Feeling Serious FOMO...

As you may have guessed by the image, I am feeling a bit of regret that I didn't buy Rocket LAB (RKLB). Its share price has tripled this past year and doubled over the past month. I had some money in my Hatch account a couple of months ago and decided to buy some Nvidia (finally). It is sitting at around break-even after a couple of months, and will likely have a good 2026, Rocket Lab would obviously have doubled my money had I brought them instead.

The main reason why Rocket Labs stock price has gone parabolic recently, is because it has now made 21 successful space launches this year and has won an $816 million contract to make missile defence satellites.

Rocket Lab is well known in New Zealand as the company founded by Peter Beck in 2006, to make cheap rockets to launch satellites. They launch the majority of their rockets from the Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of the North Island. Their headquarters are in California, and they are listed on the NASDAQ under RKLB. It has this year gone from being seen as simply a rocket launch company, to be being an integrated space company. They have good vertical integration from rocket manufacture to launching and sales. And most analysts have a consensus buy rating on the stock.

Of course, it doesn't matter where a stock has been, it matters where it is going. And while RKLB has had a great year, as both a stock and as a business; it is likely that their stock price is primed for a pull-back at some point. Since their founding, they have aimed to provide launch services to their customers at a significantly cheaper price point than their competitors. As they get bigger and gain economies of scale, they are only going to get better at this. I think that at this price point, they are not a buy, but there will be opportunities over the coming year to buy shares at better prices.