SpaceX Fell 3.9% on Its Third Lockup Release Since the IPO. I'd Wait to Buy the Stock.
Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Fri, September 11, 2026 at 6:43 PM GMT+3 5 min read
Shares of SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) fell 3.9% to $147.55 on Wednesday -- the same session another batch of the company's stock became free to trade.
Up to 319 million shares held by employees and early investors came out of lockup on Sept. 9, the third scheduled release since the space and artificial intelligence company's June initial public offering (IPO). A smaller batch of 59.1 million shares held by affiliates (officers and other controlling holders) followed on Thursday. Both dates came straight from SpaceX's prospectus.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
The timing invites a temptingly overly simplified conclusion: new supply arrived, so the stock fell. Maybe some of it did. But shares had climbed 9% across the three sessions before the release, so Wednesday's decline left the stock about where it ended the prior week.
But I wouldn't buy the growth stock here, and Wednesday's dip isn't the main reason. Most of SpaceX's stock is still waiting for its release date.
Image source: Getty Images.
A mixed record so far
Wednesday was SpaceX's third unlock, and the first day looked nothing like the two that followed. The first and largest release came on Aug. 6, two days after its first earnings report as a public company, when just over 911 million shares became eligible for sale -- more than the roughly 639 million shares the IPO itself sold. Shares rose 6% that day. The second, on Aug. 20, freed another 319 million shares, and the stock fell 4%. Wednesday's release matched that one in size, and the decline looked similar, too.
The mixed record is a reminder that shares becoming eligible for sale is not the same thing as shares being sold. After all, every line of the lockup schedule says "up to," and nobody is required to sell on the day they're allowed to.
Most of SpaceX still can't trade
The pool that can trade consists of the roughly 639 million shares sold in the IPO and the four batches the lockup has released since early August. That comes to at most about 2.2 billion of SpaceX's 13.6 billion shares outstanding, or about 17% of the company.
The rest is on a schedule. Releases of up to 328.4 million shares land on Sept. 24, Oct. 9, and Oct. 24. The biggest release left in 2026 (up to 1.3 billion shares, or 28% of the stock under the standard lockup) lands on the second full trading day after SpaceX reports third-quarter results. And nearly 800 million more shares go free on Dec. 8. That last batch would have been just 328.4 million shares had the stock closed at least 30% above its $135 IPO price on five of the 10 trading days into the first earnings report. It never came close.
In short, about 3.1 billion shares are scheduled to become sellable between now and early December -- more than everything eligible to trade today.
And even that leaves out the biggest holder. CEO Elon Musk's stake of more than 6 billion shares, nearly half the company, stays locked until June 2027.
At this price, the supply matters
None of that supply would matter much if the stock were cheap. It isn't.
SpaceX's market value of about $2 trillion is more than 60 times the revenue a full year would produce at the second quarter's pace, about $31 billion.
The business is arguably growing fast enough to deserve a premium. Second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion nearly doubled year over year.
SpaceX also lost $541 million in the second quarter, though that loss was about half as big as a year earlier. And it spent $28.5 billion on property and equipment in this year's first half against $12.5 billion of revenue. At a sales multiple above 60, I think the price already counts on years of growth this fast.
Sure, the record so far shows a release day can pass without damage. The largest one did. More float also brings demand with it. SpaceX's weight in the Nasdaq-100 is expected to rise when the index rebalances on Sept. 21, and JPMorgan estimates the change could force about $15.5 billion of buying from index funds. But the 1.3 billion-share release that follows third-quarter earnings is still ahead, and I'd rather see how the market absorbs that supply before paying more than 60 times revenue.
But would I buy SpaceX stock after this week's dip? Not yet. Shares just look too expensive here, in my opinion.
If the price pulls back far enough to make shares look more attractive, I'd reconsider.
Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now?
Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $409,917!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,341,724!*
That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by 4x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul.
*Stock Advisor returns as of September 11, 2026.
Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
SpaceX Fell 3.9% on Its Third Lockup Release Since the IPO. I'd Wait to Buy the Stock. was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yorumlar (0)
Giriş yaparak yorum yazabilirsin.
İlk yorumu sen yaz.