SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) has erased approximately $1.2 trillion in market value within a month of its historic public debut, as a sharp selloff reversed much of the stock’s post-IPO rally.
The aerospace and satellite communications company went public on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, at $135 per share, briefly reaching a market capitalization of nearly $2.9 trillion just four days later.
However, the stock has since fallen sharply, reducing its valuation to about $1.83 trillion at Monday’s close.
The decline reflects growing investor concerns over SpaceX’s valuation following its record-breaking IPO and raises questions about whether the company’s long-term growth prospects can justify its current market capitalization.
Investor enthusiasm initially propelled SpaceX shares above $225 on June 16, making the company one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded firms.
The rally proved short-lived, with the stock entering a sustained downtrend marked by several steep daily declines, including a 16% drop in a single session.
By July 13, SpaceX shares closed at $139 after falling more than 4% on the day, marking a new post-IPO low. At current levels, the stock trades only slightly above its $135 IPO price, leaving many investors who bought during the initial surge facing significant losses.
SpaceX one-month stock price chart. Source: Finbold Why SpaceX stock is declining The selloff comes as investors reassess SpaceX’s valuation and financial outlook after the excitement surrounding its market debut.
The company generated $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, up about 33% year-over-year, but reported a net loss of $4.9 billion as heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure and Starship development weighed on profitability.
Starlink remains the company’s primary profit driver, contributing roughly $11.4 billion in revenue and serving more than 10.3 million subscribers as of the first quarter of 2026.
Analysts expect SpaceX revenue to reach between $34 billion and $43 billion this year, supported by continued subscriber growth and expanding AI compute contracts.
At the same time, the Federal Aviation Administration has closed its investigation into the Starship Flight 12 anomaly, clearing the way for Starship Flight 13 as early as July 16.
The mission is expected to deploy advanced Starlink V3 satellites and conduct additional reusability tests critical to SpaceX’s long-term growth strategy.
At the same time, concerns remain over insider share unlocks expected after second-quarter earnings in August, which could significantly increase the public float and add selling pressure.
Despite the sharp decline, SpaceX remains one of the world’s largest publicly traded companies. The stock’s next move will likely depend on the success of upcoming Starship milestones, Starlink’s continued expansion, AI revenue growth, and the company’s ability to balance aggressive investment with a path to profitability.
When a company's valuation is high and wildly above what its fundamentals justify, that's a clear sign that expectations are high. While that can be an encouraging sign that there is a ton of growth likely ahead for the business, it also signifies risk, because if it falls short and the growth story unravels, the stock could be poised for a significant sell-off.
One company whose valuation hinges on its growth story is Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.75%), which is often referred to as just SpaceX. Its market cap has been hovering around $2 trillion since its shares went public about a month ago. It has some tremendous growth opportunities, and here's just how big analysts believe the business will get in five years.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX's revenue could top $565 billion by 2031 In recent years, there has been some solid growth, but nothing like what analysts expect from the company in the future. From $10.4 billion in revenue in 2023, the company's top line would rise by 35% to just over $14 billion in 2024, and then by another 33% in 2025, totaling $18.7 billion last year. That's a strong growth rate, but if analysts are right, then the company's top line could be about to take off, significantly.
The bull case around SpaceX centers around its growth potential. Today, it trades at around 100 times its trailing revenue, but if the business gets much larger in the future, then its high valuation may be much more tenable. By 2031, Wall Street analysts project that its revenue will soar to $565 billion -- that's more than 30 times what it achieved this past year. Those kinds of numbers would make it among the largest companies in terms of revenue. E-commerce giant Amazon is the leader today, with its revenue totaling $743 billion over its past four quarters.
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Expectations are high, but so too is the risk SpaceX has some mammoth opportunities in artificial intelligence, space, and telecom. The problem, however, is that kind of significant growth means expectations are going to be through the roof for SpaceX. Not only will the company likely need to ramp up spending at a time when investors are growing more concerned about high capital expenditures, but it will also need to execute and prove that it's making the most of those investments. It's a tall task, to say the least.
Given that the stock isn't cheap, investors who buy it at its current levels aren't leaving themselves with any margin for error. While SpaceX's business may do well and achieve its lofty expectations, there's also a strong chance it falls well short of them, which is why taking a wait-and-see approach with the space stock may be the safest option right now.
One month ago, on June 12, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) and space economy conglomerate, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) (SPCX 4.75%), rewrote history with its initial public offering (IPO). The $85.7 billion raised, including the underwriters' overallotment, nearly tripled the previous IPO record holder, Saudi Aramco.
But in kicking off IPO mania -- large language model developers Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to follow in SpaceX's footsteps -- SpaceX may also be fueling the final stages of an AI bubble that history suggests is waiting to pop.
Rarely are stock market bubble warning signs as glaring as Raymond James Financial's price target assigned to SpaceX.
Image source: Getty Images.
Wall Street's high-water price target foresees SpaceX reaching $800 in 2031 Given that 21 underwriters helped bring SpaceX public and received shares for doing so, it should come as no surprise that Wall Street analysts have, as a whole, presented an overwhelmingly positive outlook for the company.
But Raymond James Financial analyst Brian Gesuale is a true outlier. His $800 price target by 2031 implies 451% upside, based on where SpaceX's shares ended on July 10, and assumes a valuation of roughly $10.5 trillion. For context, this would be more than double Nvidia's current market cap.
$SPCX-SPACEX COULD SOAR 440%, SAYS RAYMOND JAMES
Raymond James launched SpaceX coverage with a Strong Buy rating and a Street-high $800 target, implying 440% upside.
The bullish outlook is driven by Starship, Starlink, and SpaceX's potential as a global infrastructure giant....
-- *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) July 9, 2026 Gesuale foresees SpaceX's full-year sales scaling from an estimated $38.5 billion in 2026 to approximately $837 billion by 2031. More importantly, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) are projected to catapult from $17.7 billion in 2026 to $696 billion by 2031.
While there's no question that AI and the space economy are two of the hottest addressable opportunities on Wall Street, several headwinds suggest Gesuale's pie-in-the-sky price target is pure fiction and the sign of an end-stage bubble that's about to burst.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX spotlights everything wrong with Wall Street Although the stock market is a long-term wealth-creating machine, it's prone to occasional bubble-bursting events. SpaceX's current $1.91 trillion valuation and Raymond James' $800 price target for the company spotlight everything that's wrong with Wall Street over the short term.
For starters, SpaceX hasn't demonstrated that its operating model is sustainable. While satellite-based broadband services provider Starlink is profitable, AI start-up xAI -- the segment responsible for the lion's share of SpaceX's $28.5 trillion addressable market -- is burning cash as Musk's company chases AI compute capacity.
NEWS: SpaceX disclosed in its S-1 that it sees a $28.5 TRILLION total addressable market, which the company calls "the largest actionable TAM in human history." pic.twitter.com/fglJuozEqL
-- Exec Sum (@exec_sum) May 21, 2026 Elon Musk also has a terrible track record of fulfilling lofty promises and innovative expectations. As CEO of Tesla, Musk proclaimed that 1 million robotaxis would be on public roads by the end of 2020, which never happened. He's also assured investors that Level 5 full self-driving is "one year away" annually for more than a decade. Musk continually overpromises and underdelivers.
SpaceX is likely to be haunted by historical precedent, as well. No company at the forefront of a game-changing technology has sustained a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio above 30 for any extended period. SpaceX is trading at roughly 50 times Gesuale's forecast sales for this year.
Lastly, every game-changing technology for more than three decades has navigated an early stage bubble-bursting event. These bubbles have formed because investors constantly overestimate the optimization timeline of innovations. It'll likely be years before SpaceX's solutions are optimized, making Raymond James' high-water price target highly unlikely.
Elon Musk does not often admit he was wrong. But he has. Responding on X to a user who noted that SpaceX controls the computing power Anthropic depends on, and could, in theory, cut it off, Musk said he never would.
He went further, calling Anthropic the clear leader in AI and saying no rival had shipped a model as good as its Mythos and Fable systems. He expects a Mythos 2 before long.
The turn is surprising, given that last September, he wrote that winning was never a possible outcome for Anthropic. In February, after it raised $30bn at a $380bn valuation, he called its models "misanthropic and evil" and told it to fix them. Five months on, the same company is his benchmark for the field.
The praise is not free
Take the compliment at face value and it reads as rare humility. Look at the plumbing and a second motive appears.
In May, Anthropic agreed to lease the entire output of xAI's Colossus 1 data centre near Memphis, about 300 megawatts, paying roughly $1.25bn a month through 2029. That is close to $40bn flowing to Musk's side of the table. He is not just admiring Anthropic. He is billing it.
A rival who pays you $40bn is a rival worth flattering. Musk's pledge not to weaponise that dependence costs him nothing and buys goodwill with a customer he needs. The admiration may be real. It is also good business.
Playground politics?
The sharper reading sits one company over. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit, left the board in 2018 after the others refused to hand him control, and has fought it since.
He sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, accusing them of abandoning the founding mission for private gain. He sought more than $150bn in damages, Altman's removal and the unwinding of the for-profit structure.
In May, a jury threw the case out, finding Musk had waited too long to file.
He called the verdict a "calendar technicality" and vowed to appeal. By July, the feud was personal again. Musk branded Altman "Scam Altman" after Apple sued OpenAI, and Altman replied that the surest sign his new model led the field was that Musk was obsessed with him again.
Against that backdrop, crowning Anthropic the leader does double duty. It is a real judgement about the models. It is also a way to tell the market that the AI company that matters is not the one he is suing.
Both are racing to the same finish line
Timing sharpens the point. Both firms filed confidentially for stock market listings in June, within days of each other. Anthropic, valued at about $965bn in private markets, is pushing for a Nasdaq debut as early as October. It could be the first company to list at close to $1tn, and it expects its first profitable quarter, with around $559m in operating income on $10.9bn of revenue.
OpenAI, valued a little lower and still loss-making, is leaning toward 2027, wary after SpaceX's own listing spiked and then surrendered much of the gain. Altman is holding out for a $1tn price.
Here the two threads meet. Whoever lists first sets the benchmark the second is priced against. Anthropic going out ahead, blessed by Musk as the field's leader, helps fix the multiple bankers who later apply to OpenAI. Musk talking up the rival he profits from, while running down the rival he is suing, shapes the terms on which his enemy will one day face public investors.
None of this proves the praise is hollow. Musk may well think Anthropic makes the best models right now. But "wowed by the model" and "at war with OpenAI" were never competing explanations. They are the same move. The compliment serves his balance sheet and his grudge at once, and it lands in the narrow window before both labs ask the market to price them.
Space Exploration Corporation's (SPCX 4.75%) highly anticipated initial public offering raised $75 billion from investors and a total of $85.7 billion when you include the overallotment given to the investment bankers. That's a huge sum of money that the company plans to use to build its space-based operations and to support its aspirations in artificial intelligence. But investors aren't as excited about SpaceX as they once were.
SpaceX has already fallen back down to earth When SpaceX held its IPO, there was a huge amount of excitement, and the stock rose sharply for a few days. But the stock has quickly fallen back toward the IPO price. In fairness to SpaceX, that's not an unusual outcome for an IPO. However, there was so much excitement around SpaceX that the price drop warrants examination.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX was very clear in its IPO prospectus that its Starlink telecommunications business was profitable, but its space and AI operations were not. It was also upfront about the need for massive capital spending in the future to support its business goals. This is one of the reasons why the newly public company issued $25 billion in debt shortly after its IPO. That debt was rated investment-grade, which is good news, but the stock dropped after the additional capital raise.
SpaceX is a long-term investment The real problem is that Wall Street got so excited about SpaceX's IPO that it lost sight of the big picture. SpaceX is a money-losing start-up, and that's not likely to change anytime soon, given CEO Elon Musk's big plans for the business. As investor enthusiasm for the IPO wanes, the deeper business story is gaining traction. It doesn't help that the broader artificial intelligence trade is also facing increasing scrutiny from investors.
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All of that said, emotions are still the driving force here. In fact, there is a notable positive: SpaceX is being added to major indexes. That should lead to buying support for the shares. Still, the stock is best viewed as a long-term investment. The big goals of supporting space exploration and building AI data centers in space won't happen in a year. It is entirely possible that the stock falls even further before SpaceX starts to see traction on its long-term goals, even as the red ink continues to flow.
Understand what you are getting into with SpaceX If you watched the SpaceX IPO from the sidelines, you may want to keep it on your wishlist in case mercurial investors keep selling the stock. If you own SpaceX, make sure you are ready to stick with it for the long haul. If you aren't, recognizing it could mean sitting with paper losses for years, you may want to consider selling while the stock price is still hovering near the IPO price.
Let's get right to it: A $25,000 investment in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.24%) stock today could be worth over $100,000 by 2050 if revenue grows 19% annually. By the same token, the same investment in SpaceX is more likely to be worth about $28,000 by 2050 if revenue grows more moderately -- albeit still bullish -- at a rate of 13% annually.
Let's unpack these predictions.
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First, keep in mind that SpaceX carried a roughly $1.8 trillion valuation at its initial public offering (IPO), despite reporting about $19 billion in 2025 revenue. At the time of its IPO, the stock was already trading close to 100 times annual sales -- a figure that hasn't changed much, even after the stock has plummeted over 30% from its all-time high.
Under the bullish scenario, SpaceX would need to quadruple by 2050 for a $25,000 investment to hit $100,000 or more, which would imply a $7 trillion market cap. If we value that version of SpaceX at a price-to-sales ratio of about 5, then the space company would need to generate about $1.5 trillion in annual sales by that year, or almost 19% revenue growth annually.
That's not technically impossible, but it would also mean SpaceX has become the most dominant launch, satellite, and artificial intelligence (AI) company in the world. In short, very little has to go wrong, and if it does, it can't go wrong for long.
Image source: Getty Images.
Under a less bullish scenario, SpaceX's valuation would rise only modestly, from about $1.8 trillion to about $2 trillion by 2050. If, again, we assume a price-to-sales ratio of 5, SpaceX would generate about $400 billion in 2050 sales, which implies compound annual revenue growth of about 13% for the next 25 years.
That's still impressive growth, even if the concomitant growth in the stock is only modest.
These are, of course, my own figures, but they drive home the point that, however you slice it, SpaceX stock is still very pricy right now. Even as the stock nears its IPO price of $135, I think long-term investors should continue to wait. SpaceX may become one of the most important companies in the world, but at today's valuation, much of that success appears already priced in.
4:15pm: Big bank earnings up tomorrow US stocks kicked off the week on a weaker note Monday as rising tensions between the United States and Iran rattled investors, sending chip stocks sharply lower while oil prices climbed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 138 points, or 0.3%, to 52,499. The S&P 500 dropped 60 points, or 0.8%, to 7,515, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq led the declines, tumbling 408 points, or 1.6%, to 25,873.
Markets were pressured by growing geopolitical uncertainty after President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and announced plans to impose a 20% fee on all cargo passing through the strategic waterway. The developments pushed Brent crude back above $82 a barrel, boosting energy stocks but weighing on the broader market as investors shifted toward safer assets.
Investors are now turning their attention to the start of second-quarter earnings season, which gets underway before Tuesday's opening bell. Results from JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup are expected to provide the first glimpse into how corporate America is navigating a still-uncertain economic backdrop.
3:45pm: Proactive news headlines Northstar Gold Corp. (CSE:NSG) received its first reimbursement of about C$628,000 under the Surgical Mining for Critical Minerals Project to support development of its Cam Copper Zone 2 Surgical Mining initiative in Ontario. First Phosphate Corp. (CSE:PHOS, OTCQX:FRSPF, FRA:KD0, OTC:FPHOY) closed the final tranche of its non-brokered private placement, raising total gross proceeds of about C$17.7 million across two financing rounds. G Mining Ventures Corp (TSX:GMIN, OTCQX:GMINF, FRA:W97) and G2 Goldfields Inc (TSX-V:GTWO, OTCQX:GUYGF) said they expect to complete the remaining closing conditions for G Mining's acquisition of G2 by the end of July. Pinnacle Silver & Gold Corp (TSX-V:PINN, OTCQB:PSGCF, FRA:P9J) plans to raise up to C$2.2 million through a non-brokered private placement to fund exploration at its El Potrero gold-silver project in Mexico and for working capital. 2:45pm: Market movers Agenus (Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN)) shares nearly doubled after the biotechnology company announced an oversubscribed private placement of up to $340 million to advance development of its botensilimab and balstilimab immunotherapy combination for microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer. Twin Vee PowerCats (NASDAQ:VEEE) shares soared more than 370% after the company agreed to merge with a subsidiary of USFM Corporation while privatizing its marine business in a transformative transaction. First Hawaiian (NASDAQ:FHB) agreed to acquire TriCo Bancshares in a deal aimed at creating a leading Pacific banking franchise and expanding its presence from Hawaii into California. Greenfire Resources (NYSE:GFR, TSX:GFR) plans to raise at least C$575 million through a rights offering to repay bridge financing tied to its proposed acquisition of Connacher Oil and Gas. FuboTV (NYSE:FUBO) shares rose after the streaming company named former Disney+ president Alisa Bowen as chief executive officer, succeeding co-founder David Gandler. SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHY) shares fell sharply as investors took profits following the memory chip maker's recent Nasdaq debut and reassessed its valuation after a strong rally. 1:15pm: Markets remain calm despite Hormuz tensions US stock markets have remained remarkably calm over the prospect of a return to the US blockade of Iran, according to Chris Beauchamp, Chief Market Analyst at online trading and investing platform IG, while oil prices have gained as markets weigh the potential impact on global supply.
“The US’ apparent decision to pile on the pressure on Iran by reinstating the blockade has lifted oil prices, though the reaction remains calm relative to the potential for supply disruption," Beauchamp wrote.
:Markets seem to be pricing in a resumption of negotiations in due course, given the lack of appetite for an extended standoff, but with oil stockpiles not fully rebuilt this is a risky view to take. This limited exchange of projectiles is still nowhere near the intensity of March’s conflict, leaving hope for a relatively quick resolution.”
11:55am: Altman slams Musk's 'space-based' data centers OpenAI (Unlisted:OPAI) CEO Sam Altman has criticized Elon Musk’s plans for space-based data centers, accusing the SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) (SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX)) and xAI leader of promoting an unproven technology to public market investors as the two technology executives continued their long-running dispute.
The comments came after Musk accused Altman of “taking scamming to a whole new level” in a post on X, escalating a series of public exchanges between the two billionaires that have followed their split over the direction of OpenAI.
“Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space data centers,” Altman wrote on X, referring to SpaceX’s plans to develop orbital computing infrastructure.
Musk’s comments referenced ongoing legal disputes involving OpenAI and Altman, while Altman’s response targeted SpaceX’s plans for artificial intelligence computing satellites. SpaceX has outlined plans for a large-scale satellite network capable of supporting AI workloads, including up to one million compute satellites. The company’s AI1 satellite design is expected to support peak power levels of up to 150 kilowatts. However, the orbital data center concept remains in development and has yet to be demonstrated at scale.
Shares of SpaceX traded down about 5% on Monday at about $138, only modestly above last month’s IPO price of $135.
11:00am: Week ahead Wall Street heads into one of its busiest weeks of the summer, with second-quarter earnings season shifting into high gear alongside key inflation data and closely watched testimony from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh.
The week kicks off with a flood of bank earnings. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo report on Tuesday, offering investors an early read on loan growth, investment banking activity, consumer health and the impact of higher interest rates.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) (Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)) and Bank of New York Mellon follow on Wednesday, while Regions Financial and Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB) (Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB)) report Friday.
Technology investors will also be watching closely as AI heavyweights take the spotlight. ASML reports Wednesday, followed by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Netflix on Thursday.
Beyond earnings, investors will be parsing a packed economic calendar. Tuesday's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report and Wednesday's Producer Price Index (PPI) are expected to shape expectations for the Fed's next policy move. Warsh will deliver his semiannual testimony before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, while the Fed's Beige Book, released Wednesday, will provide an updated snapshot of economic conditions across the country.
10am: Dow opens higher but Nasdaq falls It's a mixed open for Wall Street, with investors switching out of tech and buying more defensive names ahead of earnings season and some other market moving events later this week.
The Dow Jones has opened up 0.3%, helped by gains from the likes of Salesforce, Chevron and Apple.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.3%, while the Nasdaq fell almost 1% as chipmakers led the declines.
Top fallers on the tech-laden index are SanDisk, Arm Holdings, Western Digital, Micron and Marvell, all dropping over 7%, with Nvidia also trading 1.4% lower, as investors take profits across the semiconductor sector.
8.25am: Nasdaq tipped to drop, as oil rebounds further US stocks are set for a weaker start to the week after last week finished on a positive note, with technology shares expected to come under the most pressure as investors balanced renewed geopolitical tensions against a busy week for inflation data and the start of bank earnings season.
Nasdaq futures were down 1.0% early on Monday, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.4% and Dow Jones futures were sitting just 0.1% lower.
The pullback follows a solid week; the S&P 500 gained more than 1%, the Nasdaq rose 0.9% and the Dow added 0.4%.
Monday saw oil prices climb after the US confirmed fresh military strikes on Iran aimed at reducing Tehran's ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
WTI crude rose 3.5% to $73.94 a barrel, having briefly traded above $75 in the early hours.
Iran said the ceasefire was in a "crisis phase" and warned it could abandon the agreement if Washington failed to meet its commitments, maintaining that efforts with Oman to establish a mechanism for managing the strategic waterway were being hampered by the US.
The rise in oil prices weighed heavily on Asian technology stocks. South Korea's Kospi slumped almost 9%, with memory chip maker SK Hynix dropping 13% despite its strong debut on Wall Street last week, while Japan's Nikkei lost 1.9%.
European markets were roughly flat, with London's FTSE 100 down 0.3% and benchmarks for Germany and France broadly unchanged.
Investors are now turning their attention to Tuesday's US inflation report and Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh's testimony to Congress. Although economists expect headline inflation to ease slightly, higher energy prices have raised doubts over how much comfort policymakers will take from the data.
Earnings season also gathers pace this week, starting with results from several major US banks tomorrow.
Since its debut as a publicly traded company roughly one month ago, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.24%) has been one of Wall Street's more volatile stocks. From its initial public offering (IPO) price of $135 to its high of $225 in mid-June to its July 9 closing price of roughly $152, SpaceX (as the company is also known) has already experienced some serious highs and lows.
Concerns over this volatility have now spilled over into the fund space, where some of the world's biggest exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have begun adding shares to their portfolios. Funds that track one of the CRSP market indexes, such as the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI 0.72%), could begin adding shares in as little as five trading days post-IPO. On July 7, SpaceX joined the Nasdaq-100 under its newly implemented fast-track rules for mega-IPOs.
SpaceX has around a $2 trillion market cap, making it one of the 10 largest companies in the world. It's natural to assume that the stock would also be a major part of these ETFs, and its volatility would come with it.
But it really isn't. In fact, SpaceX might not influence these ETFs nearly as much as you think.
Source: Getty Images.
SpaceX doesn't crack the top 20 of the Invesco QQQ ETF or the top 100 of the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF The reason that SpaceX isn't a bigger part of these indexes is that they're weighted by free-float market cap (or the amount of publicly traded shares), not total market cap. As a percentage, SpaceX's ratio of free float to total market cap is lower than that of many stocks, giving it comparatively less influence in indexes weighted by this metric.
That dynamic shows up very clearly in the Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ 1.90%), which tracks the Nasdaq-100, and the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, which tracks a CRSP index.
As of July 9, SpaceX was the 21st-largest holding in the Invesco QQQ ETF, with a weight of around 1.2%. In the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, it landed in 176th place with a weight of just 0.2%.
In other words, if you're worried about elevated influence and volatility from the stock's inclusion in these indexes, you probably shouldn't be. The stock's weighting in these indexes is low enough that even a price crash will barely register as a ripple for the fund as a whole.
If you're a shareholder of either of these funds, there's no need to make any portfolio adjustments due to SpaceX's addition to them. These funds will continue to be influenced more by broad market forces than by any one company.
David Dierking has positions in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
SpaceX (SPCX) has been trading publicly for a month now, and shares have since fallen below the company's IPO price. Luke Lloyd expects downside pressure to continue toward $100.
Is Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.24%) stock losing its mojo?
One month after its blockbuster IPO, shares of Elon Musk's space company have come full circle, with the stock closing Monday at $139.14, barely above its "official" IPO price -- and more than $10 below where the stock began trading on IPO day.
And the latest SpaceX news is looking kind of mixed.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Once more, with feeling Good news first: The Federal Aviation Administration today closed its review of SpaceX's May Starship test flight and cleared SpaceX to test Starship again later this week. Analysts think Musk will waste no time taking the opportunity, and Starship Test Flight 13 is scheduled to take place this Thursday, July 16, at 6:45 p.m. ET.
If SpaceX succeeds in launching on time, it will mean only 55 days elapsed between Flight 12 and Flight 13 -- four times faster than the delay between Flights 11 and 12. In a note this morning, Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale cited the increased "operational cadence" as reason for optimism about SpaceX stock, doubling down on his "strong buy" recommendation and predicting SpaceX stock that costs $138 and change today, will hit $800 within a year!
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Bad news next But here's the bad news: Investors aren't buying it. They sold off SpaceX stock today -- and I think China may be part of the reason.
Over the weekend, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) launched a reusable Long March 10B rocket from the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site on Hainan Island -- then successfully landed it at sea, catching it in a floating frame at sea. The test flight and water landing, called a "complete success," closes the technology gap between SpaceX and China.
It also arguably makes SpaceX a less valuable stock.
Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The artificial intelligence industry has an energy problem.
The data center infrastructure that AI technologies rely on to operate is so energy-intensive that the current electricity grid is nowhere near powerful enough to support the ongoing build-out of additional data centers.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.75%) is hoping to solve the problem by placing data centers in space, where they would enjoy significant amounts of free, continuous solar energy and lower cooling costs in the relatively low temperatures of low Earth orbit. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently said he wants the company to launch orbital data centers by 2027.
Image source: Getty Images.
Investor sentiment toward orbital data centers is strong, as evidenced by SpaceX's $1.9 trillion valuation. Wall Street analysts see data centers in space as one of SpaceX's biggest long-term growth opportunities.
But NuScale Power (SMR 7.63%) is trying to meet AI's rising power demand through a very different strategy that could be superior to SpaceX's.
NuScale Power's terrestrial approach The Department of Energy estimates that the U.S. will see total energy demand grow by as much as 20% over the next decade. Research from the Electric Power Research Institute, meanwhile, projects that data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, up from 4% in 2023.
NuScale Power specializes in small modular reactors, or SMRs. "When compared to traditional, large-scale [nuclear power plants], SMRs require less land, shorter construction periods, and have enhanced safety features," concludes a report from Bank of America.
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SMRs are also cheaper to build, at least until additional modules are constructed. But it's really shorter construction periods and lower land requirements that make the technology so attractive. That's because AI firms need more energy quickly, and smaller footprints mean SMRs could be co-located directly with data center infrastructure.
Only a handful of SMRs are currently in operation today. But more than 80 are now in some stage of development worldwide. And NuScale Power is the only firm in the U.S. with an approved SMR design -- at least for now.
Musk's intention to launch data centers into space by 2027 to reduce the AI industry's dependence on terrestrial energy strongly demonstrates how important and valuable this initiative is for SpaceX. But NuScale's approach is arguably more feasible and proven, while targeting roughly the same end-market opportunity.
NuScale isn't the only company looking to scale SMRs. Dozens of companies worldwide are attempting to design and sell SMR systems. But NuScale is one of only three pure-play SMR stocks available to investors, alongside Oklo and Nano Nuclear Energy, making it a unique investment opportunity for energy, AI, and SpaceX investors alike.
In a note published this week, Noble said SpaceX’s biggest challenge isn’t its triple-digit price-to-sales multiple—it’s a lockup schedule that could increase the stock’s tradable float by roughly 900% over the coming months as insider shares become eligible for sale.
SpaceX Stock: From Scarcity To SupplyNoble argues SpaceX’s post-IPO rally was driven as much by supply constraints as investor enthusiasm.
Less than 5% of the company’s shares were freely tradable when the stock debuted, he noted. Shortly afterward, Nasdaq-100 inclusion and Russell index rebalancing forced passive funds to buy billions of dollars’ worth of shares while the public float remained exceptionally small.
“The supply was minuscule and the buying was mandatory,” Noble wrote. That dynamic helped propel SpaceX above $225 during its first week of trading before shares began retreating.
The Calendar That MattersAccording to Noble, the next phase of the story is already mapped out in the company’s prospectus.
The first meaningful unlock arrives after second-quarter earnings, when 20% of locked shares become eligible for sale. Another early release could occur if the stock meets a price-based performance trigger.
From late August through October, additional tranches are scheduled to unlock every few weeks. The largest release comes after third-quarter earnings, followed by the expiration of the six-month lockup in December.
Noble estimates insiders could be free to sell as much as 44% of the company by early September, increasing the tradable float by roughly 900% from IPO levels.
A Different Kind Of Bear CaseUnlike traditional short theses built around deteriorating fundamentals or disappointing earnings, Noble argues the catalyst is already visible.
“It’s literally a published calendar,” he wrote.
He contends that thousands of early employees and private investors who acquired shares at substantially lower valuations may choose to monetize their holdings once restrictions expire.
Noble also questioned the company’s valuation, noting that SpaceX has yet to report an annual profit and traded above 90 times revenue at its IPO, with the multiple briefly approaching 140 times during the stock’s early rally.
While he described Starlink as “a wonderful business,” he argued it does not justify the company’s multi-trillion-dollar valuation on its own.
Why Investors Are WatchingLockup expirations don’t always trigger sharp declines. Some insiders hold their shares, while strong institutional demand can absorb new supply.
But Noble believes SpaceX’s combination of a historically small IPO float, rapid index inclusion and staggered insider unlocks makes this one of the most unusual supply-demand setups he has seen.
His conclusion is blunt: the story investors should be watching isn’t just how SpaceX performs—it’s how many shares suddenly become available to sell.
Imagen: Shutterstock
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SPCX stock is under pressure today. Why are SPCX shares down? SpaceX Stock Back in the SpotlightToday’s move reads less like a thematic unwind and more like a positioning reset, with fast-money sellers leaning on a stock that has had a significant run. With SPCX now trading below its 52-week low of $145.07, that level has flipped from support to resistance, and the burden of proof shifts to buyers to show up with conviction at current levels.
Analyst Consensus and Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with an average price target of $236.27. Recent analyst moves include:
Clear Street: Buy ($217.00 target) (July 7) Macquarie: Outperform ($250.00 target) (July 7) Deutsche Bank: Buy ($255.00 target) (July 7) What SpaceX Actually DoesThat combination ties SPCX to multiple high-interest themes including launch services, satellite connectivity and AI infrastructure, a profile that tends to reward the stock richly when growth sentiment is running hot and punish it sharply when it is not.
SPCX Shares Are Plunging MondayImage: Thrive Studios ID/Shutterstock
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Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.23%) went public about a month ago, and many investors hope the company will revolutionize tech, space travel, and even the telecom sector. With a diversified business model, the company, also known as SpaceX, has significant potential. In its S-1 filing, it outlined a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion.
There has been plenty of excitement from retail investors looking to buy the stock despite its rich valuation. And even analysts have also shown themselves to be incredibly bullish. Recently, there's been a flurry of analyst price targets released, and I was shocked at some of them.
Image source: Getty Images.
The consensus price target suggests an upside of around 65% Out of 35 analyst ratings, there's only one brave soul who has given SpaceX stock a sell rating. Seven analysts have given hold ratings, while 27 have given buy ratings. This already looks exceedingly optimistic for a stock that came out of the gate at an inflated valuation when it went public last month. Although it has been falling recently, SpaceX's market cap remains around $2 trillion, making it among the most valuable companies in the world.
The consensus analyst price target, however, is just over $239, indicating an upside of about 65%. There's one price target from Morgan Stanley that's $300, which would put SpaceX's market cap at close to $4 trillion. But the most outlandish is easily one for $800 from a Raymond James analyst, suggesting that the company is poised to be worth $10.5 trillion.
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Analysts can be just as wrong about a stock as regular investors Analyst price targets for SpaceX vary widely, but they are generally fairly bullish, and they factor in some rosy expectations for the business. In order for the stock to generate these types of returns, things will need to go incredibly well for a company that's run by a CEO (Elon Musk) who often sets the bar high and is known for overpromising in the past. Match that up with a high valuation, and you have a potential recipe for disaster.
Analysts aren't always willing to issue sell ratings, even when there may be a strong case to do so, as there is now. No one wants to look bad, especially when the stock is doing well, and momentum suggests it can keep rising. But investors shouldn't ignore the fundamentals or the risks that come with the stock. SpaceX has grand ambitions, but that doesn't mean its success is a sure thing.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has cleared SpaceX to fly Starship prototypes again, after the company identified the probable cause of the failure of the rocket system’s booster stage during a flight in May.
SpaceX said over the weekend that the next flight of Starship could happen as soon as this Thursday, July 16. It would be the second-ever launch of the third version, or V3, of Starship. SpaceX also said that this Starship will carry the first third-generation Starlink satellites to space. Previously, Starship had only carried dummy versions of the larger, more powerful internet satellites.
This is SpaceX’s second test flight of its Starship system, and its first as a public company, testing the market’s appetite for the company’s “fly, fail, fix” approach to rocket development that often ends in fireballs — or, as CEO Elon Musk calls the explosions: “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” SpaceX completed its IPO and publicly listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange on June 12, making it one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world and raising nearly $86 billion, a record.
SpaceX’s first test launch of the V3 Starship on May 22 was largely successful. The company’s Super Heavy booster lifted the 407-foot rocket into space before the upper stage section separated and deployed 20 satellite simulators along with two modified Starlinks that recorded footage of the Starship exterior.
The new third-generation booster was supposed to return to Earth and perform a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico. But its engines didn’t properly re-ignite, and it instead plummeted into the water below.
The problem happened at that moment of booster separation, according to SpaceX and the FAA. SpaceX said in a post published over the weekend that “slight differences in engine startup on the ship” caused the Booster to turn 90 degrees in the wrong direction. SpaceX said it has modified this engine startup sequence to allow the booster to “more reliably flip in the desired direction” and that the booster has been modified to “improve re-light reliability.”
The FAA said in a statement Monday that the most probable root causes of the Super Heavy booster failure were “heat effects on propulsion system components during the [rocket’s] ascent and erroneous engine alarm system settings.” SpaceX said in its post that it has made changes to Starship’s engine alarm and abort systems that should reduce the chance of a similar failure in the future.
While the first upper stage of Starship V3 was able to successfully deploy its test payload in May and simulate a landing in the Gulf — a milestone SpaceX had struggled to reach before — it also did so while losing one of the three Raptor engines that are meant to be used in the vacuum of space. SpaceX said over the weekend that it has made “[s]everal hardware and operational modifications” to prevent this from happening again.
This next Starship test flight will see the company launch the first of its V3 Starlink satellites to space, which are supposed to increase the satellite network’s capacity and user speeds. SpaceX is planning to deploy 20 of these new satellites during the launch. They are designed to connect with the larger Starlink constellation “via high-capacity lasers” and then burn up in the atmosphere roughly 20 minutes after they are deployed, according to SpaceX. Six of them will be equipped with cameras to photograph the exterior of Starship.
The V3 versions of both Starship and Starlink are crucial to SpaceX’s future. Starlink was the only profitable part of SpaceX’s business in the run-up to its IPO, and SpaceX needs Starship to become a fully reusable rocket system to even attempt its galaxy-brained plans for space-based data centers and interplanetary travel.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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Shares of SpaceX slipped for a second trading day on Monday, bringing Elon Musk's company closer to its $135 initial public offering price just days after making its entrance into the Nasdaq-100.
Now through its first month as a public company, the stock has been volatile since its June 12 debut, and is down about 7% from its first trade of $150.
The blockbuster debut, which saw Musk briefly become the world's first trillionaire, was expected to be the first of other highly-anticipated IPOs in the artificial intelligence space, including OpenAI and Anthropic.
Both companies said they confidentially filed IPO prospectuses with the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer, but haven't disclosed any official timelines or plans for their debuts.
Read more CNBC tech newsBurnout, frustration and heartbreak: Amazon layoffs take their toll in saturated job marketMeta's Louisiana data center investment to reach $50 billion, aided by generous tax incentivesEurope's Anduril rival Helsing raises $1.8 billion at $18 billion valuationElon Musk and Sam Altman spar on X after Apple files OpenAI lawsuitOpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC's Julia Boorstin last week that he didn't know whether the company would be going public this year.
SpaceX's move into the widely-tracked Nasdaq-100 brought a fresh wave of passive investors into the stock last week, as funds that track the benchmark index matched the new lineup.
The exchange recently revised its rules for new public companies to become part of the index, allowing the space and AI company to be included within a month of going public.
A fresh batch of analysts, 15 in total, have recently issued new ratings for Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.54%). One among them was particularly notable for its optimism, as it forecasts the company's share price will climb to $800 over the next 12 to 18 months.
That, however, was mostly an outlier view. Based on the bulk of those new ratings, the price range where SpaceX stock is likely to trade a year from now is significantly lower.
Image source: Getty Images.
How high could the SpaceX stock price climb by 2028? The time frame for analysts' price target forecasts is generally between 12 and 18 months. In this case, let's view them through the 18-month lens. That gives SpaceX more time to potentially reach them, making them more achievable and more useful for investors to consider.
On July 7, Barron's reported 15 new analyst ratings for SpaceX stock. Among those new ratings, the average price target was around $250.
SpaceX has traded in a wide range since its initial public offering on June 12, from as low as $145.20 to as high as $225.64. So for investors who have already bought the stock, their potential 18-month returns on a $5,000 investment will look drastically different depending on what price they paid. But as a starting point, we'll use the July 8 closing price to estimate the value of a $5,000 investment.
On July 8, SpaceX closed at $148.30 per share; a $5,000 investment at that price would buy more than 33 shares.
If SpaceX were to reach $250 per share by January 2028, roughly 18 months from now, that $5,000 investment would be worth $8,427. That would be a percentage gain of 68.5%.
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The caveat with price targets An analyst's price target offers an estimate of where a stock could trade in the future, providing an indication of the potential upside an investor might expect. That said, it is just an estimate: There's no guarantee that the stock will ever reach that price.
SpaceX as a business has so many moving pieces with its rockets, satellites, and artificial intelligence (AI) division that it's a particularly challenging company to calculate a price target for. So, rather than focusing on those price targets, a more useful approach for investors may be to focus on the opportunities that could lie ahead for it.
The management team at SpaceX believes it has a total addressable market (TAM) of $28.5 trillion, of which $26.5 trillion is connected to AI. To capture as much of that TAM as possible, SpaceX is planning to deploy a vast constellation of satellites housing data center servers. That could be the company's first step toward becoming the leader in a new wave of AI infrastructure. It will, however, be a costly venture, and it will take years to bring the project to life. Meanwhile, the company's AI capital expenditures alone in 2025 totaled $12.7 billion, and it reported a net loss of $4.9 billion for that year.
Ultimately, there's plenty of upside potential for SpaceX shareholders, but there's also a lot of risk that will need to be tolerated and challenges that will need to be navigated to get to any potential rewards.
OpenAI (Unlisted:OPAI) CEO Sam Altman has criticized Elon Musk’s plans for space-based data centers, accusing the SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) and xAI leader of promoting an unproven technology to public market investors as the two technology executives continued their long-running dispute.
The comments came after Musk accused Altman of “taking scamming to a whole new level” in a post on X, escalating a series of public exchanges between the two billionaires that have followed their split over the direction of OpenAI.
“Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space data centers,” Altman wrote on X, referring to SpaceX’s plans to develop orbital computing infrastructure.
Musk’s comments referenced ongoing legal disputes involving OpenAI and Altman, while Altman’s response targeted SpaceX’s plans for artificial intelligence computing satellites. SpaceX has outlined plans for a large-scale satellite network capable of supporting AI workloads, including up to one million compute satellites. The company’s AI1 satellite design is expected to support peak power levels of up to 150 kilowatts. However, the orbital data center concept remains in development and has yet to be demonstrated at scale.
Altman has previously expressed skepticism about the near-term potential of space-based computing. During a podcast appearance in February, he said orbital compute would not provide meaningful capacity for OpenAI within two, five, or even 10 years.
While SpaceX’s space data center plans remain unproven, the company has already expanded its terrestrial AI infrastructure business, including leasing data center capacity to companies such as Anthropic and Google.
Shares of SpaceX traded down about 5% on Monday at about $138, only modestly above last month’s IPO price of $135.
SpaceX has gotten on my speculative buy list, driven by its highly ambitious AI transformation and potential for explosive long-term growth. Current AI revenue is nascent, but projections suggest AI could comprise over 90% of SPCX's business by 2030, with revenue estimates reaching $365B. Execution risk is extremely high, with wide-ranging price targets ($62–$800) and significant near-term volatility expected due to insider share unlocks through 2027.
SpaceX stock SPCX fell for a second consecutive trading session on Monday, moving closer to the company's $135 initial public offering price just days after joining the Nasdaq-100 index.
The stock declined more than 4% to trade around $139 as broader US equity markets also came under pressure.
The S&P 500 fell to session lows after President Donald Trump announced he was reinstating what he described as a blockade on Iranian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The broad-market index lost 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 56 points, or 0.1%, lower.
Despite the stock's decline, Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned reiterated a Buy rating on SpaceX with a price target of $239, implying upside of more than 70% from current levels.
According to Harned, SpaceX's leadership in reusable rockets and launch services remains intact even after China successfully landed a Long March 10B rocket booster.
Harned said China's successful landing occurred about six months earlier than he had expected and noted that the country is rapidly expanding its space ambitions.
He said China plans to deploy more than 200,000 low-Earth orbit satellites and is also pursuing a research station on the Moon.
Harned also said the Long March 10 can only reuse its first-stage booster, while SpaceX's Starship is designed to be fully reusable.
If successful, he said, Starship could further reduce launch costs and enable the company to increase launch frequency.
Several Wall Street firms have outlined ambitious long-term scenarios for SpaceX, driven largely by expectations for Starlink, its reusable launch business, and potential opportunities in AI infrastructure.
Among the more bullish forecasts, Raymond James has one of the Street's highest published price targets at $800 per share.
Meanwhile, Citigroup has outlined a bull-case scenario that values SpaceX at roughly $12 trillion.
Monday's decline follows a strong start to SpaceX's life as a publicly traded company.
The stock surged more than 30% during its first several trading sessions before reversing course.
The pullback has brought the shares closer to their $135 IPO price after the company made its Nasdaq debut on June 12.
The stock had already fallen below its $150 debut trading price following its initial sessions in the public market.
The company's combination of high valuation expectations, ambitious long-term growth projections, and limited trading history has left the shares particularly sensitive to changes in investor sentiment.
SpaceX's recent addition to the Nasdaq-100 prompted a new wave of passive investment, as funds tracking the benchmark adjusted their portfolios to reflect the updated index composition.
The inclusion came after the exchange revised its rules governing newly listed companies, allowing the space and artificial intelligence company to join the benchmark within a month of going public.
Initial public offerings have returned in force this year, but they continue to remind investors that excitement and valuation are rarely the same thing. Companies tied to artificial intelligence, space, and other high-growth themes have attracted eager buyers willing to pay well above offering prices. Yet once the opening-day enthusiasm fades, fundamentals tend to regain control.
That’s the lesson SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) investors have been learning over the past month. It’s also becoming the story for SK hynix‘s IPO, except the market appears to be reaching that conclusion much faster.
Hype Doesn’t Last Forever SpaceX made a dramatic entrance onto the public markets last month. The space company priced its IPO at $135 per share before opening for trading at $150. Within two trading sessions, the stock reached roughly $225, giving it a valuation that stretched far beyond where many investors believed the fundamentals justified.
The enthusiasm didn’t last. SpaceX stock has steadily retreated over the past month and trades just below $140 in morning trading today. That leaves it barely above its IPO price while wiping out essentially all of the gains investors who bought at the opening price briefly enjoyed.
Now SK hynix appears to be following a similar path — only at a much faster pace.
The South Korean memory chip giant priced its IPO at $149 per share before opening at $170 last week. The stock climbed to an intraday high of $177 before ending its first day at $168 as the early momentum quickly faded. Shares are down about 4% today, leaving the stock near $160.
Ironically, SpaceX needed almost a month before falling below its opening trade. SK hynix crossed that line on its very first day. If the current trend continues, both companies could soon find themselves trading below their IPO offer prices.
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So why was SK hynix’s debut so weak? It wasn’t deteriorating fundamentals, but rather valuation. Investors bid shares roughly 19% above the IPO price before the opening bell, pricing in years of optimistic growth just as questions were raised about the memory boom’s durability amid skyrocketing prices. SpaceX experienced a similar dynamic. In both cases, expectations expanded faster than underlying fundamentals.
The Long-Term Story Still Looks Compelling That said, the investment case hasn’t disappeared. Industry forecasts from leading Wall Street research firms estimate the four largest hyperscale cloud providers will spend roughly $1.8 trillion on AI infrastructure during 2026 and 2027. While only about one-quarter of that spending ultimately goes toward AI accelerators, every advanced GPU requires large amounts of HBM and DRAM to deliver peak performance.
That demand continues supporting memory pricing. Industry data from TrendForce shows HBM prices remain near record levels even as the pace of increases begins to moderate. For SK hynix, that’s an important distinction. Slower price growth is very different from falling prices.
Ultimately, this was never a business problem for SK hynix — or even for SpaceX. It was a valuation problem from the beginning. Markets eventually find equilibrium, even after periods of IPO euphoria.
Key Takeaway In short, SK hynix’s disappointing post-IPO performance says more about investor expectations than the company’s competitive position. The same lesson applies to SpaceX. Both companies entered public markets carrying valuations inflated by excitement surrounding AI and next-generation technology. As those premiums disappear, long-term investors may finally get the opportunity they were waiting for.
Granted, neither stock may have reached that point just yet. Regardless, patient investors should focus less on where these shares traded during their first few days and more on where their underlying businesses are likely to be five years from now. If AI infrastructure spending unfolds anywhere close to current projections, both companies could eventually justify much higher valuations — but only after hype gives way to fundamentals.
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Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX 3.47%) is pushing deeper into AI infrastructure through its Reflection AI deal, giving investors a new recurring revenue stream to watch. The bull case is powerful: rockets, Starlink, and AI compute all scaling together. But the stock's premium valuation makes execution risk impossible to ignore.
*Stock prices used were the market prices of July 1, 2026. The video was published on July 11, 2026.
Rick Orford has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick Orford is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through their link, they will earn some extra money that supports their channel. Their opinions remain their own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Every company needs working capital, particularly to get things going. Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) is no exception.
The timing and scope of SpaceX's most recent fundraising, however, are a bit of a red flag. We're not talking about SpaceX's mid-June initial public offering, which raised proceeds of $85.7 billion when demand exceeded the $75 billion worth of stock it originally intended to issue.
Surprise! Without nearly as much fanfare as that surrounding the record-breaking June 12 IPO, late last month SpaceX issued $25 billion in bonds with maturity dates extending all the way out to 2056. The primary purpose of these funds was to fully pay off its bridge loan, which stood at $20 billion as of the end of March. Any remaining proceeds were earmarked for "general corporate purposes," although nearly $10 billion more in other debt-based financing remains on the company's balance sheet.
Image source: Getty Images.
This begs the (not entirely rhetorical) question: Why didn't the company just sell enough stock less than two weeks earlier to eliminate this debt entirely? It certainly wasn't a lack of demand, or pricing power, or availability of shares to issue. SpaceX is now a $2 trillion behemoth, with only a tiny fraction of the company now publicly traded.
More to the point, perhaps the bond sale should have been disclosed -- even if only as a possibility -- prior to the public offering, particularly given that SpaceX is going to remain in the red for a while and is likely to raise more money in the foreseeable future. That was the case when CEO Elon Musk was turning Tesla into an electric vehicle titan, anyway.
That's not the only curveball SpaceX shareholders were thrown since its IPO, either. Shortly after its initial public offering, the company also disclosed its intent to acquire Anysphere, the parent company of AI coding specialist Cursor, for $60 billion, payable in stock. Again, it's material information that could have been -- and arguably should have been -- disclosed to investors prior to the public offering, given how few shares are now issued and outstanding.
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Ordinary shareholders aren't in charge There's nothing illegal, atypical, or untoward about any of it. Companies acquire other companies. Young companies are often unprofitable at the beginning and need cash, which is often supplied by the sale of stock at a bargain relative to that ticker's long-term potential.
The worry here, rather, is the lack of transparency that's already evident in just the first few days of SpaceX's existence as a publicly traded entity. It hasn't yet earned the leeway with investors to make a major acquisition at a price three times last year's revenue. The company's not yet deserving of the right to simply turn a bridge loan into a long-term debt burden that could be difficult for the unprofitable outfit to service with actual operating profits anytime soon.
Yet, that's exactly what's happened.
Shareholders should be hoping this sort of unilateral, unchecked decision-making doesn't remain the norm. Given that Musk controls over 80% of total shareholder voting rights, however, there's little that investors could do if it does.
As Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock opened Monday, July 13, at a new lower low since hitting the all-time high (ATH), analysts at TrendSpider, an AI-powered market analysis platform, signaled a bearish outlook.
In an X post on 12, the platform noted that the SpaceX stock price chart could be in the early phase of breaking out of a descending triangle. The analyst at TrendSpider argued that SPCX stock has fallen below the horizontal support of the falling wedge, signaling a downtrend.
SpaceX stock price chart. Source: TrendSpider After closing Friday trading at $145.30, SpaceX stock traded around $143.77 during Monday’s pre-market trading session. As such, sellers of SPCX stock have been outnumbering existing buyers, thereby increasing post-IPO (Initial Public Offering) selling pressure.
The analyst supported the bearish technical breakout by citing the company’s low revenue relative to its market capitalization. Notably, SpaceX recorded $18 billion in revenue and a market capitalization of approximately $1.9 trillion at press time.
Meanwhile, the analyst argued that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) posted revenue of $747 billion in 2025 and had a market cap of about $2.6 trillion at the time of reporting.
Wall Street’s SpaceX stock price forecast 2026 Despite the near-term bearish outlook for SpaceX stock, 27 Wall Street analysts surveyed by TipRanks have set an average price target of $245.96 over the next 12 months. The majority of these analysts assigned a Buy rating for SpaceX shares, thus the average ‘Strong Buy’ rating.
SpaceX stock price forecast. Source: TipRanks Although the company’s midterm technicals have signaled a potential further correction, Wall Street analysts have pointed out its strong fundamentals. For instance, the company was added to the Nasdaq-100 index, which tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq.
Additionally, SpaceX’s AI ventures, including its recently acquired Cursor, have helped the company attract investors seeking exposure to AI stocks. As such, SpaceX stock could rebound in the long haul, fueled by increased revenue from its AI segment.
In a dazzling display of market enthusiasm last month, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. Debuting at $150 per share, SpaceX was instantly propelled into the ranks of the world's most valuable companies.
The historic event reflected genuine excitement over the company's ability to lower the cost of putting satellites into orbit through reusable rocket technology, its expanding Starlink constellation, and an emerging role in the artificial intelligence (AI) landscape.
Supported by synergies from xAI and Cursor, these factors painted a picture of a company uniquely positioned to dominate not only launch services but also the data and connectivity layers that underpin modern society.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX's post-IPO reality check Within a month of going public, SpaceX's stock has now slipped below its $150 debut price, and the company's market capitalization has contracted by roughly $1 trillion from its highs. At the post-IPO peak, SpaceX commanded a $2.9 trillion market value -- a valuation that was undoubtedly stretched relative to its current revenue and inconsistent profitability.
Much of the selling pressure stemmed from a sober reassessment of the company's business model, which features heavy capital expenditures (capex) required to increase Starship production and Starlink deployments. Some investors also have doubts about the speed and scale at which the company can complement existing product lines with meaningful AI-driven revenue.
SPCX Market Cap data by YCharts
This fueled a typical post-IPO pattern: Momentum investors and day traders who had piled into the IPO for a quick pop began locking in gains, amplifying downward pressure and leaving unsuspecting investors holding the bag.
Tailwinds pointing toward a recovery in SpaceX stock The same dynamics that fueled SpaceX's original surge could be the recipe for a credible path to recovery. SpaceX's vertically integrated model -- managing rocket design, manufacturing, launch cadence, and satellite production -- gives the company an edge when it comes to cost discipline and product iteration speed. This reduces the need to rely on external suppliers and accelerates the timeline for routine, low-cost heavy-lift capability with Starship.
Recent AI-focused agreements with Anthropic, Google Cloud, and Reflection further strengthen the bull case. These partnerships carry more than headline value; they provide tangible validation that established AI developers recognize the value of collaborating with SpaceX.
By combining Starlink's global, low-latency network with AI model deployment and edge computing, these collaborations help counter the notion that SpaceX cannot evolve into a serious player in AI infrastructure. Instead, they position the company as a core connectivity backbone for distributed AI workloads.
Against this backdrop, AI is becoming a natural extension of SpaceX's core segments: advancing space exploration through intelligent autonomy, expanding connectivity through low-orbit satellites, and ultimately reshaping telecommunications networks that legacy terrestrial carriers struggle to replicate.
How should you approach investing in SpaceX stock?
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Investors weighing a position in SpaceX stock should exercise measured patience rather than hoping for a quick rebound. Although the pullback from its post-IPO highs has created a more attractive entry point, sentiment rarely reverses on a dime after such a dramatic retreat.
Operational milestones will be required before broader investor confidence returns, especially from institutional capital. These catalysts are more realistically recognized during the course of several quarters than in mere weeks.
Adopting a multiyear investment horizon makes the most sense. During this time frame, the compounding effects of lower launch costs, global broadband expansion, and AI-enabled services have a better chance of materially increasing revenue and expanding profit margins. The prudent way to invest in SpaceX stock is through dollar-cost averaging, committing capital across market cycles rather than attempting to time a bottom and going all-in. This strategy mitigates the inherent volatility that comes with investing in a high-growth, capital-intensive business.
Short-term traders will likely continue driving price swings. In the long run, however, the current environment favors disciplined investors who remain focused on SpaceX's gradual transformation over those who make speculative bets on an imminent turnaround.
Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives purchased SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares within days of the company’s record-breaking initial public offering (IPO).
The trades occurred as the stock surged following its market debut, drawing interest because of the lawmakers’ committee assignments and SpaceX’s extensive business ties with the federal government.
Notably, SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history on June 12, 2026, pricing shares at $135 and raising about $75 billion. The stock surged to close near $192.50 on June 15 and briefly climbed as high as $225 in the following days.
Now the Congress trade disclosures show that Rep. Daniel Meuser reported a dependent child’s purchase of between $15,001 and $50,000 in SpaceX stock on June 15 at an average price of $192.50.
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On the same day, Rep. John McGuire bought between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of shares at the same price.
Three days later, Rep. Gilbert Ray Cisneros Jr. purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of SpaceX stock at an average price of $185.
The purchases came just days after SpaceX’s historic IPO, when strong investor demand pushed the stock well above its $135 offering price.
SpaceX stock trades source of interest The trades are of interest because all three lawmakers serve on committees with oversight of areas relevant to SpaceX.
For instance, Meuser sits on the House Financial Services Committee, while McGuire and Cisneros are linked to the House Armed Services Committee.
SpaceX is a major U.S. government contractor through its launch business and Starlink satellite network, both of which have growing defense and national security applications.
While the STOCK Act permits lawmakers to own and trade individual stocks if transactions are disclosed, critics argue that investments in companies affected by federal policy can create potential conflicts of interest.
The purchases were made near SpaceX’s early post-IPO highs. Since then, the stock has been volatile as investors reassess its valuation, growth outlook, and upcoming insider share unlocks. By press time, SPCX was valued at $145.
SpaceX one-month stock price chart. Source: Finbold SpaceX’s market debut pushed its valuation into about $2 trillion, making it one of the world’s most valuable public companies.
However, analysts have cautioned that sustaining those levels will depend on continued growth in launches, Starlink, and future space ventures.
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Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) joined the Nasdaq-100 index on July 7. If you own the Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ +0.31%) or the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM +0.32%), you now own a piece of it too.
SpaceX has gotten a lot of attention since its initial public offering (IPO). But now that it's getting added to major market indexes, the most important step is assessing its impact.
What might surprise many people is that, despite its massive $2 trillion market cap, the stock isn't nearly as influential in the Nasdaq-100 as you might think. And that's perhaps the biggest takeaway from this story.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX isn't even a top-20 holding in the Nasdaq-100 The reason SpaceX has only a relatively minor influence on the index is the distinction between total market capitalization and free-float market capitalization.
Free-float market cap takes into account only the shares that are publicly available. For SpaceX, that's about 5% of the total shares available. Most companies only have a percentage of their total shares publicly tradable, but SpaceX has less than average.
By total market cap, SpaceX would rank as one of the 10 largest companies in the world. But because the Nasdaq-100 uses free-float market cap, it's only the 21st-largest holding in the index, between KLA and Texas Instruments. Its weight is 1.25%.
SpaceX won't have a meaningful impact on the Nasdaq-100 If you're buying either the Invesco QQQ ETF or the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF expecting a significant stake in SpaceX, you're probably going to be disappointed.
Even a major rally or crash in the stock market likely won't be felt in the index. The one thing to potentially be mindful of is the volatility of the stock. The IPO price was set at $135. It initially traded at around $150 when it went public, reached as high as $225, and is now back down to around $149.
There's a lot of noise in the trading behavior of this stock. From investors trying to get their hands on shares for the first time to the fund industry buying millions of shares to track their underlying indexes, volatility in SpaceX could be higher than average for a while until things settle a bit.
The next big milestone will be next summer when the stock becomes eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.42%). While there will be another wave of buying if and when that happens, expectations should be tempered on that day as well. The S&P 500 is also free-float, market-cap-weighted, and might receive an even smaller allocation there.
David Dierking has positions in Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends KLA and Texas Instruments. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) has become one of the market's most closely watched stocks after its rapid entry into the Nasdaq-100 index on July 7. Shares are trading close to $149 (as of July 10), still above its $135 IPO price, but nearly 34% below its post-IPO high of $225.60.
This share price pullback has not ended investor interest in SpaceX, but it has changed the debate. Investors are now weighing the company's artificial intelligence (AI) compute opportunity, Starlink satellite internet network's room to expand in satellite communications, and progress on the next-generation reusable rocket system, Starship, as they assess where the stock could trade by the end of 2026.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX has growth drivers for its revenue SpaceX is already demonstrating impressive financial momentum. Revenue rose 33% year over year to $18.7 billion in 2025. But the company still reported a net loss of $4.9 billion after merging with money-losing xAI.
Starlink remains the key growth engine, supported by roughly 10.3 million users and 9,600 satellites. But AI infrastructure is also becoming the next major catalyst. Alphabet has agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million per month from October 2026 through June 2029 for access to about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related computing resources. Anthropic has also signed a major compute-access deal with SpaceX, securing use of SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center. Reuters reported that SpaceX's two deals are worth about $26 billion annually if fully realized.
Although not all the AI revenue from these deals is expected to materialize in 2026, it still gives investors a reason to value SpaceX based on future revenue potential rather than solely on 2025 sales.
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SpaceX's valuation will fall, but remain expensive At the end of 2026, investors will likely be looking toward SpaceX's expected 2027 revenue, since the stock's valuation depends on how quickly Starlink, AI compute, and Starship can expand the company's sales base.
SpaceX's market capitalization is close to $2 trillion. Analysts' 2026 revenue estimates range from $34.3 billion on the low end to $43.2 billion on the high end, with a base case estimate of about $38.9 billion. Hence, SpaceX is already trading at roughly 51.4 times base case 2026 sales. By the end of 2026, that multiple will most likely compress, as post-IPO excitement usually cools and investors demand evidence of execution. But it also does not need to collapse if SpaceX continues to show progress in Starlink, AI infrastructure, and Starship.
A reasonable base-case assumption is that SpaceX's sales multiple compresses by about 20% to 25% from today's 51.4x 2026 sales multiple. That gives a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple range of roughly 38.5 to 41 times expected 2027 sales.
Analysts expect SpaceX's 2027 revenue to range from $54.8 billion to $85 billion, with an average estimate of $72.4 billion. Applying a forward sales multiple of 38.5 to 41 times to the 2027 base case revenue estimate yields an implied market capitalization of about $2.79 trillion to $2.97 trillion. Using roughly 13.1 billion shares outstanding, that points to a share price in the range of $213 to $227 at the end of 2026.
Hence, $220 is a reasonable base case estimate. It assumes that while SpaceX's valuation multiple compresses, revenue growth offsets the pressure enough to lift the share price.
What's going on with Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) stock? The space stock was the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever when it went public less than a month ago, and instead of the projected $75 billion raised, underwriters were able to use their 15% overallotment because there was so much interest. SpaceX ended up raising $86.7 billion.
But after all of that hyper-interest and an initial run-up, SpaceX stock is now trading below its market open price of $150 as of this writing.
That might seem like an opportune time to buy in if you couldn't get in at the beginning. But now might be the worst time to buy shares. Here's why.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why is SpaceX stock falling? SpaceX hasn't released any new information about its operations since the IPO, so any movement is likely related to investor sentiment or macroeconomic factors. Both of these are likely coming into play.
Some investors who were lucky enough to get IPO shares or bought in the first few days might be pocketing their gains. Given how high the demand for the stock was, it would be a simple move.
However, the tech industry as a whole has been under pressure over the past week, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 are both roughly flat since the beginning of June. Now, about a month after the IPO, SpaceX is another tech stock that's going to act, more or less, in line with other tech stocks when there's macroeconomic news or volatility.
So far, the thesis to wait for now is connected to a hesitant tech market. But there's more, specifically related to SpaceX.
Since it's only been a month since the IPO, the stock is still in what's known as the lockup period. Insiders, who own the 95% or so of the stock that hasn't been released on the market, are restricted from selling for obvious reasons: Releasing such a massive amount of shares at once could create major instability, especially for a stock as hyped-up as SpaceX.
Most lockup periods end 180 days after the IPO, but SpaceX has a staggered lockup period. The first stage ends after the second-quarter earnings release. While that date hasn't been announced yet, it's likely to be in the beginning of August. At that time, 911.5 million shares, or 6.8% of the total, will become eligible for sale by insiders. That's more than is already on the market.
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If the stock surpasses the IPO price by 30% for five out of the 10 days post-release, another 455.8 million shares can be sold. In total, that would be 10.2% of the stock, or more than double the 4.1% that's on the markets today.
Not all of the stock will be sold, and the way it looks right now, it's unlikely the 30% threshold will be met. However, if there's high trading activity at that point, it certainly could be.
The more likely scenario is that the stock is driven down by all the new shares. Which means it could get a lot lower than today's price, and investors should wait it out.
Just three companies in the world have market capitalizations above $3 trillion, and another three are within shouting distance of that milestone. Microsoft has a market value of roughly $2.8 trillion, while Amazon and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing sit at $2.6 trillion and $2.3 trillion, respectively.
Just behind them sits Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%), which is currently worth about $2 trillion. However, following the company's historic initial public offering last month, SpaceX (as the company is also known) briefly touched a market value of nearly $3 trillion before the stock entered a sharp correction.
For investors, SpaceX offers a compelling case study in both volatility and valuation potential. For it to get back to $3 trillion would require not only significant revenue acceleration, but also a compelling growth narrative that supports the premise that it could outpace its more established technology peers.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX stock has been on a roller coaster SpaceX's limited history on the public market has been defined by extreme swings. Shortly after its IPO, the stock experienced a dramatic run-up, moving from $150 at the start of its opening trading day to an intraday high of $225.64 just a couple of days later.
SPCX data by YCharts.
However, since reaching this peak almost three weeks ago, shares have been on a fairly steady descent: From that high point, the company has shed almost $1 trillion in market value in less than a month. This rapid sell-off reflected the typical pressures that come to bear on high-growth companies as macroeconomic conditions shift and investors begin asking pointed questions about the realistic timelines for major projects.
Ultimately, SpaceX's stock trajectory illustrates how quickly sentiment can pivot for a business operating at the intersection of satellite communications, reusable rocketry, and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. However, the same market forces that compressed SpaceX's valuation could swiftly reverse course when fresh catalysts emerge.
Investors who bought the dip in SpaceX stock are essentially betting that the company's underlying progress will eventually reassert itself in the share price.
What catalysts does SpaceX have? For the company to justify a $3 trillion valuation, it would have to both scale up revenue and sustain a healthy price-to-sales (P/S) multiple. To achieve both of these goals, I think SpaceX must build on its recently announced AI infrastructure partnerships with Anthropic, Alphabet's Google Cloud, and Reflection -- three contracts that carry a combined value of up to $82 billion. By doing so, the company would further prove that it can diversify its revenue streams more widely beyond Starlink internet subscriptions and government rocket launch contracts.
When you pair the AI infrastructure opportunity it aims to pursue with a credible path to sustained profitability through Starlink's expanding subscriber base and its rocket operation's improving launch economics, the narrative may gradually shift from SpaceX's speculative future ambitions to its demonstrated earnings power.
If SpaceX can generate annual revenues of $100 billion while maintaining a P/S multiple of 30, its implied market cap would reach the $3 trillion threshold. The combination of top-line growth, a proven path to sustained profitability, and a valuation multiple re-rating is what separates companies that merely recover from sell-offs from those that surge to new highs afterward.
Can SpaceX leapfrog Microsoft? Microsoft is much closer on paper to a $3 trillion market value than SpaceX is. However, the former has struggled throughout much of 2026 to maintain investor enthusiasm.
Competition for its Azure cloud computing unit from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, as well as concerns about what returns on investment it will accrue from its enormous AI-related capital expenditures, have tempered investors' growth expectations for Microsoft. SpaceX, by contrast, offers a unique combination of potential tailwinds through Starlink (its established revenue engine), transformative upside from the commercialization of Starship as a launch vehicle, and fresh exposure to the AI infrastructure supercycle.
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If SpaceX can deliver a steady cadence of new AI capacity deals while reporting consistently positive earnings, the market could easily reclassify the company as a higher-growth alternative to legacy big tech. Smart investors understand that capital often flows toward the stories with the steepest perceived slopes rather than the ones closest to the finish line. In that context, SpaceX could swiftly close the gap to $3 trillion before Microsoft does simply because valuation expansion is more available to a still-maturing, high-momentum business than it is to a mature incumbent.
Realistically, however, I think it's a stretch. For SpaceX to achieve that outcome would require near-flawless execution across multiple programs. It would have to successfully scale up its AI infrastructure, deliver sustained Starlink profitability, and make continued progress toward readiness for Starship, and do it all in a compressed time frame. That would also have to occur in the absence of any major setbacks -- operationally or on the macroeconomic level.
While the ingredients for a rapid re-rating of the stock technically exist, they depend on many tailwinds aligning simultaneously. For this reason, I think the idea of SpaceX becoming a $3 trillion company anytime soon is more aspirational than probable.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%), better known as SpaceX, just joined the Nasdaq-100 index. That's a big deal because now every investment vehicle that tracks the index has to own shares of SpaceX. This creates a bit of a buying spree, as these indexes have to buy the stock, which can send share prices skyrocketing in some instances.
However, that hasn't been the case as SpaceX's stock declined over the past few days. But can that turn around? Let's take a look.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The catalyst is over Because of how these indexes are structured, if SpaceX joins the Nasdaq-100, the next day, every investment vehicle that tracks this index must own shares. So, it's a one-time catalyst. Now that it has occurred and the stock barely budged, SpaceX is back to being its own catalyst.
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One red flag is that it's now trading below its $150-per-share debut price, which could be a great buying opportunity or cautionary tale. On the caution side, it could indicate that significant hype has now died off, and further decline could be coming. If you're more bullish, then you might see this as a prime buying opportunity for one of the hottest stocks on the market.
So, where am I on SpaceX?
I think there are far better investment choices than SpaceX. Investors will learn a lot more about SpaceX when it reports quarterly earnings, because all investors now have to go off of its 2025 results. It generated $18.7 billion in revenue during 2025, growing at a 33% pace. At a $1.95 trillion market cap, the stock is valued at a very high 104 times sales. Most of the time, companies valued at 104 times earnings are considered expensive, but since SpaceX isn't profitable, it doesn't even have earnings to value the stock with.
Sky-high expectations are already baked into SpaceX's stock price, and it doesn't look like a compelling investment option. The company will need to grow at a strong pace for several years to reach the valuation it's priced at now, and until I see positive confirmation that it will, I'm shifting my focus to other stocks.
Another catalyst that hasn't occurred yet, but is coming, is increased selling pressure. After the lockup period is over, inside investors will be allowed to sell shares, which could trigger a massive sell-off as selling pressure outweighs demand. The lockup period is tiered over the next year, and until a year has gone by, I think there could be increased volatility in the stock as supply and demand sort themselves out.
SpaceX is already a massive company, and I think investors can afford to stay patient and wait for more information on its business state and for the lockup period to end before taking a position in SpaceX.
The noise of SpaceX's (SPCX 4.51%) recent initial public offering is finally quieting down -- mostly. And, in light of all the hype surrounding this name as it prepped its IPO, you may be a bit disappointed with its performance so far.
Here's how it's fared for whom.
No one's doing great Whether or not you're happy here largely depends on when and how you bought into your stake.
If you were one of the lucky few to directly participate in SpaceX's initial offering at a price of $135 per share, the stock's current price near $152 would mean your $5,000 investment would be worth about $5,590 now, up a little more than 12% since the June 12 IPO.
Most people weren't picked to participate in the actual public offering, though. They were forced to buy their stake in the open market at the market price. If you jumped in that same day, you paid somewhere in the ballpark of its first exchange-traded price of around $150. If that's you, your $5,000 trade is roughly breaking even, at $5,066.
Image source: Getty Images.
Of course, some people stepped into this then-rallying ticker a couple of days after its IPO, which turned out to be the worst possible time to do so. SPCX peaked at a high of $225.64 on June 16. If that was you (and it was someone), your $5,000 investment is now worth around $3,370, down nearly 33%.
Almost no one is doing especially well with SpaceX, regardless of when they got in.
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Nothing unusual, and it's not over yet Those are the numbers. The thing is, none of them really matter just yet.
Sure, anybody who bought it obviously expects SpaceX shares to move higher in the future. As veteran investors can attest, though, erratic post-IPO performance isn't particularly unusual. It could take several more months to fully squeeze out all the speculative forces at play here.
Then there's the phased-out lockup period. Employees and early stakeholders will only be allowed to sell some of their shares after second quarter results are released in early August, with progressively more shares freed up at staggered dates over the three months following that report. Other major shareholders won't be able to sell their stock until early next year, and Musk isn't able to sell any until June of 2027. Selling these shares could put downward pressure on share prices, although it's possible that most insiders and early investors will opt to stick with their positions.
It would also be naïve to pretend the market isn't going to pass conclusive judgment (even if the rhetoric suggests otherwise) on this fast-moving company until at least a couple of reported quarters are in hand, proving whether or not it's moving in a direction and at a pace that justifies the stock's premium price. Don't be surprised to see indecision in the meantime.
In other words, while SpaceX's post-IPO performance so far is lackluster, it's far too soon to worry about it. This won't be a conventional investment prospect for at least a year. In the meantime, trading it is largely an exercise in figuring out how the crowd will feel about the stock just a few days from now.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) pulled off the largest IPO in history last month, opening at $150 per share and ending the day at $161, with a market value of $2.1 trillion. The stock has been highly volatile since then, rising to a high of about $225 before eventually declining below its opening price. SpaceX's shares are currently worth $145 apiece. Should investors buy the stock at current levels?
When expectations meet reality IPOs tend to generate significant enthusiasm because they offer the opportunity to invest in promising companies early. Imagine buying shares of Amazon (AMZN 0.73%) on the day it went public. Even a relatively modest investment in the e-commerce leader then would be worth a small fortune today. Not every company is Amazon, but SpaceX could deliver similar -- or even better -- returns over the long run, provided the corporation's ambitious vision materializes.
Image source: the Motley Fool.
SpaceX is looking to revolutionize and commoditize space travel through its pioneering work with reusable rockets. The company's next-gen rocket, Starship, is fully reusable and has a much greater capacity than its previous ones. This could unlock several opportunities for SpaceX, including space tourism, as Starship significantly reduces the cost of space travel. SpaceX could also substantially improve its most important business, Starlink, which offers internet connectivity through Low Earth Orbit satellites. Starlink was SpaceX's only profitable segment last year, and the company recently requested regulatory approval to send 100,000 of its Gen3 Starlink satellites into orbit.
Considering the company has just over 10,000 satellites in orbit right now -- and the fact that it is looking to operate these new satellites in very low Earth orbit -- this could improve Starlink's internet speeds and potentially allow it to target customers outside of those in rural and other underserved areas it has focused on so far. Clearly, there is a large opportunity ahead for SpaceX, and we haven't even mentioned the company's artificial intelligence opportunity, which it sees as its largest addressable market across its entire business.
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Despite all that, there are reasons to be skeptical of SpaceX's prospects. For one, SpaceX is spending significant sums to make its ambitions a reality. That means the company may not turn a profit anytime soon, which is fine, provided it can pull off its vision. But there will be significant challenges, including growing competition in the space industry and risks to the company's ability to innovate, execute, and remain the leading company in the space sector.
Factors such as regulatory delays related to Starship -- which is central to its future -- and slower-than-expected development timelines may sink the stock. Further, SpaceX will also face increased competition in its Starlink business. These are just some of the problems it may encounter. In the meantime, SpaceX is the only $2 trillion (or more) company that isn't consistently profitable, which suggests its valuation already reflects significant success. For all those reasons, the stock still isn't a buy, even below its opening price. Perhaps once it falls much further, its shares will become attractive.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) -- commonly known as SpaceX --is a highly controversial space stock.
Some experts believe the company will transform multiple industries, leading to hefty gains for long-term shareholders. Other experts, like Jeremy Grantham, the co-founder of GMO LLC, strongly believe SpaceX will "fail to deliver anything like its promises in the prospectus."
SpaceX's growth ambitions hinge on its ability to scale not only its rocket and satellite launches but also its fledgling AI business. More than 90% of the company's claimed growth potential outlined in its IPO prospectus deals exclusively with AI opportunities.
Can AI growth justify SpaceX's current $2 trillion valuation? At least one major investment bank thinks so.
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Here's how AI growth can help SpaceX's stock price soar I expect SpaceX to use the majority of its IPO proceeds, as well as the $25 billion raised in a follow-on bond offering, to invest heavily in scaling its AI business. That means building more compute infrastructure, chip manufacturing facilities, and orbital data centers.
How big will SpaceX's AI business get long-term? Goldman Sachs recently revealed its expectation for SpaceX's AI division to grow its revenue 100-fold by 2030. Admittedly, SpaceX's AI revenues totaled only $3.2 billion last year. But hitting $322 billion in sales by 2030 would be quite an impressive feat.
Image source: Getty Images.
Goldman Sachs was one of the underwriters of SpaceX's IPO. So it's not surprising to see the bank issue an optimistic forecast. But if Goldman Sachs' prediction comes true, just how high could SpaceX's stock price soar?
It's difficult to know just how the market will value a scaled AI business like SpaceX's. But Nvidia's (NVDA +4.03%) valuation of 19.7 times sales gives us at least a window into what's possible. At that valuation, SpaceX would be worth somewhere around $6.3 trillion. A $500,000 investment today, therefore, would end up being worth around $1.6 million by 2030.
The math likely won't work out as cleanly as demonstrated, however. SpaceX remains a money-losing business, a reality that will likely force it to issue more stock in the coming months and years. Plus, there's no guarantee that the market will price SpaceX stock the way it does Nvidia stock today. There are clear differences between the businesses, and some investors worry that we're in the midst of an AI bubble, which may be overinflating the valuations of AI stocks.
Still, if Goldman Sachs' prediction comes true, it's not hard to justify SpaceX's current valuation of $2 trillion. Just remember that there will be plenty of execution, financing, and timing risks involved.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%) entered the Nasdaq-100 index on July 7, and investors will hope it provides additional support for an already successful initial public offering (IPO). But what does the index inclusion really mean, and what can SpaceX investors expect in the future?
Where next for SpaceX? The Nasdaq-100 index inclusion does matter. It triggers forced passive buying of the stock by funds (including exchange-traded funds, or ETFs) that track the Nasdaq-100 index. In addition, many actively managed funds may invest only in stocks listed in the Nasdaq-100 index, and others may require holdings in SpaceX stock to meet their fund's weighting requirements. All of this is likely to provide some support for the share price.
Image source: Getty Images.
While this will occur, investors also need to be mindful of periodic bouts of selling as SpaceX's lock-up expiry dates approach. Digging into the company's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings makes it clear that the potential for periodic supply hitting the market is real. For reference, around 639 million shares were sold at IPO, and SpaceX has 13.17 billion shares outstanding.
Lock-Up Expiry Date
Shares
Notes
Two days after the next earnings release
Up to 911.5 million
N/A
Two days after the next earnings release
Up to 455.8 million additional shares
Contingent on the share price being more than 30% of the IPO price of $135 "for at least five of the 10 consecutive trading days ending on, and including, the First Earnings Release Date, the second full trading day immediately after the First Earnings Release Date."
Aug. 20
Up to 319 million
N/A
Sept. 9
319 million
N/A
Sept. 10
59.1 million
Shares held by "affiliates"
Sept. 24
328.4 million
N/A
Oct. 9
328.4 million
N/A
Oct. 24
328.4 million
N/A
Two days after the third-quarter earnings release
Up to 1.3 billion
N/A
Dec. 8
Up to 328.4 million or up to 797.6 million
The lower figure is released as outlined, and the upper figure is not
Data source: Space Exploration Technologies SEC filings.
As you can see, significantly more shares could come to market than were sold at IPO, and that could prove more impactful than the Nasdaq-100 listing.
Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Wall Street analysts are setting bullish price targets for SpaceX (SPCX 4.51%) stock.
*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of July 8, 2026. The video was published on July 10, 2026.
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. offers an attractive buy opportunity after the pullback from its post-IPO high, now trading near $152. My investment thesis on SpaceX depends on near-monopoly launch economics, Starlink's cash engine, and emerging AI infrastructure. The upcoming float unlocks, starting after 2Q earnings on August 6, which creates a real supply overhang but also defines the $145–$155 accumulation zone.
Predicting where any stock will trade four years out is guesswork, and that goes double for Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%), the newly public company most people know as SpaceX. Still, since it now trades on the open market at around $150 per share, it's worth walking through what a $5,000 stake might become by 2030, and, more important, what would have to go right or wrong for it to get there.
At roughly $150, $5,000 would buy about 33 shares. Every scenario that follows starts with that same handful of shares. The difference is what the market decides they're worth once Starlink, Starship, and the company's space-based computing ambitions play out.
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The bull case: about $26,000 The optimistic path runs through Starlink. The satellite broadband unit already generates most of SpaceX's revenue, and in a strong scenario, that business, paired with a successful Starship rocket, could push company revenue toward $60 billion to $70 billion by 2030. If that happens and investors keep paying a premium multiple for the company, the stock could reach the $800 range that the most bullish Wall Street analyst covering it -- Brian Gesuale of Raymond James -- has floated. That would turn $5,000 into roughly $26,000.
The base case: about $10,000 A more measured path assumes that Starlink keeps growing and Starship matures, but that the sky-high valuation cools as the company shifts from story to steady business. In that scenario, the share price could roughly double to around $300 over four years, which works out to growth of nearly 15% per year.
A $5,000 investment would then be worth close to $10,000. That would still be a strong result, and it's probably the most realistic one if SpaceX's execution stays on track.
Image source: Getty Images.
The bear case: about $3,300 The downside risks are real. SpaceX could encounter more delays and difficulties in getting its Starship rockets ready for commercial use. Rival satellite networks such as Amazon's Kuiper could put pressure on Starlink's pricing. The company's orbital data center plans could take more time and money than promised to bring to fruition. Any of these issues would give investors a reason to stop paying a premium for a company with a market cap in the trillions. If the stock drifts down toward $100, an initial $5,000 stake bought now would shrink to about $3,300, a loss of roughly a third, and there's room for it to fall further in a harsher outcome.
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The width of the gap between the bear and bull numbers here, $3,300 versus $26,000, is the real message. It shows how much of SpaceX's value rests on things that haven't happened yet -- and that may not. The single biggest swing factor is how Starlink performs: If the satellite broadband service keeps scaling profitably, the base and bull cases stay in play; if its growth stalls or competition bites into its profit margins, the bear case takes over.
Given that this company is so early in monetizing its biggest bets, those who open positions would be best advised to view them as long-term holdings, and keep their investment to a smaller size that reflects the potential for a wide range of outcomes. I would also use dollar-cost-averaging to gradually build any investment in SpaceX.
For years, the only way to own a piece of Elon Musk's rocket company was to be an insider or a venture fund. That changed in June, when Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%), better known as SpaceX, became publicly traded.
Now that anyone with a brokerage account can buy in, a fair question follows: What could a modest $2,000 stake actually turn into?
What $2,000 buys in SpaceX today SpaceX opened its first day of trading at $150, and after a volatile debut period in which it surged to a high of $225.64 in just a few days, it has retreated back toward that opening price. Today, it again trades at around $150 per share. At that price, $2,000 would buy about 13 shares. That is the starting point for every scenario below, and it is worth remembering that the stock has already swung hard in its first weeks, a sign of how much disagreement exists about what the company is worth.
Image source: Getty Images.
The analyst community leans bullish. Six major banks began coverage with buy-equivalent ratings on the stock, and the consensus 12-month target sits near $210.
If SpaceX reached that level, a $2,000 investment would grow to roughly $2,800 -- a gain of about 40% in a year. Morgan Stanley is even more optimistic, pairing an overweight rating with a $300 target that would push the same stake to around $4,000. These figures are opinions rather than promises, but they help explain why the stock has drawn such a crowd.
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Here is the part that gets lost in the target prices. SpaceX's rocket launch business is real and profitable, yet the company's towering valuation is predicated on several major things that have not happened yet: mass Starlink revenue, a working Starship economy, and Musk's ambitious plan to build and deploy vast numbers of AI data center satellites in orbit. Buy the stock, and you are paying today for outcomes that may arrive years from now, if they arrive at all.
The risks behind the return Not everyone on Wall Street is convinced. The firm CFRA Research has put a sell rating and a $115 price target on SpaceX stock, based on the view that too much of the company's story is still speculative. If it's right, a $2,000 position opened today will shrink to about $1,530 a year from now -- a loss of about 23%. Newly public stocks also face nearly inevitable selling pressure as their insider lockup periods expire, and a market cap in the trillions leaves a company with little leeway to disappoint investors without consequences for the share price.
A $2,000 investment in SpaceX is less a bet on rockets than a bet on which version of Musk's company wins out: the steady rocket launch provider, or the trillion-dollar space-and-AI empire the bulls imagine. The range of possible outcomes here is unusually wide, so anyone buying would do well to size their position to reflect that uncertainty.
Investors who bought SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock at its initial public offering (IPO) price one month ago have seen a modest gain despite significant volatility since the company’s market debut.
In this line, a $1,000 investment made at SpaceX’s IPO price of $135 per share on June 11, 2026, would now be worth approximately $1,076, reflecting a gain of about 7.6% based on the closing price of $145.30.
SpaceX 30-day stock price chart. Source: Finbold The return comes after a turbulent first month of trading for the aerospace giant, whose highly anticipated public debut became the largest IPO in history.
SpaceX raised about $75 billion in its IPO, debuting with an initial valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion.
Investor demand was strong, with shares opening near $150 and closing their first trading day around $161, lifting the company’s market capitalization above $2 trillion.
The rally continued in subsequent sessions, with SPCX reaching intraday highs near $225 before pulling back due to broader market weakness and profit-taking.
Despite the decline, the stock remains above its IPO price, leaving early investors in profit even as shares trade well below their post-listing peak.
While early IPO participants are still profitable, investors who purchased SpaceX stock at the close of its first trading day have experienced a different outcome.
A $1,000 investment made at the first-day closing price of approximately $161 would now be worth about $902, representing a decline of nearly 10% over the same period.
SpaceX stock fundamentals Investor interest in SpaceX remains tied to several key growth drivers. The company continues to dominate the commercial launch market through its Falcon rocket program while rapidly expanding its Starlink satellite internet business, which has become a major revenue contributor.
At the same time, investors are closely monitoring progress on Starship, the company’s fully reusable spacecraft designed to dramatically reduce launch costs and support future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Additional growth expectations are linked to potential artificial intelligence infrastructure projects and broader space-based communications initiatives.
However, these opportunities come with execution risks. SpaceX continues to invest heavily in next-generation technologies, and any delays in major programs could weigh on future performance.
The stock’s first month as a public company has already demonstrated how quickly investor sentiment can shift when expectations are exceptionally high.
With the company expected to report its first earnings results as a public entity later this year, investors will be looking for evidence that SpaceX can translate its technological leadership into financial performance capable of supporting its multi-trillion-dollar valuation.
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SpaceX (SPCX 4.51%) has been public for less than a month, and the stock has already made a round trip, surging after its June IPO before sliding about 34% from its high to a recent price near $148. That leaves the company valued at close to $2 trillion.
For a business still losing money, that is an extraordinary price. So the interesting question isn't what the stock does next week. It's where it could reasonably sit in five years, and what would have to happen for today's buyers to be rewarded.
Let's take a look.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What decides the outcome Almost everything about SpaceX's future comes down to three things.
The first, and by far the most important today, is Starlink. The satellite internet service crossed 10 million active customers earlier this year and generated more than $11 billion in revenue in 2025, about 61% of the company's total. Starlink is the profit center that makes the rest of SpaceX's ambitions affordable, and its growth over the next five years is key to the bull case for the stock.
Its pricing power is largely untested, though. As competition from other satellite and ground networks grows, SpaceX may eventually have to choose between adding subscribers and protecting the prices that keep Starlink profitable.
The second engine is Starship, the giant reusable rocket meant to slash the cost of reaching orbit. If SpaceX can ramp its launch cadence and drive costs down, it strengthens everything else. Cheaper launches mean more Starlink satellites, more commercial payloads, and more government contracts. But Starship is capital-intensive and still has plenty to prove.
The third is the wild card: the company's artificial intelligence (AI) and Mars ambitions. SpaceX acquired the AI start-up xAI earlier this year, and its AI segment generated $818 million or revenue and a $2.5 billion operating loss in Q1. Layer on the enormous long-term cost of a Mars program, and you have real drains on the cash Starlink throws off.
The point is that the bull case and the bear case run on the same facts. Starlink funds the ambitions, and those ambitions could either compound SpaceX's advantages or swallow its profits.
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What the numbers would have to do So put some math to it.
SpaceX generated about $19 billion in revenue over the past year, growing more than 30%. Suppose it keeps compounding at roughly that pace for five years. That would take revenue to around $70 billion by 2031, an impressive result, and probably closer to a best-case than a floor.
Now the harder part. To simply hold a $2 trillion valuation on $70 billion of revenue, SpaceX would need to earn a healthy profit on those sales, something it doesn't do today. Even at a 20% net margin, which would be excellent for a capital-heavy space and satellite business, that is roughly $14 billion in profit. Against a $2 trillion market capitalization that's still well over 100 times earnings five years out.
In other words, even a strong five years might only justify today's price, not beat it. And that is the optimistic path. If Starlink's growth slows as it saturates its wealthiest markets, or if Starship and xAI keep swallowing cash, revenue could land well short of $70 billion -- and the stock with it.
For the shares to deliver real returns from here, then, Starlink's economics have to scale even faster, or xAI and Starship have to turn from cash drains into profit engines. That is a demanding set of assumptions. It isn't impossible -- SpaceX has a habit of doing what skeptics called impossible -- but it leaves very little room for error.
So, where will SpaceX stock be in five years?
I won't pretend to know. The honest answer is that the range of outcomes is unusually wide. My best guess is that the business will be dramatically larger in 2031, and the stock still might not have done much, simply because so much growth is already priced in. That doesn't make SpaceX a bad company. It makes it a richly valued one. If I owned it, I'd keep the position small and treat the next five years as a bet on execution I can afford to be wrong about.
Members of the U.S. Congress buying a stock usually isn't a big deal. It happens all the time. However, some transactions by politicians are noteworthy -- especially for investors.
That's the case with two recent transactions involving Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 4.51%), better known as SpaceX. There's bipartisan interest in SpaceX, with Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Penn., and Rep. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., becoming the first members of Congress known to have disclosed investments in the space stock. Is this a bullish signal for other investors thinking about buying SpaceX?
Image source: Getty Images.
Not just any congressional trades Rep. Meuser disclosed a purchase of SpaceX stock on June 15, 2026, only three days after the company's record-setting IPO. The congressman's regulatory filing revealed that his dependent child bought between $15,001 and $50,000 of the stock. Rep. Cisneros bought between $1,001 and $15,000 of SpaceX shares on June 18.
There are no yellow flags with either of these transactions, by the way. Both members of Congress complied with disclosure requirements. Neither has been accused of trading on information that isn't public or violating any law. Cisneros issued a statement to CNBC emphasizing that he doesn't personally manage his investments. The California Democrat said that he and his wife use "outside financial advisors who have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain a diverse portfolio."
The interesting thing about these two representatives, though, is their committee assignments. Meuser is on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees securities and exchanges. Cisneros serves on the House Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Defense.
SpaceX has around $22 billion in contracts with U.S. government, with the Defense Department ranking as one of its fastest-growing government customers. NASA is the company's largest federal customer, with roughly $15 billion in contracts.
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What history shows In 2004, Alan Ziobrowski, Ping Cheng, James W. Boyd, and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski published a detailed analysis of stock investments made by U.S. Senators between 1993 and 1998. They found that a portfolio that copied senators' buy transactions beat the market by 85 basis points per month, while a portfolio that mimicked their sales beat the market by 12 basis points per month.
Importantly, though, that study was based on data before the implementation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012. This legislation banned members of Congress, as well as the President, Vice President, and all federal employees, from using nonpublic information to which they have access through their official positions for personal financial profit. The STOCK Act also mandated financial disclosures.
You'll sometimes see reports about individual members of Congress achieving outsize returns from their investments. However, a 2022 analysis by William Belmont, Bruce Sacerdote, Ranjan Sehgal, and Ian Van Hoek concluded that "House and Senator stock returns are consistent with random stock picking."
Similarly, Vishaal Baulkarna and Pawan Jain published research in 2025 analyzing two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that sought to replicate trades of members of Congress. They determined that "neither ETF significantly outperforms the market on a risk-adjusted basis."
The Unusual Whales 2025 Congress Trading Report found that only 32.2% of congressional portfolios outperformed the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.42%) last year. The reported stated, "This success rate effectively mirrors the professional financial world." The conclusion: "In 2025, Congress proved to be no better than the average money manager."
Not necessarily a bullish signal The bottom line for investors considering SpaceX stock is that congressional buys aren't necessarily a bullish signal. At least on an overall basis, members of Congress haven't consistently beaten the market with their stock picks. Buying SpaceX just because two representatives did, therefore, probably isn't a smart move.
The ETF seeks to track the performance of the Bloomberg Space Economy Index, reflecting the price and yield of the benchmark before fees and expenses.
• First Trust Bloomberg Space Economy ETF stock is testing key support levels. What’s pressuring FSPC?
The launch comes as asset managers increasingly position space as a long-term investment theme extending well beyond rocket launches. Commercial and government space infrastructure now underpins critical services ranging from GPS navigation and weather forecasting to financial transactions, military communications and satellite broadband.
First Trust said the new ETF is designed to provide diversified exposure to multiple segments of the evolving industry, rather than relying on a handful of high-profile aerospace companies.
Bloomberg Index Services noted that its index uses a data-driven methodology intended to capture how the modern space economy operates, while First Trust said the fund offers investors broad access to a sector where the eventual long-term winners remain uncertain.
Key features of the First Trust Bloomberg Space Economy ETF (FSPC):
–Objective: Seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield, before fees and expenses, of the Bloomberg Space Economy Index.
Space Domain Awareness Launch and Space Transportation Satellites and Communications Space Data and Artificial Intelligence –Portfolio construction: Selects up to 50 companies based on revenue exposure to the space economy and market capitalization.
–Index maintenance: Quarterly rebalancing and reconstitution.
–Investment rationale: Designed to provide diversified exposure across multiple areas of the commercial space ecosystem as the industry continues to evolve.
–Benchmark provider: Bloomberg Index Services, with sector classifications supported by Bloomberg Intelligence.
Photo: Shutterstock AI Generator
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Shares of SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) are trading at $148 and change on Friday afternoon, essentially back where they opened one month ago. That flat tape looks dull on the surface, but against the rest of the space sector, it’s the best performance in the group.
SpaceX priced its debut at $135 but commenced trading at $150 on June 12, and has since round-tripped to basically the same price. That’s disappointing, no doubt, but SpaceX’s peers fared worse over the past month.
The market cap of Elon Musk’s space company sits at $1.96 trillion, making SpaceX one of the largest listings ever and by far the biggest name in the sector. That scarcity value may have helped to shield SPCX stock from the broader sector rotation.
Peers Sold Off, SpaceX Held the Line It’s been a challenging month for the space sector overall. Speculative, high-beta space names have been hit with profit-taking and cooling risk appetite over the past four weeks, though SpaceX evidently refused to participate on the downside.
Over the trailing month, Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) is down 45%, Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ:LUNR) is down 40%, and Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB | RKLB Price Prediction) is down 22%. AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) is down 16%, and Planet Labs (NYSE:PL) is down 15%.
The takeaway isn’t that SpaceX rallied, since it actually popped and dropped. Being flat versus the opening price still counts as a win in this hard-hit sector.
The Space Sector Proxy Confirms the Rotation The Procure Space ETF (NYSEARCA:UFO) is down 10% over the same month, though it did cushion the space sector group’s drawdowns with satellite operators and aerospace specialists. The UFO ETF is a narrow, volatile thematic fund with concentration risk, though it’s not leveraged. The fund’s top holdings include Planet Labs at 6% and Rocket Lab at 5%, both of which weighed on the UFO ETF.
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The VIX Volatility Index at 15.84, down 20% over the past month, tells the rest of the story as broad market fear has faded. The space selloff isn’t a macro panic; it’s a sector-specific reset in the frothiest corners of the market, and SpaceX’s institutional shareholder base and scarcity value have buffered it.
Bull Case Versus Bear Case for SpaceX The bull case on SpaceX rests on its dominant launch position, Starlink connectivity across 164 countries, the xAI/Grok integration adding an AI leg, and heavy institutional demand at the trillion-dollar level. Reddit’s contrarian squeeze narrative around a third of tradable shares betting against it hasn’t gone away, either.
The bear case is straightforward: SpaceX stock has already given back its debut pop. SpaceX’s valuation is rich even before considering peer-group weakness, and the sector-wide selloff signals fading risk appetite that could still weigh on the share price. Polymarket participants currently assign an 88% probability that SPCX stock closes lower today, though month-end pricing pins 97% confidence above $110.
What to Watch Investors can watch for whether SpaceX shares hold the $145 support level through next week. A break below that, especially with peers still bleeding, would suggest that the sector rotation is finally reaching the biggest name.
Given how high-beta these stocks are, investors should consider keeping their position sizes modest until the space complex stabilizes. The peer group’s steep declines show how quickly sentiment can turn in this corner of the market.
For now, SpaceX’s flat performance stands out as a relative victory. Whether that resilience holds through the next leg of the rotation will define the setup heading into late summer.
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