New York, June 19, 2026, 16:36 EDT
- SpaceX ended Thursday at $185, off 3.6%. Nvidia, by contrast, was up 3.0% to $210.69. U.S. markets didn’t open Friday for Juneteenth.
- Nvidia’s market cap is about $5.14 trillion, putting it at more than double SpaceX’s estimated $2.4 trillion.
- SpaceX sits in the broad Nasdaq Composite, but it’s not in the Nasdaq-100 yet. That keeps some funds from buying. Funds that follow the narrower index can’t add the stock right now.
Nvidia pushed higher Thursday while SpaceX slid again, leaving more distance between the heavyweights as bets on AI infrastructure keep pulling in cash. SpaceX logged a second day down from its earlier high of $225.64 this week. Nvidia closed at $210.69.
Shares in the two are only $25.69 apart, but that doesn’t say much. Look at market cap — share price times shares outstanding — and Nvidia comes in at just over double SpaceX, around $5.1 trillion versus $2.4 trillion.
Index rules are in focus now as passive funds have to follow the benchmark, buying the same stocks in set weights. “The IPO is the headline, but the real story is about index methodology,” said Dina Ting, global index portfolio management head at Franklin Templeton. Nvidia is already a big name in the Nasdaq-100. Reuters
SpaceX missed out on a Nasdaq-100 berth in Monday’s quarterly reshuffle, while Rocket Lab made the cut. Nasdaq’s fast-entry process lets a new stock in if it’s one of the 40 biggest and meets free float rules, but membership doesn’t happen by default.
SpaceX shares are still up 37% from their $135 IPO price. But trading has been choppy. More than 1 million SpaceX options contracts traded on the debut. Options let traders buy or sell stock at set prices. “It’s a $2.5 trillion company, but it certainly feels like one of those meme stocks, the way it’s trading,” Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading, said. Reuters
Early investors are likely locking in gains after the listing. “Given the magnitude of the IPO and the strong initial performance, some degree of profit-taking is not surprising,” said Kat Liu, analyst at IPOX Schuster. Retail buying also cooled off Thursday after net retail purchases topped $300 million over the last three days. Reuters
Nvidia’s valuation rests on a firmer earnings base. Revenue for the latest quarter jumped 85% to $81.6 billion, as data centre sales came in at $75.2 billion. The company is guiding for about $91 billion this quarter. CEO Jensen Huang said “AI factories” are being built at “extraordinary speed.” investor.nvidia.com
Nvidia and SpaceX numbers don’t really line up, since they run on different fiscal calendars, but the gap between them isn’t close. Nvidia posted $215.9 billion in revenue and $120.1 billion net income in its last year. SpaceX, for 2025, reported $18.7 billion revenue and a net loss of $4.9 billion.
But both trades come with risks. SpaceX’s small free float could lead to big price swings, and its ongoing losses along with heavy spending on AI projects could push back the cash returns its valuation suggests. Nvidia has to deal with AMD and custom chips from Google. Jacob Bourne, an analyst at eMarketer, said another Nvidia earnings beat was “essentially priced in.” Investing.com South Africa
It’s not about SpaceX’s share price chasing down Nvidia next. Now, the question is if index buying and possible future cash can keep the already-high market values steady. Nvidia is big and posts profits. SpaceX, at this point, is a rare new name in the market, still waiting on most of its profit story to play out.
