By Al Root
The company best know of its moon landers, Intuitive Machines, reported record first-quarter sales. The stock was down in early trading.
Space can be harsh. Investors can be worse.
The company announced first-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.7 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, from sales of $186.7 million on Thursday. Wall Street was looking for a $7.9 million Ebitda loss from sales of $200 million, according to FactSet.
A year ago, Intuitive reported an Ebitda loss of $6.6 million from sales of $62.5 million.
Earnings are impressive, but Intuitive is still a young company carving out a business in the growing space economy. Sales matter more than earnings.
Shares were down 4.2% in premarket trading at $34.20, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively.
Expectations were also high ahead of the report. Coming into Thursday trading, Intuitive Machines' stock was up 120% year to date and up 202% over the past 12 months.
Things aren't too different from expectations, though. Intuitive maintained its full-year guidance for sales of about $950 million and positive Ebitda. Wall Street currently projects Ebitda of $15 million and sales of $942 million.
Along with record quarterly sales, Intuitive closed its acquisition of satellite builder Lanteris Space Systems in the first quarter.
"Intuitive Machines continues to execute, grow, and win new business at record pace," said CEO Steve Altemus in a news release. "Our acquisition of Lanteris has been immediately accretive with the combined entity already creating value."
Intuitive Machines first made headlines sending two lunar landers to the moon, Odysseus and Athena. Both tipped over. Still, they managed to land autonomously. And Odysseus was the first privately funded lander to make a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 14, 2026 09:18 ET (13:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments