NEW YORK (ANP) – SpaceX ended its first trading day on the New York stock exchange higher. The stock rose over 19 percent on Friday to nearly 161 dollars, against an introductory price of 135 dollars per share. The IPO of Elon Musk’s space company was the largest ever, in which the company raised 75 billion dollars.
After the gains on the first day of trading, SpaceX’s market value reached more than 2 trillion dollars. According to CNBC, it is now the sixth most valuable company in the United States, behind Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Investors in SpaceX are primarily putting money into Musk’s future predictions. He wants to place data centres in space and aspires to missions to Mars. SpaceX is currently loss-making. Shares of Tesla, another company owned by CEO Elon Musk, rose 1.8 percent.
Peace agreement
Furthermore, the mood on the stock markets was optimistic after mediator Pakistan reported that Iran and the United States had reached an agreement on the text of a peace deal. This increased hopes for a swift end to the Iran war and a quick reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Dow Jones index closed 0.7 percent higher at 51,202.26 points. The broad S&P 500 index climbed 0.5 percent to 7,431.46 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.3 percent to 25,888.84 points.
On Thursday, US stock markets had already risen by up to 2.5 percent following the cancellation of planned US attacks on Iran by President Donald Trump. At that time, Trump also reported that an agreement was as good as finalised, although hesitant messages were still coming from Iran.
Oil Prices
Oil prices fell further on Friday. A barrel of US oil became 3.8 percent cheaper at $84.35. Brent crude, the benchmark for oil from the Middle East, cost 3.9 percent less at $86.86 per barrel.
While investors focused their attention on SpaceX, shares of other aerospace companies actually fell. Rocket Lab, Redwire, and Firefly Aerospace dropped by up to 19.1 percent.
