Elon Musk's rocket company listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX at $135 a share, hit $176 intraday, and closed at $161. In a single trading session, SpaceX became the sixth largest company in the United States. This was not just the biggest IPO of the year. It was the biggest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing by a country mile, raising roughly US$75 billion.
Now, here is where I pump the brakes a little, because the excitement is real but so are the numbers hiding in the fine print.
SpaceX lost US$4.28 billion in the first three months of 2026 alone. The only division making money right now is Starlink, its satellite internet arm, which turned a profit of about US$1.19 billion in Q1. The rocket division and the AI division are both deep in the red. On top of that, the company is carrying US$20 billion in short term debt that needs to be repaid within six months of this listing. People buying this stock are not buying a profitable business. They are buying a story about the future, and at a US$2 trillion valuation, that story needs to be right about almost everything.
Here is the broader context worth knowing before you click buy. Decades of academic research, most notably from Professor Jay Ritter at the University of Florida, who has tracked thousands of IPOs since 1980, consistently show that newly listed companies underperform comparable stocks by around 11% in year one on average. The penalty is significantly worse for companies that are unprofitable at the time of listing, which is exactly what SpaceX is.
For Australians, SPCX does not list on the ASX, so you cannot buy it through a standard broker without an international trading account. CommSec is acting as the lead Australian retail broker for the offer if you want direct access. If you would rather stay local, the Betashares Space Industry ETF and Electro Optic Systems are the two names I would look at, both already moving in response to the listing.
My view is that this is a compelling business with a genuinely uncertain price tag. Watch it, do your homework, and do not let the headlines do your thinking for you.
"Much of a company's value in such situations is rooted in stories and narratives, but the issue is that these stories are ultimately difficult to realise on the timeline that markets price in."— Roger Ibbotson, Professor of Finance, Yale University
Financial Disclaimer. This content is general in nature and has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation, or needs. It does not constitute financial product advice under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Before acting on any information contained in this post, you should consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances and, if necessary, seek independent financial advice. References to specific companies, markets, prediction tools, or investment strategies are for informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any financial product. Past events and probabilistic frameworks discussed are not reliable indicators of future performance.