RKLB: Rocket Lab Stock Soars as Revenue Jumps 71%. Is Space Firm Catching Up to SpaceX?

Rocket Lab is challenging SpaceX as it ramps up space launches and satellite-building. And, it also sheds light into financials, unlike Elon Musk’s privately-held aerospace firm.

• Shares of Rocket Lab RKLB took off by 13% on Friday after a solid earnings report fueled demand for the stock. The aerospace company’s revenue jumped 71% to $106.3 million, surpassing analyst estimates for just under $106 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, arrived at a $21 million loss, or better than the expected loss of $26 million.
• Rocket Lab is coming up as a small yet worthy challenger to SpaceX, Elon Musk’s dominant player in the space exploration field. Rocket Lab has gone through nine space launches this year, compared to SpaceX’s 80 times. And it also boasts satellite-building capabilities. The company’s $2.65 billion market cap is all but a blip on the chart stacked up against SpaceX’s private-market valuation of more than $200 billion.
• Nevertheless, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck praised the results and expressed optimism for the outlook. The quarterly result “demonstrates the strong and growing demand for our launch services and space systems products, and importantly, our team’s ability to execute against it,” he said. Shares of Rocket Lab just flipped above the flatline, up a little more than 1% on the year.