BlackSky Technology (BKSY -5.96%), the Earth observation satellite company, dropped in afternoon trading Thursday, down 2.6% through 12:30 p.m. ET after reporting a big earnings miss for the second quarter of 2025.
Heading into the report, analysts already weren't optimistic about BlackSky, forecasting a $0.48-per-share loss on $22.2 million in revenue. BlackSky hit the revenue target, barely, but reported a quarterly loss of $1.27 per share.
Image source: Getty Images.
BlackSky Q2 earnings
Revenue declined 11% year over year, with imagery orders rising nicely, but lumpier "professional and engineering services revenue" falling steeply. Net losses quadrupled year over year, a fact the company blamed on a large loss on derivatives contracts.
The per-share loss didn't increase quite as fast as the net loss, due to BlackSky selling a lot of shares (to raise cash) in the quarter, resulting in a much larger share count that spread out total net losses among more shares outstanding. Thus, the per-share loss increased "only" 144%.
Is BlackSky stock a sell?
Was there any good news to report? Actually, yes, although it took some hunting to find it. Way down at the end of the earnings report, on the cash-flow statement, BlackSky noted that through the first half of this year it's generated positive free cash flow of $11.9 million. The company did note that it spent $10.8 million in cash on "satellite work in process," however. If considered a capital expenditure (and to be conservative, we probably should consider it capex), that would cut FCF for the first half to just $1.1 million.
That's not great, but at least it's positive.
Still, with a $620 million market capitalization, falling sales and deeply negative earnings, it's hard to call BlackSky stock a buy right now. So I won't.
