By Al Root
Banks involved in an initial public offering typically wait a few weeks to publish research, leaving investors to wonder what analysts will say about a newly listed stock.
The wait is over for SpaceX. Shares have picked up a bevy of new ratings following the company's IPO in June. The verdict? Wall Street is very bullish on Elon Musk's rocket and artificial-intelligence company.
So far, 15 new ratings are in, from the likes of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BofA, RBC, Wells Fargo, Bernstein, UBS, and others. One is Hold. The rest are Buy. The average analyst price target from the new ratings is about $250 a share, valuing the company at about $3.3 trillion.
That is about 45 times estimated 2027 sales. (Sales estimates will change as more ratings are issued). That's a rich valuation, but SpaceX is expected to grow quickly, with 2031 sales topping $565 billion.
The company's AI and space-based broadband businesses are responsible for that growth.
With prior ratings included, about 75% of analysts covering the stock rate shares Buy. That's positive. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 typically ranges from about 55% to 60%.
The average price target of all analysts who rate SpaceX is about $240, up 50% from recent levels.
Whether that is the right price for SpaceX is hard to say. "SpaceX is something the market has no existing framework to value, because it is something the market has never seen: the world's first planetary infrastructure company," wrote Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Colin Canfield on Tuesday. SpaceX owns all the layers of the AI "stack." It owns the rockets that deliver satellites providing bandwidth. It owns the data centers that train AI models. And it owns X, the 550-million-user platform that monetizes AI model output.
"This is not diversification; it's vertical integration at civilizational scale, and we believe it structurally compounds in ways that traditional analysis fails to capture," he added. Canfield rates shares Buy and has a $246 price target.
That's one bullish take on the company. There are many more bullish takes out there.
Despite the positive calls, SpaceX stock started the day down 1.3% in premarket trading at $158.38, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.2%. Investors, for now, are a little more cautious on SpaceX's valuation than Wall Street.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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