Space stocks are retreating sharply Tuesday afternoon, dragged lower by a broad rotation out of AI hardware and rising long-duration Treasury yields.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is down 2% to $143, while Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) has fallen 3% to $80 in the final trading hour.
AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) leads the group lower, declining roughly 6% as investors shed high-beta growth exposure across the session.
Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) is off 4% to $23, and Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) is also trading lower heading into the close.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF is down about 5.4% on the day, while the iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF is up 0.6%, illustrating a clear intraday rotation from hardware to software.
Two macro developments are amplifying the selling pressure across growth-oriented names in the space sector Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal reported that nine top tech companies now carry roughly $3 trillion of off-balance-sheet commitments tied mostly to AI, approximately triple their outstanding leases and long-term borrowings.
Anthropic told investors its annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July, a figure that still landed below whispered expectations in the $80 billion range.
Meanwhile, the 30-year Treasury hit a 19-year high Tuesday, with the 10-year yield sitting at 4.68%, creating a punishing environment for capital-intensive, long-duration growth stocks.
Space names sit at the opposite end of the Industrials sector from defensive backlog-driven primes like RTX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, which are helping keep the iShares U.S. Aerospace and Defense ETF up roughly 0.3% on the day.
Despite Tuesday’s losses, the group has posted strong gains over the past month, with Intuitive Machines up 51%, AST SpaceMobile up 23%, Rocket Lab up 21%, SpaceX up 18%, and Planet Labs up 8.5%.
A strong earnings season has supported the group broadly, with Rocket Lab recording $234.07 million in Q2 revenue, up 62% year over year, and backlog reaching a record $2.36 billion.
Intuitive Machines grew Q2 revenue more than four times to $206.17 million, supported by a backlog of $1.8 billion heading into the second half of the year.
AST SpaceMobile is a notable exception within the group, still working through a $125.9 million loss on involuntary conversion related to the BB7 launch incident, which likely explains why it is leading declines Tuesday.
Traders will be watching whether semiconductor ETFs stabilize before the close, as any firming in chip names could offer these space stocks a near-term floor heading into the rest of the week.
