A hot-fire test of the Archimedes engine, which powers the company’s neutron rocket.
rocket lab
Several pure-play space stocks have rallied over the past week, with leading stocks jumping 20% or more, in part due to what industry analysts call the “Trump-Elon trade,” a nod to President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship recognition.
“I don’t think anyone can underestimate the potential catalyst that I think a lot of people haven’t talked about before: the most important person in the history of the space industry getting a hearing from the president-elect, who served as CEO of ProcureAM during his last term, Andrew Andrew Chanin found space important enough to create an independent military branch. UFO space-focused ETF, told CNBC.
Saw it just this week rocket lab up 41%, intuitive machine up 28%, Sibo Global up 26%, Planet Labs up 16%, rewiring up 15% and AST space movement up 10%.
These gains were driven in part by third-quarter results and personal updates, such as Rocket Lab’s announcement on Neutron and minaret for sale its shipping business to eliminate debt.
But broader market sentiment is also driving the stocks, said Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard.
“I think there’s definitely going to be an uptick in risk in this industry after Trump wins,” Sheppard told CNBC.
Taking a closer look at the year to date, this week’s top-performing space stocks have shaken off their post-SPAC slump and are poised to triple or even quadruple by 2024.
“For a handful of those names, space has been one of the best-performing stocks on the market this year,” Sheppard said.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the influx of investors,” he continued. “We’re getting calls and emails from institutional investors who are finally starting to realize that this market is only going to continue to accelerate. Because of national security, because of Artemis, because of Elon (Musk)’s ambitious plans to bring the U.S. to The goal of Mars is to return astronauts to the moon.
Shepard emphasized that Musk’s SpaceX company is privately held, which means investors are turning to other companies to get involved in the space field. Likewise, ProcureAM’s Channing believes SpaceX’s dominance in rocket launches and satellite broadband actually helps companies with spacecraft into orbit.
“They all benefit from the lower cost of access to space,” Channing said.
Notably, there has also been a divergence among pure-play space stocks this week. New companies that have gone public over the past few years have seen their share prices rise, while established ‘traditional’ companies have seen their share prices decline, e.g. echo star and Via Satelliteboth fell more than 10% this week.
Alex King, chief executive of Cestrian Capital Research, said the gap represents a changing of guard among generations of aerospace companies.
“Demand for any of these traditional businesses is declining. … I think what you’re seeing in space is a slow evolution of what’s happening in technology, it’s happening very fast and low cost always wins in the end,” King said.
“I think there’s a factor in the market that determines which companies will stay and which won’t,” King added.
Despite the huge gains made by the top-performing space companies so far this year, Sheppard doesn’t expect the industry to slow down anytime soon.
“Despite the strong performance, the overall sentiment has been very positive and will continue to be positive,” Shepherd said.
That echoes the sentiment of Rocket Lab CEO Peter Baker, who said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call this week that he expects the incoming Trump administration to be “very focused on space” to keep the industry growing momentum.
“When space wins, Rocket Lab wins,” Baker said.