By Callum Keown
SpaceX stock had a good first week in the Russell 1000 and the index was all the better for it, too.
Shares of Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company climbed 5.7% in the holiday-shortened week and the index rose 1.8%. The stock needed a boost as it had fallen 24% from its record closing high of $201.80 through June 26, its last trading day before entering the Russell 1000.
The good news for investors is that SpaceX is about to join another major stock index on Tuesday, the Nasdaq 100. That's expected to generate billions of dollars' worth of passive buying by funds tracking the index.
The bad news is that new entrants haven't always had a strong start in the index in recent years. In fact, of the 21 stocks that have entered the Nasdaq 100 over the past two years only six have risen in the first week, according to Dow Jones Market Data: AppLovin, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Monolithic Power Systems, Western Digital, Insmed, and Sandisk.
The average drop a week after joining was 3.8%. Timing and broader market conditions are, of course, a factor-- CoreWeave, Nebius, and Rocket Lab all fell more than 15% the week after joining the Nasdaq 100 on June 22 this year amid a tech selloff. Those recent performances skew the data slightly.
Other big debut drops include Super Micro Computer, which fell 11% in its first week back in July 2024, corporate Bitcoin holder Strategy slumped 9% in December 2024, while Shopify fell 8% in May 2025.
More encouragingly, the average move after one month in the Nasdaq 100 is a 3.6% rise and after three months it's a 6.3% jump.
Write to Callum Keown at callum.keown@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.