Why Virgin Galactic shares fell again today

What happened

Last week was a great week for the space tourism pioneer Galactic Virgo (NYSE: SPCE) – if a little worse for Virgin Galactic Stock. On July 11, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson successfully flew into space and returned aboard the VSS Unity space plane.

But before Branson even landed, Virgin Galactic’s stock was collapsing on Earth.

So what

In fact, in the five days since Branson completed its historic flight, Virgin Galactic shares have lost over 36% of their price. Today, the stock tried half-heartedly to rebound – up nearly 5% at the start of the session – but quickly abandoned its attempt.

At 11:40 a.m. EDT, Virgin Galactic shares are down again, falling another 1.5% from yesterday’s close.

Why is that? Well, consider this: with no revenue and no profits to its name, Virgin Galactic is what we call “history stock.” Potentially, his future could be bright. But in the absence of precise figures today to hang a valuation, it is a stock that tends to trade up or down depending on the interest of investors to bet on this distant future.

Now what

This makes Virgin Galactic shares vulnerable to declines when investor interest wanes. And right now it’s decreasing because, well, Sir Richard has already made his flight. He’s come back safe and sound, but now is the time to start paying attention to following billionaire queuing to travel to space.

This billionaire is Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who plans to fly into space on July 20, with his brother, Wally Funk, hopeful “Mercury 13” astronaut, and hedge fund scion Oliver Daemen. In doing so, Blue Origin will make history in three ways: by sending its founder into space and simultaneously sending into space the oldest and youngest humans to have ever been there (respectively, Funk, 82 years old). , and 18 years old). old Daemen).

To add to the drama, Daemen is a last minute backup on this mission. He was added to the passenger list after the (as yet unidentified) person who offered $ 28 million for the privilege last month unexpectedly withdrew, citing “scheduling conflicts.”

You’d be hard pressed to write a sci-fi story as interesting as the facts of this mission. If the drama momentarily turned investors away from Virgin Galactic shares, it is hardly surprising.