Shares in Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp (NASDAQ: SPCX), more commonly known as SpaceX, again fell below the company's $150 opening price over the weekend as opinions diverge on where the stock will end up.
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SpaceX shares still in the black
The historically large SpaceX initial public offering priced the company's shares at US$135 apiece, so those who got in before the company listed are still sitting on gains and would have made a tidy profit if they sold out at the US$225.64 high achieved shortly after listing.
The shares have generally drifted lower since that peak was reached, however, and closed Friday's session at US$145.30, not far off their lowest mark of US$145.07.
This means that almost everyone who bought on-market would be underwater on their investment currently.
The stock was included in the NASDAQ-100 Index (NASDAQ: NDX) on Tuesday last week, however, this failed to significantly bolster the stock.
So, where to from here for SpaceX shares? The TradingView website has collated the views of 29 analysts on SpaceX shares, with the average price forecast at US$242.21.
However, this is distorted by one analyst's prediction of a price of US$800 per share on SpaceX shares.
Perhaps more useful is that 24 analysts have rated the stock a strong buy, 3 a buy, 1 a sell, and 1 a strong sell.
Motley Fool US contributor Manali Pradhan has crunched the numbers on SpaceX's 2027 revenue range and forward sales multiple to come up with an implied market capitalisation, and says US$220 per share is a reasonable base case estimate.
As she wrote:
Analysts expect SpaceX's 2027 revenue to range from $54.8 billion to $85 billion, with an average estimate of $72.4 billion. Applying a forward sales multiple of 38.5 to 41 times to the 2027 base case revenue estimate yields an implied market capitalization of about $2.79 trillion to $2.97 trillion. Using roughly 13.1 billion shares outstanding, that points to a share price in the range of $213 to $227 at the end of 2026.
Long-term vision on SpaceX shares needed
The difficulty in valuing SpaceX stems from the fact that of its three divisions, only one – the Starlink "connectivity" division is profitable.
The rocket launch and AI divisions are still burning money, with investors needing to buy into the promise that they will, in time, turn a profit.
The company's initial public offer prospectus stated that for the first three months of 2026, the Space division lost US$662 million, the AI division lost US$2.47 billion, and the connectivity division made a profit of US$1.19 billion.
The company believes its business opportunity is huge, however, saying in the prospectus, "We believe that space represents the largest economic frontier in human history", and suggesting that they will be building AI infrastructure in space, powered by the "virtually limitless" power of the sun, for the benefit of mankind.
