Can’t Buy SpaceX Yet? Wall Street Says This $150 Stock Is the Next Best Thing. But There’s a Catch

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) has go Wall Street's go-to substitute for SpaceX, which Polymarket traders present springiness a 94.6% probability of going nationalist by June 30, 2026, and retail wealth chasing the abstraction taxable has to onshore somewhere.

Rocket Lab operates small-payload motorboat with Electron, hypersonic trial enactment with HASTE, and a fast-growing Space Systems concern that present makes up astir two-thirds of revenue. CEO Peter Beck has spent 2 years turning a motorboat institution into a vertically integrated defence platform, buying Geost for $325 million, agreeing to sorb Mynaric and Motiv, and locking down an $816 cardinal Space Development Agency declaration for 18 satellites.

Shares are up 422.36% implicit the past year, 411% twelvemonth to date, and 95% successful the past period alone. That is what happens erstwhile the lone pure-play nationalist alternate to SpaceX gets caught successful the updraft of an imminent IPO and a Starship detonation that sent investors hunting for a backup plan.

Why the SpaceX halo is doing existent enactment

The fundamentals are doing existent enactment underneath the SpaceX halo. Q1 gross deed $200.35 million, up 63.5% twelvemonth implicit year, with non-GAAP gross borderline expanding to 43.0% from 33.4% a twelvemonth earlier. Backlog climbed to $2.20 billion, and the institution signed 31 caller Electron and HASTE contracts positive 5 Neutron missions successful the quarter.

Neutron is the catalyst hiding down everything else. A palmy Q4 2026 debut would enactment Rocket Lab successful a medium-lift class presently occupied by precisely 1 company. Add Golden Dome, the Space Based Interceptor concern with Raytheon, and a equilibrium expanse carrying $1.48 cardinal successful cash, and the bull thesis builds itself.

The drawback astatine 121 times income

Market headdress sits adjacent $85 cardinal against trailing gross of $679.6 million, moving retired to a price-to-sales ratio of 121. Rocket Lab posted a $198.2 cardinal nett nonaccomplishment successful fiscal 2025 and burned $165.5 cardinal successful operating currency flow, funded mostly by $1.07 cardinal of caller equity.