Volatility Cocktail: SpaceX Stock Faces Starship Abort, Lockup Wave, and Analyst Targets Ranging from $75 to $800
Published on 07/20/2026 at 12:52 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SpaceX shares are trading barely a dollar above their 52-week low after the company’s abort of a critical Starship test flight compounded what was already a brutal month for the freshly listed space giant. The stock closed at €108.40 on Friday, down 5.4% on the day and roughly 31% below the all-time high of $225.64 reached shortly after its June IPO. With the first major lockup expiry approaching and a quarterly report due in early August, investors are bracing for a period of intense volatility that will test whether the market’s wildly divergent valuations for Elon Musk’s rocket-and-satellite empire can ever be reconciled.
Aborted Launch Wiped Out $100 Billion in Market Value
The immediate trigger for the latest leg of the sell-off was the scrubbed launch of Starship Flight 13 on July 16, when only 29 of the 33 Raptor-3 engines on the Super Heavy booster ignited, forcing an automatic abort. SpaceX has since swapped out at least two engines and modified the propulsion system. A new launch attempt is scheduled for Thursday, July 23, with a 90-minute window opening at 17:45 local time, though Musk himself muddied the waters by suggesting Friday or Saturday. On the prediction platform Polymarket, bettors placed more than $440,000 in wagers, giving the July 23 date a 55% chance and an 89% likelihood of happening by month’s end.
The abort erased roughly $100 billion in market capitalization in short order, Reuters reported. The share price dipped briefly below $125, well under the $135 IPO price, and has since found a floor just above the 52-week low of €107.34 set in mid-July. Technically, the stock’s relative strength index of 36 signals it is beaten down but not yet in extreme oversold territory.
Lockup Overhang Looms Over August
Adding to the pressure is the staged expiration of post-IPO lockup agreements. After the first quarterly earnings report — expected any day in early August — up to 911.5 million shares worth an estimated $115 billion at current prices will become eligible for trading. Additional tranches of 7% of the total will unlock on days 70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 after the IPO, meaning roughly 40% of the company’s shares will be freely tradable by early December. Musk’s own stake, however, remains locked until June 2027.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Short sellers have already piled in heavily. Roughly 30% of the 640 million tradable shares are estimated to be sold short, and the bears are sitting on cumulative paper profits of about $4 billion since the stock fell below its IPO price. Musk fired back on social media, describing the shorts’ survival probability as “very low.” The rising yields on the $25 billion in bonds SpaceX placed after its IPO, as well as increased costs for credit-default swaps, suggest bond investors are also growing cautious.
Analyst Views Span $75 to $800 — A Record Chasm
The divergence among Wall Street analysts covering the stock is extraordinary. At the most optimistic end, Raymond James’s Brian Gesuale initiated coverage with a “Strong Buy” and a price target of $800 — a bet that would imply a market capitalisation of more than $10 trillion. On the other hand, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas lays out a bear case of just $75, though his base case sits at $300, driven by a projected revenue explosion from $18.7 billion in 2025 to $3.3 trillion by 2040, powered largely by Starlink and the planned Starmind satellite constellation.
Other major banks cluster in the middle: Goldman Sachs at $205 (Buy), JPMorgan at $225 (Overweight), Evercore at $230 (Outperform), and Piper Sandler at $156 (Neutral). The consensus average stands at roughly $236. Veteran investor Gary Black, quoted by Benzinga, warns that a price-to-sales multiple of 40 without any net income is historically unsustainable for a company aiming for a trillion-dollar valuation. He notes that Nvidia itself traded at 10 to 25 times revenue during its build-out phase.
Earnings Report and Starship Flight as Twin Catalysts
The first quarterly earnings release since the IPO is expected in the coming days. Analysts are looking for revenue in the range of $5.3 billion to $8.1 billion, with a net loss per share of $0.12 to $0.42. For the full year 2025, SpaceX reported $19 billion in revenue and a $5 billion loss in its S-1 filing, though the Starlink division alone generated $11.4 billion in revenue and $4.4 billion in operating profit.
SpaceX at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
The upcoming Starship test flight is the second for the upgraded V3 version and will carry 20 Starlink satellites on a suborbital trajectory to test their docking system and laser interlinks; the satellites will be intentionally burned up on re-entry. A successful flight would mark a major step toward the company’s goal of conducting its first orbital Starlink deployment via Starship before year’s end.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest took advantage of the pullback, buying $51 million worth of SpaceX stock on the dip. Whether the combination of a working Starship, a cleaner balance sheet, and a potential short squeeze can arrest the slide remains to be seen. For now, the stock sits at the mercy of engineering, earnings, and the sheer weight of a share unlock unlike any the market has seen.
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