SpaceX Stock Teeters Near IPO Price as Starship Flight 13 Looms with Live Starlink Payload

SpaceX shares trade just above $135 IPO price after $1.2T value loss since June. Record Falcon 9 reuse and upcoming Starship cargo flight offer mixed signals.

Shares of SpaceX drifted within a whisker of their initial public offering price on Wednesday, as a fresh batch of operational triumphs — including the 600th reuse of a Falcon 9 booster — clashed with mounting technical and sentiment pressures that have erased nearly $1.2 trillion in market value since June.

The stock closed at €116.70 in European trading, down 2.15% from Tuesday’s finish of €119.26, leaving it just €0.86 above the 52-week low of €115.70 set on July 15. In dollar terms, the equity ended Wednesday at $136.08, barely $1 above the $135 IPO price from mid-June. At its intraday nadir of $132.75, the stock carved a new all-time low. The peak of $225.64 from June 16 now looks distant — the gap exceeds 39% — and the consequent $1.2 trillion valuation haircut reflects a market that has rapidly repriced the rocket builder since its debut.

Operational milestones pile up, but sentiment stays fragile

Even as the stock founders, SpaceX’s day-to-day operations hum at a record cadence. Over July 13–14, two Falcon 9 missions launched from opposite US coasts within eight hours, both depositing batches of Starlink satellites into orbit and successfully landing their first stages. The second flight marked the 600th time a previously flown booster had been pressed into service — a statistic that underscores how routine reusability has become for the company's workhorse launcher.

That operational heft, however, has done little to steady the share price. The 30-day decline stands at 29.72%, while the annualized 30-day volatility of 95.75% points to deep unease among holders. The 14-day relative-strength index sits at 38.7, a level often interpreted as oversold, yet selling pressure has not relented. Even the stock's inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 on July 7, which triggered forced buying by index funds, failed to arrest the slide; the passive inflows were quickly overwhelmed by what appears to be a broad reassessment of the company's fair value.

FAA clears Starship for its first live cargo run

The next catalyst — and perhaps the most consequential for investor psychology — arrives on Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration has given the green light for Starship’s 13th test flight, scheduled for July 16 at 18:45 Central Time from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas. A 90-minute window opens that day, with backup slots on July 17 and 18.

This flight differs from all previous ones. For the first time, Starship will carry 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites — the next-generation units equipped with laser inter-satellite links. Earlier tests relied on simulators or modified hardware; this mission will demonstrate whether the giant rocket can actually deliver the payloads it was designed to haul. Success would vindicate SpaceX’s bet that Starship can slash launch costs by up to 95% compared with the Falcon 9, unlocking the mass deployment needed for Starlink expansion and the coming wave of AI infrastructure. A failure, by contrast, would land like a blow on a stock already hugging its lows.

The FAA cleared the flight after completing its investigation into the May 22 anomaly during Flight 12. Regulators pinned the incident on heat damage to propulsion components during ascent and misconfigured engine alarms; SpaceX has since modified both hardware and software.

Analyst optimism collides with lock-up and debt-market signals

Despite the stock's swoon, sell-side enthusiasm remains remarkably intact. Of 31 analysts covering the name, 27 rate it a Buy. Needham’s Ryan Koontz raised his target to $250 from $200, citing progress on Starship and the Grok 4.5 AI model. Morgan Stanley initiated with Overweight and a $300 target, while Evercore ISI set $230 and Goldman Sachs $205. The most bullish call comes from Raymond James’s Joey Frenette, whose $800 target would value SpaceX at over $10 trillion. On the bearish fringe, MoffettNathanson rates the stock Neutral with a $131 target. Investor Cathie Wood, meanwhile, swapped $23 million of AMD shares into SpaceX equity.

Those rosy forecasts will soon collide with hard mechanics. After the second-quarter earnings release, 20% of insider shares will become eligible for sale under the IPO lock-up agreement, and an additional 10% can be sold if the stock closes above $175.50 on five of ten trading days. That threshold looks remote: the equity is currently trading below $140.

Bond markets have already flagged strain. SpaceX’s $25 billion bond issuance from late June, maturing in 2056, has seen its credit spread balloon from 175 to 231 basis points — a level that equates to junk status. The next earnings call, scheduled for August 6, will give investors a chance to weigh Starlink’s continued profitability (2025 revenue of $11.4 billion, up 50%, with $4.4 billion in operating profit) against the company’s wider burn: an operating loss of $1.94 billion in the first quarter alone, alongside $10.1 billion in capital spending.

For now, all eyes are on the Texas sky. A clean Starship launch with a functioning Starlink payload would deliver precisely the sort of narrative reset the stock desperately needs. Another mishap would leave SpaceX testing the very principle its engineers have proved 600 times over — that reuse can work — but on a vehicle whose financial stakes are infinitely higher.