HSBC Just Started Covering SpaceX With a $115 Price Target. The Stock Closed Friday at $115.07.

SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got a new review from a major bank on Friday, and it wasn't the vote of confidence shareholders were hoping for. HSBC initiated coverage of the rocket and satellite company with a Hold rating and a $115 price target. That number sits below the $135 price at which SpaceX went public in June.

The market wasted no time making its own statement. Shares fell as much as 6% on Friday, dipping below the new target shortly after its publication, before closing at $115.07 -- seven cents above it.

That makes SpaceX the rare stock that trades simultaneously below its IPO price, right at a major bank's days-old price target, and roughly 50% below the high of $225.64 it reached shortly after its debut.

What's most interesting about HSBC's math, though, is how generous it tried to be.

Image source: Getty Images.

A premium for Musk, and still a Hold

HSBC built its valuation as a sum of the parts, adding up what it believes SpaceX's businesses are worth. Then it did something unusual. It applied a 2x premium to account for CEO Elon Musk's track record of commercializing disruptive technologies. In other words, the bank built a 2x innovation premium into its sum-of-the-parts math, on the theory that Musk has repeatedly built industries where none existed.

Even with that premium, the answer came back at $115, along with a conclusion that the price already reflects much of the company's long-term growth potential -- including continued expansion of Starlink, rising launch activity, and the development of its artificial intelligence initiatives. The bank did sketch a friendlier picture. Its most optimistic scenario, which assumes the Starship rocket becomes commercially viable starting in 2027 and launch capacity doubles, values the stock at $293 per share. But that's the ceiling case, not the expectation.

That's the detail I'd sit with. When a valuation grants the founder credit most models never grant, and still can't reach the IPO price, the exercise says as much about the price as it does about the company.

The disagreement is enormous

To be fair, HSBC is one voice, and a notably cautious one next to the rest of Wall Street. The average price target on SpaceX sits at about $237, more than twice the recent share price. Even more telling, individual targets range from $62 all the way to $800. A range that wide is less a forecast than an admission that nobody has figured out how to value this company yet. And HSBC's Hold rating, for what it's worth, implies the stock roughly treads water from here. The bank's caution is about the price, not the business.

The fundamentals explain the confusion. SpaceX's trailing-12-month revenue totals about $19 billion, and its 2025 revenue grew 33% -- remarkable growth for an industrial company. But the stock's market capitalization stands at about $1.5 trillion, which values the company at more than 75 times its sales. The business remains unprofitable, too, as it pours money into developing its Starship rocket. There are no earnings to check the valuation against yet, and there won't be for some time.

Hard evidence is finally coming, though. SpaceX is expected to report its first quarterly results as a public company on Aug. 4, giving investors their first standardized look at the company's finances since the IPO. The first wave of insider share lockups begins expiring shortly after the report. For a debate currently running on beliefs, that report is the first common set of facts both sides will have to reckon with -- and every model on Wall Street, HSBC's included, gets rebuilt on real quarterly disclosure from that day forward.

So, is the newly cheaper stock worth buying now that it has fallen to even a skeptic's target? I don't think the target itself should drive anyone's decision. HSBC's $115 is one bank's estimate, and the consensus near $237 is an average of guesses that disagree with one another by hundreds of dollars.

My takeaway is simply that SpaceX's current valuation continues to require a lot of imagination to justify. A major bank went looking for reasons to be generous with SpaceX, applied the biggest one it could justify, and still concluded the stock was worth less than its IPO price.

I'm not buying before the company's Aug. 4 numbers are released. Sure, a business compounding revenue at 33% deserves respect. But at a $1.5 trillion valuation, I want to see more momentum in its financials before paying up for this stock.

HSBC Holdings is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends HSBC Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.