SpaceX (SPCXB) Slips 1.6% to $147 After Starship's Successful Splashdown

Starship Clears Its Biggest Test

SpaceX (SPCXB) shares drifted lower on Monday even as Elon Musk's Starship — the company's fully reusable launch vehicle — completed the most consequential flight of its program to date. The ship reached orbit, climbed roughly 170 miles above Earth, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, survived reentry, flipped upright and splashed down intact in the Pacific Ocean, per the company's own mission confirmation. For investors, the flight went straight to the core of SpaceX's bull case: if Starship can eventually fly repeatedly, the company could launch satellites and cargo at a fraction of today's cost, and that promise has underpinned some extraordinary valuation arguments. Cathie Wood has contended that even a $1.75 trillion SpaceX valuation could look cheap if Starship succeeds at scale. Yet the tape told a different story. SpaceX shares changed hands around $147.29 at noon ET, down 0.93%, just minutes before the splashdown was confirmed — a textbook reminder that markets tend to price technical milestones well before they are achieved. Days earlier, the stock had traded near $151 in the run-up to the September 22 flight, and launch-era buyers had already locked in IPO-era returns of double digits. The Monday pullback therefore reads less as a verdict on Starship and more as a market that had front-run the mission's success. Starlink's V3 satellites sit at the center of the cost story: cheaper launch translates into faster, cheaper constellation expansion serving data-hungry customers — from streaming platforms to blockchain networks and Layer 1 infrastructure operators. With reusability now demonstrated end to end, the open question is no longer engineering but pricing.

Lockup Supply Meets the $150 Line

The pressure behind Monday's dip appears structural rather than mission-driven. Roughly 328 million shares became eligible for trading after SpaceX's post-IPO lockup expired on September 24, sharply enlarging the float in a market still adjusting to the listing, and President Gwynne Shotwell recently sold $52.5 million in stock under a pre-arranged trading plan — disclosed, rule-based selling, but selling all the same. In short, Starship delivered good news into a market absorbing a far larger supply of tradable shares. Options positioning now frames the near-term battle. Open-interest data shows around 22,700 call contracts stacked at the $150 strike for Friday's expiry, while put positioning clusters near $140 — a strike map suggesting traders expect the stock to resolve upward, but with a hard ceiling at $150 where dealers' hedging can amplify pinning behavior. A clean break above that level could invite FOMO-driven chase, while rejection risks a retest of the lower strikes. The analyst picture remains split: MoffettNathanson carries a Neutral rating with a $142 price target, versus an average analyst target of $222.42 — a spread that captures the uncertainty over how much reusability is already embedded in the price. Institutional flows, meanwhile, have leaned the other way: Vanguard's VOX accumulation lifted its SPCXB stake by 85.2% in two months, sizeable buying while the lockup overhang was building. The next few sessions — with Friday's expiry settling the $150/$140 strikes — should clarify whether fresh supply or positioning demand sets the tape. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

$136.8 Support in Focus

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $152.28 resistance at 80/100, driven by the confluence of Value Area High and the 0.618 Fibonacci level, while the $136.81 support scores 70/100 on Fibo 0.382, point-of-control volume and a flipped former resistance. Spot trades at $146.53, down 1.56% over 24 hours on $22.3 million in volume, with RSI at 47.33, a bearish MACD signal and a sideways trend; the Fear & Greed reading of 74 (Greed) argues against capitulation. A daily close above $148.94 (58/100) would invalidate the bearish read and open the $152.28 ceiling; losing $136.81 targets $127.42.