TradingKey - On Tuesday, Eastern Time (June 16), SpaceX (SPCX) rose for the third consecutive trading day, with its market capitalization surpassing Amazon (AMZN) , becoming the world's fifth-largest stock; it rose up to 17% intraday, with its market capitalization surpassing Microsoft (MSFT) , becoming the fourth-largest U.S. company. Since its listing, the stock has gained a cumulative 49%, demonstrating investor enthusiasm for the stock.
Analysis indicates that retail investor enthusiasm is the primary driver of this rally. According to data from Vanda Research, retail buying of SpaceX during its first two trading days even exceeded last week's total retail inflows into the entire U.S. stock market. Vanda pointed out in its report that the only stock retail investors care about is SpaceX, while remaining relatively cautious elsewhere.
Dave Mazza, CEO of Roundhill Financial, believes this is also related to the small size of the public float. In the future, as the stock is included in the Nasdaq Index, passive funds will become forced buyers, which, combined with the small float, will amplify every price fluctuation.
As SpaceX options officially began trading this Tuesday, speculators also flooded into the market. SpaceX options contracts began trading on Tuesday on exchanges including the Cboe and Nasdaq, and the inherent leverage of options further amplified stock price volatility. On Tuesday, trading volume of SpaceX call options approached 1 million contracts, ranking fifth among all U.S. option classes, with popularity catching up to Nvidia (NVDA) , Tesla (TSLA) and other perennially active investment targets.
Weekly options are expected to launch on Thursday. In addition, other options exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and Miami International Holdings are also expected to list related options early next week. Chris Murphy, co-head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna Investment Group, said that once weekly options and zero-day-to-expiry (0DTE) options are introduced, short-term trading activity and retail participation will be further enhanced.