Stock Market Today, April 20: AST SpaceMobile Falls After BlueBird 7 Satellite Fails to Reach Planned Orbit
AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS), space-based cellular broadband developer, closed Monday’s session at $81, down 5.30%. The stock moved lower as investors reacted to the BlueBird 7 launch failure and continued assessing execution risk and satellite deployment timelines.
Trading volume reached 39.2 million shares, coming in about 167% above its three-month average of 14.7 million shares. AST SpaceMobile IPO'd in 2019 and has grown 729% since going public.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) slipped 0.22% to finish Monday at 7,110, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) declined 0.26% to close at 24,404. Within communication equipment, industry peers Globalstar (NASDAQ:GSAT) closed at $80.36 (+0.42%) and Iridium Communications (NASDAQ:IRDM) finished at $41.74 (-0.26%), highlighting mixed sentiment across satellite-focused names.
What this means for investors
AST shares have soared almost 250% over the last 12 months as investors anticipated the continued deployment of a large array of satellites to support the company’s ambitions to provide space-based broadband internet access. That’s why the failed attempt to launch its BlueBird 7 satellite in the correct orbit hit the stock hard today.
BlueBird 7 has now effectively been lost and will have to be deliberately destroyed in an atmospheric re-entry. While the failed positioning by a rocket from Jeff Bezos’ space technology company Blue Origin should be covered by insurance, it has delayed AST SpaceMobile’s plans and potentially soured investors on the stock, at least for the near term.
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Howard Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AST SpaceMobile. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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