SpaceX Stock Catches Rare Double Upgrade. How Shares Can Rise 70%.

Coming into Friday trading, SpaceX stock was up about 7% from its $135 June IPO price. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Key Points

Phillip Securities analyst Glenn Thum upgraded SpaceX shares from Sell to Buy, skipping Hold.
Thum raised his SpaceX price target from $75 to $250, citing improving demand for artificial intelligence compute.
SpaceX reported third-quarter AI revenue of $7.6 billion, up more than 800% year over year.

SpaceX just accomplished a new feat. It wasn’t a rocket catch or satellite demonstration. Its shares caught a rare double upgrade on Wall Street.

Friday, Phillip Securities analyst Glenn Thum upgraded shares from Sell to Buy, skipping Hold, according to FactSet. Phillip didn’t immediately respond to a request for the full report.

Typically, Wall Street upgrades or downgrades stocks one notch at a time, from Sell to Hold and Hold to Buy, and vice versa.

Thum’s price target went up 233%, from $75 to $250, about 70% higher than recent levels, citing improving demand for AI compute.

SpaceX’s third-quarter AI revenue hit $7.6 billion, up more than 800% year over year. Total sales of $14.6 billion topped Wall Street estimates of $12.9 billion, growing about 160% year over year. What’s more, SpaceX management guided first quarter 2027 sales to a range of $33 billion to $35 billion, more than double the third-quarter total.

AI demand is so strong, and pricing so high, that CEO Elon Musk suggested that AI data centers that cost tens of billions to build could pay back in six months.

All that drove Thum’s upgrade and increasing optimism.

SpaceX stock was up 1.5% in premarket trading at $146.97, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.3% and 0.7%, respectively.

It’s been a wild week for SpaceX stock. Shares jumped 7.8% on Wednesday after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter results only to fall 9.1% on Thursday, after Meta Platforms’ third-quarter results raised further concerns about financing the AI buildout. Coming into Friday trading, SpaceX was down about 1% for the week, despite its blowout earnings report.

Wall Street loved the numbers. The average analyst price target is about $254, up $25 since earnings.

With the upgrade, one analyst still rates shares Sell, with 36 of 47, or 77%, rating shares Buy. The average Buy-rating ratio for S&P 500 stocks typically ranges from 55% to 60%.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

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