By Callum Keown and Al Root
SpaceX stock has a problem — it's failing to get off the ground despite several catalysts.
The shares might get a boost on Monday as it starts trading having joined a major stock index, the Russell 1000 after the Friday close. That qualifies as a minor catalyst. The amount of money directly indexed to the Russell is measured in billions, not the trillions indexed to the S&P 500.
S&P Global decided against fast-tracking SpaceX into its indexes, partly due to a supply-and-demand issue. There would be too many passive players chasing too few shares if SpaceX were to, say, enter the S&P 500. There are only about 86 million shares of SpaceX currently available to trade, only a fraction of the more than 13 billion shares outstanding. More stock will become available in the coming six months.
Still, the stock will enter the Nasdaq 100 on July 7. That could give shares another boost, with passive indexes all buying at once.
CEO Elon Musk was also typically bullish in response to a post on X noting that SpaceX is expected to reach $100 billion in revenue by 2028. "I would be disappointed if SpaceX did not significantly exceed these milestones," he wrote late Sunday.
Wall Street sees about $103 billion in 2028 sales, so Musk's statement aligns with current estimates.
He also tweeted that Grok 4.5, SpaceX's AI model, might be better than comparable products from Anthropic. Grok comes from xAI, which SpaceX merged with in February. xAI no longer exists, with SpaceX dissolving the entity recently.
Those four things might be considered catalysts to lift the stock. Shares of the rocket and AI company maker were up 2.5% in premarket trading at $157.07, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.9% and 0.5%, respectively.
Shares are still down from an all-time high of $225.64, reached a couple of days after its June 12 IPO. The post-IPO low is $147.11, which is still higher than the $135 IPO price.
Current prices value SpaceX at about $2 trillion. That's, obviously, a lot and reflects a lot of optimism. The direction of that optimism, more than indexation, will likely determine the value of shares in coming months.
Write to Callum Keown at [email protected]
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