Key facts
- Retail investors purchased $369.8 million in SpaceX stock in the three days following its IPO.
- SpaceX's post-IPO buying by retail investors surpassed that of Nvidia and the Invesco QQQ Trust.
- Total net buying of SpaceX by retail investors equaled the combined purchases of Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, QQQ, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
- Retail investors have been net sellers of Apple and Tesla since SpaceX's debut.
- SpaceX's demand is not typical of meme stock behavior, with limited activity in related ETFs and leveraged products.
SpaceX stock has seen a surge in retail investor buying in the days following its initial public offering, with individual investors purchasing $369.8 million worth of shares in the first three trading sessions. This volume of buying has surpassed that of other favored securities among retail traders, including Nvidia and the Invesco QQQ Trust. Data from Vanda Research indicates that SpaceX's appeal has become so strong that retail net buying has equaled the combined purchases of Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, QQQ, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
Despite the significant retail interest, Vanda Research notes that this demand does not resemble typical meme stock behavior, as space-themed ETFs have not attracted substantial inflows, and activity in leveraged SpaceX products remains modest. The firm suggests that retail investors may be rotating from other Elon Musk-linked trades into SpaceX, viewing it as a cleaner exposure to artificial intelligence and technology sectors. Meanwhile, retail investors have been net sellers of both Apple and Tesla since SpaceX's debut.
Vanda Research posits that SpaceX is rapidly becoming a 'retail darling,' potentially signaling an evolution from the 'Magnificent 7' to a new group of top stocks, which they term the 'FAB 10,' including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.