Space and defense stocks were active Thursday as investors responded to IPO and earnings news. Firefly Aerospace soared after its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange Thursday in an upsized initial public offering. But shares retreated Friday.
Rocket Lab stock and Kratos Defense advanced on Friday.
Rocket Lab Earnings
Launch services provider Rocket Lab reported that its loss widened to 13 cents per share from a loss of 8 cents per share last year. Revenue jumped 36% to a record $144.5 million.
FactSet expected the company to report a loss of 10 cents per share on 27% revenue growth to $135.4 million.
Product revenue jumped 28% to $92.73 million. Services revenue spiked 51% to $51.77 million.
For the third quarter, Rocket Lab expects revenue to range from $145 million to $155 million, which is in-line with FactSet views for $150.3 million.
RKLB stock jumped about 9% early Friday, then pared its advance to 1%. Shares during market hours Thursday eased 1.5% to test support along its 21-day exponential moving average.
Rocket Lab has retreated 16% from its record high of 53.44 on July 17. Shares have rallied more than 75% so far this year.
Kratos Defense
Kratos Defense reported earnings of 11 cents per share adjusted, just topping views for 10 cents per share. Revenue increased 17% to $351.1 million, which beat forecasts for $306 million in revenue.
Kratos expects Q3 revenue to range from $315 million to $325 million, slightly below estimates for $327 million. The company lifted its full-year revenue guidance to range from $1.29 billion to $1.31 billion, from its previous range of $1.26 billion to $1.285 billion.
Factset expects $1.287 billion in revenue for the year.
Kratos stock jumped 8.1% Friday to a new 2025. KTOS ticked up a fraction during Thursday trade.
Shares have traded largely sideways since mid-July, but have rallied more than 142% this year.
Firefly IPO
Firefly Aerospace opened trading at 70 per share on Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker FLY, up nearly 56% from the offering price of 45 per share the company set on Wednesday. The IPO had already seen multiple price raises ahead of launch.
The space and defense technology outfit is offering 19.3 million shares of its stock, up from an original proposal for 16.2 million shares.
Shares eased to 60.35 by the close, giving it a valuation of over $11.6 billion.
The stock retreated nearly 17% Friday to 50.17.
Firefly in March successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon, which marked the first commercial moon landing, according to the company. The lander launched in January and completed 100% of its missions during the two-week surface operations.
Firefly has a backlog worth $1.1 billion and is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, according to Barron's. In July, Firefly received a $176.7 million NASA contract to deliver five NASA-sponsored payloads to the Moon in 2029.
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