SPCX Rallies 6% as $100B Lockup Passes Without a Selloff

SPCX rallied 6% Thursday as its $100B insider lockup passed without a selloff. WDC and SanDisk fell despite beats. July NFP at 6 PM IST sets Fed hike odds.

TLDR

SpaceX bounced 6% Thursday even as up to 911.5 million insider shares became eligible for sale, more than doubling the public float from 639 million to roughly 1.55 billion. The feared selloff never arrived and Nvidia announced an orbital AI data center partnership with SpaceX the same day. The broader tape was less kind. Western Digital fell 13% and SanDisk slid 11% after both beat Q4 estimates but delivered guidance that barely cleared expectations, dragging the DRAM index down 7%. Dow lost 464 points to close at 53,885, S&P 500 slipped 0.18% to 7,710, and Nasdaq finished flat at 26,348. All eyes turn to the July nonfarm payrolls print at 6:00 PM IST today. Consensus is 83,000 jobs with unemployment holding at 4.2%. Fed funds futures put September rate hike odds at roughly 55% after last week’s 9-3 FOMC hold, and Warsh has signalled the committee is now in watchful thinking rather than watchful waiting. Unitree Pre-IPO subscription opens Monday on CoinDCX Global Futures at a $9 billion valuation.

Market Regime

The setup is a data-driven pivot. After a week where Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all printed record highs Tuesday, Thursday delivered the first meaningful profit-taking session as the tape absorbed a memory-chip guidance reset and prepared for the July jobs report. Chip stocks are trading like the AI capex bar has become impossible to clear even on beats, and yields at the long end sit near 19-year highs as three Fed hawks lean into a September move.

What could break it goes both ways today. A soft NFP print pulls September hike odds back below 50%, dollar softens, and small caps and rate-sensitive names catch a bid into next week. A hot print, especially with an upside wage number, and the 30-year runs at 5.30% while chip names get repriced again. Wall Street is watching the household survey and participation rate more than the headline given June’s 507,000 drop in reported employment despite a lower jobless rate.

Bullish Factors

• SpaceX lockup expiration passed without the feared selloff. SPCX closed up 6% Thursday as institutional demand absorbed the 911.5 million shares that became eligible for sale, more than doubling the public float. Insider selling has come in lighter than expected.
• Nvidia and SpaceX announced a partnership Thursday to build an orbital AI data center. The tie-up gives SpaceX a direct AI compute revenue lever and reinforces the Starlink infrastructure moat.
• Initial jobless claims came in at 199,000 for the week ended August 1, below the 202,000 consensus. Four-week average fell to 198,750, the lowest reading since October 2022.
• Q2 non-farm productivity rose 1.4% versus the 0.6% consensus, and Challenger July layoffs plunged to roughly 33,000, the lowest in nearly three years.
• S&P 500 earnings season is running hot. Of 411 companies reported so far, 87% have beat versus 82% last year, average beat 14%, average year-on-year earnings growth 25%.
• Goldman Sachs maintained a bullish view on the memory chip cycle Friday morning, citing DRAM supply tightness that could persist through 2030.

Bearish Factors

• Memory chip guidance reset dominated Thursday. Western Digital fell 13% after beating Q4 with $3.56 EPS versus $3.29 consensus but guiding Q1 revenue of $4.0 to $4.2 billion versus the $4.01 billion Street estimate, a beat that failed to clear a bar set by 202% YTD returns.
• SanDisk followed with an 11% drop after fiscal Q4 revenue of $8.97 billion crushed the $8.3 billion consensus, EPS of $39.25 beat the $34.45 estimate, but Q1 guide of $10.55 billion midpoint was not blowout enough for a stock up 469% year to date.
• DRAM Semiconductor ETF fell 7% to $50, dragging Micron down 6% to $844 and Seagate down 6% to $786. AppLovin tumbled almost 20% on mixed quarterly results.
• Three FOMC dissenters — Hammack, Kashkari, and Logan — voted for a hike at the July 29 meeting. Fed funds futures now price roughly a 55% chance of a September hike. JPMorgan’s base case shifted to a September 25 basis point increase this week.
• 30-year Treasury yield held near 5.24% after the FOMC hold, its highest level in 19 years. 10-year yield settled at 4.67% after climbing 7 basis points post-Fed.
• Middle East tensions returned Thursday. Reports of fresh disruption in the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent back toward $80 and lifted energy shares while pressuring risk assets.

Asian Markets This Morning

Asia traded cautious into the US jobs print. Nikkei 225 closed at 65,606.71, down 0.12%, extending Thursday’s losses as chipmakers slipped for a second session on AI-trade concerns and a rebound in oil prices. Kospi finished at 6,258.71, down 0.60%, as SK Hynix gave back another 5% and SoftBank fell more than 2% following the US memory rout. The Kospi has now retraced part of the historic 17.91% single-day gain from July 31.

Hang Seng traded weaker at 25,530 on tech drag, while Shanghai Composite added 0.57% to 3,900.35 on strategic-industry buying ahead of the Unitree IPO subscription opening Monday. Japanese household spending fell 3.3% in June versus a 1% gain expected, adding to the yen weakness backdrop. Korean regulators announced after-hours ETF trading rules starting September 14 to smooth volatility risk.

What Moved Wall Street Today

Thursday was a coordinated pause. All three major indexes came in mixed with a downside skew as investors took profits ahead of the July jobs print. The Dow lost 464.02 points, or 0.85%, to 53,885.10, giving back most of Wednesday’s record close at 54,349. The S&P 500 slipped 0.18% to 7,709.96, and the Nasdaq Composite ended nearly flat at 26,348.35, down 0.06%.

SPCX was the surprise winner, closing up around 6% to $114.55 as the first post-IPO lockup tranche expired without triggering the selloff bears had positioned for. Bloomberg later reported the stock finished essentially unchanged as insider selling pressure emerged into the close, but the initial reaction to the 911.5 million share unlock was buying. Rocket Lab, AST SpaceMobile, and Intuitive Machines all gained 5% or more on space-sector sympathy. On the other side of the tape, Western Digital shed 13% to around $438, SanDisk fell 11% to $1,198, Micron dropped 6% to $844, and AppLovin tumbled roughly 20% after mixed results. Energy was the lone sector strength as oil rebounded on Strait of Hormuz uncertainty. Ten of eleven S&P sectors closed red.

Assets in Focus

SPCX (SpaceX)

SPCX cleared the largest single overhang since June 12 IPO with the 911.5 million share lockup expiring Thursday. Public float roughly tripled from 4.9% to 11.8% of shares outstanding, adding $100 billion of eligible supply. What actually happened was a 6% rally, driven by three things. First, Nvidia announced an orbital AI data center partnership with SpaceX the same morning, giving the Q2 AI segment (which grew 247% year on year to $2.56 billion) an incremental commercial hook. Second, an additional 455.8 million share tranche stayed locked because SPCX is trading below its $135 IPO price. Third, Musk’s roughly 6.4 billion share block does not unlock until June 2027. Q2 revenue came in at $7.81 billion, beating estimates by 14.6%, with Starlink subscribers at 12 million. RKLB, ASTS, and LUNR all rallied on sympathy. The stock recovered from Wednesday’s all-time low around $108. Watch how the tape absorbs new supply over the next few sessions and whether Musk’s upcoming shareholder call frames a path back above the $135 IPO price.

RKLB (Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab reports Q2 after the US close on Monday, August 10, which shows as 1:30 AM to 2:30 AM IST Tuesday, August 11 for Indian traders. Consensus revenue is $231.6 million against company guidance of $225 to $240 million. Backlog is the number that anchors the story at $2.2 billion, up 108% year on year, with management previously guiding roughly 36% of that backlog to convert to revenue in the next 12 months. The August 4 Space Force SB-AMTI contract was Rocket Lab’s largest ever satellite manufacturing award and specifically names the still-unflown Neutron rocket as launch vehicle with a hard 2028 delivery deadline. That puts pressure on the Neutron Q4 2026 debut timeline. The Archimedes Vacuum engine milestone from July is a positive read on progress. Analyst average price target sits at $111 with a range of $97 to $150. Stock closed near $109 Thursday, roughly 12% off recent highs.

DRAM Semiconductor Index

The DRAM index is the CoinDCX Global Futures memory-cycle proxy for retail. It fell 7% Thursday to around $50 as Western Digital and SanDisk guidance reset the group despite both companies beating on the quarter. WDC Q1 FY27 guide of $4.0 to $4.2 billion cleared consensus of $4.01 billion, and SanDisk’s Q1 FY27 midpoint of $10.55 billion topped the Street, but a 202% YTD run for WDC and 469% for SanDisk left no room for anything short of an outright beat-and-raise. Micron dropped 6% to $844 in sympathy, Seagate dropped 6% to $786. Goldman Sachs Friday morning reiterated its bullish DRAM view citing supply tightness through 2030. Micron’s own fiscal Q4 report in the coming weeks becomes the next real test for whether Thursday’s reaction was cycle-top or expectations reset. Options positioning on WDC and MU points to modestly bearish skew.

UNITREE (Pre-IPO)

Unitree Technology, also known as Yushu Technology, priced its Shanghai STAR Market IPO Thursday at 150.8 yuan per share, valuing the Hangzhou-based humanoid robot maker at roughly 61 billion yuan, or $9.04 billion. Unitree becomes the first mainland-listed humanoid robot maker in China. Subscription opens Monday, August 10. The company is selling 40.45 million new shares, roughly 10% of enlarged capital, raising 6.1 billion yuan. Strategic investors include DeepSeek. Revenue quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan in 2025 with humanoid robots contributing 868 million yuan, more than half of total revenue and overtaking Unitree’s quadruped robot business for the first time. Gross margin runs near 60%. 5,500 humanoid robots shipped in 2025, the highest globally. First half 2026 revenue projected to grow 35.6% to 45.4% year on year. Founder Wang Xingxing retains control via Class A shares carrying 10 votes each. US sales made up 13.3% of 2025 revenue and are a risk factor given new FCC restrictions on foreign-made connected robots. Unitree is now the primary Pre-IPO exposure alongside SPCX on CoinDCX Global Futures.

Index Levels to Watch

On the S&P 500, Thursday’s 7,709.96 sits 30 basis points off Tuesday’s all-time high near 7,736.52. A soft NFP that pushes September hike odds back below 50% would put the index within reach of a new record. A hot print risks a retest of the 7,600 level. On the Nasdaq Composite, 26,584.99 is the ATH from Tuesday and Thursday’s 26,348.35 sits below the 50-day moving average that broke intraday. The 26,000 handle is the first technical level bears will look at on a downside NFP miss. Dow at 53,885 sits below Wednesday’s 54,349 record and 53,000 becomes the next reference on a broader risk-off. For SPCX, $114 has become the short-term battleground with $108 the recent Wednesday low and $135 the IPO price reference above. The DRAM index at $50 sits at the low of the recent range. Watch $48 as the next support and $54 as the near-term rejection level. For KOSPI, 6,258 needs to hold to keep July 31’s historic snapback intact.

Disclaimer

This blog is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument. Index and stock levels referenced in this blog are context reference points, not trading signals. Perpetual futures involve significant risk including the possibility of losing more than the initial margin. Please consult a SEBI registered advisor before making investment decisions. CoinDCX Global Futures products are made available through partners as per applicable regulations. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.

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