TLDR
- Retail investors have sold around $570 million in SpaceX stock over the past three weeks, with nearly $250 million sold last week alone.
- SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen reaffirmed the company’s $100 billion annual revenue target, backed by a new $1.11 billion per month AI computing deal.
- SpaceX’s weighting in the Nasdaq-100 is set to rise on September 21, with JPMorgan estimating index funds will need to buy roughly $15.5 billion in stock.
- Q2 revenue came in at $7.8 billion, up 92% year over year, with AI segment revenue at $2.6 billion.
- Wall Street holds a consensus Moderate Buy rating with a mean price target of $219, implying around 51% upside.
SpaceX (SPCX) stock was trading at $153.37 in early Friday trading, down 0.8%, even as the broader market held relatively flat. The stock is up roughly 15% from its $135 IPO price, but retail investors have been quietly heading for the exit.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX
JPMorgan analyst Arun Jain, who tracks retail investor flows, says roughly $570 million in retail selling has hit SpaceX over the past three weeks. Last week alone saw nearly $250 million pulled out, the largest weekly retail outflow Jain has recorded for the stock.
It is not a performance story. SpaceX stock has actually risen about $20 since the selling began. The more likely explanation is profit-taking after a wave of early buying post-IPO, when retail investors finally got their first chance to own a piece of Musk’s rocket company.
Even after the selling, total retail inflows into SpaceX still sit at around $3.4 billion. That is not nothing. For context, retail investors own roughly 40% of Tesla’s tradable stock, about twice the average for large tech companies, and that loyal base has been a key support for Tesla’s premium valuation of 174 times forward earnings.
SpaceX currently trades at around 138 times forward earnings. That is a discount to Tesla, though still a lofty multiple that reflects high expectations.
$100 Billion Revenue Target Gets a Boost
At a Goldman Sachs conference, SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen said his conviction in the company’s $100 billion annual revenue run rate target has grown. The latest catalyst is a new AI computing deal worth $1.11 billion per month starting in December, roughly $13 billion annually, with an unnamed customer.
That deal adds to existing AI compute agreements with Google and Anthropic, which already bring in over $2 billion per month. A separate $6.7 billion cloud-services agreement is also set to ramp up in October. Johnsen said the AI infrastructure can pay for itself in under a year based on contracts already in place.
SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in Q2 revenue, up 92% year over year. The connectivity segment led with $4.3 billion. To hit the $100 billion annualized target by year-end, monthly revenue needs to more than triple from current levels of roughly $2.6 billion.
Index Rebalancing Could Lift the Stock
A near-term catalyst is arriving on September 21. SpaceX’s weighting in the Nasdaq-100 is expected to increase from around 1.25% to roughly 2.25%, after more than a billion shares came off lock-up, lifting the free float to nearly 30%. JPMorgan estimates this triggers approximately $15.5 billion in forced buying from index funds.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas set a Buy rating on September 15 with a $300 price target, implying 100% upside. Bernstein’s Douglas Harned holds a Buy with a $248 target. MoffettNathanson kept its Hold rating but raised its target from $131 to $142.
Across 36 Wall Street analysts, the consensus is a Moderate Buy with a mean price target of $219. The high target sits at $800.
SpaceX was also awarded a NASA launch services contract for the StarBurst gamma ray detector, set for launch no earlier than 2028.
