SpaceX Reclaims Its IPO Price — But the Hardest Question Is Whether It Can Stay There
Published on 08/11/2026 at 10:01 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The arithmetic of SpaceX's public-market debut has finally turned positive. On Monday, the stock closed back above its $135 IPO price for the first time since mid-July, settling at $138.74 for a 4.2 percent gain on the day. In European trading Tuesday morning, the shares were changing hands at €118.52, a slight give-back from the U.S. close.
The milestone carries psychological weight, but the numbers around it tell a more complicated story. The stock still sits 39.05 percent below its June record high, even as it has climbed 30.18 percent off the early-August trough. That gap between the two reference points captures the whiplash that has defined SpaceX's first two months as a listed company.
The Lock-Up That Didn't Bite
The road back to the IPO price ran straight through what many investors feared would be a wall of supply. When the first lock-up period expired on August 6 — 55 days after the June 12 listing — an additional 911.5 million shares became tradable overnight. The free float ballooned from 638.9 million shares, or 4.9 percent of the company, to 1.55 billion shares, or 11.9 percent.
Conventional wisdom said that kind of supply shock would crush the stock. Instead, the opposite happened. Since the lock-up expiration, the shares have gained 20.4 percent, a move that market participants have read as a vote of confidence from holders who chose not to dump their positions.
Retail investors, however, picked that exact moment to change their behavior. According to Vanda Research, the day after the lock-up expired — August 7 — individual investors turned net sellers for the first time since the IPO, offloading $4.5 million worth of shares on balance. That marked a sharp reversal from August 5, when a 13.6 percent sell-off had triggered one of the biggest single-day retail buying sprees on record, second only to the $144.6 million net purchases logged on June 16.
Sam North, an analyst at eToro, characterized the retail shift as profit-taking rather than panic — a distinction that matters given how much of SpaceX's recent trading has been driven by sentiment swings. Institutional buyers, for their part, showed no such hesitation. Cathie Wood's ARK Invest added to its position on Friday.
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A Split on the Street
Wall Street's view of SpaceX has fractured into two camps, and the divergence is stark. Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu sees a credible path to $100 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026, powered by the Neocloud division, Starlink's continued expansion, and a pipeline of new AI contracts. Yu reaffirmed his buy rating with a $235 price target.
Morgan Stanley strikes a far more cautious tone. The bank has issued an unambiguous warning to investors about the implications of more than 900 million additional shares now circulating in the market — even as it maintains a long-term price target of $300. The consensus among analysts sits at "Moderate Buy," with an average price target of roughly $229.33. One firm has recently moved its rating up to "Hold," citing trading volumes well above average as evidence of heightened investor engagement.
The Numbers Behind the Narrative
The earnings report that set this whole sequence in motion arrived just over a week ago, and it was, by any measure, a mixed bag. SpaceX posted second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion, up roughly 92 percent from the $4.1 billion recorded a year earlier and comfortably ahead of the $6.9 billion consensus estimate. The per-share loss of 9 cents also came in far better than the 26-cent loss analysts had braced for.
But the headline net loss of $541 million, combined with capital expenditures of $18.4 billion — of which $15.8 billion went toward AI infrastructure — initially spooked the market. In after-hours trading following the report, the stock dropped 7 to 8 percent, a move driven less by the operating results than by the sheer scale of the investment outlay. Podcast commentator Steve Eisman summed up the report as "very mixed" and described the shareholder base with a memorable phrase: "Believers, not Investors."
The market's initial alarm has since faded, helped along by two developments. First, the company confirmed a partnership with Nvidia in data-center chips, which helps explain a meaningful portion of that capital spending. Second, Elon Musk pulled forward the company's long-term revenue target: instead of hitting $1 trillion in annual sales by 2031, SpaceX now says it will get there by 2030.
A Regulatory Subplot
Monday also brought news of a different kind. The SEC filed a lawsuit against investment firm Adit Ventures and its managing director, Eric Munson, over alleged fraud involving pre-IPO shares of SpaceX and Klarna between 2019 and 2024. The case was settled without an admission of wrongdoing, and Munson has denied the allegations.
For the stock, though, the more pressing question is whether Monday's reclaim of the IPO price can hold. With the free float now nearly 12 percent of the company and more supply potentially on the horizon, the shares remain among the most volatile large-cap listings anywhere — the annualized 30-day volatility reading stands at 89.79 percent. The stock has gained roughly 10.1 percent since the earnings report and sits 31.61 percent above its 52-week low from early August, yet the distance to the June high remains substantial.
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The reclaim of $135 is a marker, not a destination. Whether the bulls or the bears are right about SpaceX's AI-fueled growth story will take quarters to resolve — but for now, the believers have the upper hand.
