NEW YORK, June 18, 2026, 16:44 (EDT)
- SpaceX ended the session at $185, off 3.5%. The stock hit a low of $172.12. About 270 million shares traded.
- The stock is still trading 37% higher than its $135 IPO price. SpaceX raised $75 billion in the offering, putting the company’s valuation at $1.77 trillion.
- U.S. markets are shut Friday for Juneteenth. SpaceX’s possible inclusion in big stock indexes may drive moves when trading starts again.
SpaceX shares closed down Thursday, extending losses to a second day even as late action trimmed an earlier 10% slide. The stock ended at $185, now sitting about 18% off Tuesday’s intraday high near $226. Options are pricing in a swing of roughly 10% either way next week.
Why the reversal counts: price discovery is still shaky for a huge new public name. Just 4.2% of SpaceX found its way into initial public trading, with retail investors getting a bigger slice than usual. That thin float can push swings both ways.
Retail investors bought over $300 million net in SpaceX during the prior three sessions, Vanda Research data shows. Net purchases cooled to $9.1 million by 2 p.m. Thursday. “Given the magnitude of the IPO and the strong initial performance, some degree of profit-taking is not surprising,” IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu said. Reuters
The drop was out of step with the rest of the market. The S&P 500 closed up 1.1% Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.9% as chip stocks climbed. The move looks like a selloff pinned on SpaceX, not a broad pullback from big growth names.
Options activity surged. These contracts let traders buy or sell shares at a fixed price up to a certain date. When SpaceX options started trading Tuesday, volume hit about 1.8 million contracts, smashing the old record for a single-company options debut by more than four times. “We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Henry Schwartz, derivatives executive at Cboe Global Markets. Reuters
Valuation is still the big point behind the trading swings. SpaceX ended Tuesday at $201.80, for a market cap of about $2.66 trillion. The company posted 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion and after merging with xAI, it booked a net loss of $4.94 billion. “Feels like one of those meme stocks,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading, pointing to quick moves and heavy trader focus. Reuters
Banks are getting ready to talk to investors as soon as next week about a bond sale of at least $20 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal involves investment-grade bonds, which are expected to have relatively low default risk. The cash would go toward refinancing a bridge loan tied to SpaceX’s xAI purchase and help fund its expensive push into artificial intelligence. The final amount could be different. Financing is another test for the company.
Other space stocks ended mixed. AST SpaceMobile dropped 5.6%. Rocket Lab slipped 0.7%. The SpaceX move hit some sector names but didn’t trigger a broad selloff in space shares.
Some analysts are still much more bullish than the market was on Thursday. Arete’s Andrew Beale has a $401 price target. Zephirin Group targets $310, pointing to Starlink growth, more satellite capacity and demand for SpaceX launches. Both targets are way above the current price and rely on fast expansion in areas that still need a lot of investment.
The picture is mixed. Quick inclusion in big indexes could force buying from benchmark-trackers, while fresh bank reports might lift demand. But if those flows don’t materialize, if the debt deal gets bigger or pricier, or if the AI investment plan loses support, losses could get worse. Right now, SpaceX isn’t trading like an established mega-cap. It’s acting more like a hot but unsettled stock, with value still being hashed out on the fly.
