SpaceX shares fall 6% as analyst keeps Buy rating

SpaceX shares fell more than 6% to $159.95 in early Wednesday trading as technology and semiconductor stocks declined. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives maintained a Buy rating and a $190 price target after initiating coverage.

The decline for ticker SPCX came amid a broader pullback: the Nasdaq Composite fell about 0.4%, the S&P 500 slipped roughly 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 88 points. Chip-related stocks also moved lower: Micron fell about 6%, Sandisk dropped 8%, Nvidia lost about 2% and Broadcom declined about 1%.

Ives began formal coverage on Tuesday evening and described SpaceX as “one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market,” citing the company’s operations in launch services, satellite internet and artificial intelligence. He identified Starlink as a revenue driver, Starship launches as a demand catalyst and growing deal flow for planned Colossus AI data centers.

Ives wrote that Starship is central to the company’s future operations: “All of SpaceX’s future business runs through Starship, whether it’s Starlink’s next-generation [satellites], the orbital AI-compute constellation, the Artemis lunar lander, or the cost-and-capacity step the whole forward [valuation] case assumes.” He added, “The vehicle is the single largest source of value in the franchise as much as its largest risk.” Ives argued Starship could reduce the cost of reaching space by roughly 90% compared with current Falcon 9 missions.

Using a sum-of-the-parts method, Ives valued SpaceX’s launch business at about $66 billion, Starlink at roughly $600 billion and the company’s AI ambitions at about $1.8 trillion. He projected AI-related operations could produce more than $80 billion in revenue by 2028, before accounting for any income from orbital AI data centers.

Nasdaq announced after last Friday’s close that SpaceX qualifies for inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 under recent rule changes. If SpaceX continues to meet eligibility requirements, index-tracking funds and related investment products will begin acquiring shares after the market close on July 6, and the company is scheduled to join the Nasdaq-100 before trading begins on July 7. More than $800 billion in assets track the Nasdaq-100, including the Invesco QQQ Trust.

SpaceX is expected to enter the index with a weighting of less than 1%. The company’s public float is small relative to its market capitalization, so funds tied to the Nasdaq-100 will be required to buy shares to mirror the benchmark; active managers benchmarked to the index may also adjust positions.

Since its public listing, SpaceX shares have moved significantly in both directions. Traders and investors have focused on analyst reports, company milestones and index inclusion as they assess the stock.