SpaceX stock defies latest Wall Street forecasts

SpaceX (SPCX) went public a month ago as the biggest IPO in history. Today, it trades below its opening price.

Shares of Space Exploration Technologies slipped to a record low near $139 on Monday, even as the company cleared a Starship mishap probe ahead of its next test flight, according to Reuters.

That's down more than 38% from the $225 peak it reached on June 16.

The drop puts the stock close to its $135 IPO price and well under the $150 it opened at on June 12.

What makes this fall interesting is the division on Wall Street. Raymond James sees SpaceX shares nearly sextupling, while the market keeps marking the stock down.

For everyday investors trying to read the signal, that difference is worth noting.

Why SpaceX stock fell to a record low

The drop looks like a regular positioning reset, and not a signal that something is wrong with the business itself.

Traders are rotating out of high-growth names and into safer stocks, and SPCX sits right in the middle.

Benzinga reported that Monday's drop looked more like traders cashing out of a stock that had run up too fast.

More Space Stocks:

• Jeff Bezos doubles down on Blue Origin with $2B
• Morgan Stanley sends strong signal on SpaceX stock price target
• Rocket Lab doubles down on satellite network with $8B acquisition

A record low also puts SPCX buyers in a tougher spot. That old floor now acts as a ceiling, and buyers need to step in with real conviction to push the stock back above it.

There's also a news trigger. Days before the fall, Chinese state media showed a Long March 10B booster being caught in a net at sea on its first flight.

It was the first time any country other than the U.S. has recovered an orbital-class rocket.

Michael Gonzalez / Getty Images

What SpaceX actually does now, from rockets to AI

SpaceX is no longer a launch company that Wall Street can price on rockets alone.

The business runs on three engines: reusable launch, the Starlink satellite internet network, and, since the February 2026 purchase, xAI.

Related: Bank of America sets alarming SpaceX stock price target

xAI is an AI arm built around the Grok model and the Colossus data centers. The Motley Fool noted that most of the AI revenue comes from Grok subscriptions and renting out computing power.

That mix is why the stock swings so hard. SPCX is tied to launch, satellite internet, and AI infrastructure all at once.

That combination pays off big when growth sentiment is hot, and gets punished hard when it's not.

The money side is still unproven. The company lost close to $5 billion last year, and Morgan Stanley's model doesn't reach positive free cash flow until 2035.

Why Raymond James put an $800 target on SpaceX stock

Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale isn't pricing SpaceX like a rocket maker. He's pricing it like the infrastructure layer of the next economy.

Gesuale initiated coverage with a Strong Buy rating and a $800 target. That's a number that values the company near $10.5 trillion and implies roughly a 440% increase, Investing.com reported.

Related: Citi sends powerful sign to SpaceX investors

Gesuale's model leans on a scale that's hard to picture. He sees full-year sales climbing from about $38.5 billion in 2026 to roughly $837 billion by 2031.

Over that same stretch, he expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization to jump from $17.7 billion to $696 billion.

What the bull case needs to go right

For that math to hold, several things have to land, not just one:

• Starship has to fly often and cheaply, since low launch costs make everything else work
• Starlink has to keep adding subscribers past its current 10 million-plus base
• The AI arm has to turn compute contracts into real, repeatable revenue
• SpaceX has to fund heavy spending without leaning on losses forever

Why some analysts call the SpaceX valuation a bubble

The same $800 number that thrills bulls is what bears cite as a warning sign.

According to The Motley Fool, Gesuale's price target is a textbook marker of a late-stage bubble.

No company at the forefront of a game-changing technology has held a price-to-sales ratioabove 30 for long, and SpaceX trades near 50 times this year's forecast sales.

There's also the underwriter problem. Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs helped run the $85.7 billion IPO, so their Buy ratings carry a natural bias toward the stock doing well.

SpaceX stock vs. its own short history

The round trip has been brutal for anyone who bought the hype:

• Peak (June 16): $225.64
• IPO open (June 12): $150
• IPO price: $135
• Monday low: about $137, a record

How China's rocket catch changes the SpaceX story

The China milestone matters because reusability is the advantage SpaceX spent a decade building.

Cheap, reusable launch is what lets SpaceX dominate orbital mass and build Starlink at scale. A rival closing that gap reduces the long-term advantage investors are paying for.

TechCrunch reported that a reusable Chinese booster could put real pressure on Starlink in markets across Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

The gap is still wide, however. One net catch doesn't automatically mean a reusable program.

SpaceX has landed boosters hundreds of times and still launches more payload than all other countries and companies combined.

What SpaceX investors should watch next

Two dates will do more to settle this debate than any analyst note.

The next Starship test, Flight 13, is scheduled for Thursday, July 16, and Raymond James treats it as the key check on his assumption, Investing.com reported.

After that comes the first earnings report and the first insider lockup expiration, both expected around August 6.

That report gives the public its first clean look at revenue, margins, and cash burn. It could also unlock a wave of insider shares that reshapes supply.

The realistic takeaway for investors

SpaceX may grow into a giant, but the stock already prices in a version of the future that hasn't been proven yet.

A record low doesn't automatically make it cheap when shares still trade at a steep multiple of sales the company hasn't earned yet.

The safer approach for most investors is to wait for the August 6 report rather than trade the gap between an $800 dream and a $139 reality.

Anyone buying here is betting that Starship, Starlink, and xAI all deliver on schedule.

Related: This is how rich SpaceX workers are after the IPO

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This story was originally published July 15, 2026 at 10:17 AM.