Should You Buy SpaceX on Its First Day of Trading?

SpaceX is reportedly on track to begin trading as early as June 12, with a fixed IPO price of $135 a share and a private-market valuation cited at $1.5 trillion, while the article notes a possible first-day valuation above $1.7 trillion. The piece is cautiously positive on SpaceX’s growth drivers, citing Starlink’s $4.4 billion in operating income last year, but it warns that $12 billion of AI-related capex pushed the company to a loss and that Morningstar values it at $780 billion. The author recommends waiting for a better entry point rather than buying immediately on IPO day.

Analysis

The real market issue is not whether SpaceX is a “good company,” but whether a mega-cap, high-profile IPO can pull forward growth multiple demand across adjacent names. In the first few sessions, the likely winners are not just SpaceX buyers but anything that benefits from renewed tolerance for long-duration cash flows: late-stage private AI/space names, satellite ecosystem suppliers, and the highest-beta growth proxies already in public portfolios. That said, a stretched IPO often acts as a short-term liquidity sponge, temporarily draining attention and incremental capital from the exact stocks that have been leading, especially when positioning is already crowded.

The second-order effect on NVDA is more subtle than a generic “AI tailwind.” If the market treats SpaceX as a proof point for frontier-tech monetization, it can reinforce the capex-justifies-everything narrative and keep multiple support under AI leaders for a few more months. But if investors look through the story and focus on capital intensity and negative near-term earnings, the read-through is the opposite: long-duration growth gets hit hardest because the discount rate sensitivity is highest, and the market begins to discriminate between profitable enablers and cash-burning moonshots.

For TSLA, the launch creates a sympathy trade channel via Musk premium, but that is likely to be a short-lived sentiment effect rather than a fundamentals linkage. The more durable risk is that the market re-rates the “vision premium” attached to Musk-associated names if SpaceX trades down after the initial pop; in that case, TSLA can underperform even without any company-specific news. INTC is mostly a relative beneficiary only if the market rotates away from the most expensive innovation trades into cheaper hardware/legacy semiconductor exposure.

The contrarian takeaway is that the best post-IPO trade may be against the enthusiasm, not with it. A very large first-day pop would likely front-load good news and leave limited room for follow-through, while any subsequent lockup or capex debate can pressure the stock for weeks. MORN looks directionally challenged because exuberant IPO cycles typically reduce near-term demand for cautionary research and increase appetite for speculative content, which can weigh on sentiment-driven subscription momentum.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Fade the first 1-3 day IPO pop with a small starter short or put spread on SpaceX once listed, targeting a 4-8 week window; risk/reward improves materially if the stock trades >20-30% above issue price on day one.
• Long NVDA / short a basket of unprofitable long-duration growth names for 1-2 months; use SpaceX enthusiasm as a sentiment tailwind for profitable AI enablers while hedging against a broader de-rating of cash-burning narratives.
• Buy TSLA downside protection for the next 4-6 weeks via put spreads; the main risk is a transient Musk sentiment bid that can fade quickly if SpaceX trades weakly after the opening move.
• Relative-value long INTC vs short a high-multiple growth proxy for 2-3 months; if investors rotate from ‘story’ to ‘cash flow,’ cheaper hardware exposure should outperform on a drawdown basis.
• Avoid chasing MORN into the IPO window; if anything, consider a small tactical short for 2-4 weeks if retail interest intensifies, because demand for market commentary often lags speculative peaks.