Lately, SpaceX seems to be the only stock that retail investors care about.
Retail traders poured more money into SpaceX over the previous three trading sessions than they did for all of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks combined, according to data from Vanda Research. Shares of the Elon Musk-controlled reusable-rocket maker were trading at $193.33 on Wednesday, up 43.2% from the $135 offer price, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The Magnificent Seven, a group of megacap tech companies — including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla — have been extremely popular among retail investors over the past few years. Nvidia often tops the list as retail investors’ most purchased stock, and did so as recently as last week, according to Vanda’s data.
But that changed as soon as SpaceX started trading.
Retail investors net bought $369.8 million worth of SpaceX stock in the first three days of trading, according to Vanda. For perspective, Vanda said that retail traders bought $88.2 million worth of Nvidia stock over those same three days. Meanwhile, they net sold shares of Tesla and Apple — two other companies that have held the title of retail’s favorite stock.
Even if you combine the buying activity of all the Magnificent Seven stocks with two of the most popular index-tracking ETFs — the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and the Invesco QQQ Trust Series — it still was roughly the same as SpaceX’s.
“Retail investors have bought roughly the same amount of SPCX over the last 3 sessions as they have bought NVDA, GOOGL, AMZN, MSFT, META, QQQ and SPY combined. Notably, we’ve excluded TSLA and AAPL from that comparison because both have actually seen net selling,” Vanda wrote in a note.
Retail investors have bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of SpaceX stock since its IPO Photo: Vanda
This fervor for SpaceX shares is noteworthy because it comes at a time when retail investors are actually a little skeptical of the market. Vanda data showed that last week saw the lowest weekly retail net buying activity for single stocks since March 2020 — even with SpaceX’s IPO.
“SpaceX wasn’t a tide that lifted all boats — and retail flows into some of the other AI-linked stocks have been more subdued than maybe one would’ve expected. What we’re seeing is really a direct focus on one name, with limited spillover effects,” a Vanda spokesperson told MarketWatch.
Instead, retail investors put their money into index-tracking and thematic ETFs, in order to gain broader, more diversified exposure to the stock market.
Single-stock buying has picked up slightly this week compared to last week, but SpaceX is driving a lot of that activity. Retail investors who purchased SpaceX’s stock at its IPO price are likely feeling good about their decision, with shares currently up roughly 45%. However, the stock dropped almost 5% on Wednesday.
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