SpaceX market cap loss tops $1.2 trillion since June high
SpaceX shares fell again Monday as CNBC reported the post-IPO slide has erased more than $1.2 trillion ahead of earnings and lock-up sales.
By Dev Ramirez · Crypto Correspondent
· 3 min read
SpaceX market cap loss has now passed $1.2 trillion from its June peak, CNBC reported, putting the stock’s slide in the same neighborhood as the entire value of Elon Musk’s Tesla. For everyday investors, the move is a reminder that even the market’s most closely watched growth stories can swing hard once public trading, options speculation and lock-up dates collide.
SpaceX shares fell more than 1% on Monday to close at $113.50, according to CNBC. The stock has declined in 13 of the past 16 sessions after reaching a high price of $225.64 in June, CNBC reported.
Tesla, Musk’s other public company, has also been under pressure, with CNBC saying its shares recently traded near one-year lows. Market capitalization, or market cap, is the value investors assign to a company in the stock market: share price multiplied by shares outstanding. A $1.2 trillion drop means the market is valuing SpaceX far below where it did at the June high.
Why is SpaceX stock falling before earnings?
CNBC linked part of the pressure to investor concern around artificial intelligence-related capital spending, a broad theme weighing on some high-growth technology stocks. Charles Moon, a tech and momentum specialist at Prosper Trading Academy in Chicago, told CNBC that Wall Street is punishing AI stocks for capital expenditures, the money companies spend on long-term projects, equipment and infrastructure.
Moon also separated investor time horizons from trader behavior. “As an investor it’s early – as a trader, Wall Street is now punishing the AI stocks for capex,” he told CNBC.
The options market shows how divided traders remain. Options are contracts tied to a stock’s future price. Calls typically benefit when a stock rises, while puts typically benefit when it falls. CNBC reported that traders bought 106,000 calls and 77,000 puts on Monday, while most of the $442 million in options premium was connected to puts.
The most actively traded contract by volume was a call option with a $330 strike price expiring Friday, according to CNBC, citing ThinkOrSwim data. That contract cost 10 cents and had about a one-third of 1% probability of paying off, according to the same data.
Cboe LiveVol data cited by CNBC showed that four of Monday’s five largest SpaceX options trades by premium were neutral or bullish. Those trades included two large put-spread sales and one position in which a trader collected $1.8 million by selling 5,200 October 16 puts with a $100 strike while buying 7,000 puts expiring the same day with an $85 strike, CNBC reported.
What happens after SpaceX reports earnings?
SpaceX is scheduled to post its first earnings report since its initial public offering on August 4, according to a company investor relations release cited by CNBC. Earnings reports can reduce uncertainty by giving investors fresh financial data, but CNBC noted that this report also starts the clock on a lock-up release.
A lock-up is a post-IPO restriction that stops certain early shareholders from selling for a set period. SpaceX investors will be able to sell 20% of their eligible locked-up shares, up to 911.5 million shares, on the second full trading day after the first earnings release date, which CNBC identified as August 6.
Moon told CNBC he does not expect the SpaceX lock-up to be as negative as feared, while adding that it will not help the stock. That leaves investors watching two things at once: what SpaceX says in its first public earnings report, and how much selling appears when more shares become eligible to trade.
This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.
