Canadian space stocks fall sharply, index drops below starting point
The index tracking nine Canadian space companies fell below its base value for the first time as all members declined.
The SpaceQ Canadian Space Index fell 5.4 percent to 98.70 in the week ended Oct. 9. All nine companies on the index declined, pushing the measure below its 100.00 base value for the first time on Wednesday. The index had been set at 100.00 on Sept. 4. While the Canadian space stocks fell, the broader S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.5 percent and the S&P 500 gained 1.2 percent over the same period.
Magellan Aerospace and 5N Plus led the declines, each falling 8.6 percent. Neither company had any news during the week. Magellan closed at $31.30 and remains up 69.9 percent this year. 5N Plus closed at $30.26, retaining the best year-to-date gain on the board at 70.8 percent. Maritime Launch Services fell 5.8 percent to 41 cents, the third-largest drop, after announcing a partnership with Galaxia for an autonomous flight safety system.
MDA Space declined 5.5 percent to $40.18 and Telesat fell 3.9 percent to $65.52. Calian Group dropped 4.1 percent to $80.53, yet it remains the closest of the nine to its 52-week high. Intermap Technologies fell 4.5 percent to 85 cents, closing at its 52-week low and posting the worst year-to-date performance on the board with a 54.1 percent loss. Baylin Technologies also declined 4.5 percent to 21 cents, while C-COM Satellite Systems had the smallest drop at 3.5 percent to 83 cents.
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NorthStar Earth & Space, which is not part of the Canadian index, fell about 26 percent in its first full week of trading on the NYSE American, closing at $US 3.28. The company began trading on Oct. 2 and rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 9. Its current price is 57 percent below the $US 7.72 closing price of the blank-cheque company it merged into.
In the United States, sixteen of the twenty space companies tracked by SpaceQ fell last week. SpaceX was a notable exception, rising 2.3 percent. The company said after the close on Thursday that it has agreed to buy up to 14 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band for its Starlink Mobile service, subject to final approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Sidus Space and Firefly Aerospace posted the steepest U.S. declines, falling 14.4 percent and 14.2 percent respectively.
AST SpaceMobile fell 12.8 percent for the week. Redwire declined 11.9 percent overall, despite announcing a follow-on contract from Axiom Space to supply solar array wings. BlackSky Technology fell 4.6 percent, though it announced a new six-figure pilot contract with an international intelligence customer. Internationally, London's Seraphim Space Investment Trust rose 1.0 percent and South Korea's Innospace gained 6.0 percent. The SpaceQ Canadian Space Index is an editorial measure published by SpaceQ for journalistic purposes. It is not an investable index, not a financial benchmark, and nothing in it constitutes investment advice.
With files from SpaceQ