What Investing Pros Are Saying About Spacex's First Day Of Trading

Norton pointed out that liquidity concerns stemming from the IPO — where investors sold other holdings to fund their purchases of SpaceX stock, sparking declines for the broader market — have not come to fruition. The Nasdaq 100 was up 0.88% as of 1:25 pm on Friday, while the S&P 500 was up 0.66%.

These risks still remain, she said, as Anthropic and OpenAI are still set to go public in the months ahead.

One longer-term implication of these IPOs to consider, Norton said, is that they will increasingly allow for greater transparency into the AI trade.

"One of the most persistent questions investors have is true AI implementation/AI demand," she told Business Insider. "Regular insight into model demand will help clarify that question, potentially giving investors greater confidence in the AI narrative overall (or vice versa)."

"As a venture capital investor, I view SpaceX's public debut as a landmark moment for the space and technology sectors," said Alves, whose firm was a private investor in SpaceX.

"The stock's strong opening reflects genuine market enthusiasm for the company's technological leadership and Starlink's growing recurring revenue."

He added that at current trading levels, however, the valuation appears stretched relative to near-term profitability.

"While the long-term opportunity remains compelling, investors should anticipate meaningful volatility as the market digests this historic IPO,' he said.

Shahin's office is in Torrance, California, which borders Hawthorne, the home of SpaceX's original HQ, and many SpaceX employees are clients, giving him a front-row seat to the firm's growth.

He said that many of his clients, who either owned the stock as employees or bought the stock through an SPV his firm set up in 2023, are sold on the "long-term vision and execution strate" and expect to hold it for the long term. That would be his recommendation for people who bought the stock on the Nasdaq Friday as well.

"Why else would you buy a stock at a 50 to 100x valuation multiple?" he said. Shahin believes in the vision, noting that the company is "rich" in future revenue opportunities in areas like mobile phone service, but it will be a bumpy ride.

"Most importantly, be ready for volatility, because now, when Blue Origin has a rocket that explodes, it is going to have some effect on this company," Shahin said. One challenge of leaving the private markets is that reputational issues play out in your stock price.

"Hey, SpaceX, be careful what you wish for," he said.

"The worst thing investors can do is buy it on the first day," Calcagni told Business Insider, explaining that "the pent-up demand" and "FOMO" will factor heavily into its stock price.

If you buy the stock at $175 in a secondary market transaction, you've "just funded all of the spectacular returns of earlier investors," Calcagni said.

"We joke that investors don't want an IPO allocation, they want a time machine," Calcagni said.

However, if you're deadset on buying early, be prepared to hold the stock for the long term, he said. Anyone buying on the secondary market, looking to make a "windfall" by "quickly flipping" the stock is likely to be disappointed if you look at the performance of other landmark IPOs. The business could exceed its expectations in the long term, but some of its biggest bets will take a while to come together.

Shah said that Friday's bullish price action is not surprising, and said the stock can continue its momentum into next week.

"I don't think there will be an issue for the next some trading days for the price to be up," he said. "I think it will be interesting to see what happens six months later."

Bickley said the SpaceX IPO frenzy is the start of a "blow-off top" in the AI trade.

"The AI story has sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and has become the only story, and I think this IPO is capitalizing on that," Bickley told Business Insider.

While he refrained from assigning an exact timeline, Bickley said there would ultimately be a normalization in AI stock valuations.

"I don't think this thing just keeps going up and to the right," he said, adding: "I think we'll start seeing things start to come back down to earth to some extent."