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In today’s post:
📉 SpaceX's first "Sell" is here
🤥 Two Leaders, One Big Lie?
😬 Your China stocks? Big problem
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📉 SpaceX's First "Sell" is Here
Wall Street isn't all hugs and rocket emojis for Elon's baby.
SpaceX pulled off a historic IPO, jumped past a $2T valuation, and briefly made Musk the world's first trillionaire.
Then CFRA showed up with a wet blanket.
The bear case
CFRA analyst Keith Snyder slapped SpaceX with a Sell rating and a $135 price target on Friday.
His logic? The company is leaning hard on stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Starship commercialization
Orbital AI compute
xAI monetization
Snyder thinks the market is paying full price for a movie that hasn't been filmed.
His view: the proven businesses (rockets, Starlink) are worth a lot. Just not this much.
Even Starlink, the crown jewel, faces capacity costs, regulatory hoops, and competition from regular old broadband.
Basically: great company, fantasy price tag.
The bull case
Enter Matt Kennedy of Renaissance Capital, who sees things differently.
He thinks SpaceX could more than triple revenue in the next two years, which would make that $1.75T valuation look reasonable.
The catch? You have to squint really far into the future.
"This feels almost more like a trillion-dollar venture investment," Kennedy said.
Well you know what they always say… don't judge it by last quarter. Judge it by 2029.
Where's the money coming from?
Kennedy says most future revenue rides on the AI side, fueled by deals with Google and Anthropic.
Meanwhile:
Starship V4 is the keystone of the whole plan
Starlink brings in the most cash flow in the near term
He also waves off the giant $20T+ "total addressable market" claims floating around. Those prospectus numbers? He discounts them heavily.
Smart move. Every IPO deck thinks its market is the size of the moon.
So who's right?
One analyst sees a rocket strapped to hype. The other sees a venture bet that just happens to trade on the public market.
Both agree the real story is years away. They just disagree on whether you should pay for it today.
SpaceX at $2T: Genius or Delusion?
TL;DR
SpaceX got its first Sell rating from CFRA, with a $135 price target, despite a $2T+ valuation.
CFRA's worry: too much value pinned on unproven bets like Starship, orbital AI, and xAI.
Even Starlink, the strongest unit, faces capacity, regulatory, and competition risks.
Renaissance Capital's Kennedy is bullish, expecting revenue to more than triple in two years.
He says AI (via Google and Anthropic deals) drives growth, while Starlink drives near-term cash.
Both sides agree the valuation rests on the future, not the last quarter.
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🤥 Two Leaders, One Big Lie?
Saturday brought a classic markets plot twist: one leader says "deal's basically done," the other says "slow your roll."
Pakistan's PM Shehbaz Sharif claimed the U.S. and Iran would sign a peace accord within 24 hours. Trump reposted it. Confidence: high.
Iran's response? Basically a polite "not tomorrow, buddy."
Tehran didn't kill the idea entirely. A spokesperson said a memorandum of understanding could happen in the coming days, but warned they're staying cautious because the other side keeps wobbling.
So we've got two countries describing the same negotiation very differently. Reassuring.
Then Trump added the headline traders actually cared about.
He said once the deal is signed, the Strait of Hormuz will be "OPEN TO ALL." Caps lock his, not ours.
Why does that matter? Because roughly 20% of global oil and LNG moved through that strait before the war. It's the planet's busiest oil chokepoint.
Close it, prices spike. Open it, prices breathe.
Oil traders didn't wait around for the signing ceremony.
Crude tanked Friday after Trump called off another round of airstrikes on Iran:
Nymex crude (July): down 3.2% to $84.88/bbl, the lowest since April
Brent crude (August): down 3.4% to $87.33/bbl, a three-month low
That's the market pricing in peace before the ink exists.
Here's the simple logic: war started in late February, oil ran hot, and the Hormuz standoff kept the fear premium baked in. Remove the threat, remove the premium.
If the deal actually lands? Expect more selling pressure on crude.
If it doesn't, Trump hinted at "the ultimate alternative." Make of that what you will.
For now, markets are betting on handshakes over headaches. The catch is that one side hasn't agreed to the timeline the other keeps announcing.
Will the signing happen tomorrow, "in the coming days," or in that mythical place where peace deals go to be endlessly rescheduled? Stay tuned.
Will the U.S.-Iran peace deal actually get signed this week?
TL;DR
Sharif says a U.S.-Iran peace deal is ~24 hours away. Trump reposted the optimism.
Iran disagrees on timing: not tomorrow, but a memorandum of understanding is possible "in the coming days."
Trump's big claim: once signed, the Strait of Hormuz goes "open to all."
That strait carried ~20% of global oil and LNG before the war, hence why traders care so much.
Oil dropped hard Friday: Nymex crude -3.2% ($84.88), Brent -3.4% ($87.33), both at multi-month lows.
A signed deal likely means more downside for crude. No deal, and that fear premium snaps right back.
😬 Your China stocks? Big problem
China woke up Saturday with a bone to pick.
The Pentagon just slapped a "Chinese military company" label on some of China's biggest tech names. Alibaba and Baidu made the list.
So did EV makers BYD and NIO.
Beijing is not amused.
The market reaction?
Alibaba and Baidu both slid. Investors don't love it when a stock gets tagged as a national security problem.
Shocking, we know. But what does the label actually do?
Think of it as the corporate version of being put on a no-fly list.
Starting later this month, the Pentagon can't sign contracts with these firms. By June 2027, it can't even buy their stuff through middlemen.
No backdoor deals.
China's response was... spicy
The commerce ministry said it's "strongly dissatisfied" and wants the move reversed. Now.
It also dropped a warning: treat our companies unfairly and we'll "retaliate resolutely and forcefully."
And all this is happening less than a month after Trump and Xi shook hands at a big summit and promised to play nice on trade.
Beijing says Washington just torched that goodwill. The "consensus," apparently, lasted about four weeks.
Who could have guessed?
So why should you care?
Two of China's most-held tech stocks just got a fresh layer of political risk. The EV names too.
When geopolitics and your portfolio share a headline, it's rarely good news.
TL;DR
The Pentagon labeled Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, and NIO as Chinese military companies.
Alibaba and Baidu both traded lower.
The label blocks Pentagon contracts this month and third-party purchases by June 2027.
China called it "erroneous" and threatened to "retaliate resolutely and forcefully."
The move comes weeks after a Trump-Xi summit that promised warmer trade ties. • Bottom line: political risk on these stocks just went up.
1. Watch the Dip-Buy Window on Quality Names
The selloff in Alibaba and Baidu is driven by political headlines, not broken fundamentals. Headline-driven dips often overshoot, then partially recover once traders realize the Pentagon label doesn't touch the core business.
📌 Action: Track $BABA ( ▲ 0.12% ) and $BIDU ( ▼ 0.29% ) for a stabilization point after the initial drop. Watch for the bounce, not the falling knife.
2. Rotate Toward China-Light Exposure
If headline risk on Chinese tech makes you nervous, you don't have to abandon the growth theme. You can get similar sector exposure with less Beijing-vs-Washington baggage.
📌 Action: Review your China weighting. Consider broad emerging-market or ex-China ETFs like $EMXC ( ▲ 0.55% ) if single-name political risk is keeping you up at night.
3. Build a Geopolitics Watchlist
This won't be the last "company added to a list" headline. These flare-ups are becoming a recurring market feature, and the names keep repeating: $BYDDY ( ▲ 0.66% ), $NIO ( ▼ 0.38% ), $BABA ( ▲ 0.12% ), $BIDU ( ▼ 0.29% ).
📌 Action: Set price alerts on the four flagged stocks. Let the next escalation-or-truce headline tell you when to act instead of guessing.