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Rocket Lab makes its biggest move… Louis’ top space stock right now… why the OpenAI delay is actually bullish for AI investors
Space is suddenly having a moment again – and if you’ve been reading Brian Hunt, you knew it was coming and are up 102%.
Brian, editor of the free e-letter Money & Megatrends, laid out the bull case for the sector back in September 2025. His approach was simple: look past SpaceX (SPCX) mania.
From his September 22nd issue:
When people think of investing in space, they often go towards the business of launching rockets and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
But many of the most promising “space stocks” are in the business of space-based communication platforms and equipment.
Think government surveillance, military communication, GPS, internet service, and cell service.
Among the names Brian flagged at the time were Rocket Lab (RKLB), BlackSky Technology (BKSY), Planet Labs PBC (PL), and AST SpaceMobile (ASTS). Since that issue, RKLB alone is up 102% – with a nice chunk of that coming yesterday.
RKLB popped 16% after announcing it would acquire a satellite communications company in a cash-and-stock deal valued at roughly $8 billion.
The logic is straightforward: Rocket Lab already builds and launches the vehicles. Now it owns the network those vehicles serve – a global L-band satellite constellation, licensed spectrum, and more than 2.5 million subscribers spanning government, defense, aviation, maritime and commercial markets.
Basically, it’s the same vertically integrated playbook SpaceX runs with Starlink – and Wall Street approved.
But the deal is also a sign of something bigger
The commercial space industry is consolidating – and consolidation at this scale signals that serious capital now views space infrastructure as a generational asset class, not a speculative moonshot.
Which leads us to the part of the story that may sting a little if you weren’t paying attention…
The company that Rocket Lab just bought was Iridium Communications (IRDM) – a global satellite communications provider that Brian flagged back in his April 17th issue.
Yesterday, on the acquisition news, IRDM surged 25% in a single session.
If you missed it, there’s an easy fix – Brian writes Money & Megatrends every day the market is open, highlighting these kinds of opportunities before they become front-page news – and it’s 100% free.
His issues are loaded with trend analysis, actionable advice, and loads of specific tickers. You can sign up right here.
In the meantime, we’ll keep bringing you some of Brian’s top ideas here in the Digest.
What’s behind the recent bloodbath in the space sector
Brian’s readers who acted on his issue are sitting on a 102% gain in RKLB. But if you’ve been watching the sector, you know it hasn’t been a straight line up – and more recently, it’s been a straight line down.
In late May, space stocks collapsed. It started with a Blue Origin rocket explosion during a prelaunch test – unsettling on its own, but manageable. What followed was less manageable.
When SpaceX went public earlier this month at a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, investors who’d been holding smaller space names as proxies rotated out fast, dumping RKLB, ASTS and others to chase the newly listed giant.
Then, as we covered in yesterday’s Digest, SPCX itself fell more than 30% from its post-IPO peak as Wall Street grew concerned over an unexpected $20 billion to $25 billion bond sale to fund Musk’s AI ventures. The whole sector came down with it.
Which brings us to an important issue – one worth asking before putting any money to work in space right now.
In every transformative technology cycle – the internet, genomics, clean energy – a handful of companies captured most of the gains while the rest eventually went to zero. Space is unlikely to be different.
The sector is real. The opportunity is real. But not every name with “space” in its pitch deck is going to make it.
So, how do you know which ones will survive and reward investors?
In short, you watch the numbers, not the narrative.
And that dovetails into legendary investor Louis Navellier and his market approach.
Louis has spent 47 years building a quantitative system that cuts through the narrative and looks at what matters – earnings momentum, sales growth and institutional buying pressure.
Stories can win sprints, but only earnings win marathons.
So, which space stock does Louis like today?
Here he is:
Planet Labs is one worth looking at right now.
The company operates the world’s largest fleet of Earth-observation satellites — more than 200 satellites providing daily imaging of the entire planet.
Its customers include government agencies, defense contractors, agricultural companies, insurance firms, and financial institutions that use satellite imagery to make better decisions.
Louis notes that the stock got cut nearly in half in the sector crash. But the business didn’t change – its price tag just got cheaper.
Back to Louis for how it looks through his quantitative screeners today:
My Precursor Intelligence system currently rates Planet Labs an “A.”
That means both the fundamental grade — earnings momentum, sales growth, analyst revisions — and the quantitative grade, which measures institutional buying pressure, are strong.
If you’re less familiar, Louis’s Precursor Intelligence system tracks institutional money flows across 6,000 stocks – essentially reading where the smart money is moving before the pattern becomes visible to everyone else.
He just put together a research video that explains it in more detail. You can learn more about how it works right here.
Now, while Louis likes Planet Labs, his more intriguing space plays are one layer beneath the obvious – the materials companies, the semiconductor foundries, the picks-and-shovels businesses that the broader space buildout can’t function without, and that almost no retail investor is looking at right now.
He’s identified two of them in his new special report, The SpaceX Stampede Report. Both have real earnings and institutional buying pressure. Neither one looks like a space stock at all – which is exactly why Louis likes them. You can learn more here.
The OpenAI delay that isn’t really a delay
Late last week, the New York Times reported that OpenAI is leaning toward pushing its IPO to 2027, citing concerns about broader market weakness and the volatility that followed SpaceX’s debut.
The headlines quickly spun this as a potential black eye for the AI trade. Here’s one example I ran across:
OpenAI Reportedly Considers Delaying Its IPO. Should You Worry About AI Stocks?
And, in fact, Oracle (ORCL) dropped 1.7% last Friday. CoreWeave (CRWV) fell nearly 4%. SoftBank closed down 13% in Tokyo – not surprising given that each has billions tied directly to OpenAI’s trajectory.
But is the IPO delay actually bad news?
Luke Lango, editor of Innovation Investor, doesn’t think so. From his Daily Notes:
On OpenAI: this is a rational decision by one of the most sophisticated management teams in tech, not a sign of trouble.
IPO-ing now would mean going public at significant losses, against Anthropic’s rapid progress and a market that just watched SPCX’s $1.75 trillion IPO produce more volatility than anyone wanted.
Waiting buys a few more quarters of revenue growth, a possible path to profitability, ChatGPT 5.6 winning back share, and potentially the White House’s direct participation in the offering.
OpenAI goes public within the next twelve months, and the delay sets up a stronger event when it arrives.
There’s also something worth noting that the headlines are mostly missing.
OpenAI reportedly held back the launch of ChatGPT 5.6 specifically to give the U.S. government time to test the model – a commercial company eating real competitive cost to satisfy a government approval process.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon recently updated its classified targeting doctrine to include more AI in combat decisions. Luke notes that once AI is embedded in defense doctrine, spending will stop following commercial ROI logic and start following strategic-necessity logic.
Here he is with the implications for the AI trade:
You don’t cut spending on a capability embedded in your targeting doctrine because your stock dropped for three weeks.
Commercial demand plus national-security backstop is what gives this capex cycle the durability bears keep underestimating.
Overall, Luke urges his readers to remain focused on real AI earnings growth and momentum – not shorter-term fears like an IPO delay.
Here’s his bottom line:
OpenAI waiting for a better IPO is not panic – it is strategy.
The AI boom is intact. The July earnings season will prove it. The window between today and mid-July is the buying opportunity.
Coming full circle
As I write, we’re on pace to wrap up a strong first half of 2026, with the Nasdaq leading the three major indexes – up about 12% so far this year.
Despite these gains, there’s no shortage of headlines designed to make you nervous right now. Space stocks crash. OpenAI delays its IPO. The Fed floats a hike.
But zoom out…
Even after a nearly 50% haircut in May, Brian’s readers are up 102% on a space stock that just made one of the biggest acquisitions in commercial space history…
Louis’ system is finding “A”-rated opportunities as the post-SpaceX-IPO dust settles…
And Luke sees a buying window in AI opening, not closing…
As always, invest within your means and in line with your plan. But if the bears are telling you the AI trade is broken, today’s Digest tells a different story.
Have a good evening,
Jeff Remsburg
