The space industry more and more tempting for investors

In recent months, space tourism has remained on the top. In July, Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson's company) and Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos's company) recorded their first successful tourist flights. Interestingly, in both cases, the owners themselves – Branson and Bezos – were on board. This shows that they have strong faith in their endeavors and that the risk has been greatly reduced and the developed technologies are already very close to commercial exploitation. How were these events perceived by the market? 

"Virgin Galactic is the only publicly traded space tourism company. Since the Branson flight on 7/11, its stock has declined by more than 50 percent and is now trading at $24.5. This is largely due to high expectations, not only with regard to the success of the take-off itself but the rapid commencement of commercial flights with paying passengers. In August, the postponement of their start to the end of 2022 was announced, which was perceived badly by the market and contributed to the sell-off of shares. Also contributing to the decline was the fact that Branson himself sold the company's shares worth $300 million after a successful flight," eToro analyst Paweł Majtkowski, noted.

In his opinion, there is also a third billionaire who must be watched in the context of the conquest of space, i.e. Elon Musk. His company SpaceX (valued at over $70 billion) chose a different path, focusing on the commercial delivery of cargo into space. It also invests in the Starlink chain.

"And let's not lose sight of the more ambitious goal of returning man to the Moon and flying to Mars. It will be a huge engineering and financial effort, but we will feel its effects for decades," the analyst added.

"There is no doubt that further conquest and expansion in space are inevitable. This time the participation of commercial ventures gives investors a potentially greater opportunity to participate and earn in this process. However, one must remember about the inherent risk in the space business, which should encourage us to invest as broadly as possible There are a small number of space-oriented ETFs, the largest of which is the active ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF. We can also obtain greater, wider, and cheaper exposure to the space sector through iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF," he concluded.

(WBJ)