Firefly shares soared after the release of the statements / Photo: YouTube / Firefly
Firefly Aerospace, a mid-cap competitor of Elon Musk's SpaceX, a developer of launch vehicles and orbiters, rose in price by almost 9% on the pre-market on May 5. The company first announced that its subsidiary would participate in the U.S. Golden Dome missile defense program. Then the company reported revenue that exceeded Wall Street forecasts.
Details
Quotes Firefly jumped on the premarket on May 5, almost 9% to $ 36.3. The day before, the company reported that its subsidiary SciTec has signed an agreement with the Space Systems Command of the U.S. Space Forces to participate in the Golden Dome program, which provides for the creation of a multi-layered missile defense system.
On the same day, Firefly reported a 40% year-on-year increase in quarterly revenue to a record $80.9 million. Wall Street had forecast that this figure would be $77.1 million, writes Barron's. Net loss for the same period increased by almost 61% and reached $96.7 mln. But at this stage it is more important for investors to consider sales volume than profit, the publication said.
What's interesting about Firefly
Firefly develops launch vehicles, lunar landing modules and orbiters and - like Elon Musk's Space X - provides launch services to government and commercial customers. It describes itself as the only company capable of organizing an operational space mission and sending a satellite into orbit in about 24 hours.
In early 2025, Firefly "made an incredibly successful moon landing" with the Blue Ghost spacecraft for NASA, wrote analyst Rich Smith in an article for The Motley Fool.
In August of the same year, the company held an IPO on the Nasdaq exchange, which Reuters called the largest in the space technology sector. Due to high demand, Firefly increased its offering by 19% to 19.3 million shares, and the offering price exceeded the upper limit of the originally announced range by more than 15%.
On the first day of trading quotes Firefly jumped by 55%, its capitalization reached $ 9.84 billion. However, since then it has lost more than 52% of its value. The dynamics were affected by poor reporting for the second quarter of 2025, as well as unsuccessful attempts to launch its Alpha rocket. They either failed completely or put satellites into wrong orbits.
That all changed in 2026. In March, the company managed to launch a rocket that entered orbit and delivered a payload demo for Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. military-industrial corporation.
At the same time, Firefly reported a 6.4-fold year-over-year increase in quarterly revenue and a 29-fold reduction in loss per share. Both results were better than Wall Street forecasts.
As a result, since the beginning of the year, Firefly's quotations have soared by more than 49%. The company's securities have five "buy" ratings from Wall Street analysts and three "hold" recommendations. There are no sell recommendations on the stock. The average target price is $37.6, up nearly 13% from the close of trading on Ma. 4.
