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Shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX took a beating on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the company made its debut in the Nasdaq-100, a key stock market index made up of 100 of the exchange’s largest non-financial companies.
The stock slid to a record low of just over $145 by late afternoon on Wednesday — below its IPO opening price of $150 — a disappointing outcome for investors, who were hoping the Nasdaq-100 inclusion could boost values instead, as the Wall Street Journal reports.
It bounced back to around $148 by press time, but that’s still down more than 13 percent over the last five days alone and a whopping 35 percent compared to their all-time high in mid-June.
The weak performance once again highlights persistent concerns over the enormous gulf between the company’s nearly $2 trillion valuation and its nonexistent profits. SpaceX lost nearly $5 billion last year on revenue of more than $18.5 billion. Its recent merger with Musk’s AI startup xAI — which has also been burning through billions of dollars — hasn’t helped either.
SpaceX’s latest slide also comes on the same day as rival Blue Origin — which is owned by Musk’s arch nemesis Jeff Bezos — announced it was raising $10 billion at a $130 billion valuation, the first time it’s sought outside funding. Both companies are competing to develop spacecraft capable of returning human astronauts to the Moon for NASA.
It’s unclear to what degree Blue Origin’s funding round had any direct effect on SpaceX’s tumbling shares. Musk’s rocket company has been caught up in major headwinds for the Nasdaq as a whole. Markets and US crude futures got body checked by the Trump administration, which effectively restarted its war with Iran this week. And on Tuesday, the Treasury Department barred Iran from selling oil, causing oil prices to jump once again.
Despite the adverse conditions, many analysts remain bullish on SpaceX. Morgan Stanley made headlines on Tuesday after initiating coverage of SpaceX with an “Overweight” rating and a price tag of $300 — more than double its current stock price.
Deutsche Bank also set a $255 price target, claiming the company had a “clear advantage” to deploy AI infrastructure in space, an unproven concept that could take many years to investigate.
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