What happened
Yesterday was a great day for space investors, with shares of pretty much every special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in the sector popping on the exciting news that Rocket Lab stock is finally going public (with a little help from Vector Acquisition Corporation). But today, investors are getting a little bit more discerning -- and Virgin Galactic (SPCE -12.17%) stock is dropping 5.7% in 12:30 p.m. EST trading.
So what
Why is sentiment turning against Virgin Galactic today? Well, consider this: Back when Virgin Galactic went public in 2019, it did so on Sir Richard Branson's promise to give investors a chance to "dabble a little bit in a spaceship company, own a little bit of a spaceship company." At the time, there weren't a whole lot of space stocks to choose from and there were no pure-play, publicly traded human-spaceflight space companies at all, apart from Virgin Galactic.
But my, how times have changed!
Image source: Getty Images.
Today, investors can take their pick among Holicity (small rocket launches), Stable Road Acquisition (space tugs), New Providence Acquisition (communications satellites) -- or any of the other, older and more established space companies such as Maxar, Lockheed, or Boeing -- all in addition to Virgin Galactic. And on top of all that, they now have a chance to buy into Rocket Lab, which does space launch, satellites, and soon, human-spaceflight, as well!
Now what
Investors may be wondering if they even need to own Virgin Galactic anymore, now that there are so many more choices available. Do they need to own Virgin Galactic, especially after it's just told us that it won't be flying any spaceships for another three months?
For today at least, they seem to be asking that question -- and answering with a resounding "not really." Now that there are so many other cool space stocks doing initial public offerings (IPOs), investors might not feel a need to own Virgin Galactic at all.
