SpaceX options debut draws record volume as investors chase rocket stock
FILE PHOTO: SpaceX Vice President for Human Resources Brian Bjelde, wearing a SpaceX spacesuit, and others celebrate on the balcony after the closing bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite, on the day of SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO) in New York City, U.S., June 12, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
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June 16 : Trading in SpaceX options kicked off with heavy volume on Tuesday, underscoring strong investor demand for a new way to bet on the future of Elon Musk’s aerospace company.
More than half a million contracts changed hands in the first hour of trading as investors piled into the newly listed company, making SpaceX the most heavily traded name ever among companies on their first day of trading options, according to Trade Alert data.
“Early option volume indicates another SpaceX success,” said Seth Hickle, chief investment officer at Mindset Wealth Management.
Options give the holders the right, but not the obligation, to buy and sell shares of the rocket and spacecraft manufacturer at a predetermined price within a set time period. They offer investors a low-cost way to gain exposure to a company’s stock and can also be used to hedge against risk or to speculate on price movements.
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“SpaceX options opened with extremely heavy demand,” said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna, a market maker.
“Investors continue to chase upside in high-beta AI and space-linked winners,” Murphy said.
Some 869,000 options contracts changed hands by 11:40 a.m. ET (1540 GMT), with calls leading puts 1.5-to-1, according to Trade Alert data.
Calls give the buyer the right to purchase a stock at a set price by a specific date, while puts give the buyer the right to sell at a set price.
“It’s really kind of going nuts,” said Brent Kochuba, founder of options analytic service SpotGamma, noting that the options demand was skewed toward bullish calls.
The bullish options action likely helped lift the stock early in the session, Kochuba said.
A surge of options volume can at times cause the underlying stock price to swing as options dealers, who facilitate trading by taking the other side of options trades, buy and sell shares to square their own risk.
Dealers who may have sold SpaceX call options would need to buy increasing amounts of SpaceX shares to guard against the shares rising, pushing the stock higher — a dynamic known as a gamma squeeze.
“If you’re a market maker, you can’t hedge SpaceX with anything else other than SpaceX,” Kochuba said.
Tesla, another options market darling, has been known to experience gamma squeezes, analysts said.
HEAVY DEMAND
Options on SpaceX were the second-most heavily traded contracts on individual companies on Tuesday, topped only by Tesla, Trade Alert data showed.
The robust showing in SpaceX options follows a strong debut on Friday, when shares of the company surged more than 25 per cent, pushing its valuation above $2 trillion as investors piled in to bet on the sprawling empire, which spans rockets to AI.
“The stock is already on track to develop one of the deeper derivatives ecosystems of the single stock market,” Rocky Fishman, founder of Asym 500, a firm that provides data and analytics on the options market, said in a note.
“High equity volume, an overlapping investor base with option-heavy Tesla, and hedging demand are all reasons to expect very high SpaceX option volumes from the start,” Fishman said.
The options contracts are likely to sport high volatility and wide bid-ask spreads due to high demand and the limited nature of the share float, he said.
SpaceX shares climbed more than 14 per cent on Tuesday, lifting its valuation past Amazon.com and briefly above Microsoft to rank it among the top-five most valuable companies within days of a blockbuster debut.
Source: Reuters
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