The lifting of the ban on the first batch of about 100 billion US dollars of stocks did not trigger a wave of sell-off SpaceX (SPCX.US) stock prices fluctuated in a narrow range, and market bearishness is still high

The Zhitong Finance App learned that SpaceX (SPCX.US) officially lifted the ban on the first batch of restricted shares worth about 100 billion US dollars on Thursday, but the market reaction was relatively calm. While absorbing the impact of the increase in large-scale tradable stocks, investors are also beginning to pay attention to the next few rounds of larger ban lifting arrangements.

In early trading on Thursday, SpaceX's stock price fluctuated in a narrow range between ups and downs, with an intraday amplitude of less than 3%. The trading volume was about 93 million shares 30 minutes after opening, which is equivalent to about 40% of the full day's trading volume on the previous trading day.

This time, the stock price performance was relatively stable, and it was a sensitive period after SpaceX announced its first financial report after listing. Previously, since the company's capital expenditure related to artificial intelligence (AI) was higher than market expectations, the stock price plummeted 14% in a single day after the earnings report was released, but most Wall Street analysts still maintained an optimistic judgment on the company's long-term prospects.

According to the IPO arrangement, a maximum of 9115 million shares have been lifted, with a market value of about 100 billion US dollars based on current stock prices, increasing the number of tradable shares in the market from about 639 million shares at the beginning of the listing to about 1.55 billion shares.

However, this is only the first step in SpaceX's unique nine-stage unban mechanism. Bernstein previously pointed out that compared to the traditional one-off lifting of the ban 180 days after the IPO listing, SpaceX adopted an “extremely complicated” nine-stage batch release mechanism.

Among them, the biggest lifting of the ban is yet to come. According to the prospectus, in June 2027, the ban on about 6.4 billion Class A common shares held by Musk will be lifted, and market circulation will further increase dramatically at that time.

For investors who bought SpaceX shares after the IPO or listing, the stock price may still face continued supply pressure as more restricted stocks enter the market one after another in the future.

The large-scale lifting of the ban also continues to attract the attention of bears. According to S3 Partners data, as of Wednesday's close, about 36% of SpaceX's tradable shares have been shorted, reflecting that the overall bearish sentiment in the market is still high.

As the company's stock price has clearly declined from its high level, the bears have now accumulated surplus of more than 9 billion US dollars.

However, market participants believe that not all bears are simply betting on the deterioration of the company's fundamentals. Many of these trading strategies mainly target potential selling pressure after the ban on restricted shares is lifted, hoping to use a large number of early investors and employees to redeem profits from their shareholding.

Over the past few weeks, Wall Street investment banks and major trading institutions have been preparing ahead of time for the possible market impact of this large-scale lifting of the ban.

As restricted stocks gradually enter the market, what investors are most concerned about right now is not whether there will be a sell-off, but who will become the new buyer.

Some investors previously held shares in SpaceX and XAI, now renamed SpaceXAI, through special purpose vehicles (SPVs). As the first batch of bans is lifted, these investors are expected to continue to receive shares distributed by SPV managers over the next few days to weeks.

At the same time, retail investors are actively planning to take advantage of the dips.

According to Vanda Research data, after SpaceX's earnings report plummeted on Wednesday, US retail investors bought a net purchase of about $22.7 million in SpaceX shares in the first hour of trading, indicating that some investors believe that the stock price adjustment provided a new allocation opportunity.

Analysts believe that in a situation where the first batch of large-scale lifting of the ban did not cause obvious selling pressure, subsequent market trends will depend more on whether additional capital can continue to accept unbanned shares and the impact of future rounds of larger restricted shares on the supply and demand relationship.