Firefly Aerospace (FLY +7.14%) stock, the recent space IPO, defied the market's sell-off Thursday, flying safely above a sea of red to end the day up 17% after beating analyst forecasts for both sales and earnings in its Q3 report.
And Firefly is maintaining its momentum into Friday as well, up a solid 6% through 2:22 p.m. ET.
Image source: Firefly Aerospace.
Firefly flies higher
What's got investors so excited about this space stock? Well, there's the earnings beat, of course. Firefly reported fewer losses ($0.33 per share) and more revenue ($30.8 million) than Wall Street forecast. But there are other catalysts supporting Firefly as well.
Endorsements from Wall Street analysts, for example.
No sooner had Firefly announced earnings than Deutsche Bank upgraded the shares to "buy." Firefly's on track to launch its seventh space mission later this year, says Deutsche, and success could "change the narrative" around the stock. Deutsche also sees Firefly winning contracts under President Donald Trump's Golden Dome project, now that it owns defense contractor SciTec.
Analysts at Roth Capital also lined up in support of Firefly, citing raised guidance for 2025 revenue of $150 million to $158 million.
Cantor Fitzgerald rounds out the fan club with its own prediction that Firefly stock will "materially" outperform, also citing SciTec and its $170 billion in backlog as a positive.
NASDAQ: FLY
Key Data Points
Is Firefly stock a buy?
Priced over $22 a share and boasting a $3.2 billion market capitalization, Firefly isn't the cheapest stock on the planet. Its current price-to-sales ratio of more than 29 looks downright expensive, in fact. But as I've argued at least once already, buying SciTec and its revenue stream has the potential to make Firefly look a whole lot cheaper, on a P/S basis, at least.
