- SpaceX stock peaked at over $225 per share a week ago but has slid since then.
- AI-related stocks are losing value across domestic and global markets.
- Investors may be questioning ‘frothy’ valuations and projections amid the AI fervor.
The breathless investor enthusiasm for owning a slice of Elon Musk’s newly public SpaceX showed some tempering Tuesday as shares in the AI and space technology conglomerate briefly dipped below its debut open market pricing before recovering some losses later in the day.
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SpaceX shares entered the market last Friday selling at $150 share, a bump from the mostly exclusive $135 per share IPO pricing. The stock reached a high of just over $225 per share just over a week ago on its first full day of trading but has traveled a mostly downward path since, including a decline of over 16% yesterday.
SpaceX stock was selling for around $158 per share just ahead of the close of regular trading on Tuesday.
But while SpaceX is navigating the typically shifty winds of post-IPO reality, a broader decline in investor confidence in AI-related efforts has been rearing its head in both domestic and global investment markets so far this week.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Exchange lost over 1% during regular trading Monday, mostly dragged down by Amazon’s 5% decline. A slew of companies in microchip and computing component manufacturing also saw abrupt stock drops to start the week including Micron down 11%; Advanced Micro Devices down 5%; Qualcomm down 8% and and Intel down 4%.
Losses in the AI space mostly continued Tuesday, with the Nasdaq down over 1.4% around mid-afternoon.
AI clap back goes global
U.S. chipmakers and AI developers aren’t alone in seeing market declines as international players also saw shares drop as investors show some concern, perhaps, over the breakneck rate at which AI-related markets have accelerated in recent months.
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While the South Korean stock market has led the world in growth since 2025, according to a report from the New York Times, it’s a ride that has been primarily fueled by the success of the country’s top microchip makers, Samsung and SK Hynix. When those two companies each saw a stock drop of around 12% on Tuesday, the downturn dragged South Korea’s Kospi index down over 10% for the day and the selloff volume led, at one point, to a brief halt in trading.
“Today’s big falls in tech stocks without any major catalyst are another illustration of rising volatility in these stocks, a result of what increasingly looks like frothy earnings expectations and/or valuations,” James Reilly, senior market economist with Capital Economics, said in a note to clients, per a report from CBS News.
Reilly noted that the drop in tech stocks in recent weeks has put some market heavyweights, including Meta and Microsoft, in “bear” market territory — when a company’s shares drop at least 20% from their most recent peak.
Nigel Green, CEO of financial consultancy firm deVere Group, said investor skepticism is on the rise amid record-setting capital outlays by the developers of AI-centric hardware and software.
“For a long time, the market treated AI spending as unquestionably positive,” Green said in an email to CBS. “Investors are now becoming more demanding. They want evidence that unprecedented spending will translate into unprecedented profits.”
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