SpaceX Shares Slip Below Their IPO Price for the First Time

SpaceX shares broke below their $135 IPO price for the first time on July 15, 2026, closing at $135.27 after dipping as low as $132.28 during the trading day (Reuters). The slide caps a sharp reversal from the stock's mid-June peak above $225 and puts the newly public ticker (SPCX) in territory that tests the resolve of investors who bought in at or near the offering price.

The decline was swift. SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share, confirmed in its EU prospectus approved by Bafin (Germany's financial regulator) on June 5, 2026, which also set a maximum offering price of $162.00 (SpaceX EU Prospectus). The stock opened at $150 on its first day of trading, hit an intraday high of $176.52, and closed up 19.2% at $160.95 (MarketWatch). From there, the shares climbed as high as $225.64 before sellers took control (MarketWatch).

At the July 15 close of $135.27, the stock sat roughly 30% below that mid-June peak. A day earlier, on July 14, shares had closed at $136.08, barely a dollar above the IPO price, after falling 2.2% in the prior session. They then rose as much as 2.4% during the day before resuming their slide (Bloomberg). Over the first 27 trading days, the stock was down 23% from its first-day closing level near $161 (MarketWatch).

The break below the IPO price coincided with an approaching post-IPO lockup expiry. A lockup period is a window, typically lasting 90 to 180 days after an IPO, during which insiders and early investors are barred from selling their shares. When that window opens, a flood of new shares can hit the market, and the prospect of that extra supply often pushes prices down in the weeks before the unlock date. Reuters reported the selloff as an "ominous sign" as that expiry loomed (Reuters via Facebook).

The trajectory from $225.64 to sub-$135 in roughly a month is a drop that would stress any newly public company, but the mechanic is familiar. A lockup expiry introduces a known, date-certain supply shock. What is less knowable is how much of that supply actually hits the market. If the selling pressure ahead of the expiry is front-running, meaning investors sell now because they expect a lockup-fueled decline, then the actual unlock could see reduced selling. That is a market structure question, not a valuation question.

The valuation question is murkier. SpaceX came public with enormous expectations baked into the offering price and the subsequent rally to $225.64. A 40% peak-to-trough decline raises the question of whether the mid-June high was driven by genuine fundamentals or by the scarcity dynamics that often dominate when only a small slice of a company's shares, called the float, is available for public trading.

MarketWatch noted that comparisons to other high-profile IPOs are already circulating. The outlet drew parallels to Meta's post-IPO performance and Tesla's early trading history, both of which experienced significant volatility after their public debuts before tracing divergent longer-term paths (MarketWatch). The implication is that breaking the IPO price is not necessarily predictive of long-term outcomes, though the sample size for companies of this profile is thin.

For institutional desks, the key data points are the speed of the reversal, the proximity to the lockup expiry, and the depth of the order book, meaning the volume of buy orders waiting below $135. The intraday low of $132.28 on July 15 suggests there are buyers willing to step in marginally below the IPO price, but the close back at $135.27 indicates that level is not yet a firm floor. The 0.6% decline on heavy attention suggests the market is still searching for equilibrium between IPO-era optimism and the supply dynamics of a maturing float.