NEW YORK, June 19, 2026, 09:05 (EDT)
- U.S. markets are closed for Juneteenth, so Rocket Lab last traded at $107.24 on Thursday ahead of its Nasdaq-100 inclusion set for Monday.
- Shares ended the holiday-short week up roughly 4.7% from last Friday’s close, trading through big swings for space stocks.
- KeyBanc’s Michael Leshock raised Rocket Lab to Overweight, calling the SpaceX-related selloff “unwarranted.” But pressure stuck around as SpaceX shares kept falling after the IPO. MarketWatch
Rocket Lab shares head into the U.S. long weekend with a small weekly rise and the next move coming as the stock joins the Nasdaq-100 ahead of Monday’s bell. That follows volatility among space stocks as SpaceX roiled the sector. The shares finished at $107.24 on Thursday, off 0.69%, with U.S. markets closed Friday for Juneteenth.
The timing is key here. Rocket Lab joins the Nasdaq-100, the index for large non-financial Nasdaq companies, just before markets open on June 22. Nasdaq says more than 200 investment products track the index, totaling over $800 billion in assets under management. That puts Rocket Lab in front of plenty of passive funds, which simply track the index.
Stocks are higher going into the break. Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.9% Thursday, and the S&P 500 was up 1.1%, after a choppy week cut short by the holiday, AP market data showed. Markets open again for regular Nasdaq hours, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern.
Rocket Lab had a bumpy week. Shares finished Wednesday at $102.39 after a steep drop, then climbed back to $107.24 by Thursday. Trading stayed active with about 70.3 million shares moving in the final session before the holiday.
KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Michael Leshock lifted Rocket Lab to Overweight, putting the price target at $135. He called the sector pullback after the SpaceX debut “unwarranted,” MarketWatch reported. Overweight usually signals an analyst looks for a stock to beat its benchmark or group. MarketWatch
SpaceX is getting hit. Reuters said Thursday the company’s shares fell 6.5% to $178.50. Still, that keeps them up over 30% from the $135 IPO price after SpaceX’s first public sale. Reuters also reported Rocket Lab and Planet Labs traded lower, and AST SpaceMobile dropped harder.
“Some degree of profit-taking is not surprising,” IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu told Reuters, after a big SpaceX deal and a strong first session. That’s the read-through for Rocket Lab—investors still want space stocks, but now they’re comparing this group to a much bigger public name. Reuters
Rocket Lab is leaning on booked growth, not only index tweaks. First-quarter revenue came in at $200.3 million, a jump of 63.5% from last year. GAAP gross margin was 38.2%. The company’s backlog stood at $2.2 billion — that’s contracted work, still unrecorded as revenue.
Rocket Lab CEO Sir Peter Beck used the term “landmark moment” for the company’s Nasdaq-100 inclusion, saying it shows the firm’s shift from “a small company with big ambitions to a global space leader.” That’s how Rocket Lab put it. The market, though, is treating the index move as more than just company talk since the listing brings the shares into a broader base of index-linked capital. GlobeNewswire
The trade comes with some baggage. Rocket Lab’s valuation already bakes in a fair bit of hope, and Neutron—its medium-lift rocket—is still being built. The company said in May it’s still planning to launch Neutron for the first time later this year, but noted those kinds of forward-looking comments aren’t promises and could end up off the mark. Delays on Neutron, a bigger drop in high-growth names, or another pivot to SpaceX could knock out the boost from entering the index.
Week sets up as a battle between flows and fundamentals. Monday, the Nasdaq-100 inclusion could shake up trading and spark index buying. Beyond that, focus shifts to whether Rocket Lab can turn its backlog into new revenue and stick close to its Neutron timeline, which has driven much of the stock’s premium.
