SpaceX Stock Drops on Friday. Should Investors Cheer?

Source The Motley Fool

Key Points

  • SpaceX stock has fallen $10 below its IPO price.

  • Worries over Starship, China, and AI are dogging SpaceX stock.

  • Meanwhile, the valuation picture just keeps getting better.

  • 10 stocks we like better than Space Exploration Technologies ›

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock briefly fell below $125 a share on Friday, before recovering to about a 4% loss as of 12:55 p.m. ET in the afternoon -- and it doesn't matter.

Whether down 5% or only 4% today, SpaceX stock is officially a broken IPO, returning to just pennies above its IPO price Wednesday, and falling well below it Thursday and Friday. But here's the real question.

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Boy in a lab coat is crying next to a crashed rocket.

Image source: Getty Images.

Is SpaceX's below-IPO share price good or bad news?

That's a tougher question to answer. On the one hand, SpaceX stock has lost the momentum that drove it up 67% from its IPO price in its first three days of trading. The company faces new competition from China, which just completed its first successful water landing of a reusable rocket. It's also been forced to postpone a Starship test flight when multiple engines refused to ignite at launch.

Worst of all, SpaceX's big bet on turning itself from a space stock into an artificial intelligence stock has gone awry, with investors selling off AI stocks in droves the past several days -- "SpaceXAI" among them.

Is SpaceX stock cheap now?

Those are all reasons to avoid SpaceX stock -- but now here's one reason to buy SpaceX instead:

At its new share price of $125, SpaceX stock costs 192 times forecast 2027 earnings, but earnings are expected to grow so fast that by 2028 the P/E ratio drops to 33, and by 2029 -- just 22.5.

Analysts see SpaceX earnings growing on average 152% annually over the next five years, more than doubling every year. While the future's uncertain, and the end may always be near, there's now a reasonable case to be made that SpaceX stock is approaching fair value -- and will soon be cheap enough to buy.

Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now?

Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this:

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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