Step aside, Palantir (PLTR), there’s a new valuation multiple king in the megacap tech stock town: SpaceX (SPCX).
The insight: With its scorching-hot debut on public markets now in the books, SpaceX is trading on a trailing 12-month price-to-sales ratio of 110 times, compared to 63 times for Palantir, which has long been viewed as the most richly valued megacap tech play in the game.
For perspective on how optimistic investors are about SpaceX, the price-to-sales ratio for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is 3.5 times. Even AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) clocks in with a ratio of 20 times.
The price-to-sales ratio is a valuation metric calculated by dividing a company’s market capitalization (or share price) by its total revenue. It shows how much investors are willing to pay for each dollar of sales.
As a general rule of thumb, a price-to-sales ratio below two is often considered attractive or potentially undervalued. But the metric varies by industry — high-growth tech or software companies frequently trade at much higher multiples (5x-10x or more) due to expected strong future growth.
SpaceX also trades at a 2x premium to Palantir on a trailing price-to-book ratio basis.
Quick analysis: The Elon Musk-led rocket company SpaceX officially priced its stock at $135 on June 11, offering 555.6 million shares. The pricing valued SpaceX at $1.78 trillion.
SpaceX made its historic public debut on the Nasdaq on June 12, when the stock officially opened for trading around midday at $150 per share.
Driven by heavy demand from both institutional and retail investors, the stock steadily climbed throughout the session before closing its first day at $160.95.
This successful 19.2% gain from its initial offering price instantly catapulted SpaceX to a massive $2.1 trillion market capitalization, according to Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace.
SpaceX stock rose another 10% to $178 on Monday in its second day of trading.
Bottom line: At SpaceX’s current price-to-sales ratio, investors are betting Elon Musk hits all his goals for the company in the coming years. That includes driving more sales from Starlink, doing business on Mars, and winning larger pieces of the government contract pie.
Early SpaceX investor Ron Baron said over the weekend that the company could go on to become worth “$10 trillion, $20 trillion or $30 trillion.”
Whether Musk achieves this mission — and drives the market cap toward Barron’s bullish call — is anyone’s guess. But we will note that Palantir has managed to grow into its valuation amid strings of impressive top-line quarters since going public in 2020. The path has been cut for SpaceX to do the same.