SpaceX's influence ripples across markets: AlphaCheck

SpaceX's influence ripples across markets: AlphaCheck

Grace O'Donnell · Editor, Special Projects

Fri, August 7, 2026 at 5:42 PM GMT+3 3 min read

Good morning. Stocks picked up speed in early trading as investors viewed a surprisingly weak jobs report as strengthening the case for the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady. Treasurys rallied, and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) climbed 0.5%, leading the major indexes higher in the final trading day of the week.

Here's a check of the markets in early trading, as of 10:15 a.m. ET, based on a heat map powered by Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace data.

The tech sector (XLK) started the day in the strongest position but gave up some gains in the first hour of trading, while investors rotated into consumer discretionary stocks. Energy was the biggest laggard as oil prices fluctuated.

Here are the top stocks Yahoo Finance readers viewed this morning: SpaceX (SPCX), Palantir (PLTR), Intel (INTC), Arm (ARM), Dell (DELL), Twilio (TWLO), Natera (NTRA)

1 trend we're watching: The broad shadow cast by SpaceX

SpaceX's (SPCX) gravitational pull is undeniable.

The stock is the most-researched ticker on the Yahoo Finance platform over the past month, as investors clamored to learn more about a sprawling business that ranges from reusable rockets to Starlink internet connectivity. And sure, there's also a morbid fascination with a stock fighting to bounce back from all-time lows after making the largest initial public offering in history.

That's why it's unsurprising that a few offhand remarks in SpaceX's earnings call on Tuesday still managed to jolt stocks in the further reaches of the company's orbit.

On Wednesday, telecom stocks dropped after SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell took direct aim at the major US telecom companies AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), and T-Mobile (TMUS), saying Starlink planned to build a terrestrial wireless network and go after their customers. The company also plans to launch its second generation of Starlink Mobile satellites in 2027.

"I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their [AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile's] customers because I think our service will be better," Shotwell said on the earnings call.

SpaceX's telecom ambitions and the market's response were enough to goad a disgruntled acknowledgment from another competitor, Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY).

"We take SpaceX ambitions very seriously," Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hottges said on an earnings call on Thursday. "I'm a little bit irritated how the market is reacting on some of that one. … We do not see any kind of significant disadvantage for our technologies."

Then, while the market mostly fixated on SpaceX's spending on AI compute, it was Elon Musk's comments on building 20GW of power that caught the attention of Melius Research managing director James West.

"This is a clear positive for equipment suppliers," West noted, as reported by my colleague Jake Conley.

He highlighted natural gas power suppliers such as GE Vernova (GEV) and Baker Hughes (BKR) as potential beneficiaries of SpaceX's largesse, as well as power providers like Constellation Energy (CEG), NextEra Energy (NEE), Vistra (VST), and EQT Corporation (EQT).

If the impacts on telecoms and power companies seem too theoretical, it's not hard to find more direct signs of the company's influence.

The value of Echostar (ECHO), an early investor in SpaceX with 261.8 million shares of the company, has become increasingly intertwined with SpaceX's fate, and management said as much on its latest earnings call.

SpaceX even gave Nvidia (NVDA) stock a bump after earnings, with the stock rising 3.4% on Musk's vote of confidence.

"Going forward, we've decided to build exclusively on Nvidia because we think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture," Musk said. "We think it's the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia. We're exclusive to Nvidia."

For the time being, investors continue to hunt for signs of SpaceX creating Tesla-like disruption, and Musk and his team are happy to play along.

Yahoo Finance Breaking Business News Reporter Jake Conley contributed reporting.

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