Stock Market Today, Oct. 21: Space Exploration Technologies Surges on Q3 Earnings Beat

NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/21/26

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +7.80%), a rocket launches and satellite broadband services provider, closed at $159.31, up 7.79%. Wednesday's gains followed stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings, and investors are now watching compute growth and Starlink demand.Trading volume reached 217.4M shares, coming in about 123% above its three-month average of 97.3M shares. Space Exploration Technologies IPO'd in 2026 and has fallen 1% since going public.

The S&P 500 rose 0.59% to 7,757, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.05% to 26,703. Among aerospace & defense peers, Rocket Lab closed at $53.67, up 5.44%, while AST SpaceMobile ended at $40.90, down 0.56%, as investors tracked launch and satellite-comms momentum.

SpaceX stock surged following its strong third-quarter report, but considering its performance, the increase may make sense.

Indeed, Q3 revenue rose by 161% yearly to $14.6 billion. Most of this came from AI-related revenue gains, which CEO Elon Musk refers to as "super intelligence." That segment reported 830% yearly revenue growth!

With that gain, it turned profitable, reporting a quarterly net income of $4.4 billion. That was well above the nearly $1.1 billion loss in the year-ago quarter.

Nonetheless, it is revenue projections that may have gained investor attention. Musk forecasted that annual revenue could reach between $500 billion and $1 trillion in 2027.

However, CFO Bret Johnsen was more cautious, projecting a more modest $33 billion to $37 billion in Q1 2027. Historically, Musk has not always delivered on such projections, at least on a shorter time frame. Nonetheless, it may hint at his goals for SpaceX.

Moreover, he again hinted at a possible merger with Tesla. Since Tesla's Roadster used SpaceX’s technology to fly, investors are likely not surprised by this news.

Finally, rising revenues have also reduced its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio to 68. Still, given the pace of its revenue growth and the company's long-term ambitions, one can understand why an investor might pay that multiple for the space stock.