Space Exploration Technologies’ Starship launch technology is likely to serve as critical infrastructure for a resurgence in space exploration, and the company’s stock price could increase fivefold, Raymond James said. The investment firm initiated coverage of the space company with a strong buy. It also has an $800 price target on the stock, suggesting an upside of 399% from Monday’s closing price. Raymond James served as one of several underwriters for SpaceX’s IPO, along with lead underwriters Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other major banks. “We see the company as one of the defining industrial infrastructure companies of the 21st century,” analyst Brian Jeshuare said in a note to clients on Tuesday. “The premise of our paper is that Starship will successfully industrialize orbital transportation, transforming orbital launches from a bespoke aerospace capability to a transportation network defined by commercial aviation-like flight cadences and continually declining unit costs.” Starship is a launch vehicle developed by SpaceX to deliver objects of 100 tons or more into orbit, and could help SpaceX tap a total addressable market of about $30 trillion, the analyst added. “We believe SpaceX is building the foundational platform for the next generation of industrial capabilities, just as railroads, power grids, and the Internet reshaped previous economic eras,” Gesuare wrote. Beyond transportation, SpaceX could also establish itself with products and services powered by artificial intelligence, Raymond James said. The company has the potential to commercialize a low-cost infrastructure platform that transforms electricity into useful AI-driven insights, the bank’s memo said. “As AI scales, binding constraints increasingly shift toward the physical systems needed to generate intelligence at scale,” Gesuale wrote. “We believe SpaceX is building the lowest-cost platform for converting power into useful intelligence.” Raymond James’ call echoes the consensus on the street. As of early Tuesday, two-thirds of analysts covering SpaceX had a buy or strong buy rating on the stock, according to LSEG data. The call came after the end of a mandatory 25-day quiet period for underwriters of the SpaceX IPO. After the deadline, reports from IPO underwriters flooded Wall Street, with most analysts setting price targets between $200 and $250. SpaceX stock closed Monday at $160.42, close to the level it reached at the end of the first day of trading.
