SpaceX didn’t just go public. It went supernova.
The Elon Musk-led aerospace giant debuted on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12, listing at roughly $135 per share before ripping nearly 60% higher to surpass $215 during intraday trading. That move briefly pushed SpaceX’s market capitalization beyond $2.7 trillion, making it one of the most explosive IPO debuts in history. And now, a wave of newly launched leveraged ETFs is channeling that euphoria into amplified bets that are attracting enormous capital.
Leveraged ETFs and the wall of money
Within hours of SPCX hitting the tape, leveraged exchange-traded funds designed to offer 2x daily exposure to the stock began trading. One of those products, from the Defiance family of ETFs, saw nearly 1 million shares change hands on its very first day. The number of ETF holders for SPCX shares jumped from 4 to 40 on the first trading day alone. Among the new holders: BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion in assets under management.
Here’s the thing about leveraged ETFs. They’re designed for short-term traders, not long-term holders. A 2x daily fund resets every day, meaning returns compound in ways that can diverge wildly from the underlying stock over weeks or months. In English: if SPCX goes up 10% one day and down 10% the next, a 2x leveraged fund doesn’t break even. It loses money.
