After a Thursday dip, which may have been caused by SpaceX, shares of Rocket Lab were soaring again.
The stock was up 9.7% in early trading at $137.63, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.
Helping boost shares was news that the company was awarded a $90 million contract to build satellites for the U.S. Space Force, as well as the completion of another successful launch.
The rise comes after some turbulence. Rocket Lab stock fell 6.6% on Thursday. That fall might have been tied to the release of SpaceX's IPO registration statement.
SpaceX is the space behemoth, accounting for more than half of the world's orbital launches, and is planning to raise a record amount of capital in a June IPO. Its pioneering use of reusable rockets lowered the cost of reaching orbit, opening new business opportunities, such as Starlink, its space-based broadband service.
That isn't necessarily a threat to Rocket Lab. If anything, SpaceX's breakthroughs have created the modern space economy.
But Rocket Lab trades for about 80 times estimated 2026 sales, similar to where SpaceX might trade based on recent IPO speculation. Maybe investors believed Rocket Lab needed to trade at a discount to SpaceX.
Or maybe they thought SpaceX's launch business was more profitable. (How profitable the launch business is matters for industry players, such as Rocket Lab.)
SpaceX's launch business generated 2025 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of $653 million. That was down from $1.2 billion in 2022. The 2025 Ebitda margin was 16%.
Maybe investors wanted a higher number. They also might have just been taking profits. Through Thursday trading, Rocket Lab stock was up more than 400%.
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