SpaceX (SPCX) stock is down around 4% at the open on Monday, trading near $145.30, not far from its 52-week low. The drop comes as China confirmed it successfully recovered a Long March 10B rocket booster over the weekend.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX
Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned wasn’t rattled. He reiterated his Outperform rating and $239 price target on SPCX, suggesting over 70% upside from where the stock sits today.
Harned had only initiated his Buy rating on SPCX last week. Monday’s note doubles down on that call.
China landed the Long March 10B first-stage booster on July 10 using an offshore platform, in a test that drew comparisons to SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 booster landings. The move marked a step forward in China’s reusable rocket program.
Harned acknowledged the milestone but put it in context. The landing came roughly six months ahead of his own timeline, but he sees the gap between China and SpaceX as still wide.
The key distinction Harned makes: China has landed a booster, but it hasn’t relaunched one. That’s a different thing entirely.
SpaceX has been landing and relaunching Falcon 9 boosters for close to a decade. In 2025, the company completed 165 launches. That kind of operational tempo comes from years of proven reuse, not just a single landing.
China would need to demonstrate consistent relaunch capability and scale up production before it could match that pace. Harned sees that as a multi-year challenge at minimum.
There’s also a hardware difference worth noting. Long March 10 can only reuse its first stage. SpaceX’s Starship is designed for full reuse — both stages — though that capability hasn’t been fully demonstrated yet either.
Beyond Bernstein, other analysts have been piling in since SpaceX’s IPO.
Raymond James set a Street-high target of $800, implying upside of around 440%. Deutsche Bank initiated with a Buy and a $255 target. Macquarie and Clear Street both came in with Outperform and Buy ratings respectively, with targets of $250 and $217.
The consensus on TipRanks sits at Strong Buy, based on 22 Buy ratings, four Holds, and one Sell. The average price target across the Street is $246.43, which would represent a 76% gain from Monday’s trading price.
China is also moving fast on broader space ambitions. It has filed with the ITU to place more than 200,000 satellites in low Earth orbit and is developing a lunar research station.
Despite those ambitions, SPCX stock’s average analyst target remains more than $100 above where it trades today.
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