Spcx Stock fell for a seventh straight session on Monday, dropping 3.3% to $119.85 and slipping below its $135 IPO price from June. The slide cut Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s market value to $1.52 trillion and left the stock down 27% in July alone.
The move matters because this is not a small post-offering wobble. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has now lost $1.16 trillion since its June 16 peak of $2.68 trillion, a reversal that knocked it below Meta Platforms and out of the top seven U.S. companies by value. Only about 5% of roughly 13 billion shares were available to trade at the IPO, which helps explain why the stock has swung so hard: when so few shares can trade, even modest buying or selling can move the price sharply.
One trigger was the July 16 Starship abort, which came at the last second before liftoff for its 13th test flight and erased about $100 billion in market value that day. SpaceX later modified Starship's propulsion system and pushed the retry to July 23. But the test failure is only part of the story. Bearish bets have risen from about 40 million shares three weeks ago to roughly 185 million shares now, or about 29% of the tradable float, with S3 Partners estimating the short position at $25 billion.
That is where the debate turns sharp. Louie DiPalma launched coverage with a bullish rating and argued that the market undervalues Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s launch business on its own, putting roughly $300 billion on that piece of the company. He also said Falcon 9 has flown more than 650 times versus three launches for Blue Origin's New Glenn, and estimated Space Exploration Technologies Corp. controls over 90% of the rocket launch market. Yet the bears have kept pressing: Peter Hillerberg said they added all the way down instead of taking profits, and Ortex Technologies says short sellers are already sitting on $8.7 billion in paper profit since the IPO.
The next test is not only in the air. KeyBanc expects early investors and employees to get their first big chance to sell stock, about 11% of all shares, around second-quarter earnings, with another 4% unlocking around day 70 and more shares following after third-quarter earnings. That means the stock is heading into a stretch where a stronger launch result could help, but share supply is also set to rise just as short sellers are already betting heavily against it.
