By Suzanne McGee, Caroline Valetkevitch and Shashwat Chauhan
NEW YORK, June 15 (Reuters) – The SpaceX IPO went off with a bang. Now investors turn their attention to a jam-packed calendar ahead for Elon Musk’s rocket, internet and AI firm that may bring volatility.
Just in the next two months, the sixth-largest U.S. listed company by market value will have a handful of events – ranging from the listing of options to the expiration of investor holding periods to index inclusion – that could help dictate trading in its shares and the broader market.
Friday’s launch of the largest-ever IPO was well managed from start to finish, investors said, drawing strong orders from retail and institutions alike and benefiting from Musk’s reputation for the Midas touch. But debate continues over what the right price for the stock is and to what extent SpaceX’s savvy marketing matches with its fundamentals.
“You have to look at it this way: are people actually investing in SpaceX or trading SpaceX? I am of the belief, and this is also other money managers that I’m talking to, that it’s the latter,” said Todd Schoenberger, chief investment officer at Crosscheck Management in Washington, D.C.
Here are some events that could help shape that argument over coming weeks:
OPTIONS TRADING
Options on SpaceX are set to begin trading as soon as Tuesday, with early activity expected to be heavy, volatile and likely expensive.
Options, which give holders the right but not the obligation to buy or sell shares at a predetermined price within a certain period, offer investors a low-cost way to play a company’s stock. If SpaceX behaves like Musk’s Tesla, it would be almost twice as volatile as the average stock, likely driving heavy options activity.
STOCK SALE RESTRICTIONS END
SpaceX plans to allow a large portion of its shares to become eligible for resale before the usual six-month restriction period post-IPO, under a staged system linked to the company’s performance, a company filing showed.
The approach, designed to avoid a large wave of shares hitting the market at once, helps make post-IPO trading more orderly – but at the cost of potential volatility spread across the six-month period rather than a single day. Some brokers are also imposing holding periods for shares acquired on Friday.
“We got shares of SpaceX for some of our clients (on Friday), and there’s a 31-day minimum holding period,” said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “So I think once some of those minimum holding periods end, you could see some selling pressure.”
