SpaceX Falls 2.6% as LandSpace Lands 1st Chinese Booster and 319 Million Shares Unlock
Updated
Updated · Yahoo Finance · Aug 19
SpaceX Falls 2.6% as LandSpace Lands 1st Chinese Booster and 319 Million Shares Unlock
3 articles · Updated · Yahoo Finance · Aug 19
Summary
SpaceX closed down 2.6% Wednesday after recovering its $135 IPO price on Aug. 10, with pressure building ahead of Thursday’s 319 million-share lockup release.
LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 landed its first stage on a pad in northwest China on Tuesday—the first land recovery of an orbital-class booster by a Chinese company—while its upper stage also placed satellites into orbit.
That milestone chips at a key SpaceX advantage, though the gap remains wide: Falcon 9 can lift 50,265 pounds to low Earth orbit versus Zhuque-3’s 40,350, and SpaceX has logged more than 600 booster landings since 2015.
The bigger overhang may be supply. Thursday’s tranche is part of a staggered lockup that will free about 88% of SpaceX’s 13 billion shares by 2027, with another 1.3 billion shares due around early-November earnings.