New York, June 12, 2026, 04:46 (EDT)
- Virgin Galactic finished Thursday with a gain of 21.66%, closing at $5.73. Trading volume was much stronger than usual.
- The company redeemed $30.524 million worth of First Lien Notes through the issue of 6.735 million shares, it said in its latest SEC filing.
- Investors pushed up publicly traded space stocks as they looked ahead to SpaceX’s planned market launch.
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. rallied Thursday, jumping 21.66% to $5.73, its third straight day of gains. Investors showed strong demand for space stocks ahead of SpaceX’s IPO. Volume soared, with 117.7 million SPCE shares changing hands, far above the 50-day average of 28.3 million, MarketWatch said. Broader markets were also in the green. The Nasdaq Composite rose 2.54%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.86%, and the S&P 500 gained 1.75%.
Virgin Galactic stretched its rally after hours, popping 13.26% to $6.49 after hitting $6.17 and dipping to $4.63 in the regular session, Benzinga said. MarketWatch data showed that, despite Thursday’s surge, the stock is still trading 35.62% under the $8.90 52-week high from June 1.
Sector mood kicked things off, not new news from Virgin Galactic. Oppenheimer started coverage of SpaceX with an “outperform” and set a $190 target, Reuters said. Analyst Timothy Horan wrote, “We see it as the only vertically integrated AI company with the required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent.” Reuters
SpaceX’s momentum gave a lift to space stocks, with traders looking at Virgin Galactic as a way to play the surge in interest in commercial space, Benzinga said. SpaceX set its IPO price at $135 a share. Reports value the offering near $75 billion, with a total valuation of about $1.75 trillion.
Virgin Galactic gave a balance sheet update this week. In a June 10 SEC filing, the company said it redeemed $30.524 million in principal of its 9.80% First Lien Notes due 2028 by issuing 6,734,960 shares of common stock. The move is part of a bigger capital and cash-management push and cuts ongoing cash interest tied to the notes, according to the filing.
Virgin Galactic’s debt-for-equity swap cuts near-term debt, but investors get more dilution. The company is still pre-revenue. In its May 14 Q1 report, Virgin Galactic listed $251 million in cash and equivalents as of March 31, $0.2 million in revenue, a net loss of $65 million, and negative free cash flow of $93 million. It took in $11 million from its at-the-market equity program in the quarter, and raised about $52 million more through that program in April.
Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the update that ground testing of the SpaceShip is underway. He said flight tests are still scheduled for the third quarter, with a spaceflight in the fourth. The company has called its next-gen vehicles key to boosting how often it can fly and pushing down costs.
SPCE closed Thursday at $5.73, well above consensus price targets tracked by Google Finance. The site showed six analysts with a “Hold” rating and a 12-month average target of $3.61, topping out at $5.00. The stock is moving more on space-sector sentiment, debt management, and whether it can stick to its next-gen flight plans than on immediate financials. Google
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