Episode
Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) Stock Fell 45% From Its High — Here's What the DCF Model Actually Says
- Podcast
- The 7investing Podcast
- Published
- Jun 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1471
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Summary
Want access to all our investing content? Join at 7investing.com/subscribe Join the conversation on the 7investing discord: https://discord.com/invite/PT9ZQqdXXSRocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) peaked near $150 a share earlier this year, powered by SpaceX IPO excitement and space sector momentum. Now it's trading at $83. Simon Erickson and Heather Horton revisit the full discounted cash flow model Simon built three weeks ago and walk through the three things that will actually determine where Rocket Lab goes from here.First, and most importantly: Space Systems, not launch, is the real business. The launch vehicle gets all the headlines, but manufacturing satellites and signing long-term contracts with the Space Defense Agency, NASA, and the Department of Defense is what's building Rocket Lab's moat. Total backlog stood at $2.2 billion in Q1 2026, and Simon has already modeled that nearly doubling to $4.3 billion by year-end, an aggressive assumption that he thinks the business can support. By the end of the forecast window (fiscal 2041), space systems could represent 85–90% of total revenue. The launch is just the delivery mechanism.Second: operating leverage is real and accelerating. Rocket Lab is redeploying headcount from R&D into production — meaning their employee base is essentially converting from overhead into cost-of-goods-sold as Neutron approaches the pad. SGNA and R&D headcount both declined even as the business grew in fiscal 2025. This is CFO Adam Spice making a deliberate call that Neutron is no longer an R&D project, it's a product. Gross margin and scalability metrics look unusual right now as a result, but that's a transition signal, not a warning sign.Third: Rocket Lab's cost of capital is about to get a lot cheaper. The company is almost entirel…