Hawthorne, California — Tuesday, July 21, 2026
A stock that erased 47% of its value in five weeks does not usually find buyers on the way down. Yet on Tuesday, SpaceX rebounds Tuesday from a fresh record low, gaining roughly 3% and snapping a seven-session losing streak that had rattled even the company’s most patient believers. The bounce followed the company’s disclosure of an August 4 earnings date, which also triggers one of the largest share unlocks in capital markets history.
Still, the relief rally does not erase the deeper story. SpaceX below IPO price remains the headline that matters most to investors who bought into the June 12 debut. Shares priced at $135 in the offering, then rocketed to an all-time high of $225.64 within days as retail and institutional buyers alike chased the year’s most anticipated listing. That premium is now gone. At Tuesday’s session, SPCX traded in the $119 to $126 range, meaning the stock remains below both its IPO price and its post-debut peak even after the bounce.
A Selloff Five Weeks in the Making
Few IPOs in recent memory have swung this hard, this fast. SpaceX’s public offering in mid-June carried outsized expectations: a valuation north of a trillion dollars, a Nasdaq listing that dominated financial television for days, and a shareholder base keen to possess a share of Musk’s rocket and satellite empire. The SpaceX steep selloff recovery now underway tells a more complicated story than the euphoria of opening day suggested.
By mid-July, the stock dropped to $122.13 and then dipped even lower to about $119.68 before turning around on Tuesday. This is a drop of about 47% from the June 16 high, erasing all the gains since the IPO and more. Early SpaceX investor Gavin Baker told CNBC that this kind of drop is normal for a high-profile IPO, saying that things like lockup periods and momentum trading, rather than company fundamentals, explain most of the decline.
The market’s verdict, though, has been unforgiving. SpaceX shares below post-debut highs is not a temporary condition; it has been the daily reality for over a month. Tuesday’s gain, while welcome, does not change the numbers. A shareholder who bought at the IPO price is still underwater. A shareholder who bought near the June peak has lost close to half their position’s value.
Short Sellers Smell Opportunity
Where some investors see a buying opportunity, others see a target. SPCX short sellers’ bearish bets have expanded sharply as the stock has fallen, with bets against the company now representing roughly 32% of available shares, according to CNBC reporting. That is an unusually high level of short interest for a company barely five weeks removed from its public debut, and it reflects genuine disagreement over how quickly SpaceX can translate its Starlink broadband business, launch cadence, and emerging artificial intelligence infrastructure ambitions into consistent profit.
Musk has strongly criticized the short sellers, warning that they will not last if the rebound he predicts happens. Whether he is right will depend a lot on how the company performs in the next two quarters. For now, SpaceX’s financial reports show a mixed picture: the company showed a net loss of $4.28 billion last quarter, a big jump from the previous quarter’s $528 million loss. This highlights just how expensive it is to build satellite networks and new rocket programs.
Why Tuesday’s Bounce Happened
Tuesday’s rebound happened because of a number of factors coming together, giving worried investors a reason to hold on. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest bought over 170,000 shares across its ETFs, including its main innovation and space funds. Ark has been buying almost every week since the IPO without selling any shares. This kind of steady buying from a well-known institutional investor can help calm the market, even if it doesn’t completely change the trend.
Retail investors felt differently. A Stocktwits poll of over 3,500 traders showed that more than a third were waiting for the stock to drop below $80 before buying more. Overall, sentiment on the platform had become very negative, even as the number of messages increased. This gap between big investors buying and retail investors holding back will be important to watch in the coming weeks, since it suggests the stock’s next move may depend more on investor reactions than on news.
The Analyst Gap
Wall Street’s models have barely budged despite the stock’s collapse. The average 12-month price target across covering analysts sits near $240, according to Koyfin data compiled by financial outlets, implying upside of more than 100% from current levels. Of the analysts tracking the stock, 27 rate it a buy, five rate it a hold, and only one recommends selling. That gap between a $120 share price and a $240 consensus target is unusually wide for a company this closely followed, and it reflects how much weight analysts place on AI compute ambitions in valuation models built around SpaceX’s Starlink network and satellite-based data infrastructure, alongside its traditional launch business.
Jamie Dimon has publicly commented on the company’s long-term potential, even as some advisors now call it a “broken IPO” because the stock dropped below its offer price so quickly. That label makes sense based on the numbers, but it could miss how common this pattern is for high-profile, expensive companies that start out with lots of hype and then get repriced based on fundamentals a few weeks later.
What Comes Next
The next big moment comes on August 4, when SpaceX will announce its first quarterly results as a public company. That day also marks the start of a phased lockup expiration, which will allow up to 911.5 million shares—worth up to $116 billion—to be sold starting August 6. SpaceX set up the unlock in stages to prevent a sudden wave of insider selling, but even a gradual release of this size will challenge demand at current prices.
For now, SpaceX’s rebound on Tuesday after its IPO price drop is more a sign of relief than a real solution. The next earnings report will need to show a clear plan for reducing losses and making money from its satellite and AI-related infrastructure if the stock is going to close the gap between its beaten-down share price and Wall Street’s far more optimistic targets. Until then, SpaceX shares below post-debut highs still remain the more accurate description of where the stock stands, one strong session notwithstanding. Investors who bought on IPO day are waiting to see if Tuesday’s bounce is a real turning point or just a brief pause before the next big test comes with the earnings report.
Source: SpaceX Stock Rebounds After Record Low, But Most Retail Traders Want Lower Prices Before Buying
