SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Joins the Nasdaq-100 — Goldman and Morgan Stanley Both Say Buy

TLDR

• SpaceX joined the Nasdaq-100 just 15 days after its June 12 IPO, one of the fastest index inclusions ever.
• Passive funds are expected to buy an estimated $4.3–$6 billion in SPCX stock to match the new index composition.
• Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both initiated coverage Tuesday with top ratings; Goldman called it a potential “multi-trillion-dollar opportunity.”
• SpaceX is float-adjusted in the index at roughly $300 billion market cap weighting, despite only ~638 million tradeable shares.
• Around 20% more shares unlock after the company’s first earnings report, due in a couple of weeks.

SpaceX (SPCX) officially joined the Nasdaq-100 on Tuesday, just 15 days after its June 12 stock market debut — one of the fastest index inclusions on record.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

The stock was trading down about 1.5% to $158.37 in premarket Tuesday. Since its IPO, SPCX has traded as high as $225.64 and as low as $147.11.

The addition wasn’t without some behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Nasdaq used revised rules for newly listed companies, allowing SpaceX to qualify despite its limited trading history.

The Nasdaq-100 tracks the largest nonfinancial companies on the exchange. SpaceX joins the likes of Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Broadcom in a group with a combined market value of nearly $40 trillion.

With a market cap of $2.1 trillion, SpaceX is now the sixth-largest U.S. company. CEO Elon Musk holds the title of the world’s first trillionaire.

SpaceX raised $86 billion in its IPO — a record — though that was a fraction of its $1.8 trillion IPO valuation. Only about 638 million shares are currently available for trading, worth roughly $102 billion.

To account for the limited float, Nasdaq is weighting SpaceX at three times its tradeable market cap, giving it the index impact of a $300 billion company. That works out to about 0.75% of the Nasdaq-100’s total value.

Billions in Passive Buying Expected

Over $587 billion is benchmarked to the Nasdaq-100, including Invesco’s widely held QQQ and QQQM ETFs. Those funds now need to buy SPCX to match the index.

J.P. Morgan estimated last month that the inclusion could trigger $4.3 billion in passive inflows. Barron’s puts the figure closer to $6 billion — roughly 6% of all available SPCX shares.

Traders appear to have anticipated this. SPCX is up about 10% from recent lows heading into Tuesday, which may already price in some of the indexation demand.

More supply is coming. Around 20% of SpaceX shares unlock after the company’s first earnings report, expected in a few weeks. That should ease some of the supply-demand pressure.

Wall Street Opens Coverage With Bullish Calls

Tuesday also marks the end of the underwriter quiet period for banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan.

Morgan Stanley kicked off coverage with its top rating, calling SpaceX “AI’s final frontier.” Goldman Sachs also initiated at its highest rating, saying each of SpaceX’s core markets has the potential to become a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity over five-plus years.

RBC, Bernstein, and Stifel joined with top ratings as well, with RBC highlighting Starship — SpaceX’s fully reusable next-generation rocket — as the “flywheel that powers SpaceX’s ambitions.” Oppenheimer had already initiated with an “outperform” in June.

Not everyone is on board. Morningstar valued SpaceX at around $780 billion, flagging uncertainty around its AI businesses, including xAI and social media platform X.

S&P Global declined to create a fast-track process for S&P 500 inclusion in June. It could be at least a year before SPCX joins that index.

FTSE Russell added SpaceX to its U.S. indexes last month, with iShares Russell 1000 ETF already offering investors exposure.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Joins the Nasdaq-100 — Goldman and Morgan Stanley Both Say Buy appeared first on CoinCentral.