SpaceX Faces a Defining August as Lock-Up Expiry and First Earnings Collide With New Futures Market
Published on 07/28/2026 at 16:22 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SpaceX’s stock has been caught in a vicious downward spiral since its June debut, and the coming week promises to be the most consequential yet for the embattled space and defense giant. With shares trading at €95.71 on Tuesday — down 4.25% from the prior session’s close of €99.96 — the company’s market capitalization has shrunk to €1.33 trillion, a far cry from the euphoria that greeted its Nasdaq listing at $135 per share in mid-June.
The slide has been brutal: the stock has shed more than half its value from the post-IPO peak and now sits just 4.62% above its 52-week low of €95.55, a level touched on July 27. For a company that raised roughly $75 billion in its initial public offering, the reversal of fortune has been stark — and the pain may not be over yet.
A Double-Header That Could Reshape the Stock
Two events on the immediate horizon have investors on edge. On August 4, SpaceX will release its first quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded company, offering the market its first hard look at the financials behind the hype. Analysts are bracing for revenue of around $6.9 billion and a per-share loss ranging from $0.22 to $0.28. The company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion for all of 2025, with the deficit widening to $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
Just two days later, on August 6, a lock-up agreement covering insider shares expires. As many as 911.5 million shares could become eligible for sale — a staggering figure given that the free float represents only about 4.9% of total outstanding stock. The combination of a thin public float and a massive potential overhang has made this the central preoccupation for traders, many of whom fear a flood of insider selling could swamp the market.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
CME Enters the Fray With Leveraged Futures
Into this volatile mix steps the CME Group, which on Monday launched single-stock futures on 55 U.S. names, including SpaceX. The exchange’s new contracts, traded on the Globex platform from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon with just a one-hour daily maintenance break, allow investors to take long or short positions with up to 6.7 times leverage — all without the need to borrow actual shares.
The timing is no accident. Short sellers have already piled into SpaceX with remarkable intensity: nearly half of the free float was out on loan in mid-July, and the resulting scarcity of lendable shares has made it increasingly difficult to establish new short positions through traditional means. The CME futures offer an alternative channel, one that Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys says retail brokers are celebrating as the biggest growth driver of the year in their client businesses. More than 35 brokerage partners are expected to have systems ready at launch, and retail investors have already poured over $500 million into leveraged and inverse ETFs tied to SpaceX.
The new instruments come with a warning, however. With a 30-day annualized volatility of 64.40% and a relative strength index of 33.3 — deep in oversold territory — the stock is already exhibiting the kind of wild swings that can amplify losses for leveraged positions. The CME’s minimum margin requirement of 15% of notional value means a 6.7x effective leverage ratio, a double-edged sword for both bulls and bears.
Analysts Split as Short Sellers Clean Up
The analyst community remains divided on SpaceX’s prospects. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas maintains an overweight rating with a $300 price target, but he has sounded a cautionary note: if the stock falls to $100, he argues, the market would effectively be assigning zero value to SpaceX’s artificial intelligence business — a segment he believes accounts for more than half the company’s fair worth. Wall Street Zen, meanwhile, has downgraded the stock from hold to sell, though the consensus rating still sits at “moderate buy” with a $230.50 price target.
Short sellers have already reaped enormous rewards from the downturn. Paper profits on short positions run into the billions of dollars, and the high proportion of the free float that has been lent out for shorting underscores just how one-sided the betting has become. The CME futures could intensify that pressure, giving bears a fresh avenue to press their case without the logistical headaches of locating hard-to-borrow shares.
SpaceX at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Not everyone is running for the exits. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest purchased roughly 124,500 SpaceX shares on Monday, worth about $14.3 million, doubling down on its strategy of buying into weakness in technology stocks. The move reflects a conviction that the sell-off has been overdone — a view that will be put to the test in the coming days.
Starship’s Success Can’t Stem the Tide
Operationally, SpaceX continues to notch achievements. The 13th test flight of its Starship rocket on July 24 went according to plan, deploying 20 Starlink V3 satellites, successfully reigniting a Raptor engine in space, and executing a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed its overweight rating after the flight, noting that all 33 Raptor engines fired cleanly and stage separation was successful, even if the booster landing drew some criticism — only about five of 13 engines fired during the final landing maneuver.
Yet these technical milestones have done little to arrest the stock’s decline. The market’s focus remains fixed on the twin threats of the earnings release and the lock-up expiry, with the CME’s new futures adding yet another layer of complexity to an already fraught situation. With the stock trading in oversold territory and volatility elevated, the next week could determine whether SpaceX’s post-IPO slide deepens into a rout or finds a floor.
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