SpaceX stock (NASDAQ: SPCX) briefly looked unstoppable after the world’s largest initial public offering, but almost all the early excitement has now disappeared.
Shares closed Tuesday at $136.08, only $1.08, or 0.8%, above the $135 offering price.
The stock has fallen almost 40% from its June 16 intraday peak of $225.64, wiping an estimated $1.2 trillion from SpaceX’s implied market value.
Yet Wall Street remains strongly bullish. An average analyst target near $240 implies about 76% upside from Tuesday’s close, an estimate based on analysts’ forecasts, not a guaranteed rebound.
The post-IPO excitement has almost vanished
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 on June 11 and began trading on Nasdaq the following day under the SPCX ticker.
Its shares opened at $150 before finishing their first session at $160.95, a 19% gain from the offer price.
The company ultimately raised $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their full allotment option.
By June 16, only its third trading session, the stock had touched an intraday record of $225.64.
The reversal has been just as dramatic. SpaceX has since surrendered nearly 40%, fallen below its first-day close and recorded three consecutive declines through Tuesday.
The IPO price now carries psychological as well as financial importance.
A sustained break below $135 would put the institutions that bought shares in the offering underwater and could further weaken confidence in a listing marketed as a rare opportunity to own Elon Musk’s launch, satellite-connectivity and AI businesses.
The decline is particularly striking because analysts have largely refused to lower their ambitious forecasts.
Wall Street sees a much bigger company taking shape
Roughly 80% of analysts covering SpaceX recommend buying the stock, while the average target is close to $240.
Evercore ISI became the latest broker to turn bullish on Tuesday, initiating coverage with an Outperform rating and a $230 target.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas has one of the highest mainstream targets at $300.
The bank’s thesis rests on SpaceX combining near-monopoly launch economics, the world’s largest low-Earth-orbit satellite network and a rapidly expanding AI-infrastructure operation.
Starlink could provide recurring cash flow, while Starship may eventually cut launch costs enough to unlock larger markets in communications, defence, lunar transport and orbital computing.
Jonas’s bullish scenario depends heavily on Starship becoming fully reusable and operating at an enormous scale.
Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan takes a more conservative approach but still rates SpaceX a Buy with a $205 target.
Goldman sees the company as positioned across space, connectivity and AI, with each market potentially developing into a multitrillion-dollar opportunity.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Colin Canfield has a $246 target and describes SpaceX as a “planetary infrastructure company”.
He argues that controlling rockets, satellite connectivity, AI computing and the X distribution platform creates vertical integration that conventional valuation models may struggle to capture.
A 76% rebound still requires enormous execution
The sell-off shows that investors are not accepting those assumptions without question.
SpaceX remains valued at roughly $1.8 trillion, is not expected to report a profit in 2026 and trades near 50 times estimated sales.
Share supply is another concern. The prospectus allows eligible pre-IPO holders to sell as much as 20% of their holdings shortly after SpaceX publishes its first quarterly results.
The report is expected in August, creating the prospect of substantially more stock entering the public market.
MoffettNathanson analyst Julie Zhu illustrates the sceptical case.
She initiated coverage with a Neutral rating and a $131 target, acknowledging the strength of SpaceX’s launch business while warning that the range of potential financial outcomes remains unusually wide.
Zhu told Business Insider that regulatory scrutiny was the largest long-term risk as SpaceX expands across connected industries.
She argued that vertical integration could eventually attract the type of antitrust attention already directed at dominant technology platforms.
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