What the Media Didn't Tell You About SPCX — Lockup Dates, $28.5T TAM, and When to Actually Buy
What the Media
Didn't Tell You About SPCX
The lockup dates are already set. Employees are structurally forced to sell. The $28.5T market claim — examined. If you know these five things, you know when to buy. And when to wait.
- 01I've Never Bought a Stock. Here's Why I Spent 3 Months On This.
- 02SpaceX Lost $4.9B. I Couldn't Make Sense of It Either. Then I Dug In.
- 03Elon Musk: Genius, Con Artist, or Something in Between?
- 04Why Mars? Dream, Cover Story, or Both?
- 05Your Smartphone Is Already Connected to a Satellite.
- 06What the Media Didn't Tell You About SPCX. (You Are Here)
- 07How a Grain of Sand Survives the Wave
The question I kept coming back to through three months of research:
When do you actually buy?
Now? Wait? Wait for what exactly?
The financial press didn't answer this. But the S-1 filing did — if you read it carefully enough. The lockup schedule is in there. The float mechanics are in there. The TAM methodology is in there. Put it all together and a picture emerges.
① Only 4–5% of SPCX Is Actually Trading
SPCX jumped 19% on day one. That number sounds impressive. But it becomes misleading if you don't know this:
Only 4 to 5% of SpaceX shares are actually available for trading right now.
The other 95–96% is locked. Employees who've been paid in stock for 24 years. Early investors. Elon Musk. All locked up. Which means you have a very thin market — small buy orders move the price dramatically upward, small sell orders move it dramatically downward.
A thin float creates scarcity-driven price dynamics. The early run-up reflects genuine demand amplified by limited supply — not necessarily a consensus on fair value. As lockup tranches release over the coming months, the float grows, scarcity compresses, and the stock's price behavior normalizes. That normalization process is what creates the entry opportunities.
② The Lockup Schedule — Dates Already Set
This is the most important section for timing. The schedule comes directly from the S-1.
December 8, 2026 is the date to mark. Historically, 180-day lockup expirations create temporary price pressure.
Facebook IPO (2012) — dropped another 40% after lockup. Then rose 20x over the following decade.
Rivian — dropped 50% after lockup. Never recovered.
Beyond Meat — dropped 70% after lockup. Never recovered.
Same pattern. Completely different outcomes — because the underlying businesses were different. If SPCX drops in December, the question isn't whether to buy the dip. It's whether this is Facebook or Rivian. That judgment is your work to do.
③ The $28.5 Trillion TAM — What It Actually Means
SpaceX's S-1 claims a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion. That's roughly equal to U.S. GDP.
I spent time on this one. Here's what I found.
My conclusion: don't trust the $28.5T figure. Don't dismiss the direction it points.
④ 95x Price-to-Sales — Historical Context
SPCX is trading at roughly 95x trailing revenue. Is that a bubble?
Context matters. In 1999 at the peak of the dot-com bubble, Amazon traded at about 40x sales — then crashed 95%. It then rose 10,000% over the following two decades. Google's IPO in 2004 priced at roughly 20x sales. Nvidia in 2021 traded at 30x sales — then rose 10x as AI arrived.
SPCX at 95x is higher than all of them. Historically high. But there's a meaningful difference between SPCX and most dot-com-era companies: Starlink is generating $11.4 billion in revenue at 39% operating margins right now. Most 1999 companies had neither.
At 95x sales, the market is essentially saying: Starlink will grow subscribers 10x+, xAI will reach profitability, and Starship will revolutionize launch economics — simultaneously. If all three happen, today's price looks cheap in hindsight. If any one fails to materialize, the multiple compresses significantly. That's the bet you're making at current prices.
⑤ The Price Hike — Timed One Month Before IPO
In May 2026 — one month before the IPO roadshow — SpaceX raised Starlink subscription prices by up to $10 per month.
Applied to 10.3 million subscribers, that's up to $1.2 billion in potential additional annual revenue. The timing — 30 days before the most important financial presentation in the company's history — was not coincidental.
Whether this was a genuine pricing correction or a deliberate narrative move is impossible to determine from the outside. But here's what I'm actually watching: are subscribers still growing after the price increase?
If yes — Starlink has real pricing power. No viable alternative. People pay and stay. That's a monopoly-adjacent position.
If no — subscribers start leaving as Amazon Kuiper launches commercially in mid-2026. That's the first real signal that competition is working.
The churn data starts appearing in Q3 and Q4 earnings reports. That's the most important number to watch. Not the stock price. The churn rate.
The Five Things Media Missed — Summary:
① Only 4–5% float → small trades = big price moves
② Dec 8 lockup expiry → largest supply pressure window
③ $28.5T TAM → inflated number, valid direction
④ 95x PSR → historically high, but real business underneath
⑤ Pre-IPO price hike → watch churn in Q3/Q4 reports
Knowing these five things doesn't tell you exactly when to buy.
Nothing does. Anyone who claims otherwise is selling something.
But knowing them means you're making an informed decision — not a reactive one.
Part 7 is the last piece: what a grain of sand actually does with all of this.
How a Grain of Sand
Survives the Wave
Professional investors can't do one thing: wait long enough.
That's the only structural advantage available to people like us.
댓글
댓글 쓰기