Retail Piles Into SpaceX Despite Post-Earnings Crash
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- Retail investors bought a net $22.7 million of SpaceX (SPCX) shares in the first hour of Wednesday's trading — more than 3x the stock's average opening-hour inflow and its 3rd-largest opening-hour haul across 37 trading sessions, per Vanda Research.
- SpaceX has not recorded a single day of net retail selling since its June 12 debut, with retail buying $405 million in the first five sessions versus $103 million in the five sessions leading into earnings.
- SPCX surged from its $135 IPO price to an intraday high of $225.64 on June 16, then surrendered more than half its value from that peak and fell below its offering price.
- Vanda Research argues retail investors now view SpaceX as "a transformational AI story — as opposed to a space exploration or interplanetary travel stock."
- SpaceX's first quarterly results as a public company beat revenue and adjusted earnings expectations, but revealed nearly $16 billion in quarterly AI and data center spending.
- As many as 912 million shares held by employees and pre-IPO investors become eligible for sale Thursday as the first major lockup expires — potentially more than doubling the stock's public float.
Why it matters: Retail investors are treating SpaceX's nearly $16 billion AI infrastructure bet as a long-term growth play, Vanda says. But Thursday's lockup expiration — which could more than double the public float of a stock already below its $135 IPO price — tests whether that conviction can absorb a wave of employee and early-backer selling.
