Shares of Elon Musk’s rocket and AI firm fell as much as 4.7% Wednesday (June 17), erasing a gain that had reached 6% earlier in the session. The decline puts the stock on track to snap a three-day winning streak that had pushed shares nearly 50% above their $135 IPO price. It also threatens to drop the firm back below Amazon in the rankings of most valuable companies.
“Long story short, I think this is just noise so far. If we were to see a big down day, I think that’d be a different discussion,” said Michael Monaghan, partner and portfolio manager at Founder Funds in Dallas, which holds shares of SpaceX. “If it really got hit more, we’d probably add,” he said.
Some of the volatile intraday trading seen in shares of SpaceX can be attributed to low float, which might also be giving its stock price a boost. There is a relatively small portion of SpaceX shares available to trade, with only about 4.2% of total stock available on day one. As lockups keeping insiders from selling expire in the coming months, it could add downside pressure to shares.
The slip came during a broader selloff across US equities as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged and new projections that indicated officials are split over whether they expect to hike rates this year. After the announcement, which marked the first decision under new chairman Kevin Warsh, traders fully priced in a Fed rate hike by October. The S&P 500 Index fell 1.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 shed 1%.
Before Wednesday’s (June 17’s) decline, SpaceX had been the most-bought stock by retail investors each day since its IPO, matching the combined buying of Nvidia Corp., Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Meta Platforms Inc., and top exchange traded funds tracking the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes, according to data from Vanda Research. Over the same period, Tesla Inc. saw roughly $61 million in net selling, the data show.
“Perhaps we’re seeing a rotation from one Elon-linked trade into another, with SpaceX increasingly viewed as the cleaner AI & tech exposure,” Vanda wrote in a note.
(Edited by : Anshul)
First Published: Jun 18, 2026 7:16 AM IST
