New York, June 24, 2026, 17:32 EDT
- About 17.3 million SpaceX shares could be bought by Russell-linked funds at Wednesday’s close.
- That’s 21% of the 83 million shares Ortex says are sold short.
- SpaceX’s $25 billion bond sale will mean roughly $1.46 billion a year in coupon payments.
SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) is heading into Friday’s Russell index rebalance with a 31.5% drop from its post-IPO peak, putting pressure on supply. The shares slipped 1% Wednesday to $154.54, but remain 14.5% higher than their $135 IPO price. SpaceX’s market cap stood at around $2.03 trillion.
Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) is projecting that funds tracking Russell indexes may end up buying $2.68 billion in SpaceX shares, which would amount to around 17.3 million shares at Wednesday’s close. “The options activity has gotten more balanced. It’s not as completely euphoric as it was day one,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers Group (NASDAQ:IBKR), said. Reuters
Ortex puts short interest at 83 million shares, or 13% of SpaceX’s free float. The possible Russell buy order would be about 21% of those shorted shares, and 2.7% of the free float, Ortex data shows. But that’s just 6.4% of average daily volume, with borrow costs still around 1%. S3 Partners offered a lower range on Tuesday, saying short interest was between 5% and 7%. “Short interest in SpaceX is building remarkably fast for a stock that has only been public a couple of weeks,” Ortex co-founder Peter Hillerberg said. Reuters
FTSE Russell put in a rule back in May so that qualifying big IPOs can be added to its U.S. indexes five days after trading starts. Vanguard said when SpaceX enters, the opening fund weight will be 1% or less, but that weight could go up as more insider shares hit the market.
SpaceX is about to settle its first $25 billion bond sale. The five tranches feature coupons ranging from 5.35% up to 6.65%. That adds up to $1.464 billion in annual coupon payments, giving a weighted average coupon of 5.855%. Settlement is set for Friday.
The bonds pulled in close to $85 billion in orders, about 3.4 times more than the size of the deal. Still, that was not enough to wipe away the credit spread: the 2036 notes priced 140 basis points over U.S. Treasuries, around 40 basis points above the average for BBB debt with the same rating.
SpaceX said it has $100.8 billion in cash as it rolled out its bond offering. Revenue climbed 33% to $18.67 billion in 2025, though the company still posted a net loss. The annual bond coupons come to 7.8% of last year’s revenue. “Issuing bonds keeps economic ownership intact for existing shareholders without new share issuance,” Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments, said. Reuters
Nasdaq and S&P 500 dropped Wednesday, with tech stocks and companies tied to AI debt spending seeing pressure. Michael Monaghan, portfolio manager at Founder ETFs, said investors “like the recipients of the spend and have been punishing those doing the spending.” SpaceX’s coupon bill put a number on that risk. Reuters
SpaceX will join the Nasdaq-100 in early July. But Russell-linked funds are focused on Friday’s closing auction first.
