Firefly Rocket Company's stock price big pump: From bankruptcy IPO to a comeback?

Question

In the past two days, Firefly(NASDAQ: FLY) has become popular. On Thursday, it experienced a big pump of 17%, followed by a rise of 7% on Friday, and then surged a few more percentage points after hours — in just two trading days, it rebounded from the bottom to around $23.

You should know that this stock was originally terrible: it has fallen 75% from its peak, and the current stock price is less than 51% of the IPO issuance price. It is a proper “bankrupt IPO” representative. So what made it suddenly rebound? The answer is the financial report - Firefly's Q3 sales reached 30.8 million USD, a big pump of 98% quarter-on-quarter, and a rise of 38% year-on-year.

Even more impressive are the subsequent orders: NASA has added a fourth Blue Ghost lunar landing order, with a contract amount of $176.7 million, targeting delivery to the lunar south pole in 2029. With the new agreement for Japanese rocket launches, the sales guidance for the entire year of 2025 has been raised to $150-158 million, far exceeding Wall Street's expectation of $135.5 million.

But there is a pitfall here: Although sales have surged, the cost increase is even more drastic—sales costs rose 53% year-on-year, R&D expenses soared 63%, and operational losses expanded by 82%. The quarterly net loss tripled to $133.4 million. However, due to the surge in shares to 93.8 million after the IPO, the loss per share is $1.50, which is actually half of last year's.

The key turning point has arrived: Firefly has just completed the acquisition of defense contractor SciTec. This changes the entire valuation logic.

Before the merger: Market value of 7.2 billion USD, expected annual revenue of 145 million USD, with a P/S ratio as high as 50 times.

After the acquisition: The market value shrank by nearly half (due to the drop in stock prices), but the revenue expectation for 2026 is doubled to $446 million, and the P/S ratio decreased to 7.3 times.

From a super bubble to relatively reasonable, this stock has suddenly changed from “certain bankruptcy” to “possibly having a chance.” Of course, the premise is that the company can integrate SciTec's profitability, and when it can turn a profit remains a question mark. However, next quarter's financial report should provide an answer.