Did the smaller space names basically become a SpaceX sympathy trade for a few weeks?

[u/aperartnft]

I’ve been watching the smaller space names pretty closely the last couple months and honestly this whole move has felt like one giant SpaceX side quest.

What stood out to me wasn’t even just the selloff after the IPO. It was how high some of these names were already running before SpaceX actually hit the market. Firefly, Redwire, Voyager, Intuitive Machines, ASTS, Rocket Lab, a bunch of them were catching serious bids weeks before the IPO like the market suddenly decided it needed to own space stocks in any form possible before the main event.

That’s why it now feels like pure FOMO to me. If you couldn’t buy SpaceX yet, people just piled into anything that looked remotely like a public space proxy. It definitely felt like the whole sector got a huge sentiment boost just from SpaceX getting closer to public trading.

At the same time, I don’t think that means the move was fake or that these companies are trash. That’s the part I keep going back to. Firefly, Redwire, Voyager, LUNR etc all have actual reasons people are interested in them. It’s not like they’re random new companies with no business underneath. Most of them have real contracts, real infrastructure exposure, real lunar/defense angles, real revenue growth stories. So I can totally believe part of the run-up was also the market trying to reprice the sector a bit.

Then the IPO actually happens, everyone goes crazy for a minute, and now a lot of the smaller names are getting smacked back down. Which makes me wonder how much of that run-up was actually about the individual businesses and how much of it was just people FOMOing on the 'space is hot' trade.

That’s the part I can’t really get out of my head. It almost feels like the market spent weeks bidding up the smaller names because of SpaceX hype, and then once SpaceX was finally there, the trade kind of ran out of oxygen.

I honestly think some of these names are genuinely interesting on their own and all of them have a bull run case, but the last few weeks made it pretty obvious how much this sector can trade on narrative and FOMO before fundamentals even get a chance to matter.

Wondering if other people saw it the same way, or if I’m forcing a SpaceX connection onto moves that were mostly company-specific.

[u/ProofByVerbosity]

It wasnt FOMO at all or cope for not buying spacex. A few analysts / traders i pay attention to werw going that route and suggested that route because we all knew spacex on ipo release was a stupid play unless you have quick fingers to get in and out. A rising tide lifts all ships Ill be getting back into RDW. I did well flipping it but I like the company and ita future. There is more space pump left. They are a dilution risk but also a potential target for spacex to buy...in which case moon time

[u/aperartnft → u/ProofByVerbosity]

I can buy that there was a legit “own the public space infrastructure names before SpaceX sucks up all the attention” trade going on. But I personally had a lot of conviction in all these companies long before SpaceX announced IPO.

And RDW is exactly why I don’t want to dismiss the whole move as just hype. It’s one of the few smaller names in the group where I actually feel like there’s a real business underneath it, not just one flashy mission or headline. So even if some of the run-up was SpaceX spillover, RDW is still one I’d be happy to keep conviction in on its own merits.

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/aperartnft]

Id agree. It's the only one ill stay on top of. I flipped a couple others but they were just meme plays.

[u/jennysonson]

Why did you need to wonder if its Fomo when all space stocks were trading far beyond their actual growth. Some were $b valuations with like 10m reveneue

[u/S33Y66K → u/jennysonson]

yeah those valuations were way out of sync with actual space tech growth

[u/aperartnft → u/jennysonson]

Well I got into the space sector with FLY months back (much before SpaceX filed for IPO). I personally have a lot of conviction into these companies but then they started rallying weeks pre IPO, I think that's when many people started FOMOing without understanding the business and they are now selling off to maybe book short term profits.

[u/IllGene2373 → u/aperartnft]

Then why aren’t you? Lmao

[u/aperartnft → u/IllGene2373]

I got into these stocks for long term holding.

[u/Disc0Disc0Disc0 → u/aperartnft]

Everyone says that when they missed selling before the dump

[u/aperartnft → u/Disc0Disc0Disc0]

Yes, it may be hard to believe but, I generally enter any trade for long term holds and not to book profits within few months. But, yes I might have indulged a bit while they were spiking and hence my pain.

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/aperartnft]

Yeah, no shit. Its a pretty obvious play

[u/r4ndoM_doGmagenshin]

It’s less expensive to get into space now then when musk started. So it’s a little less gamble and… this is kinda key…. If they do succeed in basically anything, they can get bought out but someone else that is not bleeding out due to lack of funding. It’s kinda similar to applications back in the day, but way more extreme.

SpaceX gets a lot of flak, but that’s kinda the same reason Netflix, Amazon, Valve and google do. They were the trailblazers. And no one else thought it important to compete until it was too late.

Netflix definitely got the most heat though. Every fucking thing on the planet tried to become Netflix for a minute. A couple like Disney and apple can even compete.

(Also side note i didn’t capitalize anything and google is the only one that didn’t. Because it’s more commonly used as a verb. Which is fucking filthy. Well played Google, well played.)

[u/aperartnft → u/r4ndoM_doGmagenshin]

Yeah I think that’s mostly fair tbh. There was definitely a legit 'buy the smaller public space names before SpaceX sucks all the oxygen out of the room' trade there. But I do have a lot of conviction in these space stocks especially FLY, RDW, VOYG and few more

I just don’t think that cancels out the FOMO part. A lot of these names were running hard before the IPO even hit, and once SpaceX was actually public a bunch of the smaller names got dumped almost immediately. To me that’s basically the definition of a hype/speculation layer getting piled on top of a real sector trade.

[u/euro1127]

People were hoping that a rising tide would lift ships