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Stock Market Today, Oct. 21: Space Exploration Technologies Surges on Q3 Earnings Beat

Source The Motley Fool

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX), a rocket launches and satellite broadband services provider, closed at $159.31, up 7.79%. Wednesday's gains followed stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings, and investors are now watching compute growth and Starlink demand.
Trading volume reached 217.4M shares, coming in about 123% above its three-month average of 97.3M shares. Space Exploration Technologies IPO'd in 2026 and has fallen 1% since going public.

How the markets moved today

The S&P 500 rose 0.59% to 7,757, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.05% to 26,703. Among aerospace & defense peers, Rocket Lab closed at $53.67, up 5.44%, while AST SpaceMobile ended at $40.90, down 0.56%, as investors tracked launch and satellite-comms momentum.

What this means for investors

SpaceX stock surged following its strong third-quarter report, but considering its performance, the increase may make sense.

Indeed, Q3 revenue rose by 161% yearly to $14.6 billion. Most of this came from AI-related revenue gains, which CEO Elon Musk refers to as "super intelligence." That segment reported 830% yearly revenue growth!

With that gain, it turned profitable, reporting a quarterly net income of $4.4 billion. That was well above the nearly $1.1 billion loss in the year-ago quarter.

Nonetheless, it is revenue projections that may have gained investor attention. Musk forecasted that annual revenue could reach between $500 billion and $1 trillion in 2027.

However, CFO Bret Johnsen was more cautious, projecting a more modest $33 billion to $37 billion in Q1 2027. Historically, Musk has not always delivered on such projections, at least on a shorter time frame. Nonetheless, it may hint at his goals for SpaceX.

Moreover, he again hinted at a possible merger with Tesla. Since Tesla's Roadster used SpaceX’s technology to fly, investors are likely not surprised by this news.

Finally, rising revenues have also reduced its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio to 68. Still, given the pace of its revenue growth and the company's long-term ambitions, one can understand why an investor might pay that multiple for the space stock.

Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now?

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

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $370,440!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,330,110!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 924% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 212% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of October 21, 2026.

Will Healy has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AST SpaceMobile, Rocket Lab, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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

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