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When astronomers hunt for a new planet, they don’t see it with their own eyes. They watch the wobble, or the way a massive, unseen body tugs everything around it off course. For years, that is exactly how investors traded SpaceX (SPCX). They couldn’t own the company itself, so they bought its gravitational shadows: the satellite makers, the launch companies, the Earth-imaging outfits orbiting the same idea.
Then the planet appeared.
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135, opened near $150, and within days punched through $225, more than 50% above its offer price, pulling its valuation toward the neighborhood of $3 trillion.
This is the biggest public debut in market history. And the moment the real thing was tradable, the shadows went dark. The proxies that had run up for years on borrowed light started falling back toward earth.
