Nasdaq-100, including the highly popular Invesco QQQ Trust. This creates forced buying, which can have significant upward pressure on the space stock, pushing it to new heights.

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SpaceX's stock may get a bump up from getting added to the Nasdaq-100, but that doesn't mean the rally is going to last. This is still a fairly expensive stock to own, with tremendous downside risk given that the company isn't profitable and it's spending heavily on artificial intelligence and space. Investors who invest in funds that track the index may also be tempted to sell them in an effort to reduce risk. It's by no means a slam dunk that SpaceX's stock is going to take off next week.

Plus, what's ultimately most important when investing is looking at the big picture, which includes not only a company's growth prospects but also its fundamentals and valuation. SpaceX isn't an attractive buy due to both its lack of profitability and extremely high valuation. It still has a lot to prove, which is why I'd tread carefully with it; taking a wait-and-see approach may be best.

David Jagielski, CPA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends Nasdaq. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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SpaceX Stock Will Join The Nasdaq-100 Index On July 7

This Unlikely Growth Stock Is Breaking Out. It Has Nothing To Do With AI — Yet

Stock Market Week Ahead: Rotating, For Now, Away From The AI Boom Implied volatility for SpaceX (SPCX) options has plummeted alongside the share price, which has fallen sharply from 225 to 155 in just a couple of weeks.  Is the party over? Not necessarily. While sentiment has turned negative, SpaceX stock still has the same extremely limited float that was made public during the initial public offering. The stock won't receive a…

Copyright ©2026 Investor's Business Daily, LLC. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Some of the most talked-about and innovative companies over the past couple of years have been Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.05%) (commonly known as SpaceX), OpenAI, and Anthropic. SpaceX is an aerospace leader, OpenAI has a case for being the world's leading AI company, and Anthropic has become ultra-popular with its Claude AI operating systems.

SpaceX recently completed its initial public offering (IPO), so if you're interested, you can buy shares as you normally would. OpenAI and Anthropic are still private (though markets anticipate their IPOs sooner rather than later), so investing in them isn't as straightforward.

One way to get a piece of all three companies is to buy Cathie Wood's Ark Venture Fund (ARKVX +2.95%), which holds a stake in all three, along with roughly 70 others. It's not the right move for every investor, but it's worth exploring if you're interested in early access to private companies.

Image source: Getty Images.

The Ark Venture Fund is a bit different While exchange-traded funds (ETFs) contain only public companies, the Ark Venture Fund held roughly 70 public and private companies as of late May. Here were its top 10 holdings as of that date:

CompanyPercentage of Ark Venture FundSpaceX11.38%OpenAI8.48%Anthropic6.40%Tenstorrent Holdings4.52%Kalshi3.96%Replit3.49%Ayar Labs3.17%Figure AI2.99%Absci Corp.2.38%Cellares2.34% Source: Ark Invest. Data as of May 31. 

This fund is not an ETF. Ark notes it is "an actively managed closed-end interval fund that seeks long-term growth of capital by investing both private and public equities securities of companies that are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of disruptive innovation." At any given time, this Ark fund is likely to hold considerably more private companies than public ones.

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Interval funds like the Ark Venture Fund don't trade on stock exchanges like the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. Instead, you need an account with one of its partner platforms (such as SoFi or Robinhood) to access it. The minimum initial investment is $500, and although you can buy into the fund at any time, you can only sell your shares during specific quarterly windows when the fund repurchases shares from investors in limited quantities. So you wouldn't necessarily be able to sell all the shares you want to. The fund caps its repurchases at 5% to 25% of its total outstanding shares.

The fund doesn't come cheap This is an actively managed fund, and like most, it has steep fees:

Management fee: 2.75% Service fee: 0.15% Interest payments and other expenses: 0.59% Although the fees add up to 3.49%, the fund is currently offering a reimbursement of 0.59 percentage points, bringing the expense ratio to 2.90%. That's in place indefinitely but can be removed at any time, provided 60 days' written notice is given.

For perspective on how expensive 2.90% is for a fund, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is 0.03%, the Schwab U.S. Dividend ETF is 0.06%, and Ark Invest's Ark Innovation ETF is 0.75% (which I consider expensive). The Ark Venture Fund has far outperformed all three since its inception, which you could use to justify the fee, but that might not always be the case, and it really adds up over time.

If your goal is to get access to specific private companies with as few barriers as possible, the Ark Venture Fund makes sense. If you're doing it specifically for OpenAI and Anthropic, you may be better off waiting until they go public and eventually join an index such as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq-100.

David Bahnsen, Chief Investment Officer at The Bahnsen Group, went on CNBC this morning and did something most guests on financial television will not do when the subject is Elon Musk. He used the word “bubblicious” about a stock he owns.

The stock is SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), which IPO’d on June 12, 2026 and currently carries a market cap of roughly $2.12 trillion. The engine inside it was Starlink, the satellite-broadband division running roughly 9,600 low-earth-orbit satellites, and Musk’s stated ambition is to turn Starlink into a global mobile network competing with terrestrial carriers. Now, though, the real engine is xAI.

Starlink is the part Bahnsen is willing to entertain. The price tag is not. SpaceX trades at roughly 83 times revenue, and Bahnsen’s argument is that even a wildly successful Starlink does not get you there.

The bull case and the Elon factor Bahnsen entertains the dream. On CNBC, he framed the upside as a mix of operational reality and narrative gravity. “Now when you add a space element to it and just the Elon factor, there’s an aspirational component. 120 times revenue. I don’t know. I mean, that sounds to me like a pretty bubblicious story.” The aspirational component is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Investors are paying up for an outcome where Starlink takes meaningful share from terrestrial carriers using satellites that can talk directly to phones, anywhere on the planet, without towers.

After pricing the IPO at $135 and briefly touching above $225, SPCX now trades at $160. The average post-IPO buyer is probably at or below breakeven since most retail investors did not get the chance to hit buy at $135.

The math problem with 83x revenue Even granting the Musk-as-telecom-disruptor thesis, Bahnsen argues that comparable businesses on Earth trade at a fraction of where SpaceX trades. “What would the multiple be on that if it did exist? It would be a teens multiple, not a hundreds multiple. Like we’re just not talking about a business that’s that.”

Verizon (NYSE:VZ | VZ Price Prediction), the telecom analog, trades at a trailing PE of 11x, an EV/EBITDA of about 8x, and a price-to-sales of 1.4x. Its Q1 2026 results, filed with the SEC here, showed adjusted EPS of $1.28 and revenue of $34.44 billion, with fiber broadband connections up 41.9% year over year following the Frontier Communications close.

T-Mobile US (NASDAQ:TMUS), the growthier of the two, trades at a PE of 19x and a price-to-sales of 2.2, despite delivering 962,000 postpaid phone net adds in Q4 and 9.4 million broadband customers.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and SpaceX didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Bahnsen’s framing is that these are the right comps because they have to be. “Verizon is basically a very heavy capex business that will always have a low multiple, but it’s a high dividend and reasonably stable company. SpaceX expanding the Starlink thing, we just accept it’s a very heavy capex business.” Satellites and rockets are arguably more capex-intensive than cell towers and fiber, not less.

You should keep in mind that SpaceX obviously deserves a richer premium than Verizon, no matter what the experts say. Valuing SpaceX by using mature telecom companies as the yardstick leaves out AI, which is where most of its valuation comes from.

Bahnsen’s own position and the lockup clock The wrinkle is that Bahnsen owns SpaceX. His exposure is via a Barons SPV that remains locked up for another year, which means he is making the bear case on valuation while sitting on shares he cannot sell.

He has indicated he will likely sell at lockup expiration unless Starlink starts producing revenue growth that would close the gap between a teens-multiple business and a triple-digit-multiple stock.

Prediction markets seem to share the ambivalence. End-of-July contracts on Polymarket show near-50/50 odds across a $90 to $210 range, which is the prediction-market equivalent of a shrug. The composite sentiment score sits at 59.08, neutral with medium confidence.

If Starlink starts publishing subscriber and ARPU numbers that look like a credible challenger to Verizon and T-Mobile, the 120x revenue print gets easier to defend.

If it does not, Bahnsen’s teens-multiple math becomes the dominant frame, and the lockup expirations across the SpaceX SPV ecosystem start to matter.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and SpaceX didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Cathie Wood has been picking up her trading activity in recent days. The co-founder, CEO, and chief investment officer at Ark Invest capped off a busy week with several purchases for her firm's exchange-traded funds (ETFs) specializing in growth opportunities.

Wood wrapped up the week by buying shares in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +2.13%), Circle Internet Group (CRCL 0.12%), and Palantir (PLTR +2.13%) on Friday. She was adding to existing positions in all three stocks. Let's take a closer look.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. SpaceX After 10 days of trading, no one should be surprised that SpaceX stock is volatile. What is a bit shocking is that shares of the record-setting IPO are basically where they were when they opened at $150 on their very first trade. Two weeks in, SpaceX is trading just 2% above its initial price.

It's a somewhat different story if you got in ahead of the IPO. If you were connected enough to receive shares from a deal underwriter, you paid $135 a share. You have a respectable 14% gain on your position, but even then, it's still a bit disappointing. Unlike SpaceX's actual rockets, this recent market debutante is still waiting to take off.

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Analysts are all over the map on this one. The stock's target prices range from $310 -- more than doubling from here -- to $62, down more than half. The valuations are not for the timid.

With its market cap above $2 trillion against only $19 billion in trailing revenue, you will find a lot of investors unwilling to pay more than 100 times revenue for a stock that is already one of the largest on the planet. There are only six U.S. exchange-listed companies with a larger market cap.

There is a successful business here. SpaceX's Starlink serves vital connectivity in underserved markets. Its flagship launch business continues to lead the way in an industry on the rise in more ways than one. You'll have to wait until next year for positive adjusted earnings and the following year for reported profitability to launch. If it can make the leap from today's fleet of partially reusable rockets to its next-gen Starship that is totally reusable, it can be a game changer in driving costs lower for the industry. You shouldn't dismiss SpaceX's long-term potential, even if it's hard to make much of a valuation argument these days.

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2. Circle Internet Group Another IPO that has gone on a wild round trip to nowhere is Circle Internet Group's stock. It hit the market last June at $69. It's gone as high as $299 and as low as $50, but today the issuer of stablecoin products trades for less than 7% above its frenzied IPO price.

The volatility seems out of line here. Circle offers blockchain solutions for the cryptocurrency market, but its business largely consists of stablecoins, which, true to their name, aim to maintain relatively stable pricing. Its primary product, USD Coin, remains tethered to the $1 price point.

Revenue growth slowed to 20% in its latest quarter, but that's more than respectable, given how many digital currency trading platforms and crypto miners are struggling. Analysts see revenue accelerating next year with a 40% top-line jump in 2027. If it succeeds, Circle will probably stop going in circles.

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115.34

3. Palantir We close with Palantir stock, and it's not the first time Wood has added to the analytics software provider in the past week. Like SpaceX and Circle, Palantir is trading well below its recent high. The stock is 46% below the all-time high it scored almost eight months ago.

Palantir's business continues to accelerate. Revenue soared 65% in this year's first quarter, following a 70% increase in its previous report and a 56% jump for all of 2025. Palantir dabbles in some thorny defense and security operations, but it's made strides in porting its wins with U.S. federal agencies and government contractors into lucrative partnerships with commercial businesses in the private sector.

Palantir has more than $8 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet and no long-term debt other than its current lease obligations. One of the market's most expensive growth stocks a year ago now has a forward earnings multiple in the double digits. Betting against Palantir could be a mistake at this point. Wood is a buyer.

Wall Street has launched coverage of Applied Aerospace & Defense with mostly Buy ratings.

Key Takeaways SpaceX's rapid Nasdaq-100 entry could trigger billions in passive fund inflows. A limited public float may amplify the stock impact of index-related buying. Space and leveraged ETFs offer multiple ways to capitalize on SpaceX momentum. SpaceX (SPCX - Free Report) is poised to become one of the fastest additions ever to the Nasdaq-100 index, triggering a new wave of demand from passive investors less than a month after its blockbuster public market debut. Nasdaq announced after the close on June 26, 2026 that SpaceX qualifies for inclusion in the technology-heavy benchmark.

If all requirements continue to be met, index funds and other investment products tracking the Nasdaq-100 will begin purchasing shares after the market closes on July 6, with the stock officially joining the index before trading opens on July 7, as quoted on CNBC.

The rapid inclusion highlights the impact of Nasdaq's recently introduced fast-track framework for newly public companies. The updated rules allow certain large IPOs to qualify for the Nasdaq-100 after only 15 trading days.

Billions in Passive Assets Could Fuel DemandMore than $800 billion in assets track the Nasdaq-100, including the popular Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ - Free Report) , as mentioned on the same CNBC article. The index is tech-heavy and QQQ is widely viewed as a key gauge of the artificial intelligence-driven market rally. The QQQ ETF currently has an asset base of $481.6 billion.

Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM - Free Report) has about $98.3 billion in assets. Direxion NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Index ETF (QQQE - Free Report) has about $1.36 billion in assets. ProShares Nasdaq-100 Dorsey Wright Momentum ETF (QQQA - Free Report) has about $79.6 million in assets.

Limited Float Could Amplify Buying PressureThe CNBC article went on to note that SpaceX is expected to enter the benchmark with a weighting of less than 1%. Even so, the addition could generate substantial buying activity, thanks to the investor mania to trade space stocks.

Note that SpaceX has already ranked among the market's most actively traded stocks since its June 12 debut. Besides passive funds, active managers that closely track the benchmark could also adjust their holdings.

SpaceX's publicly tradable float – meaning the total number of shares available to everyday investors – remains relatively small compared with its overall market capitalization. This means even a sub-1% index weighting could translate into meaningful share purchases by index-linked investment vehicles and fund issuers.

ETFs in Focus Against this backdrop, investors can keep a close eye on SpaceX-focused ETFs. As of now, pure-play space ETFs like Global X Space Tech ETF (ORBX - Free Report) , Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA - Free Report) , Roundhill Space & Technology ETF (MARS - Free Report) , Defiance Drone and Modern Warfare ETF (JEDI - Free Report) , VistaShares Artificial Intelligence Supercycle ETF (AIS - Free Report) , and Procure Space ETF (UFO - Free Report) are among the available options.

There are leveraged ETF options too. These include 2x leveraged ETFs like Leverage Shares 2x Long SPCX Daily ETF SPCH, Defiance Daily Target 2x Long SPCX ETF SPCU, T-REX 2X Long SpaceX Daily Target ETF (SPAX - Free Report) , Direxion Daily SpaceX Bull 2X ETF LOFF, and Tradr 2X Long SpaceX Daily ETF (SPCM).

Earlier this month, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +1.98%) offered investors one of the biggest investing events of all time: its initial public offering. SpaceX raised $75 billion for the largest IPO on record, and went on to bring in a total of more than $85 billion after underwriters exercised an overallotment option. The IPO was greatly oversubscribed, and the stock jumped nearly 20% in its first day of trading from its $135 IPO price. So it's clear investors were eager to get in on this growth story right away.

Since, SpaceX has given back some of its gains -- but it's still trading higher than its IPO price. In the coming weeks, certain events will unfold, and they could trigger movement in the stock price. The first such happening is right around the corner, on July 7. Should you buy SpaceX before that time? Let's find out.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why investors are buying SpaceX We'll get started by taking a look at why investors have rushed to invest in SpaceX in the first place. SpaceX, as its name suggests, is a leader in rocket launches, with a focus on reusable technology to bring down costs. It's completed a total of 650 orbital launches, 85% using at least one reused booster, and last year the company executed the greatest number of launches compared to rivals. SpaceX's next big goal for this space unit is the launch with payloads to orbit of its reusable rocket, Starship.

This tech and industrial giant has two other units, connectivity and artificial intelligence (AI). So far, the former, called Starlink, has quadrupled subscribers over three years to its satellite-based internet service, and this business is driving revenue. Last year it brought in $11.4 billion on the company's total of $18 billion in revenue.

All of this is exciting, particularly for investors seeking growth. However, the AI business, while promising, may be the area of concern for some investors. This is because it requires significant investment as we can see from last year's figures. The AI unit's capital expenditures reached $12 billion, and that brought the company to a loss.

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Investing in Elon Musk It's important to note that Elon Musk, chief of Tesla, also is the founder and CEO of SpaceX. Musk is known for his innovations and ambitions, and certain investors seek to invest in a particular company because Musk is at the helm. That said, other investors feel quite the opposite and avoid companies led by Musk -- they worry his ambitions are too lofty and won't reach the finish line or generate profitability.

All of this has created a great deal of interest in the SpaceX IPO -- from investors eager to get in on this growth story and from investors who are happy to watch from afar and potentially invest later on.

Now, let's consider what's on the agenda this coming week and whether you should buy the stock ahead of time. SpaceX is about to benefit from a new fast-track arrangement that allows stocks to join the Nasdaq-100 much more quickly than in the past.

What's happening on July 7 The company will be added to the index, which represents the biggest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq, on July 7. According to the new criteria, a stock may be added as of its 15th trading day if it's among the 40 largest Nasdaq companies by market capitalization. SpaceX, with a trillion-dollar market value, clearly makes the cut.

In the past, a company would have to wait three to 14 months for inclusion.

Here's why the addition to the Nasdaq-100 could move SpaceX's stock price. Funds that track the index must buy shares of any new additions so that they may continue to mimic the index's performance. This flurry of buying activity may push SpaceX stock higher on and around the day of its addition. So, if you buy SpaceX a few days earlier, you might quickly benefit from a pop in the stock price.

Does this mean you should buy SpaceX before July 7? Not necessarily. These short-term movements are minimal and won't have an impact on your long-term returns. (It's also important to note that SpaceX does involve a certain level of risk so is best for aggressive investors.) Finally, if you are interested in investing in SpaceX, the best ideas are to buy the stock on a dip or opt for an exchange-traded fund that holds the shares.

SpaceX (SPCX - Free Report) , which made a historic Wall Street debut on June 12, 2026, has just ended its first full week as a public company on a sour note, with shares down about 13%.

The stock is now hovering around the $150 level at which it began trading. This triggered speculation that the SpaceX stock walk on the trajectory of several high-profile listings that eventually fall below their offer prices.

Massive Bond Deal Raises Fresh QuestionsAdding to the debate, SpaceX last week priced a $25 billion bond offering that attracted nearly $90 billion in investor demand, as quoted on Yahoo Finance. While such overwhelming interest typically signals strong confidence, some investors are questioning why a company that recently raised enormous sums through its IPO would need to tap debt markets so quickly for billions more.

Wall Street Debates Bubble RisksThe bearish argument is that the company is garnering as much capital as possible, as long as the winning trend in the space and AI arena is its friend. After all, bubble fears in the AI space are far from over.

Any Bright Factors in the Stock? Ambitious Growth Plans AheadAhead of the IPO, Musk said SpaceX had been cash-flow positive since around 2015 and was entering a major growth phase, per a CNBC article. The company plans to deploy more than 100,000 satellites, expand its communications network, and build artificial intelligence data centers in space.

SpaceX's profitable engine remains its Starlink satellite internet business, although the company has expanded significantly through acquisitions, including Musk's AI venture xAI and social media platform X.

Also, just days after its record-breaking Nasdaq debut, SpaceX announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AI startup Cursor in an all-stock transaction valued at $60 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.

Space-Based Data Centers Gain AttentionBlue Origin founder Jeff Bezos recently told CNBC that space-based data centers are technologically feasible, though commercial deployment may take longer than many investors expect (read: Space ETFs Skyrocket in May: Can the Rally Last?).

Meanwhile, Alphabet is reportedly developing a space-data-center initiative known internally as “Suncatcher,” with test launches expected in 2027. Google is also said to be discussing a rocket launch partnership with SpaceX, according to the WSJ. The satellites will be equipped with Google's custom proprietary AI chips, Tensor Processing Units, to process AI workloads directly in orbit.

Why Investors Are Turning Bullish on SpaceThe economics of the space industry have improved dramatically over the past two decades. Launch costs have dropped roughly 90%, largely due to reusable rocket technology pioneered by SpaceX.

The global space economy reached $613 billion in 2024, according to Space Foundation, as quoted on Saxo. According to McKinsey, the global space economy could expand to $1.8 trillion by 2035 from $630 billion in 2023.

Government spending is also acting as a major catalyst, as countries increasingly treat space infrastructure as strategically important for both defense and commercial purposes.

Solid Hiring in the Space EconomyRecent government data showed that the rate of job growth within the space economy has topped the broader labor market. The space economy is growing globally, at an annual rate of 9%, according to the World Economic Forum, as quoted on CNBC.

Space-sector employment grew by 27% in the decade through 2024, far outdoing total private-sector employment growth at 14%, per the same CNBC article. 

SpaceX Set for Rapid Entry Into Nasdaq-100SpaceX is poised to become one of the fastest additions ever to the Nasdaq-100 index, triggering a new wave of demand from passive investors. If all requirements continue to be met, index funds and other investment products tracking the Nasdaq-100 will begin purchasing shares after the market closes on July 6, with the stock officially joining the index before trading opens on July 7, as quoted on CNBC.

ETFs in Focus As the road ahead is mixed with possibilities and perils for SpaceX, investors can consider Space ETFs instead of the stock itself. The basket approach minimizes the company-specific risks.

As of now, pureplay space ETFs like Global X Space Tech ETF (ORBX - Free Report) , the Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA - Free Report) , Roundhill Space & Technology ETF (MARS - Free Report) , Defiance Drone and Modern Warfare ETF (JEDI - Free Report) , VistaShares Artificial Intelligence Supercycle ETF (AIS - Free Report) and Procure Space ETF (UFO - Free Report) are choices to play, though with a higher risk quotient as these funds do not possess sector diversification.