SpaceX Braces for a Two-Day Gauntlet as Lock-Up Flood Threatens to Overwhelm Record Bearish Bets
Published on 08/02/2026 at 11:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The next 72 hours will determine whether SpaceX's post-IPO honeymoon ends in a rout or a reset. The stock, already cut in half from its June peak, faces a double-barreled test: its first quarterly report as a public company on Tuesday, followed just two days later by one of the largest share-release events in market history.
Friday's session set the tone. Shares closed at €93.96, down 3.48% in a single day, leaving the equity barely above its 52-week low of €93.41. The monthly decline stands at a bruising 32.10%, and the stock now trades more than 50% below the record €194.46 it touched in June.
A Record Bet Against the Stock
Behind the slide sits a short position of historic proportions. According to S3 Partners, short sellers held 219.3 million SpaceX shares at the end of July — roughly 34% of the free float. That's a staggering leap from just 23.3 million shares in mid-June. The market value of these bearish wagers: $24.6 billion, a sum that eclipses even the short book on Tesla, Elon Musk's other publicly traded vehicle.
Data provider Ortex paints a similar picture, pegging shorted shares at around 196 million, or 31% of the float, versus just 5–7% at the time of the IPO.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Sam Pierson, research director at S3 Partners, frames the bearish thesis simply: the trade is a bet on the coming lock-up expiration. "Nobody expects the quarterly numbers to be strong enough to absorb the wave of newly tradable shares," he said.
The Numbers That Matter
SpaceX reports second-quarter results after Tuesday's close, followed by an audio webcast. The growth narrative is intact — revenue climbed from $10.4 billion in 2023 to $18.7 billion in 2025, and Q1 2026 revenue rose more than 15% year over year to $4.7 billion. But profitability has deteriorated sharply. A $791 million profit in 2024 became a $4.9 billion loss in 2025, and the net loss widened from $528 million to $4.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Capital expenditures tell the story: they exploded from $4.4 billion in 2023 to $20.7 billion in 2025.
Analysts polled by TipRanks are focusing on three areas. For Starlink, the question is subscriber growth after the service crossed 10 million active customers in early 2026. In the AI segment — encompassing X, Grok, Cursor, and data-center leasing — expectations center on a significant revenue jump, with Anthropic and Alphabet expanding their infrastructure rental payments.
The Lock-Up Wave
The earnings report, however, may be the lesser of this week's risks. On August 6, the holding period for pre-IPO shareholders expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million shares worth approximately $116 billion. Currently, only about 640 million shares — less than 5% of all outstanding stock — trade freely. S3 Partners estimates the release will roughly double the float to about 12%.
The IPO's structure is the root cause. Fewer than 5% of outstanding shares were offered publicly, a deliberately tight float that analysts say amplified both the initial rally and the subsequent collapse. Morningstar's Nicolas Owens expects a significant portion of the unlocked shares to hit the market, noting that existing sellers have low cost bases and long holding periods. He adds that much of the recent weakness may already reflect anticipation of the coming dilution.
August is merely the first wave. The staggered release schedule means up to 5.3 billion shares could become tradable by year-end. Not every early investor is rushing for the exit — Chad Anderson, an early SpaceX backer, told CNBC he plans to hold and won't sell after the lock-up expires.
Analysts Hold the Line
Despite the carnage, Wall Street's consensus remains constructive. Since the IPO, 23 analysts rate the stock a buy, six a hold, and one a sell, with an average price target of $239.04. S&P Global's survey of 34 analysts yields a similar view: consensus buy and a mean target of $236.71, though individual estimates range from $62 to $800.
SpaceX at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Pierson flags three factors beyond the immediate lock-up: additional release dates through year-end, a potential S&P 500 inclusion that he says the market is already pricing despite index rules making it unlikely before mid-2027, and the possibility of a Tesla merger that could accelerate index entry.
A Stock Primed for Volatility
Technical indicators suggest the selling may be nearing exhaustion. The 14-day RSI of 31.0 signals oversold conditions, often a precursor to short-term stabilization, though hardly a guarantee of reversal. The annualized 30-day volatility of 54.45% underscores just how violent the swings could be in either direction.
Operationally, SpaceX continues to fire on all cylinders. The 13th flight of the Super Heavy-Starship system recently delivered a booster to a precise but "hard" splashdown off the Texas Gulf Coast, while the Starship upper stage completed a successful suborbital hop to the Indian Ocean, deploying 20 third-generation Starlink satellites — a practical test of the payload system even as booster engine performance showed room for improvement.
The immediate question for investors is less about the operational story and more about supply and demand. Whether the stock can hold above €93 depends not on headlines but on how quickly early shareholders choose to cash in their newly tradable stakes.
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Disclaimer regarding our articles: No investment advice, no buy or sell recommendation. Information on prices, companies, and markets is provided without guarantee; changes are possible at any time. Stock market transactions can lead to substantial losses. Our articles are created and reviewed in whole or in part automatically with the support of AI.
