TLDR
- SpaceX (SPCX) stock dropped more than 6% Thursday, extending a two-day losing streak after a three-day winning run
- The stock is still over 30% above its $135 IPO offering price, despite the pullback
- Retail investors had been buying SPCX aggressively since its debut, with net purchases topping $300 million over three sessions
- Bankers are preparing a bond offering of at least $20 billion, SpaceX’s first investment-grade US dollar bond
- Related space stocks also fell, with AST SpaceMobile down around 7%
SpaceX (SPCX) stock closed down more than 3% on Thursday, then extended those losses after hours to more than 6%, trading at $178.50. The stock had surged more than 19% on its first day of trading after going public last Friday, opening at $150 against an offering price of $135.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX
At its current price, SpaceX’s market cap sits around $2.52 trillion. A sustained drop could erase more than $150 billion in market value.
The decline comes after three straight sessions of retail-driven buying since the IPO debut. Vanda Research noted that SPCX topped the leaderboard as the most-bought stock by retail investors for three consecutive days running.
“Retail investors have bought roughly the same amount of SPCX over the last 3 sessions as they have bought NVDA, GOOGL, AMZN, MSFT, META, QQQ and SPY combined,” Vanda said.
That’s a number worth sitting with.
Retail activity, however, was muted on Thursday, which appeared to weigh on the stock as broader markets actually rebounded on the day.
Profit-Taking After a Record Run
IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu described the pullback as understandable given the scale of the IPO.
“Given the magnitude of the IPO and the strong initial performance, some degree of profit-taking is not surprising,” Liu said.
She added: “This has been a particularly eventful and shortened trading week for the largest IPO in history.”
The stock’s drop broke a three-day winning streak that had briefly pushed SpaceX into the top five most valuable companies in the world, surpassing the $2 trillion valuation mark.
Other space-related names also moved lower on Thursday. Rocket Lab and Planet Labs fell around 3%, while AST SpaceMobile dropped roughly 7% and Intuitive Machines lost around 3%.
Bond Deal and Cursor Acquisition in Focus
Beyond the trading action, two major developments are now drawing investor attention.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that bankers are preparing to hold investor calls as soon as next week for a potential bond offering expected to total at least $20 billion. The deal would be SpaceX’s first investment-grade US dollar bond issuance and is aimed at refinancing a bridge loan due in 2027.
Earlier in the week, SpaceX confirmed it would acquire Anysphere — the startup behind AI coding tool Cursor — for $60 billion in stock, a move aimed at expanding its footprint in the enterprise AI tools market.
Vanda Research noted that SPCX is starting to trade like a “Magnificent Seven” stock, a reference to its high retail interest and volatility profile.
With a relatively small public float and a lofty valuation, analysts and portfolio managers had already flagged the likelihood of early turbulence. Thursday’s session was a reminder of that.
SPCX closed at $185.00 on Wednesday before the after-hours slide took it to $178.50.
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