ASTS
The market’s doing the “wait, maybe not so bad?” thing
AST SpaceMobile shares were up Wednesday as investors re-priced the post-earnings hangover. That’s the market in a nutshell: one minute it’s doom-scroll mode after a miss, the next it’s squinting at analyst targets and wondering if the punishment was a bit dramatic.
Why the stock is getting some oxygen
The latest debate started after ASTS posted a first-quarter loss of 66 cents per share on $14.74 million in revenue, missing Wall Street’s expectations by a pretty chunky margin. That kind of miss usually gets the red pen treatment. But the company also said it had about $3.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of March 31, which gave bulls something to cling to besides hope and vibes.
Management is also talking up execution rather than apologizing into the void. CEO Abel Avellan said the company is "accelerating manufacturing," and BlueBird 8, 9 and 10 are still targeted for mid-June launches. In other words: the story is shifting from "Can they raise money?" to "Can they actually ship the thing?"
Analysts: not cheering, but not running for the exits either
Two Wall Street shops helped steady the boat a bit:
- B. Riley Securities kept a Neutral rating and lifted its price target from $75 to $85.
- UBS also stayed Neutral, but trimmed its target from $85 to $80.
That’s not exactly a parade, but it is a sign that even after the miss, some analysts still see room above the current share price.
Big picture
ASTS is still very much in the “show me” phase. The cash pile buys time, but the market is going to keep grading the company on manufacturing progress, launch timing, and whether those birds actually get off the ground on schedule.