James Altucher has made and lost more fortunes than most people will ever make. He sold his first company in 1998 for $15 million. Two years later he was down to $143. BusinessWeek called him “Wall Street’s keeper of pain.” He has founded 20 companies. Seventeen of them failed. The three that worked — a web design firm, a financial social network called StockPickr, a seed investment in Buddy Media that sold to Salesforce for $745 million — paid for all the ones that didn’t. He worked on Deep Blue, the IBM program that beat Garry Kasparov at chess. He ran a fund of hedge funds and shut it down because he couldn’t tell which of the underlying funds were real and which were scams. He bought a mansion with crypto earnings. He lost the mansion.

That is the person who spent months researching the infrastructure behind satellite internet. In May he released a free presentation arguing that the SpaceX IPO — then still unannounced — was the biggest opportunity he had seen in 40 years. The IPO happened June 12. The stock now trades at $145, down 36% from its $226 peak in the first week of trading.

A guru who has been broke more than once, calling the biggest opportunity of his career, and then watching the stock drop 36 percent in its first month — that tension is the most Altucher outcome possible. The directional call was right, the timing was right, and the stock is down. If you have followed Altucher’s career, you know this is how the story tends to go: the thesis plays out on a different schedule than the price.

That is the short version; the longer version is more interesting.

Altucher’s thesis in three parts

Altucher’s presentation built a case around three layers. First, the satellite network itself — Starlink’s constellation of 6,750 satellites delivering connectivity across 100 countries to over 10 million subscribers. Altucher described it as a direct threat to the incumbent telecoms that control global internet access.

Second, the IPO timing. He pointed to the confidential SEC filing and the expected roadshow week of June 8. Both happened on schedule.

Third, the pick. Altucher named a specific company and ticker symbol — a U.S. patent holder he believed was a critical piece of the satellite internet story. That pick was AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), a company with a patent portfolio covering satellite-to-cellphone direct connectivity.

Where the Thesis Stands

The IPO happened. The thesis was directionally correct. Altucher called the timing and the structure accurately.

The stock is under pressure. SpaceX (SPCX) opened strong and hit $226 in the first week. It has since declined to $145, closing in on the $135 IPO price. CNBC reported the stock slipped for a second straight day on July 13. The selloff is broad — the satellite sector is being repriced as the initial IPO euphoria cools.

AST SpaceMobile, Altucher’s secondary pick, is down 45% from $133. That is a steeper decline than the main SPCX position.

What the price action actually means

A stock dropping from $226 to $145 in its first month is not unusual for a high-profile IPO. The early pop reflects pent-up demand from investors who could not buy during the pre-IPO phase. When that demand gets satisfied, the stock finds its natural level. The question is whether $145 is that level or just a stop on the way down.

The mechanism is old. Facebook went public on May 18, 2012, priced at $38, opened at $42, peaked at $45 on day one, and closed at $38.23 — barely above the IPO price. The Wall Street Journal called it a fiasco. Over the next two weeks the stock fell to $31, down 18 percent. By September it bottomed below $18, down more than 50 percent from the offering price. It took 16 months — until August 2013 — for the stock to climb back to $38. Anyone who judged the thesis by the first month’s price action sold at the bottom. Facebook is up more than 400 percent from its IPO price today.

Uber had the same experience in May 2019. Priced at $45, opened at $42, closed down 7.6 percent on day one. The press called it a disappointment. The long-term story took years to play out. The first-day and first-month reactions were noise.

The structure is the same in every case. Pent-up demand from investors who could not buy pre-IPO pushes the stock up on day one. That demand exhausts. The stock falls back toward its natural level — sometimes below the IPO price, sometimes above it. SPCX at $145 is still above the $135 IPO price, which means the market is pricing in a premium to the offering valuation. The satellite infrastructure story — 6,750 satellites, 10 million subscribers, 100-country footprint — has not changed in 30 days. The price has.

AST SpaceMobile, Altucher’s secondary pick, is down 45 percent from $133. That is a steeper decline than the main SPCX position. The steeper decline in the smaller, more speculative name is also structural — the same dynamic that dragged the satellite sector down hits the thinner, less liquid names harder. Wall Street calls this “repricing as IPO euphoria cools.” The rest of us call it “the momentum crowd found the exit.”

The short-term pressure comes from macro factors. The AI debt selloff in early July dragged down tech stocks across the board. Satellite stocks are not immune to that tide. If the broader market stabilizes, SPCX has a credible floor at $135 — the IPO price.

The Bigger Picture

Altucher called the IPO correctly. He was early on the infrastructure thesis, and the pieces he identified — the SEC filing, the roadshow, the subscriber numbers — all played out as he described.

The stock’s performance since listing sits below the early highs and above the IPO price. That reflects the normal dynamic of a high-profile IPO finding its trading range in its first month. The satellite infrastructure story is still in its early chapters. The first month of trading does not decide the outcome — the thesis spans the buildout of a global satellite network, not the first 30 days of post-IPO price action.

The presentation is still available for free. No signup required. Altucher’s argument about the Starlink ecosystem is worth hearing on its own terms — the 6,750 satellites, the 10 million subscribers, the pressure on incumbent telecoms. Those facts are true regardless of where the stock closes today.

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