Mr. Jin
Technology & Space Investor
Rocket Lab's institutional base is holding and growing, not leaving. Q2 13F filings show BlackRock up 6.8% to about 110 million shares, Vanguard accounts up about 2.4%, State Street up 3.7%, Morgan Stanley up 28.1%, and JPMorgan reported a new position of about 27.5 million shares. Baillie Gifford cut its stake 43.6% amid broader growth-stock rebalancing. Q2 filings predate the Iridium deal announced June 28, so Q3 is the real test of whether big holders back the new strategy. x.com
Rocket Lab is turning from a launch company into a space-infrastructure company, and new signals back that up. The Space Force picked it with Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York for its Space Data Network; the $12M matters less than joining the early group. Electron customer Synspective, with 17 more launches booked through 2030, is expanding into Europe. Funding Iridium with a $3.6B bridge loan and up to $1.94B of at-the-market stock brings dilution-versus-debt risk. x.com x.com x.com x.com
Investors rotating into cheaper stocks with more upside should ultimately benefit Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile. Both have already suffered major drawdowns. x.com
A stronger SpaceX could lift the wider space-stock basket, including AST SpaceMobile, Rocket Lab, Redwire, Planet Labs, Intuitive Machines, Firefly Aerospace and Voyager Technologies. Per DeItaone, JPMorgan raised its SpaceX price target from $240 to $500 while maintaining Overweight. The seven space stocks rose alongside SpaceX after hours. Their initial post-IPO selloff was followed by macro-driven weakness, not further weakness caused by SpaceX. x.com x.com x.com
Space stocks have lost their catalyst now that SpaceX is public. For a year the basket was a bet on when the SpaceX IPO would happen; it listed Friday, up 19% at $2.1 trillion, the biggest IPO in history, and the air came out. Rocket Lab, AST SpaceMobile, Satellogic and BlackSky, green for months, have all flipped to SuperTrend downtrends. That is not the sector breaking but buy-the-rumor, sell-the-news. x.com
Rocket Lab's growing Space Systems business positions it to provide more than launches for the space economy. It generated $189.5M in Q2, 81% of revenue; if its pending Iridium acquisition closes, it would gain a global satellite communications network. At about $51, this is one of the most compelling long-term opportunities in the space sector over 3-5 years, provided it keeps executing. Neutron's launch has slipped to 2027, and execution risks remain. x.com x.com x.com
Rocket Lab completing its $1.94 billion ATM to fund the Iridium deal removes an overhang that likely suppressed the whole space sector. As the lead high-beta space name, its ATM selling in a thin, risk-off market was magnified by algos into AST SpaceMobile and peers; that pressure should now ease. After nearly four months of losses from the SpaceX IPO, macro risk-off, low summer liquidity and share sales, a base is starting to form. Delays or macro risk could still weigh. x.com x.com x.com
Rocket Lab's deal to buy Iridium partly with its own stock confirms the stock is worth very little. Per @junkbondinvest, Rocket Lab is paying $8 billion in enterprise value, $54 a share, half in cash and half in Rocket Lab stock. Using an overvalued currency to buy something with real value is accretive and minimizes the loss for shareholders, following the playbook of SPCX buying Cursor. x.com x.com
Listed space stocks were sold because SpaceX's IPO vacuumed up the sector's marginal dollar, not because their contracts stopped. AST SpaceMobile launched the three largest comm arrays ever, with 60 carriers signed; Rocket Lab booked $663M from the Space Force in nine days; Planet Labs' backlog exceeds annual revenue; BlackSky printed its first EBITDA-positive quarter; Firefly, a Golden Dome interceptor selectee, trades below its IPO price; and Redwire's revenue rose 90%. x.com
SpaceX's confidential filing for the largest IPO in history should force fund managers who ignored space to buy in, making this exactly the wrong time to short the sector. SpaceX is seeking a $75 billion raise at a $1.75 trillion valuation, with Polymarket putting a June listing at 60%. Yet AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab sit 30% below their highs, Redwire 35% and Planet Labs 15%. That fund flow has to go somewhere. x.com
Rocket Lab's $3B at-the-market offering shows it needs investor cash because it has no real earnings or path to profitability, and it should have raised $10-15B while the window lasts. Selling stock at such a high valuation is the only way to sustain the next 18-24 months, and the coming SpaceX IPO will most likely be the sell event for the entire space sector. x.com x.com
Rocket Lab's record Q2 and Iridium deal show it becoming an end-to-end space and defense platform that can capture more value than a launch-only company. Q2 revenue hit a record $234M, up 62%, and backlog a record $2.36B after over $1B of new contracts. Iridium adds over $870M of annual L-band revenue tied to government and enterprise. Launch revenue fell 30% sequentially largely because more HASTE defense work is recognized over time; Mynaric integration weighs on near-term margins. x.com
