$27 billion has to buy SPCX tomorrow

Tomorrow, every index fund in the country buys SpaceX stock.

They don't get a choice. That's how index rules work. When a stock joins the Nasdaq-100, all the funds that track it must buy shares to match the new weight.

And SPCX joins before the bell on July 7.

Here's where it gets wild. The QQQ ETF alone needs to scoop up around $4.3 billion worth of shares. Add in all the other funds that track the index… and the total forced buying could reach $27 billion in a single day.

But only 3% to 5% of SpaceX shares trade on the open market right now. The rest sit locked up with Elon Musk, insiders, and early backers who can't sell yet.

In other words, a tidal wave of cash is about to pour into a very small pool.

Let me explain…

SpaceX went public on June 12 at $135 a share. It raised $75 billion — the largest IPO in stock market history. The stock surged to $225 by day four. Then it fell. As of last week, SPCX trades near $162, with a market cap of roughly $2.1 trillion.

The bull case is strong. Starlink now serves more than 10 million users and pulls in $4.4 billion a year in profits from its core work. The AI deals are jaw-dropping… Anthropic pays $1.25 billion a month for access to SpaceX's data centers. Google pays $920 million a month. Those two deals alone bring in $27 billion a year.

But here's the catch.

SpaceX lost close to $5 billion in 2025. It trades at 82 times sales. Morningstar's fair value sits at $63 a share — less than half the price today. CFRA slapped a "sell" on the stock on its first day as a public firm, with a $115 target.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "If the stock is this loved, how bad can it be?"

And there is a case for the price. NewStreet set a $165 target. Wedbush called SpaceX a "major hyperscaler" and gave it an Outperform. Revenue grew to $19.3 billion trailing twelve months. Starlink's gross margins sit near 49%. This is not a company with no cash flow.

So what do you do with a stock that trades at 82 times sales, burns cash on huge bets, and is about to get a flood of forced buying?

You mark your calendar for August 6.

That's the date of SpaceX's first earnings call as a public firm. And it's when the first batch of insider shares unlocks. About 20% of those locked shares become free to sell. More follow through December.

The same thin float that boosts the stock on the way up… can crush it on the way down. Sound familiar? It should. We've seen this play out with every hot IPO that hits the index too fast.

The Nasdaq-100 add is a short-term tailwind. But the real test comes in 31 days.

We'll see.

The Pentagon wants $71.1 billion for the Space Force next year — more than double the $31.6 billion it got in FY2026. House members backed $55.5 billion in their draft bill, a huge jump but still $16 billion short of the ask. The gap comes down to Golden Dome, the White House's orbital missile defense plan, which needs a separate spending bill to get its full $17.5 billion. Nearly $38 billion of the request goes to research and testing. For defense-linked space stocks, this budget fight through the fall is the one to watch.

Rocket Lab agreed last week to buy Iridium in a cash-and-stock deal worth $8 billion — $54 per share, a 24% premium over Iridium's last close. The deal merges Rocket Lab's launch and satellite-building arms with Iridium's global LEO network, licensed L-band spectrum, and 2.5 million paying users across defense, shipping, and aviation. Rocket Lab shares jumped 16%. Iridium soared 25%. Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo have backed $3.6 billion in bridge loans for the cash half of the deal. It's the SpaceX playbook: build the rocket, own the network, sell the service. Closing is set for mid-2027.

Amazon needed 1,618 satellites in orbit by July 30 to meet its FCC license terms. It has around 365. The FCC waived the hard deadline but knocked down the spectral priority for any birds that launch late — a slap on the wrist, not a free pass. Amazon has ramped its pace, with 20-plus launches planned for 2026 across Atlas V, Falcon 9, and soon Vulcan. But Starlink sits at 9,800 satellites and 10 million users. Amazon's Leo service still has a lot of sky to fill.

SpaceX lit up all six Raptor engines on Ship 40 at Starbase on July 2. The full-thrust burn ran for 60 seconds. That's the final big engine test before Flight 13.

But Flight 12 still hangs over the program.

On May 22, the V3 Starship launched for the first time. Most of the ride went well. The booster did not. Super Heavy failed to relight for its planned ocean splashdown and hit the Gulf of Mexico hard. The FAA called it a mishap and grounded the rocket pending review.

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC she still expects Flight 13 this month. Booster 20 still needs its own 33-engine static fire before the full stack can fly. If that test goes clean, a late July window looks tight but doable.

And the stakes just got taller.

NASA needs Starship to land crews on the Moon for Artemis 4 in late 2028. That means SpaceX has to prove orbital flight, in-space refueling, and crew-rated systems — all within the next two years. Shotwell hinted that Flight 14 could be the first try for orbit. Flight 15 may launch from Cape Canaveral… a big step toward proving this is a true launch system and not just a Texas test bed.

Every flight from here counts.

When a firm goes public, not all shares trade right away.

Most insiders — founders, early backers, employees with stock grants — sign a deal that bars them from selling for a set stretch of time. That's a lock-up.

The typical lock-up lasts 90 to 180 days after the IPO date. During that window, the only shares on the market are the ones sold in the offering itself. So the float — the shares that change hands each day — stays small. Often very small.

Why does this matter? Supply and demand.

When a stock has a tiny float and strong demand, the price can surge. But when the lock-up ends and tens of millions of new shares hit the market, the added supply can push the price down fast — even if the business is fine.

This is exactly the setup with SPCX right now.

SpaceX went public on June 12. Its first lock-up expires on August 6 — the same day as its debut earnings call. About 20% of insider-held shares become free to sell. More batches unlock through December 2026. Right now, the public float sits at just 3% to 5% of all shares. When those locked shares start to come free, the float could grow fast.

And if insiders want to cash in after years of waiting, the added supply can weigh on the stock — no matter how strong the story is.

It's worth noting: not every lock-up leads to a sell-off. Some insiders hold. Some sell a small piece. But the date matters, because it's when the rules change.