SpaceX (SPCX) shares fell to $108.27 on Thursday as the company's first post-IPO lock-up period expired, opening the door for pre-IPO shareholders to sell up to 20% of their eligible stakes. The shares had a prior close of $125.33, and on the day traded in a range of $106.66 to $117.50, according to Investing.com. The stock has now shed more than 40% from its all-time high of $225.64 reached days after the June 12 IPO.
The lock-up structure tied to SpaceX's S-1 filing allowed early shareholders to sell shares starting on the second full trading day after the Q2 2026 earnings release. SpaceX reported those earnings on August 4, and the CFO guided for $100 billion in annualized recurring revenue by year-end. Despite that guidance, capital expenditures jumped more than sixfold year-over-year to $18.37 billion in Q2, with $15.83 billion of that attributed to AI u2014 a figure that weighed heavily on investor sentiment and sent the stock sharply lower after earnings.
The 911.5 million shares now eligible for trading represent roughly 140% of the approximately 639 million shares that were sold to the public in the IPO itself, meaning the potential new supply dwarfs the existing float. Most restricted shareholders may sell up to 20% of their holdings on this date, with additional tranches tied to future earnings releases and share-price milestones.
For operators tracking broader technology valuations, the SpaceX episode illustrates the pricing tension between ambitious long-range guidance and near-term cost escalation. The company's Starlink segment remains its only profitable division and accounts for the majority of revenue, but mounting AI infrastructure spending is pushing net losses wider at a time when insider supply pressure is at its peak.
Stocks in Asia pulled back on Thursday after an AI-driven surge the previous session, with equity-index futures for Australia, Japan, and South Korea all edging lower overnight. A gauge of chipmakers fell 1.4%, though Nvidia climbed; SpaceX tumbled 14% in U.S. after-hours trading on the earnings-plus-lock-up combination, and contracts for U.S. stocks were little changed heading into the open. Investors were also monitoring progress toward a potential deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has weighed on energy markets and geopolitical risk pricing throughout the summer.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its preliminary Productivity and Costs data for the second quarter of 2026 at 8:30 AM ET Thursday, the last major economic data point before Friday's July nonfarm payrolls report. The Q1 revised figure showed nonfarm business sector productivity rose just 0.3% and unit labor costs increased 2.3%, reflecting a 3.1% rise in hourly compensation. June payrolls had added only 57,000 jobs u2014 well below the consensus forecast of 110,000 u2014 and markets are pricing the July print as a potential catalyst for shifting Federal Reserve rate-cut expectations, with traders having already removed a September hike from the table following the June report.
A federal judge set a March 2, 2027 trial date for the antitrust challenge brought by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America against Paramount's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The ruling, issued August 4, was a blow to Paramount CEO David Ellison, who had sought a November 2026 trial. Under the merger agreement, Paramount must pay WBD shareholders $7 million per day starting October 1 u2014 meaning the company will owe roughly $1.1 billion in ticking fees by the time the trial is scheduled to conclude on March 19. The court ordered the parties to submit a joint case management statement by August 13, 2026, making next week's filing a near-term milestone for the deal's trajectory.
Cloudflare (NET) and Datadog (DDOG) were both due to report earnings after Thursday's close, with Airbnb (ABNB) also on the slate u2014 making it a high-stakes evening for cloud infrastructure and consumer technology investors. Cloudflare's second-quarter revenue guidance of $664-665 million implies roughly 30% growth, and analysts are watching whether AI inference and agentic traffic workloads are translating into accelerating enterprise contract wins. Datadog reported before the open and had the highest Polymarket odds of a beat among the three names, while Airbnb faced the lowest consensus expectations heading into the print.
SpaceX's Q2 2026 earnings report, released August 4, showed capital expenditures jumping more than sixfold year-over-year to $18.37 billion, with $15.83 billion of that directed at AI infrastructure. CFO Bret Johnsen said on the earnings call that the company had contracted an additional $6.7 billion of cloud services revenue over a six-month period starting in October, and that SpaceX was on pace to reach $100 billion in annualized recurring revenue by year-end. The scale of the spending underscores a broader pattern in which hyperscaler-adjacent companies u2014 including Amazon, which raised its 2026 capex outlook to approximately $220 billion u2014 are committing to infrastructure investment at levels that are reshaping the competitive landscape for cloud and AI services.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has repeatedly declined to commit to any rate path, and Thursday's productivity release and Friday's payrolls print together constitute the most consequential two-day data window of the summer. The federal funds target range stood at 3.5% to 3.75% as of the July Fed policy report, and futures markets had removed a September hike from the table after June's weak 57,000 payroll print. Core PCE inflation ran at 3.2% year-over-year as of March, and ISM Services prices remained elevated at 67.7, keeping the Fed from signaling any near-term easing despite a slowing labor market.
ConocoPhillips (COP) released second-quarter 2026 results before Thursday's open, with analysts projecting earnings of approximately $2.90 per share on revenue of roughly $18.8 billion u2014 nearly double the year-ago EPS of $1.42, driven by elevated crude prices. WTI spot prices averaged $100.32 and $102.13 per barrel in April and May respectively before falling to $84.81 in June, reflecting geopolitical risk premiums tied to the Middle East conflict and subsequent softening as U.S.-Iran peace talk signals emerged. The company's expanding LNG portfolio, including projects in Qatar and at Port Arthur, remained a focus for analysts assessing free cash flow through 2029.
Thursday's BLS productivity release and Friday's July jobs report together set the table for how the Federal Reserve frames its fall policy posture. For small and mid-sized business operators, the Q1 revised data u2014 productivity up just 0.3% while unit labor costs rose 2.3% u2014 is a direct signal that wage expenses are outpacing output gains, compressing margins. If Friday's July payrolls print comes in soft like June's 57,000 figure, rate-cut expectations for the fall may firm up, offering modest relief on credit costs; if it surprises to the upside, the higher-for-longer narrative stays intact.
The SpaceX lock-up story is a proxy for broader AI infrastructure cost reality: even the most-hyped technology company of the year is burning capital at a rate that unsettles public markets, and Amazon's $220 billion capex target shows the same pattern at scale. For operators who rely on cloud services, this sustained investment competition among hyperscalers is generally a long-run deflationary force on compute prices u2014 but it also means the vendors you depend on are carrying heavy cost loads that may show up in pricing negotiations. Watch Friday's payrolls closely, and check whether your lenders are repricing credit lines tied to the prime rate heading into the fall.