WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- SpaceX shares rallied 8% to $171 Monday and have rebounded nearly 50% from their lows.
- Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated a $300 price target as options activity reached twice the 30 day average.
- Implied volatility stands at 55, far below the level above 110 recorded around SpaceX’s June debut.
- Options pricing indicates less than a 50% chance that SpaceX touches $225 between Monday’s close and July.
DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.
SpaceX has returned to the center of the stock market’s attention as the Nasdaq 100 Index reaches all time highs. Shares of the rocket maker rallied 8% to $171 on Monday, extending their rebound from recent lows to nearly 50%.
The climb allowed SpaceX to reclaim its IPO price and made CEO Elon Musk a trillionaire again. The stock’s resurgence comes alongside fresh enthusiasm from Wall Street and another operational milestone for the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated a $300 price target for SpaceX on Monday. Last Thursday, a Falcon 9 rocket delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station in under eight hours, setting a record.
Trading activity intensified as the shares gained momentum. Options volume on Monday reached twice the 30 day average, with 1.7 million contracts representing a combined $900 million changing hands.
Of those contracts, 1 million were calls valued at more than $640 million. That surge recalled the excitement surrounding SpaceX’s June market debut, although current options pricing reveals an important difference.
After seven weeks in which the stock traded within a 10% price range, SpaceX implied volatility is now substantially lower. Unless the stock maintains the speed of its moves from the past two days, traders seeking new highs could face a longer wait.
Following its June debut, SpaceX needed less than three full trading sessions to rise from $171 to an intraday high above $225. Implied volatility exceeded 110 at the time, reflecting expectations for unusually large price swings.
Implied volatility now stands at 55 after reaching an all time low below 50 on Thursday. Based on options pricing at Monday’s close, market makers see less than a 50% chance that SpaceX will touch $225 at any point between now and July.
Options with nearer expiration dates present a somewhat stronger outlook. Market makers assign a 54% probability that the stock will reach $185 by the end of this month, according to the pricing cited in the source.
The options market is not signaling unrestrained confidence, however. Barchart data show that market makers are assigning equal or higher implied volatilities to puts than to calls, suggesting that a downward swing is considered as plausible as another sharp advance.
Indexes such as the S&P 500 commonly have puts trading with richer options premiums than calls, but the direction of that skew can vary among individual stocks. Nvidia offers a contrast because calls are more expensive across many expirations, indicating greater concern about missing rallies than avoiding crashes.
Despite the more balanced volatility signals, Monday’s SpaceX options flows leaned decidedly optimistic. Traders likely purchased 456,000 calls, compared with under 240,00 puts, according to Cboe LiveVol.
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The same data indicate that traders likely sold 250,000 puts and 295,000 calls. The volume reflects vigorous positioning around a stock that has rapidly regained investor attention after spending weeks within a relatively narrow trading range.
“Starship has helped out but it seems like Wall Street is piling in starting Q4,” said Charles Moon, a technical and momentum trader at Prosper Trading Academy in Chicago. “SpaceX and Tesla are feeding off each other. They’re moving more in sync lately.“
ThinkOrSwim data put the 30 day correlation between SpaceX and Tesla at 0.66. The figure supports Moon’s observation that the two companies’ shares have recently been moving more closely together.
Jonas also presented SpaceX as an attractive way to gain exposure to emerging opportunities tied to its broader market. “Adjusted for growth, SpaceX is one of the cheaper ways to play the strong optionality of the Space and Intelligence Economy,” he wrote in a note to clients Sunday.
The stock’s rebound, heavy call activity and $300 analyst target show renewed optimism, but lower implied volatility tempers expectations for a repeat of June’s explosive climb. Options pricing currently points to a more measured path, with meaningful risks on either side.
DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.
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