Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket streaks into orbit after launching from the Kennedy Space Center on its maiden flight, at Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 16, 2025.
Greg Newton | AFP | Getty Images
Pure-play space stocks flew higher on Tuesday, a rally that a Wall Street analyst pinned to exuberance around the sector after President Donald Trump‘s inauguration,
“Post the election, there seems to be this very deep and broad excitement about opening up private space opportunities,” Deutsche analyst Edison Yu told CNBC.
“It’s not just the headlines. When you talk to any (venture capital) investor, any institutional investor, any family office … it just seems like everybody has kind of gotten much more interested and excited (about) space,” said Yu. , whose coverage includes six space companies: BlackSky, Iridium, planet, Rocket Lab, telesat and viasat,
Several of the sector’s stocks climbed nearly 20% or more without clear individual catalysts, including Mynaric,Rocket Lab, moments, Intuitive MachinesPlanet and sidus,
Redwire, up 51.4%, was the day’s top performer after it announced its planned acquisition of defense technology company Edge Autonomy for nearly $1 billion and, as a result, forecast full-year 2025 revenue may reach as much as $605 million, about double from last year.
Investors also boosted Viasat, up 32.9%, as it reiterated that NASA selected its one of four companies for a five-year communications contract worth as much as $4.8 billion, to provide satellite connectivity services as part of the “Near Space Network.”
Trump briefly addressed space in his inauguration speech, but did not mention NASA or the space agency’s Artemis program, its current top priority that aims to return astronauts to the moon.
“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” Trump said, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk cheering in the audience behind him.
Space stocks in general have rallied since the presidential electionwith several seeing their share prices double or more in the past three months, according to FactSet.
Deutsche’s Yu pointed to three catalysts boosting the industry: Trump’s nomination of Jared Isaacmanto be the next NASA administrator, significant trading volume from retail investors and the expectation of more multibillion-dollar federal contracts up for grabs.
“After Jared Isaacman got picked as the next NASA administrator, that was very well received by the institutional community. If you talk to investors who follow space very closely, if you talk to people who are running the companies, that was seen as very positive. ” Yu said.
Space stocks largely rebounded in 2024 after the sector slumped widely in the years priorSeveral went screaming higher over the past 12 months, according to FactSet, with Intuitive Machines up 779%, Redwire up 715%, AST SpaceMobile up 648%, and Rocket Lab up 543%.
Yu doesn’t “expect them to repeat this crazy 2024 performance” in 2025, however. He described last year’s rebound as a significant re-rate of valuations that “were trading at very depressed” levels.
“These valuations, needless to say, are much richer than they were six months ago or even three months ago,” Yu said.
