The SpaceX IPO: retail investor notes
by u1hcw9nx on 4/2/2026, 11:11:27 AM
https://report.bearblog.dev/the-spacex-ipo-will-be-the-perfect-storm-of-retail-investor-fallacies/
Comments
by: timzaman
I have become so disillusioned by some of the Hacker News crowd on here. It used to be full of nuanced smart people with interesting takes. Nowadays it seems very one sided - makes me very sad. People seem to be completely forgetting that SpaceX is one of the most "inspiring" companies that currently exist. They produce things (Starship) that give adults long-lost goosebumps and excitement just looking at it. SpaceX tech and launch stats speak for themselves. I know its hard to extend an exponential, but just try. All the comments on here feel like they were made against Tesla in 2017, and look how that worked out.
4/2/2026, 4:45:08 PM
by: Betelbuddy
These two comments seem to tell you, everything you need to know about this IPO. Sadly I cant get the same level of analysis, from CNBC or Bloomberg, so have to come here...<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606845">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606845</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613231">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613231</a>
4/2/2026, 3:01:16 PM
by: davedx
> Two-Stage Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It is the gold standard for valuing a high-growth company like SpaceX.<p>I don't know if it's true that DCF is the "gold standard" for valuing high growth companies. IME it's actually quite bad -- not that there's really <i>good</i> ways to value them; more that DCF is much better for companies that <i>aren't</i> high growth.<p>High growth companies - especially ones run by Musk -- are intrinsically very hard to value, for reasons like:<p>- They sometimes - unpredictably - spawn new categories (think Starlink)<p>- There are too many variables to be able to reliably predict future cash flows (compared to say, an oil company, where future cash flows are largely dependent on oil prices, which can also be forecast with <i>some</i> degree of certainty)<p>- Risk has a much higher impact on a high growth company, how does DCF try to quantify that? Sure, you can ramp up your risk free rate like TFA suggests, but that's about as coarse a measure as it gets. Consider the risks to e.g. Tesla, how do you quantify them and their impact on its future cash flows?
4/2/2026, 3:37:29 PM
by: outside2344
If S&P change their rules, I am going to sell my index funds, taxes be damned.<p>Sadly, this is not the only trash that is going to be hoisted on us retirement investors. OpenAI is waiting in the wings as well.<p>I am sure I am not the only one. That doesn't seem like it will be good for the market.
4/2/2026, 3:30:38 PM
by: mattkrick
The post fails to mention that spaceX is not just a rocket company. Bundled with it is xAI, which is presumably losing money hand over fist. Package enough risk together and sell for a higher price to retail consumers. We’ve seen this play…
4/2/2026, 3:31:02 PM
by: neural_thing
I've structured a pre IPO bet:<p>Long RONB (holds a ton of spacex), short ARKK (similar composition sans SpaceX) - or if you have a lot of time, you can short non-spacex RONB holdings. Planning to sell just after the IPO
4/2/2026, 4:27:41 PM
by: bob1029
The potential for incredible forced demand has me considering participating for a period of time. I have no faith in things like datacenters in orbit, but I do have strong faith in the greed and recklessness of others.
4/2/2026, 4:21:28 PM
by: steveBK123
Remember when AGI comes, money will be meaningless since we'll all just have abundance and no jobs.<p>But also Musk needs to get paid $1T, and he also needs indices to change their rules to pump more of your money into his giga-IPO.<p>Nothing to see here.
4/2/2026, 4:20:12 PM
by: tristanj
It would help if the author actually created a DCF model and shared it. I have seen others create their own which value SpaceX between $250 to $400 billion.
4/2/2026, 3:19:23 PM
by: kjkjadksj
Going to be a circus when our only viable launch capacity is publicly traded and only looking a quarter ahead. Guess that is the end of rocket development as we know it. Hopefully academia bails us out and carries on fundamental research. Then again the orangutan is in the whitehouse disinclined to fund any science.
4/2/2026, 3:40:15 PM
by: wat10000
For this valuation to make sense, you’re betting on one or more of:<p>1. Orbital data centers become not only a real thing, but a dominant thing.<p>2. Grok goes from being a second-tier model mostly useful for not having guardrails to being a step above all other offerings.<p>3. Twitter realizes its “everything app” ambitions and becomes the WeChat of the West.<p>4. Starship not only flies operationally, but finds a niche with orders of magnitude more business than Falcon 9 gets. Something like Earth-to-Earth passenger transport at a level that substantially displaces airlines.<p>All of which seem extremely unlikely. I’m fairly bullish on SpaceX, but as something of a “normal” business. Starship shows promise. Falcon 9 is a cheap workhorse. Starlink seems to just print money. But not anything like a trillion dollars’ worth.
4/2/2026, 3:36:33 PM
by: guywithahat
> The SpaceX IPO in 2026 is unlikely to mirror the 500x or 1,000x returns of early Amazon or Google<p>I don't think this is right; when Google first IPO'd the sentiment was that they had a single successful product, search, and the stock was expected to track search. Now they have a whole suite of successful products.<p>Similarily SoaceX is viewed as a rocket company, but they're likely to continue to expand their product range, and for all we know some of their future products could be bigger and more profitable.
4/2/2026, 3:00:47 PM
by: nutjob2
> Musk is a storyteller.<p>Musk is a bullshitter.<p>This is true by any objective measure. He goes beyond "marketing" and just tells lies to keep the balls in the air. That he's not held to account is an indictment of the SEC and the whole public equity system in the US.
4/2/2026, 3:03:47 PM