Space Exploration Technologies—Elon Musk’s space exploration, connectivity and artificial intelligence company—on Friday finished its first-ever trading session.
The shares began changing above their IPO price, climbed and then finished the day off session highs, but above their open or IPO prices.
The debut comes after the biggest IPO in history, with the company raising about $75 billion after selling roughly 556 million shares.
The shares, which opened at $150, sold at $135 as expected, with stock trading using the symbol “SPCX.” (“Liftoff! First $SPCX trade complete,” the company posted Friday on X, which it owns.) It finished the day near $161, pulling back from highs above $176.
Members of the SpaceX team rang the Nasdaq’s opening bell today, with Musk—now a paper trillionaire— speaking from Texas and President Gwynne Shotwell in New York City.
There “have to be things that get you excited about the future,” Musk said in a video streamed online.
“That make you glad to wake up in the morning because you’re excited about the future.
Because you can’t wait to see what happens next.
That’s the future SpaceX wants to bring to you.”
The company’s market capitalization of the company, above $2.1 trillion as of Friday’s close puts SpaceX among the most valuable U.S.
companies—and ahead of some Magnificent 7 firms.
Investors had been champing at the bit to get a piece of the space-AI crossover, which has ambitions to build orbital data centers and colonize Mars.
On prediction markets, some bettors envisioned a rise to or above a $3 trillion market cap.
At Friday’s highs, its market value was above $2.3 trillion.
Some analysts are optimistic about the stock’s prospects, though a few early calculations estimated the company’s worth as below $2 trillion.
Oppenheimer analysts on Thursday started coverage of the stock with an “outperform” rating and a price target of $190.
Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.
SpaceX Is Landing In a ‘FOMO Market’
FOMO—or the “fear of missing out”—is driving markets right now, one expert said Friday.
And it could keep doing so for a while yet.
“There is no doubt that we are in a FOMO market based on the SpaceX IPO craze,” Navellier & Associates founder Louis Navellier wrote Friday in emailed commenTS. But “the typical IPO stalls within a few months as insider stock lockups expire and insider selling picks up.”
Navellier says he prefers to give new issues time to settle.
“Personally, I do not analyze IPOs until they have traded for a year or so.
That way, I can get my risk-reward analysis, calculating the alpha and standard deviation.
I like to wait a year and get four quarters of fundamentals I can analyze to see if the stock fits my criteria.”
But the excitement fueling the rise in SpaceX could be here for a while, he said, with more big IPOs on the way.
“Frankly, I think the Anthropic IPO will be even more successful than SpaceX… If you’re excited about AI, it’s hard not to be excited about Anthropic.”
All told, he said, what’s happening should be good for markeTS. “An IPO boom is great for investor confidence and will help to boost the entire stock market,” Navellier said.
“There is no doubt that we remain in the midst of a FOMO market, so the investor stampede is expected to persist.”
—David Marino-Nachison
SpaceX IPO a Hit With Retail Investors, Vanda Says
Did retail investors want to buy SpaceX today? You bet.
SpaceX investors had purchased more than $18 million worth of SpaceX in the first 20 minutes of trading—which didn’t actually start until late morning in the company’s case, according to Vanda Research data.
That made it the second-most popular stock with retail investors on the day, behind Nvidia, despite the other companies having traded since the start of the session.
“The early signs are that retail are adding to positions, with the second 10-minute interval of net buying bigger than the first,” Vanda wrote in emailed commenTS. “At this pace of activity, SPCX will not only top the leaderboard of the most bought stock by retail today – it’s on track to hit some records relative to other major IPOs in recent times.”
—David Marino-Nachison
Does the SpaceX IPO Move Us Closer to a Deal With Tesla?
It’s a big day for SpaceX.
Less so Elon Musk’s other public company.
Shares of Tesla were recently about flat, holding steady as the S&P 500 edged higher and the Magnificent 7 group of big tech shares—as measured by the Roundhill Magnificent 7 ETF—fell 0.6%.
The arrival of SpaceX on public markets has encouraged some market watchers to imagine a future in which the two companies are just one.
One of those, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, wrote Wednesday that he expects it to happen next year.
“We continue to believe that SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge (80%+ chance in our view) into one company in 2027 with the groundwork already in place for both operations to become one organization,” Ives wrote.
—David Marino-Nachison
Board Member Says He’ll Hold For “as Long as I Can”
Shares of SpaceX were recently trading above $164, more than 20% higher than their IPO price, with the company’s market capitalization approaching $2.2 trillion.
SpaceX board member Antonio Gracias, whose firm Valor Equity Partners holds a 7% stake in the company, said in an interview with CNBC on Friday afternoon that he plans on “holding my stake for as long as I can.”
He said the company is “building the future” and will “accrete value over a long period of time.”
Those with a slightly shorter time horizon—prediction market bettors’ seeking to win by correctly forecasting the company’s closing market cap—appear less certain that the stock is going to end the day much higher than where it is now.
On Polymarket, the perceived odds of the company ending the day with a market cap above $2.2 trillion were recentlya t 41%, down from 65% earlier this morning.
Bets that it closes above $2.4 trillion were at 9%, down from 49% earlier in the day.
—Crystal Kim
SpaceX Joins the List of World’s Most- Valuable Companies
SpaceX immediately became one of the world’s most valuable companies by market capitalization when it began trading.
The company’s market value stood at $2.2 trillion shortly after noon ET.
Only Nvidia ($5 trillion), Alphabet ($4.4 trillion), Apple ($4.3 trillion), Microsoft ($2.9 trillion) and Amazon ($2.5 trillion) were worth more.
SpaceX is also valued considerably higher than Elon Musk’s other major company, Tesla, which has a market cap of around $1.5 trillion.
—Stephen Wisnefski
Why Isn’t SpaceX Trading Yet?
Investors waiting patiently for SpaceX’s stock to start trading might be wondering: What’s the holdup? Each exchange has its own process, but the operators behind them tend to work with their debutants to decide when, and at what price, a stock should open.
At the Nasdaq, SpaceX’s venue of choice, a stabilization agent, usually a bank that underwrote the IPO, sets the price, working with the exchange’s execution team.
Order data is tracked in real-time, and an agent for the exchange tests price points to simulate hypothetical trades for market impact—a process known as price discovery.
While many factors can go into the timing, according to Scott Bacigalupo, Nasdaq’s Senior Vice President of Capital Formation, a primary component is how many shares will be available at the open.
In SpaceX’s case, more than half a billion shares were sold.
“The larger the IPO, the more complexity there is, the longer it will typically take to open,” Bacigalupo said in a Nasdaq Q&A published yesterday.
—Crystal Kim
Space Stocks, Funds Retreat Friday Morning
Some space-related stocks and funds are falling Friday morning as investors wait for SpaceX to start trading on the Nasdaq.
Though investors drove these investments higher in recent weeks, they are panning them today.
Shares of Virgin Galactic Holdings and Voyager Technologies were looking at double-digit declines, while Rocket Lab and Planet Labs have slipped about 8% apiece.
Funds such as Global X Space Tech, Procure Space, VanEck Space and ARK Space & Defense Innovation are holding up a touch better, but also ticking down.
A pair of Baron Capital funds—Baron Partners and Baron First Principles—that held shares of SpaceX prior to its IPO are gaining.
—Crystal Kim
It Could Pay to Wait ‘a Few Weeks’—or More—to Buy SpaceX
SpaceX shares could rise today, then retreat, giving investors a chance to buy in at lower prices, according to Freedom Capital Markets Chief Strategist Jay Woods.
“What we’ve seen with many high-profile IPOs is an initial surge in price followed by a period where investors give some of those gains back,” Woods said in emailed commenTS. “I think that’s the most likely scenario here as well.”
But if the shares retreat, he wrote, there will be opportunities to buy in later.
“I think there will be better opportunities to enter this name down the road.
Personally, I would wait a few weeks—or even a few months—and ideally at least one earnings cycle before considering a larger position.”
—David Marino-Nachison
A SpaceX IPO Flop Could Put a ‘True Chill’ on the Market
A SpaceX pop is “absolutely critical” for more than just IPO buyers and the rocket company’s shareholders, Ben Narasin, founder and general partner at Tenacity Venture Capital, said Friday.
“If SpaceX doesn’t fly you’re going to see a huge stall for everything else and it could put a true chill on the market,” said Narasin on CNBC.
There are reasons to think a pop could happen today.
SpaceX could move quickly into major indexes, which would require fans to buy.
Another, Narasin said, is the “fanboy/fangirl effect.” Musk has a big retail following and supporters such as Ron Baron, chief of Baron Capital, a firm with a large stake in SpaceX as well as Tesla, Narasin observered.
But there will be sellers, too, and that SpaceX’s IPO “rhymes with Facebook’s”—the social media company now called Meta Platforms biffed its debut in May 2012—puts the odds of a strong debut for the rocket company at a “coin flip,” he said.
—Crystal Kim
SpaceX Could Be the ‘Bellwether’ For the Next Big IPOs
The SpaceX IPO is a big deal on its own merit.
But some investors are also already looking ahead to two other massive deals that could come this year from AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which have filed regulatory paperwork that moves them closer to listings.
“The IPO parade, which now looks like it’s turning into a stampede has been coming for a while,” SuRo Capital Mark Klein said in emailed commenTS. “You could argue there were flickers of it as early as last year, but it never fully materialized into a broad wave of companies. SpaceX is going to be the bellwether.”
Klein wonders whether those big deals, along with the fundraising efforts of another big companies already on public markets—Alphabet, for example, is raising billions to fund its own AI efforts—might push some companies considering IPOs to slow those moves.
“You may see some of the more important names wait and see what happens because so much capital is flowing to a handful of companies,” he wrote.
“I don’t think that takes smaller IPOs off the docket, but some of the more exciting larger offerings may end up happening in 2027 instead of the second half of 2026.”
—David Marino-Nachison
How Does SpaceX Make Money?
What does SpaceX actually do—and how does it make its money? Investopedia’s Peter Gratton tackled that issue earlier this week.
You can read his story here.
—David Marino-Nachison
Three Big Questions for Investors
It’s fun to talk about the SpaceX IPO, but those conversations touch on some vital topics for investors and their money.
Crystal Kim covered them in a story yesterday:
“The listing is big financial news.
A narrative is taking hold that some folks are so hot to get in that they’re selling tech majors and chip stocks to raise cash.
The IPO priced at $135 per share, and raised nearly $75 billion, the biggest offering on record.
The listing, with an implied valuation near $1.8 trillion, stands to make SpaceX’s trading debut a moment that’ll rock market history.
“All together, the moment spotlights three big questions investors are debating.
Will SpaceX be good for markets? For indexes? And portfolios?”
You can read that story here.
—David Marino-Nachison
The SpaceX IPO: Just the Basics
Investopedia this week broke down the basics of the SpaceX IPO for investors: “We can’t answer short- or long-term questions about what, exactly, SpaceX stock will do after it hits the market.
But for investors looking for answers to basic questions, here you go.”
—David Marino-Nachison
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