by Ivan Martchev
June 23, 2026
As of last Friday, after five full trading days, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) began to trade inside the range of its first trading day. To recap, the stock opened at $150 on its IPO day (IPO at $135), rising to $225.64 by mid-week (last week), before trading all the way down to $172.11 last Friday.
I don’t know how many G’s it takes to blast-off Earth and go into orbit, or come back to Earth, but if there is a clear equivalent of a space round trip in stock trading, the first week action in SPCX resembles it:
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
If anyone could become successful in building cities on the Moon and Mars, Elon Musk and SpaceX would be the ones to make it happen. They are light-years (pun intended) ahead of the competition. But stocks with huge $2.4-trillion market caps (as of the close on Friday) don’t typically trade like yo-yos.
The reason for this erratic price action is that no more than 4.3% of the shares are available for trading!
As per Google’s Gemini, the detailed tiered lock-up expiration schedule is as follows:
- August 11, 2026 (Post-Q2 Earnings): Up to 20% of eligible locked shares become free to trade.
- August 25 – October 25, 2026: Rolling tranches of 7% unlock at predetermined intervals (70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 days post-IPO).
- November 9, 2026 (Post-Q3 Earnings): The largest single tranche unlocks, freeing an additional 28% of eligible shares.
- December 9, 2026: The 180-day cliff expires, unlocking all remaining eligible Class A shares.
- June 2027: Elon Musk and certain significant core insiders are subject to a longer 366-day lockup, holding their shares in restriction for the first full year. (Note: An additional 10% bonus tranche could unlock earlier if SPCX trades 30% above its IPO price for a minimum of 5 out of 10 days post-earnings).
Until August 11, when more shares become available for trading, the present price is not real. If you get a lot of people chasing 4.3% of the float of a giant company, the stock will go up. If those people decide to sell, it will go down quite a bit. We have witnessed both events in the last few trading days. I am sure Elon Musk has all kinds of tricks up his sleeve for when more stock gets released from lock ups, like multiple satellite and starship launches, but this is a very different situation than Musk’s Tesla (TSLA).
Tesla went public with $1.7-billion in market cap, while SpaceX is coming in at $1.75-trillion at the time of the IPO. Tesla now has a market cap of $1.5-trillion, as the company grew well after the IPO. I am sure SpaceX will grow, too, but it won’t be linear. I expect we’ll see many fits and starts. I think the next time we hit turbulence in the stock market, or one of its rockets explode (which happens occasionally), SpaceX may break below its $135 IPO price. This should come between now and the end of the year, perhaps during the next stock market correction, but given the overpriced IPO level, it could happen a lot sooner.
The New Warsh-Led Fed Could Play a Role in Space-X (and Market) Gyrations
If the Iran war does not reignite, it may very well turn out the new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, will be the culprit for the next big swing in the stock market. Jerome Powell became Fed Chairman on February 5, 2018, and in the fourth quarter of 2018, he helped fuel a near-20% drop in the S&P 500 because of his quantitative over-tightening. Kevin Warsh has not done anything yet – other than announce multiple task forces to review the way the Fed conducts policy, and a rather shortened FOMC statement like a breath of fresh air given the convoluted language of previous FOMC statements, even predating Powell.
Here is the latest FOMC statement:
The Federal Open Market Committee approved the following statement for release by a 12 – 0 vote:
The Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. The Committee reaffirmed its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system.
Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty stems, in part, from the conflict in the Middle East. Productivity growth and capital investment are strong. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.
Inflation remains elevated relative to the Committee’s 2-percent goal, in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy. The Committee will deliver price stability.
I like the fact the vote was 12-0, and I like the firm tone of the conclusion – namely, the Fed “will deliver price stability.” Some rate-hiking odds shot up in the futures markets, but it is way too early to speculate on whether or not the Fed will hike rates – which the ECB recently did in reaction to the price of crude oil and fertilizer, which were acutely affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
Kevin Warsh wants to shrink the Fed’s balance sheet (charted below) and lower the Fed funds rate due to the view that a bigger balance sheet helps more financial market prices while a lower fed funds rate helps the real economy more. This will take time. He has not gotten the FOMC to do any big market operations regarding those views and his task forces will take some time to produce the necessary recommendations.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
I can’t imagine the Fed instituting any new revival of crazy QE or QT operations before the mid-term elections in November, but stranger things have happened. I think the referral in the FOMC statement to maintaining ample reserves in the banking system is to calm down worries stemming from the fact that any time reserves in the banking system tend to shrink, the stock market tends to dive, and the volatility in the bond market tends to increase. This is what happened to Jerome Powell’s Fed in late 2018.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
If the new Fed Chair messes around with the balance sheet, I think both stocks and bonds will notice. In the meantime, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the ceasefire will hold and the global economy will develop according to the time-limited disruption scenario from OECD (above), because the other option is for many countries in Europe and Asia without domestic energy resources may go into recession.
Navellier & Associates; do not own Space Exploration Technology Corp (SPCX) in managed accounts. A few accounts own Tesla (TSLA) per client request. Ivan Martchev does not own Space Exploration Technology Corp (SPCX) or Tesla (TSLA) personally.
All content above represents the opinion of Ivan Martchev of Navellier & Associates, Inc.
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The Dream of Turning Lead (or Paper) into Gold Still Lives
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A Round-Trip Ride in Space Exploration Stocks
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Ivan Martchev
INVESTMENT STRATEGIST
Ivan Martchev is an investment strategist with Navellier. Previously, Ivan served as editorial director at InvestorPlace Media. Ivan was editor of Louis Rukeyser’s Mutual Funds and associate editor of Personal Finance. Ivan is also co-author of The Silk Road to Riches (Financial Times Press). The book provided analysis of geopolitical issues and investment strategy in natural resources and emerging markets with an emphasis on Asia. The book also correctly predicted the collapse in the U.S. real estate market, the rise of precious metals, and the resulting increased investor interest in emerging markets. Ivan’s commentaries have been published by MSNBC, The Motley Fool, MarketWatch, and others. All content of “Global Mail” represents the opinion of Ivan Martchev
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