Investing / The Compound Effect
To the Moon, Literally
| 2 min | By Heath J. Harris
SpaceX raised $75 billion today — nearly triple the largest IPO in history — and popped more than 20% intraday. Here's what actually happened, why the last few weeks felt choppy, and why we like it but aren't buying yet.
History was made this morning. SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) priced at $135 a share and raised $75 billion — nearly three times Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion record from 2019, making it the largest IPO in history by a wide margin. The company was valued at roughly $1.77 trillion at pricing, opened around $150, and traded north of $160 within the first hour — a pop of more than 20% — touching nearly $174 intraday.
Two numbers from the filing worth knowing: 2025 revenue came in at $18.7 billion, up about 43% year over year, and Starlink alone accounted for roughly 61% of it. The company is not yet profitable on a GAAP basis. That is not a criticism — it is context. You are buying growth and dominance in launch and satellite connectivity, not current earnings.
Now, about the past few weeks. If the market's choppiness felt strange against decent economic data, part of the answer landed today. An offering this size pulls real liquidity out of the market — funds trim existing positions to make room, index funds prepare for forced rebalancing as SPCX enters the major benchmarks, and dealers position around the largest allocation event ever. This was not a fringe theory; CNBC, Yahoo Finance, and others covered the liquidity question all week. Some of the selling you saw in recent weeks was not fear. It was making room.
Our position: we like the company. We are not buying this week. Day-one IPO pops are where excitement is most expensive — no trading history, no public earnings call, and a lockup expiration months away that will add supply. Our discipline on new listings is simple: let price discovery happen, let at least one earnings report land, and size it like what it is — a growth position, not a core holding. If SPCX is still compelling in a few weeks at a price the numbers support, we will act then.
If you are tempted to chase: the investors who consistently get hurt in IPOs are the ones who confuse a great company with a great entry. Those are different things, and the difference is usually measured in patience, not insight.