Included in the Nasdaq 100: it hit a new low right after going public—what’s been happening between SpaceX and the space sector?

On July 7, Eastern Time, SpaceX was officially added to the Nasdaq 100 Index, becoming the fastest constituent stock to be included since the index was launched—moving from listing on June 12 to entering this global technology stock benchmark index took only 15 trading days. However, this event, which the market generally views as positive, failed to be reflected in the stock price.

According to Gate stock market data, on its first day after listing on the Nasdaq 100, SpaceX closed down 6.83%, with its share price at $149.47, falling to a low of $149.09 intraday, marking a new closing low since its listing. This price is not only clearly lower than the post-listing high of over $200, but also dropped below the $150 opening price on its first trading day. Although it is still above the $135 IPO offering price, the anomalous move of “hitting a new low on the first day of index inclusion” has already drawn widespread attention in the market.

From a logical standpoint, inclusion in a mainstream index usually means forced buying by passive funds and increased liquidity—both of which should, in theory, provide positive support for the stock price. But SpaceX’s performance on its first day runs counter to this conventional logic.

How the 15-Day “Lightning Inclusion” Reshaped the Market’s Pricing Expectations for SpaceX

SpaceX was able to complete its Nasdaq index inclusion in 15 trading days because of a new rule introduced by Nasdaq on May 1, 2026: ultra-large new stocks whose market capitalization ranks in the top 40 of the index can apply for inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 after 15 trading days of listing, replacing the previous waiting period of at least 3 months. The market generally believes that this rule change was, to a large extent, “tailor-made” for SpaceX.

The direct impact brought by the “lightning inclusion” is that an enormous amount of passive capital is forced to allocate to SpaceX stock within an extremely short time. JPMorgan’s calculations show that, for Nasdaq 100 alone, it will attract about $4.3 billion in passive fund buying; if the simultaneous inclusion effects across the MSCI and FTSE Russell global index systems are included, the total buying by global passive funds could reach about $35 billion. On the surface, this is strong buy-side support.

But the other side of this mechanism is that the expectation of index inclusion was already fully priced by the market at the beginning of trading. SpaceX closed its first day of listing at $160.95, up 19.22% from the offering price, with its market cap surpassing $2.1 trillion. It then continued to surge for the next 3 trading days, briefly touching the all-time high of $225.64 intraday on June 16. In other words, the “index-inclusion tailwind” had already been effectively prepaid into the stock price. When the good news was formally realized, it instead became a window for short-term funds to take profits—this is precisely the classic play of “buy the rumor, sell the news.”

$4.3 Billion of Passive Buying Failed to Provide a Backstop—What Deeper Issues Does the Liquidity Structure Expose?

$4.3 billion in passive capital may sound substantial, but relative to SpaceX’s size, its actual price-support effect has structural limitations.

First, SpaceX’s weight in the Nasdaq 100 Index is about 1.3%, roughly ranking 21st among its constituents. ETFs and index funds tracking the index manage a combined asset under management of more than $800 billion, but the proportion allocated to passive buying of SpaceX is limited.

Second, and more importantly, there is a structural flaw in the float. In this IPO, SpaceX released only about 4.3% of its tradable shares to the public. Elon Musk personally holds about 42% of the shares but controls about 85.1% of the voting rights. Tradable shares freely available in the market are extremely scarce. Under this low-float structure, a small amount of buying can push the stock price up sharply, and similarly, a small amount of selling can trigger a steep decline.

In the early stage after listing, SpaceX boosted its share price to $225.64 through theme-driven speculation, with shares highly concentrated in short-term speculative capital. Once the tailwind is realized or negative signals emerge, a stampede-style selloff is easy to form. In a liquidity environment characterized by huge average daily trading value, $4.3 billion of passive buying is not enough to offset the concentrated exit of short-term profit-taking positions.

The Broad Tech Stock Selloff Slump—Why Did SpaceX Become a Top Target for Selling?

The overall U.S. stock market environment on July 7 was not favorable for SpaceX. All three major indices closed lower: the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 52,925.15 points, down 0.25%; the S&P 500 fell to 7,503.85 points, down 0.45%; the Nasdaq Composite closed at 25,818.69 points, down 1.16%, the largest decline among the three indices.

The core reason dragging the Nasdaq lower is the AI compute power and semiconductor segment. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 4.65% in a single day, while Intel fell 9.66%, AMD dropped 6.51%, and Micron Technology declined 4.71%. Funds concentrated on selling overvalued hardware technology stocks, and SpaceX—just having completed its post-IPO trading hype with valuation bubbles that had not yet been fully digested—naturally became the first choice for short-term profit-taking capital to exit.

The deeper backdrop is that overall U.S. stock valuations have been substantially lifted by the first-half AI rally, with the performance-delivery bar significantly raised. Market research institutions point out that current market expectations are very optimistic: the S&P 500 Index is about 1,000 points higher than the previous high before the first-quarter earnings season. In an environment of “high expectations, high valuations,” any signal that falls short of expectations may trigger capital flight. As a newly listed stock that has not yet gone through a full earnings cycle to be validated, SpaceX has even greater valuation uncertainty, and when market sentiment turns, the selling pressure it faces is also more severe.

How the Colossus 2 Data Center Lawsuit Amplified SpaceX’s Valuation Fragility

Beyond index inclusion and the broader market pullback, SpaceX also faces a specific operational risk of its own. Recently, an environmental organization filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to shut down the gas turbines supplying power to the Colossus 2 data center, alleging that the equipment was put into commercial power supply without obtaining complete operating licenses.

Colossus 2 is the core hardware platform that SpaceX uses to fulfill large AI enterprise computing orders. In May, SpaceX signed a long-term computing supply agreement with AI unicorn Anthropic with a total scale of $45 billion. The agreement sets a monthly computing service fee of $1.25 billion, with the cooperation period running through May 2029. Industry lawyers interpret that the lower court is likely to issue a temporary shutdown order, and even if a remediation buffer period is provided, an interruption in computing delivery could trigger contract termination provisions.

The risk of this lawsuit lies in the fact that one of the key logics used by Wall Street investment banks to set high target prices is SpaceX’s growth potential in the AI compute field. If the supply of computing power for Colossus 2 is obstructed and uncertainty emerges in the partnership with Anthropic, the AI computing growth expectations that currently support the valuation will face a significant downward revision. At a time when valuations are already high and market sentiment is fragile, the disclosure of this risk event further intensifies selloff pressure.

It is worth noting that the Colossus 2 lawsuit is not an isolated incident. The entire U.S. AI data center construction industry is facing increasingly stringent energy and regulatory constraints. Just a few days ago, QTS Realty Trust, a data center operator under Blackstone, announced that it would terminate a data center project in Virginia. This means that even companies with advantages in capital and technology still must address energy supply and regulatory approval bottlenecks. For SpaceX, this exposure is not merely a risk of a single project, but common constraints that the entire AI compute industry chain is facing.

Do the Sharp Losses in Space Concept Stocks Reflect Temporary Correlation or a Reassessment of Sector Logic?

SpaceX’s decline is not an isolated case. According to Gate stock market data, on July 7, U.S. space concept stocks generally fell sharply: Virgin Galactic (SPCE) fell 4.46%; AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) fell 7.97%; Rocket Lab (RKLB) fell 10.4%; Redwire (RDW) fell 10.12%.

This synchronized decline at the sector level can be understood from two perspectives.

The first is linkage between sentiment and fund flows. As the most representative listed company in the space sector, SpaceX’s stock price performance is often treated as a bellwether for the whole sector. When SpaceX experiences a sharp drop at a key moment—its “first day of index inclusion”—the market’s overall risk appetite for space concept stocks falls as well. Capital leaving other targets within the sector creates a chain reaction.

The second is a reexamination of industry logic. Previously, the space economy received high valuations because it was driven by multiple growth engines: “commercial spaceflight + satellite internet + AI compute infrastructure.” But the Colossus 2 lawsuit reveals a reality: even an industry leader like SpaceX faces real constraints such as energy approvals and environmental compliance during the expansion of AI data centers. If the expansion pace of leading companies is constrained, the growth expectations for the entire space industry chain need to be recalibrated.

In addition, many space concept stocks are still either loss-making or in the early commercialization stage, making them highly sensitive to market sentiment and fund flows. Against the backdrop of valuation pressure across the broader tech sector and capital rotating toward assets with greater certainty, these high-volatility, high-expectation names are often hit first.

From the First-Day Performance: Subsequent Risks—Lock-Up Expirations and Index Volatility Premium

SpaceX’s performance on its first day of index inclusion may be only the beginning of its post-listing stock price game. There are several structural factors worth watching next.

Lock-up expiration is the most critical variable. SpaceX currently has only about 4.3% of its shares available for public trading, while a large amount of insider holdings are still under lock-up. As lock-up periods gradually unwind in the future, a large amount of new supply will enter the market. With valuations still high and expectations that the float will expand significantly, some investors may choose to exit early, creating ongoing pressure on the stock price.

Index volatility is another dimension. RBC Capital Markets’ head of derivatives strategy pointed out that new stocks naturally have higher volatility. Given SpaceX’s scale and size, Nasdaq volatility is expected to remain significantly higher than that of the S&P 500. Since the S&P 500 has not modified its inclusion rules, SpaceX will need at least another year to join this most widely tracked index, and the volatility gap between the two indices may widen further.

Corporate governance controversies could also become a long-term suppressing factor. Major U.S. public pension funds have jointly sent a letter to SpaceX, criticizing its corporate governance structure as “the most management-friendly governance structure in U.S. market history.” As SpaceX enters mainstream indices and is held by more passive investors, these governance controversies may draw broader attention and discussion.

Summary

SpaceX’s 6.83% drop on its first day of inclusion in the Nasdaq 100, falling below its opening price on the first day of listing and hitting a new low since its IPO, is the result of multiple factors converging: “buy the rumor, sell the news” after the benefits of index inclusion were priced in early; fund spillover from a pullback in broad tech stocks; concerns over AI compute contracts triggered by the Colossus 2 data center lawsuit; and the high-volatility characteristics under an extremely low-float structure. The simultaneous sharp selloff in space concept stocks reflects a phase-by-phase decline in the market’s overall risk appetite for the space economy track.

The significance of this event lies not only in day-to-day stock price fluctuations, but also in what it reveals: high-valuation, low-float, high-expectation stocks may face repricing at the moment the “good news”—index inclusion—is realized. For investors, SpaceX’s performance on its first day of index inclusion provides an observation window: when institutional tailwinds (rapid index inclusion) and fundamental constraints (operational risks and liquidity structure) act on a stock at the same time, which side the market ultimately chooses to price will be determined.

FAQ

Q1: After SpaceX is included in the Nasdaq 100 Index, shouldn’t passive funds push up the stock price? Why did it fall instead?

Passive funds do bring incremental buying, but the “index inclusion benefit” had already been fully priced by the market during the 15 trading days between the listing and the official inclusion—SpaceX’s share price once surged from the $135 offering price to above $225. When the good news was formally realized, short-term funds chose to take profits. Combined with that day’s overall tech stock pullback, the sell pressure far exceeded the scale of passive fund buying of $4.3 billion.

Q2: Why did space concept stocks fall along with SpaceX?

SpaceX is the largest and most representative listed company in the space sector, and its stock price trend is often seen as a bellwether for the entire sector. When the leading company experiences a sharp decline at a key juncture, the market’s overall risk appetite for space concept stocks declines accordingly. Capital exits other targets within the sector, forming a chain reaction.

Q3: What risk points related to SpaceX are worth watching next?

There are mainly three directions: first, lock-up expirations—currently only about 4.3% of the shares can be publicly traded, and the subsequent unwinding of large amounts of insider holdings could bring supply pressure; second, developments in the Colossus 2 data center lawsuit, which could affect the $45 billion computing contract with Anthropic; third, corporate governance controversies may attract more investor attention as the stock is included in mainstream indices.

Q4: How much weight does SpaceX have in the Nasdaq 100 Index?

JPMorgan’s estimates show that based on the current float size, SpaceX’s weight in the Nasdaq 100 Index is about 1.3%, roughly ranking 21st among the constituents.

Q5: Where can I view SpaceX’s real-time stock quotes?

Gate has launched real U.S. stock trading and supports trading for over 10,000+ U.S. stock symbols. Users can view real-time quote data for SpaceX (SPCX) through the Gate platform.