The stock is sitting below $125. Twelve IPO underwriters have published research on SPCX, and every single one rates it a "buy" or equivalent. That gap between analyst cheerleading and actual share price performance is now impossible to ignore.
SpaceX went public on June 11 through a record 23-bank syndicate led by Goldman Sachs, which priced the IPO at $135 a share. It opened on the Nasdaq at $150, and the banks split roughly $500 million in fees that day, with Goldman and Morgan Stanley each pocketing around $100 million. What followed was five weeks of freefall. From the June 16 peak, SPCX has dropped 45%, wiping $1.1 trillion off the market cap.
The Buy Chorus Gets Louder as the Price Falls
Macquarie reiterated its "outperform" rating just yesterday, with a price target double the current closing price. Last week alone, Piper Sandler initiated coverage at $156, Needham raised its target 25% to $250, Evercore ISI came in at $230, and Zephirin Group set a $310 target. Raymond James, a co-manager on the IPO itself, holds the most extreme position: a $800 price target, more than six times where the stock trades right now.
The language in these notes has been extraordinary. Bank of America crowned SpaceX "King of the Cosmos" and attached a $235 target. Deutsche Bank called it the "apex of civilizational ambition" at $255. Morgan Stanley titled its coverage note "AI's Final Frontier" and set $300. Citi described its $200 target as "a milestone along the path to $900." These are firms that shared in that $500 million fee day. The conflict of interest is not subtle.
The Analysts Who Didn't Get Paid Told a Different Story
MoffettNathanson, which had no role in the IPO, initiated at neutral with a $131 target and wrote plainly: "There is simply no credible financial model that can support what is at the time of this writing a roughly $2 trillion valuation. Our own certainly does not."
CFRA went further. It issued the only outright "sell" rating on the stock's first day of trading, with a $115 price target. That call is tracking as the most accurate on Wall Street so far, while the banks that collected IPO fees are still updating models that require the stock to multiply several times over just to reach their targets.
SpaceX bonds have separately slipped into junk-like territory, adding another layer to a picture that the buy-rated analysts have yet to fully reckon with.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
