SpaceX stock falls below IPO price first time. The worst may be yet to come

SpaceX's share price has fallen below the IPO price. The stock price fell 2 per cent to $133.34 on Wednesday, July 15, falling the level of $135 per share at the opening. This marks a major milestone since the company record breaking debut on June 12, 2026. The stock hit an intraday low of $132.15 per piece, wiping out the initial momentum of the first day, which saw it raise around $85.7 ​billion and fetch a valuation of around $2.1 trillion at the end of its first trading day.

Though it is not extremely uncommon for a stock to fall below the IPO price under the broader duress of the market. But for a megacap company to fall below their IPO price within the first month of its trading is a red flag. Analysts are predicting that this is just the beginning of the pain for traders. As the staggered expiry of the lock-up period is approaching. Many of the early investors are looking for an exit before the hype completely wanes. The IPO surged nearly 50 per cent over their first three days of trading, then lost nearly a quarter of its value over the next three trading sessions.

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Historical precedent

This current dip is quite similar to that of Facebook in 2012, which broke its $38 IPO price within days due to trading glitches and immediate growth concerns, taking over a year to recover before staging a long-term rally following its quarterly earnings reports in 2013. More devastating was the case for Uber, which plummeted on Day One. It took years of time and structural adjustments for it to recover and win back Wall Street confidence. Uber debuted in a brutal time of the US-China trade war, followed by COVID-19. The same seems to be the case for SpaceX, which debuted at a time of US-Iran war and the Hormuz crisis. Just like Facebook and Uber, the growth narrative waned as the company's Space XAI is suffering huge losses.

However, Wall Street seems genuinely upbeat despite a hole in the SpaceX balance sheet. SpaceX's valuation was stretched, given that it lost $4.9 billion last year and many of its ambitions are untested.

"There hasn't been anything lately to remind people of some of the catalysts for why they bought SpaceX," said Steve Sosnick, chief market analyst at Interactive Brokers. “The fact that a stock has fallen a couple of dollars below its IPO price in itself ​is not a tragedy, but SpaceX is ​heavily watched and has an important ⁠role in investor psyche.” While some are suggesting that it is just beginning, we will see massive losses, despite its addition to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100.

"I think the elephant in the room is there’s a lot of folks that are in the stock, and maybe some of them or ​a good number of them are wanting to take some liquidity, which is essentially putting a lot of pressure on the stock," said Justus Parmar, CEO of SpaceX ​investor Fortuna Investments. "You’re probably seeing a little bit of it, and through the course of the year, we’ll be seeing more of that." Being fast-tracked into the Nasdaq 100 forced index funds to buy early, which pulled forward demand that would normally have sustained the stock for months. Further investors are panicking ahead of the August lockup expiry, which would be a genuine test for SpaceX.