By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 18th, 2024
While you might have been caught by the Tesla bug with its massive TSLA stock surge in the market, you might have missed Virgin Galactic’s meteoric rise on Wall Street. The SPCE stock has surged over 200% as of Wednesday closing.
With the wild stock market rise, Wall Street investors are riding high on optimism at the moment. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has indeed been the star performer in the market with its price skyrocketing over $900 on February 19.
Amidst a strong Q4 2019 performance, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock has surged nearly 125% year-to-date taking the company valuations above $150 billion. However, when the market is abuzz with Tesla’s performance, it has another challenger on Wall Street.
Richard Branson’s spaceflight company Virgin Galactic has given its investors massive returns since its listing. Last month, Virgin Galactic Inc. started trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker SPCE. With this, it became the first-ever commercial human spaceflight company to go public.
Ever since the Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYCE: SPCE) listing at around $12.10 per share, the stock is seen on a continuous northward journey. In just a month’s time, the stock has skyrocketed over 200% to cross $37 levels on Wednesday, February 19. During its last trading session, the Virgin Galactic (SPCE) stock price surged a whopping 23% to close the day at $37.35 and a market cap above $7 billion.
Massive Trading Activity Seen in Virgin Galactic
Just like Tesla, this speculative space company has seen massive trading volumes over the last two weeks. In just the last three trading sessions, over 220 million SPCE shares have been traded in the market. Financial investment giant Fidelity told CNBC that this Tuesday, the Virgin Galactic (SPCE) stock was bought more than the Apple, Alphabet, Tesla, and others.
It looks like investors have huge expectations from this space tourism company in the coming times. Fintech company SoFi said that it has seen the largest purchase of SPCE stock on its platform on Tuesday. “Trading activity on [Virgin Galactic is] up 7x this year compared to 2019,” said the company.
Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box show, analyst Jim Cramer said:
“Virgin Galactic’s rally is what happens when too many people want a stock around the clock. It can’t be stopped right now, and these things tend to end badly — but you try to tell someone that.”
If we compare the percent returns, Virgin Galactic has certainly outclassed Tesla on Wall Street. However, note that both companies don’t operate in the same business sector. Thus, going ahead things can be different.
However, Virgin Galactic is in straight competition with SpaceX, which is also headed by Tesla boss Elon Musk. Both companies are working aggressively on making space travel affordable to masses. Vertical Research Partners analyst Darryl Genovesi is bullish on the future of Virgin Galactic. He says that this can be a one-of-its-kind opportunity for investors in the market.
“SPCE is the only means by which a public equity investor may gain pure-play exposure to human spaceflight, a socially-important endeavor, and the only means by which a public equity investor may gain ANY exposure to space tourism, creating scarcity value that we think can drive the stock higher as the risk-profile becomes better understood by investors,” explained he.