SpaceX closed its first day of trading last Friday at $160.95, leaving its market capitalization at $2.1 trillion. The listing still set the record for the largest IPO in U.S. equity-market history, but the result did not fully satisfy the expectations built up before the debut. Research firm CFRA even placed SPCX under a “sell” rating, showing that Elon Musk’s Mars-centered narrative generated attention but did not completely translate into first-day price strength.
SPCX jumps 19.6% as Monday’s close becomes the intraday high
The tone changed sharply when U.S. trading opened on Monday. According to Gate U.S. stock market data, SPCX rose throughout the session and closed at $192.5, up 19.6%. The closing price was also the day’s high. SpaceX’s market capitalization climbed to $2.519 trillion, making it the eighth-largest company in the world by market value.
The enthusiasm did not disappear in pre-market trading. Hyperliquid data showed SPCX trading above $214 before the Tuesday U.S. open. If the stock extends Monday’s gains after the Tuesday open, SpaceX’s market value would move into direct comparison with Amazon, which ranked seventh.
U.S.-Iran agreement supports the broader equity backdrop
At the macro level, the understanding reached between the United States and Iran provided an important positive signal for U.S. equities this week. On June 15, Donald Trump announced that an agreement with Iran had been reached and that the Strait of Hormuz would remain open. Unlike previous rounds of one-sided public rhetoric, the agreement was also acknowledged by the Iranian side. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi said on the same day that the text of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding had been finalized and would be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday, June 19.
The understanding was also confirmed a second time by the Iranian president. U.S. Vice President Vance said the agreement had been signed electronically over the weekend, indicating that the terms had taken effect and that there was limited room for either side to tear it up again. After the news spread, U.S. stocks opened higher across the board. The Dow closed up 0.92%, the S&P 500 rose 1.65%, and the Nasdaq gained 3.07%.
Morgan Stanley said that a long-term agreement between the United States and Iran, together with lower oil prices, would ease inflation pressure. The bank also said U.S. equities were moving from a “single-leader market” toward a healthier broad-based rally, with upside momentum no longer confined to technology stocks and instead spreading gradually into a wider range of cyclical industries. SpaceX was one of the assets benefiting from that improved risk backdrop.
Retail flows dominate as the IPO greenshoe expands the deal size
From the perspective of market positioning, SpaceX remained the single stock most aggressively bought by retail investors. According to Vanda Track, on June 16 U.S. local time, SpaceX recorded about $93.8 million in net retail buying in one day. That amount accounted for about 73% of total net retail inflows into individual U.S. stocks on the day. In practical terms, for almost every $4 of incremental retail money entering the U.S. stock market, roughly $3 flowed into SpaceX.
With demand for SPCX so strong, SpaceX’s underwriters exercised the IPO overallotment option, known as the greenshoe mechanism. They purchased an additional 83.33 million shares, increasing the total IPO issuance to 638,888,888 Class A common shares. The move lifted total proceeds from the offering to $85.7 billion, a scale that exceeded almost all recorded greenshoe arrangements for technology-company IPOs.
Even with the expanded issuance, reports said most qualified U.S. retail investors received only about one share in the SpaceX IPO allocation. Under an extremely tight float and severe supply-demand imbalance, concentrated retail buying was therefore able to lift the share price sharply. On June 16, zerohedge wrote that once SPCX options begin trading, the stock price could rise to $400 through a gamma squeeze and surpass Nvidia. A gamma squeeze is an upward spiral created when options market makers are forced to buy the underlying stock while hedging their exposure. SpaceX’s free float is only 4.2%, and retail demand is high. Retail investors who do not own SPCX shares may turn to cheaper call options; if heavy buying flows into calls, market makers must continue buying SPCX spot shares to hedge, creating a positive feedback loop. The 2021 surge in GameStop, or GME, was one of the classic examples of this effect.
Institutions and early backers add a larger valuation narrative
Institutional commentary also provided new reference points. Before the U.S. market opened on June 15, Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan initiated coverage of SpaceX with an “outperform” rating and set a short-term price target of $190. After Monday’s trading session, SPCX closed at $192.5, broadly in line with that target.
On June 14, Peter H. Diamandis, a well-known entrepreneur, founder of XPRIZE and early SpaceX investor, wrote that SpaceX is a “railroad in orbit.” He said the company would open the era of human multi-planet civilization and create enormous wealth in the same way that 19th-century railroads opened the American West. He also predicted that within the next year SpaceX would merge with Tesla and become the first $100 trillion company.
Diamandis added that over the past decade, whenever he freed up capital from other transactions, he put that money into Bitcoin. Now, he said, whenever he has idle capital, he invests in SpaceX. He acknowledged that the share price would decline when locked-up shareholders are able to sell and when some shareholders cash out, but said he was not investing in SpaceX for quarterly share-price appreciation. His stated purpose was to support the development of an extraterrestrial economy.
On June 16, Silicon Valley investor Brad Gerstner described SpaceX in the latest episode of the BG2 podcast as an asset that institutional investors must buy and hold. His reasoning was that the company stands at the intersection of two major themes: the space economy and the expansion of artificial-intelligence computing power.