Shares of SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) are down 4% in Monday afternoon trading, changing hands at $111 after hitting an intraday low of $108.66. The psychologically important $100 line is now within striking distance, and the price action is beginning to feel like a slow-motion capitulation.
The slide extends a punishing stretch since the June 12 IPO. SpaceX stock is down 29% from its debut price and sits well below the June peak of $225.64. At $100, SpaceX stock would carry a market cap of $1.3 trillion, still a staggering figure for a business the market has never seen quarterly financials from.
The buy-or-wait question sits front and center. With a first earnings report and a reported lockup expiry both landing within the next two weeks, the setup deserves a careful walk-through of both sides.
What’s Driving the Selloff
Two major overhangs sit just days away. SpaceX is scheduled to report its first quarterly earnings as a public company on August 4, followed by a reported first lockup expiry around August 6 that could free up to 911.5 million shares, or up to 20% of locked-up holdings, per CNBC reporting.
Selling pressure has persisted despite operational wins. SpaceX’s Starship Flight 13 on Friday deployed 20 Starlink V3 satellites, relit an engine in space, and executed its softest splashdown yet. SpaceX stock still hit a new low, a disconnect Reddit’s WallStreetBets has summarized bluntly. One widely shared post declared, “SpaceX will land on the moon while $SPCX crashes.”
The bearish tone extends to the short side. A prominent “Short sellers notch $15.5 billion profit as SpaceX shares slide” story hit r/stocks over the weekend, reinforcing that professional bears have been positioned correctly since the IPO.
The Bull Case at $100
The long-term thesis rests on Starlink as the revenue engine and reusable-launch dominance that F/m Investments’ Alex Morris has described as an “intergalactic” moat with no natural competitor. SpaceX aims to run dozens of Starship launches next year, hundreds in 2028, and thousands beyond, with Flight 14 targeting the first “Mechazilla” tower catch of the upper stage. That optionality is difficult to price at any market cap.
Wall Street’s stated view backs the optimism. The consensus analyst target on SpaceX stock sits at $236.71, with 7 buy ratings versus 1 sell. Polymarket traders assign a 95.3% probability SpaceX stock stays above $90 by month-end, suggesting the crowd sees a floor near current levels.
The Case for Waiting
The list of bearish considerations is longer and more immediate. Bloomberg has reported that SpaceX is turning away Falcon 9 customers beyond 2028 and halting some production, a strategic pivot that makes Starship reliability central to the valuation. Open questions on second-stage refurbishment cost and flight-rate ramp remain, on top of heavy short interest and limited public financials.
Options positioning reflects the caution. SpaceX stock’s full-chain put/call ratio sits at 1.14, and the August 14 expiration, which spans both earnings and the lockup, carries a put/call ratio of 1.64. Prediction market sentiment has drifted down 25.22 points over the past 30 days, and the crowd has been consistently overestimating price levels in recent weekly resolutions.
The SPCU Caveat
The Defiance Daily Target 2X Long SpaceX ETF (NYSEARCA:SPCU) offers a direct fund route to SpaceX exposure, though the structure warrants a closer look. Notably, SPCU is a 2x leveraged, single-stock product with a daily reset and a 1.31% expense ratio.
That structure amplifies both gains and losses and suffers from volatility decay. SPCU is designed for short-term trading, and investors treating it as a proxy for long-term SpaceX ownership can get hurt even when the underlying eventually rallies. SPCU is itself part of the volatility story here.
For investors who want diversified space exposure rather than a leveraged bet on a single name, SpaceX’s publicly traded peers include Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB), AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS), and Planet Labs (NYSE:PL), which are among the holdings of the broad Procure Space ETF (NASDAQ:UFO), a fund that spans the space sector but doesn’t hold SpaceX itself.
Buy Now or Wait?
The measured answer is patience. With first earnings on the calendar for August 4 and a reported lockup expiry landing days later, the SPCX stock setup argues for waiting to see how supply and disclosure land before committing fresh capital. A $1.3 trillion market cap at $100 is still a lot to underwrite without a public revenue baseline.
Investors who want in now should consider keeping their SpaceX stock position sizes modest to absorb near-term volatility without derailing the longer-term thesis. The Starlink and Starship story could compound for years, though the next two weeks may bring outsized swings in either direction.
Investors can watch for whether SpaceX’s earnings call clarifies data center and Starlink revenue trends, and whether lockup selling actually materializes at the reported scale. That’s the moment when the buy-or-wait debate should get a real answer.
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