Momentus vigoride deployed
Courtesy of Momentus
Stock in SPAC Stable Road Acquisition is soaring again in Tuesday trading. The interesting point is that there isn’t a great reason why.
Stable Road is merging with the space-logistics company Momentus which plans to put assets permanently in orbit that can ferry cargo to higher above the earth, and even to the moon. The system is a way to cut the cost of moving assets into higher orbits, just as the reusable rockets pioneered by SpaceX have cut the cost of getting satellites into low earth orbit.
Stable road stock was up almost 19% in late trading after being up as much as 34% earlier Tuesday. The S&P 500 gained 0.9%.
There isn’t much new news, however. The stock rose about 23% this past week after the entire space sector got a boost from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, which announced plans for a space-focused theme ETF. Virgin Galactic (SPCE), another pure-play space stock, also rose about 21% over the same span.
More buying of Stable Road stock could be linked to the ARK ETF, but Virgin Galactic stock is up only 1.7% in Tuesday trading after catching a downgrade from Susquehanna analyst Charles Minervino. He cut the shares to Hold from Buy after the strong stock-price run.
The other event that appears to be interesting space investors came over the weekend, when Virgin Orbit successfully launched a rocket into orbit.
That doesn’t directly affect Momentus, although more companies launching things into space could eventually generate business for Momentus, given the company’s ability to take things into higher orbits. More launch services could also reduce Momentus’s cost for putting its own vehicles into space.
That’s a stretch. It’s seems more likely the Virgin Orbit launch has investors thinking about space’s potential.
Orbit isn’t public, but VG Acquisition (VGAC) stock is up 14% Tuesday. The reason in this case is likely the successful rocket launch.
No agreement between Orbit and VG has been announced, but investors seem to believe Richard Branson will use VG to bring Orbit to public markets. Branson founded VG as well as Virgin Orbit.
VG stock is now up about 16% over the past five days. Stable Road stock is up 46% over the past five days. Space is cold, but space stocks are hot.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
