SpaceX (SPCX) is poised to sink further after the stock hit a new all-time low Monday, days after a successful test of its Starship rocket. The surprising drop indicates that investor caution toward the newly public company persists, despite hitting an important launch milestone.
SpaceX shares are down 4% in early trade, this after dropping to $109.53 on Monday, before closing down 1.4% at $113.50. Shares have shed nearly 30% from the stock’s $150 market debut last month, and are down an astounding 50% from its all-time high of $225.64.
Concern seems to be growing ahead of SpaceX’s big second quarter earnings report set for August 4th, with a big share unlock happening on August 6th. Per SpaceX’s lock-up period plan, as many as 20% of shares are eligible to be sold.
The rising angst among SpaceX investors comes after Starship launched Friday evening from Starbase, Texas, on its 13th test flight, the first since SpaceX’s June IPO. Starship deployed all 20 of its next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, relit an engine in space, and made what SpaceX called its softest ocean splashdown yet.
“I’m a little over the moon right now,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said on the company’s livestream. “Lucky number 13.”
Not everything worked. The Super Heavy booster (aka lower stage) performed its “hot-staging separation” and flip that the past launch botched, but it failed to light all 13 engines for its landing burn and hit the Gulf of Mexico harder than planned. Neither the Starship nor Super Heavy were meant to be recovered, however.
Friday’s flight followed a July 16 engine-ignition abort and a July 23 weather scrub.
SpaceX is already eyeing a bigger prize: the first-ever tower catch of a Starship upper stage, using the “Mechazilla” arms at Starbase that have already caught the larger Super Heavy booster. “Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on next flight,” CEO Elon Musk wrote, replying to a question on an upcoming Flight 14.
“I think you’re going to see double digits in stock price, and that’s probably not a terrible thing,” Alex Morris, CEO of F/m Investments, told Yahoo Finance. “But long term, SpaceX doesn’t really have a natural competitor base. They have a good product with an intergalactic-sized moat, and more customers every day. That said, there’s a lot of AI hooks shoved into that same package, and that’s where we’re seeing the volatility.”
The slide comes as SpaceX bets ever more aggressively on Starship at the expense of its proven moneymaker, Falcon 9. Per Bloomberg, it has begun turning away satellite operators seeking dedicated Falcon 9 rides beyond 2028, stopped taking Falcon 9 rideshare reservations, and halted production of some non-reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy components. That makes Starship’s reliability central to how investors value the whole company.
