A lot of investors will probably be wondering if they should buy SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) for their ISA portfolios. Especially after the stock blasted off on its debut on Friday (12 June) — up 19.2% to about $161.
A fair few UK retail investors managed to invest at the IPO price of $135 through platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell. Before the listing, reports noted that demand was very strong, leading me to believe that the stock would pop on the first day.
But what about the future? How much could £5,000 invested in SpaceX become by next year? Let’s look at the early broker price targets to try and get a better idea.
The one-year target
Now that the company has listed, analysts and research platforms are starting to publish some forward-looking numbers. According to my data provider, four analysts have so far weighed in with forecasts.
Three of them have SpaceX stock as a Buy while one rates it a Sell. The average price target among them is $189, which is about 17.5% above the current level.
Of course, these are just estimates rather than promises. They’re probably best viewed as educated weather reports, given that analysts constantly update their forecasts, as do weather apps.
But if this average proves accurate, and assuming no currency movements, it implies that a £5,000 investment could be worth roughly £5,875 in a year’s time.
How likely is this?
Again, it’s important to stress that this isn’t guaranteed. If SpaceX climbs further in the coming days, a few brokers will probably come out to pour cold water on the red-hot share price/valuation.
That’s because SpaceX is polarising, similar to Tesla, Elon Musk’s other public company. Almost all of its valuation today — a whopping $2.1trn market cap — is based on expectations for massive future growth (which may or may not materialise).
It’s also worth remembering that disruptive growth stocks like this are often incredibly volatile. Look at Palantir, which after a strong multi-year run is now 38% lower than its November high.
A 50%+ peak-to-trough decline isn’t uncommon for highly-priced growth shares, and SpaceX will almost certainly experience a handful of these in future years.
How much is SpaceX expected to grow?
Fortunately, we’ve also now got some rough estimates regarding SpaceX’s expected growth trajectory going forward.
Below, I’ve listed the latest forecasts up to 2028, along with last year’s figures.
| Revenue | Net profit/(loss) | |
| 2028 | $97.7bn | $800m |
| 2027 | $64.5bn | ($1.2bn) |
| 2026 | $34.5bn | ($8.4bn) |
| 2025 | $18.7bn | ($4.9bn) |
As we can see, SpaceX is expected to almost double revenue this year, driven by Starlink’s surging subscriber base and renting out AI compute capacity to Google and Anthropic. The latter deals could be worth over $70bn in aggregate running up to 2029.
However, there’s a risk these contracts may be terminated if SpaceX doesn’t provide access to a specified number of GPUs (a large amount). Either way, with losses expected until at least 2028, it leaves the current valuation sitting at an astronomical level.
Research shows that many high-profile IPOs end up lower after 12–18 months (once the hype dies down). So, while I really like SpaceX the company, I’m not interested in the stock at $161.
If it crashes to well under $100 though, I’ll take a serious look.
Should you invest £5,000 in Space Exploration Technologies Corp. - Class A right now?
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Ben McPoland has no position in any of the companies mentioned.
