Analysts spent last week raising their SpaceX (SPCX) price targets. Investors spent it selling the stock.
SpaceX stock fell about 5% Friday, extending a slide that has erased more than $400 billion in market value since its high on Oct. 6, when the company was worth more than $2.3 trillion. It’s now worth less than $2 trillion.
The slide has wiped out SpaceX’s post-earnings jump. The stock rose about 8% on Oct. 21 after third quarter results beat Wall Street’s forecasts and has since lost more than $250 billion in value.
Then came the lockup. About 1.3 billion shares became free to sell on Oct. 22, and SpaceX held above $140 in the sessions that followed. On Friday, it broke below that level.
A close below $135 would be SpaceX’s lowest since Aug. 24, and the next floor below that is the summer low near $107. To turn things around, bulls first need to reclaim about $147, which would put SpaceX back above $2 trillion, and then its $150 first-day open.
The sell-off came as Starlink faced scrutiny in Washington over service slowdowns in Ukraine and as a tech stock rout hit Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META).
Even so, SpaceX has held up better than the rest of the space trade. Space stocks have lost about half their value since SpaceX’s June debut, while SpaceX sits just below its first-day open. Since Oct. 6, most have fallen 20% to 30%, compared with about 16% for SpaceX through Thursday.
The exception came after the lockup. From Oct. 22 through Thursday, peers including Rocket Lab (RKLB) and AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) bounced about 10% to 17%, while SpaceX went nowhere.
On Friday, nearly every name in the group is falling with it.
SpaceX’s next big event is Starship Flight 15, expected next month, when the company will try to catch both the booster and the ship. A success would give bulls a reason to take back $140. A stumble would put the summer lows in play.
The bigger swing factor may be the AI trade. SpaceX is now mostly an AI company, so a broader rebound in AI stocks would likely lift it more than anything that happens on the launchpad.
Internal AI tools helped analyze interview transcripts, research, and draft this post. Humans reviewed, edited, and fact-checked this post before publication.
Follow Jared Blikre on X @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.
