SpaceX's Bull-Bear Gulf Widens to $630 as Raymond James Stakes Out the Top End
Published on 08/08/2026 at 10:51 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The most striking thing about SpaceX's current analyst coverage isn't the consensus — it's the chasm. Raymond James this week planted a flag at $800 per share, the loftiest target on Wall Street for the company, while at the opposite extreme Susquehanna sits at $170 with a Hold rating. That $630 gap encapsulates everything investors are wrestling with: nobody disputes the growth story, but the market cannot agree on how quickly — or whether — that growth translates into share-price gains.
Brian Gesuale at Raymond James reaffirmed a Strong Buy on Wednesday, anchoring his conviction in Starship's ability to slash launch costs and pry open new markets in communications, AI infrastructure, manufacturing and energy. The call lands as the stock finds its footing after a bruising stretch that saw the first lock-up expiry, a better-than-expected earnings debut, and a violent two-day rebound that recouped most of the earlier damage.
A Lock-Up That Backfired on the Bears
The catalyst for the recent fireworks came last Thursday, when restrictions lapsed on as many as 911.5 million insider shares — a block worth roughly $100 billion. The freely traded float doubled from 639 million to 1.55 billion shares, lifting the tradable slice from under 5 percent to nearly 12 percent of all outstanding stock. Short sellers had positioned aggressively into the event: 34 percent of the float was sold short beforehand, with 95 percent of lendable shares already out on loan, according to Teslarati.
The expected supply shock initially materialized — the stock touched a fresh low — but then institutional buyers stepped in and absorbed the overhang with surprising force. Over two trading days, the shares climbed about 23 percent, adding roughly $327 billion to SpaceX's market value. On Friday, the stock closed at €115.14, up 15.66 percent on the day and 22.53 percent for the week. In U.S. trading, the price crept back toward the $135 IPO price from June, when SpaceX listed in the largest American initial public offering on record at a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion. The stock had popped 19 percent on day one, only to slide back below the offer price in the weeks that followed.
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Still, the recovery has limits. The shares remain 40.79 percent below the 52-week high of €194.46 reached in June. And the lock-up calendar is far from finished: another 319 million shares become tradable on August 20, followed by tranches of roughly 700 million each in September and October. By December 8, up to 40 percent of the company could be freely tradable. Elon Musk's own stake — 6.4 billion shares — stays locked until mid-2027.
The Analyst Spectrum: From $170 to $800
Raymond James's $800 target stands apart from the field. Bank of America reaffirmed a Buy on Wednesday with a $235 price objective, citing revenue and profitability that beat forecasts. In between, the rest of the Street clusters in a narrow band: Mizuho holds at $200, Clear Street at $217, RBC Capital at $225, and JPMorgan recently lifted its target to $240. Argus upgraded the stock to Buy during the recovery with a $160 target, while the median analyst price target sits near $221, with roughly 80 percent of ratings in buy territory.
The skeptics are fewer but vocal. Susquehanna's Hold at $170 marks the low end of the institutional range. Investor George Noble goes far further, calling for a $30 price target — implying a drop of roughly 72 percent from current U.S. levels. Jim Cramer, meanwhile, endorses SpaceX as a long-term holding but warns of near-term turbulence, pointing to the 13.61 percent plunge on August 5 when second-quarter capital expenditures overshot expectations by more than $5 billion.
Mizuho cautions investors against reading the lock-up expiry as an automatic flood: the right to sell does not mean the entire tranche will actually hit the market.
A Quarter of Two Halves
The earnings picture explains some of the divergence. Second-quarter revenue grew 92 percent to $7.8 billion, comfortably ahead of the $6.93 billion consensus. Yet the company still posted a net loss of $541 million, or $0.09 per share. Starlink provided the ballast with 12 million subscribers and $1.66 billion in operating profit. The AI segment grew 247 percent to $2.56 billion in revenue but burned $1.3 billion in operating losses. AI investments alone consumed $15.83 billion — roughly 86 percent of total capital expenditures — a spending level that spooked investors ahead of the print.
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Argus projects a revenue run rate of about $100 billion for 2026 and $110 billion for 2027.
Bitcoin Stays Put
One quiet detail from the quarterly report: SpaceX continues to hold 18,712 bitcoin, valued at roughly $1.1 billion, and sold none in the second quarter. The company absorbed a $195 million impairment charge tied to cryptocurrency accounting rules. Against a cash position of around $100 billion, the bitcoin holding is a rounding error — but management's decision to hold rather than liquidate signals a willingness to ride out volatility without tapping the position for liquidity.
The broader picture for investors is one of competing timelines. The fundamental story — 92 percent revenue growth, a 247 percent AI segment, a profitable satellite business — is not in dispute. What divides the Street is the path from those numbers to share-price appreciation, and the lock-up calendar ensures the next few months will test both the bulls and the bears.
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