SpaceX 'proxies' plunge as real deal arrives: Here's where traders are buying the dip
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- SpaceX proxy stocks unwound ahead of Friday's SpaceX IPO, with EchoStar (SATS) dropping 14%, AST SpaceMobile falling nearly 13%, and Virgin Galactic reversing Thursday's gain with a 34% loss
- Options traders kept buying calls despite the selloff, with AST alone trading more than 250,000 contracts for over $60 million in premium and calls outnumbering puts across all three proxy names
- Danny Kirsch, head of options trading at Piper Sandler, said heavy short-dated call buying in SATS, AST, and Spire was being used as a way to get long SpaceX, with both retail and institutional demand
- Cory Johnson of Epistrophy Capital said inflows into space-themed ETFs — Procure Space (UFO, up 38% YTD) and Defiance Drone (JEDI, up ~33% YTD) — forced buying of proxy shares, creating a supply bottleneck that kept prices elevated regardless of company fundamentals
- SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share and is set to begin options trading Tuesday, with Webull's Anthony Denier predicting it could become one of the most actively traded options names among retail investors; EchoStar and AST closed Thursday at $128.13 and $97.56 with implied volatilities of 91 and 126, respectively
Why it matters: Capital that couldn't access SpaceX directly had been inflating satellite and space-tourism stocks; with the real IPO now here, that 'shortcut trade' is unwinding — but the surge in call options (250,000+ contracts on AST alone) shows traders are simply rotating the same speculative exposure upstream to SpaceX itself, which is poised to become one of the most volatile retail options names on the market starting Tuesday.
Ask SkimNews
