SPCX Grinds Back to Its Post-IPO Low as Traders De-Risk Into the Starship Flight 13 Retry

No Catalyst, Just the Tape

SPCX has fallen 4.26% to $122.80 over the past seventeen hours, and the honest read is that nothing new broke. The tracker is simply grinding back down to the $122.10 low it set last week, the floor of a range that has held since the stock slipped below its $135 IPO price. This looks like de-risking rather than a reaction — traders trimming exposure ahead of a binary event they can't model, not selling on a specific piece of news. With roughly $97M of 24h volume on the Hyperliquid perp, the flow reads as repositioning into that event, not panic on a headline.

Flight 13 Is the Only Event That Matters

The reason nobody wants to hold size here is scheduled for 6:45 PM ET tonight. Starship Flight 13 aborted at T-0 on July 16, when four of the Super Heavy booster's 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite and the flight computer called an automatic hold seconds before liftoff. Elon Musk said two Raptors would be pulled and replaced; SpaceX has since done the swap and rolled the stack back to the pad. What rides on the flight is more than a test article — it carries the first 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the payload underpinning the constellation SpaceX needs Starship to actually build. A clean flight is the first genuine chance to flip sentiment; another scrub keeps the stock nailed to its low.

The Overhang the Rocket Can't Fix

Even a successful launch runs straight into a valuation problem. SPCX trades at roughly 65 times sales with no earnings yet reported, a multiple that looks stretched against any profitable large-cap. The stock is now down about 45% from its $225.64 post-IPO high, and two more overhangs are queued up right behind the launch: as much as 20% of insider shares become eligible to sell from late July through an August 11 unlock, and analysts expect the debut earnings report around August 6. Not everyone is heading for the exit — Cathie Wood's Ark bought roughly $51M of SPCX on Friday, leaning into the drawdown. But between a demanding multiple, an incoming supply unlock, and a rocket that still hasn't flown, the path of least resistance stays lower until one of those unknowns resolves.