Scottish Mortgage's $4bn SpaceX Triumph Yields a Surprise: A 5% Share Decline
15.06.2026 - 00:32:23 | boerse-global.de
The contrast could hardly be starker. Elon Musk’s SpaceX completed the biggest initial public offering in history on Friday, sending its shares rocketing 19% higher and pushing the company’s market capitalisation beyond $2tn. For Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, which holds a stake now worth more than $4bn, the milestone should have been a cause for celebration. Instead, the fund’s own shares slumped 5.29% to €16.12, a classic “sell the news” reversal that left investors nursing a 5.70% weekly loss.
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share, raising roughly $75bn. The stock opened for trade at $150 and closed the session with a hefty gain, making the space-exploration giant the sixth-largest US company by market value. The bulk of that valuation rests on Starlink, its satellite-internet business, which generated around $11.2bn in revenue in 2025 — about 60% of the group’s total annual sales. Losses remain steep: SpaceX has burned through an estimated $13bn since 2023, including $4.3bn in the first months of this year. But the market appears willing to look past the red ink, betting on Starlink’s dominance.
Scottish Mortgage’s exposure to SpaceX dates back to 2018, when fund manager Tom Slater bought into the then-private company and resisted pressure from hedge funds to sell. That position now accounts for roughly a fifth of the trust’s portfolio. Yet the very tool that allowed retail investors to piggyback on SpaceX’s rise became a source of pain on IPO day. Many had bought Scottish Mortgage shares as a proxy for the unlisted rocket maker, and once the listing was confirmed they rushed to cash out.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Scottish Mortgage Investment?
The selling was aggravated by a weak session across the technology sector. Disappointing numbers from chip bellwether Broadcom soured sentiment for growth stocks, adding to the downdraft. To counter the slide, Scottish Mortgage’s management stepped up its buyback programme, purchasing nearly 1.5 million of its own shares last week alone in an effort to narrow the discount to net asset value.
Beyond the SpaceX headlines, the trust continues to build exposure to artificial intelligence. A recent revaluation boosted the carrying value of its stake in AI developer Anthropic, and private fintech giants Stripe and Revolut remain core holdings. But the rapid growth of these unlisted names is creating a structural headache: the trust’s mandate caps private investments at 30% of capital, and that limit is being tested. Management is pushing for greater flexibility, a topic likely to feature prominently at the annual general meeting in Edinburgh on 2 July 2026, where shareholders will also vote on fresh buyback authorisations.
Technical indicators suggest the sell-off may be overdone. The relative strength index has dropped to 37.5, flirting with oversold territory. The stock now trades some 17% below its May high, but still shows a year?to?date advance of roughly 16%. Chartists are eyeing the 100-day moving average at €15.49 as a potential floor; if that level holds, the shares could stabilise in the near term.
Several catalysts lie ahead. In the coming days, Scottish Mortgage will publish an updated net asset value that for the first time reflects SpaceX’s public market price. More importantly, the market is anticipating SpaceX’s inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index, a move that would compel index-tracking funds to buy the stock. That inflow would directly bolster the trust’s NAV, offering a genuine, rather than proxy-based, lift to its own share price.
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