SpaceX Faces a Two-Day Gauntlet as Earnings and Lock-Up Expiry Collide
Published on 07/30/2026 at 11:34 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SpaceX shares are clinging to support near their 52-week low as the company barrels toward a pivotal week that will test investor resolve. The stock closed Wednesday at €98.20, down nearly 4% on the day, and has since edged up to around €99.00 — a marginal recovery that still leaves it more than 49% below the all-time high set on June 16. The relative strength index has dipped to 33.3, deep in oversold territory, suggesting the selling pressure may be exhausting itself in the near term.
The calendar is unusually dense. On Tuesday, August 4, SpaceX will publish its first quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded company. Just two trading sessions later, on August 6, a lock-up agreement expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million shares — about 20% of all restricted stock — for trading. That volume could swamp the market if sentiment turns sour, and the annualized 30-day volatility of 65.47% underscores just how jittery the shareholder base has become.
Short Sellers Circle as Valuation Questions Mount
The bearish positioning is stark. According to S3 Partners, short interest now accounts for roughly 35% of the free float, representing a notional value of about $26 billion. That makes SpaceX one of the most heavily shorted names on Wall Street, a vote of no confidence that has helped drive the stock down 33.76% over the past 30 days alone.
Analyst expectations for the second quarter are modest: consensus revenue of $6.82 billion and a loss per share of $0.29. The bar is low, but so is the market's tolerance for disappointment. In the first quarter, SpaceX posted revenue of $4.7 billion alongside a net loss of $4.3 billion, a reminder that the company is still burning cash at a prodigious rate.
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Much of that spending is flowing into artificial intelligence. The company disclosed that roughly three-quarters of its $10 billion capital expenditure in the first quarter went toward AI data centers, a strategic bet that is weighing on near-term profitability even as the Starlink business generates operating income. The resulting valuation gap is extreme: SpaceX trades at about 77 times sales, while comparable tech stocks command a multiple of roughly 7. That chasm has fueled speculation that a significant portion of the current market capitalization rests on future AI revenue from ventures like Grok and Cursor — businesses that have yet to prove their earning power.
Musk Tightens Grip While Alphabet Sits on a Giant Stake
Control of the company remains firmly in Elon Musk's hands. He holds roughly 42% of the equity but commands about 82.4% of voting power through Class B shares with enhanced voting rights. That structure insulates him from shareholder pressure on strategic decisions — including the Mars program and Starship development — but it also means his own holdings are locked up until June 12, 2027.
Alphabet, meanwhile, disclosed a SpaceX stake worth $94.1 billion in its latest quarterly filing, a position that dates back to a 2015 investment when the company was valued at roughly $12 billion. That stake now represents about 6% of SpaceX's total equity. But Alphabet cannot monetize it at will: $80 billion is subject to short-term post-IPO sale restrictions, and the remaining $14.1 billion is locked until the third quarter of 2027.
Cathie Wood Buys the Dip
Not everyone is running for the exits. Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchased 124,543 SpaceX shares on July 28 for approximately $14.1 million, adding to a position it had built a day earlier during a broader tech sell-off that also included Tesla. The purchase is a bet that the current pessimism has overshot, though it represents a tiny fraction of the selling pressure that could materialize next week.
A $1.6 Billion Pentagon Deal Can't Break the Gloom
Even positive news has failed to lift the stock. After the successful launch of Starship Flight 13, which deployed 20 Starlink V3 satellites and executed a soft water landing, the stock dropped more than 4% in the following session. On Thursday, Reuters reported that the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches, underscoring sustained government demand for the workhorse rocket program. Yet the announcement did little to offset the weight of short sellers and the impending lock-up expiry.
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Analysts Split on Where the Stock Goes Next
Wall Street is divided. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas warned that a slide below $100 would signal that investors are systematically undervaluing SpaceX's AI activities. The Deutsche Bank's Edison Yu took the opposite view, reiterating a buy rating with a $255 price target and arguing that the shift of resources from the Falcon 9 program to Starship is strategically sound.
For now, the market is watching two events that will shape the narrative for the rest of the summer: the earnings report on Tuesday and the lock-up expiration two days later. If the numbers disappoint and the flood of newly tradable shares hits a market already braced for bad news, the stock's recent slide could accelerate. If earnings surprise to the upside, the oversold technicals and the short-seller crowd could fuel a sharp reversal. Either way, SpaceX's first August as a public company is shaping up to be a defining moment.
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