US stock futures climbed ahead of Wednesday’s open after SpaceX posted third-quarter results that comfortably beat Wall Street expectations, with the space company’s shares surging roughly 9% to 10% in after-hours and premarket trading on 161% year-over-year revenue growth.
Nasdaq futures rose about 0.43% as the SpaceX earnings beat rippled through tech sentiment, with Tesla shares also climbing more than 1% in sympathy trading tied to the two companies’ shared leadership and investor base.
Adding to the bullish setup, Wells Fargo’s internal sentiment indicator flipped into “buy” territory following the recent market selloff, a contrarian signal the bank uses to flag when investor positioning has become too bearish. Historically, the S&P 500 has risen 89% of the time in the three months following the signal, averaging a 6.5% gain over that stretch.
The earnings beat landed alongside news that SpaceX and Tesla, both led by Elon Musk, have formed special committees to evaluate a possible merger between the two companies, which together carry a combined market valuation of roughly $3.5 trillion.
The combination of a blowout SpaceX earnings report, a historically reliable contrarian buy signal, and merger speculation involving two of the market's most closely watched stocks gave investors several distinct reasons to lean bullish heading into Wednesday's session.
Markets will be watching closely whether the premarket momentum holds through the opening bell, with the SpaceX-Tesla merger discussions in particular likely to remain a focal point for traders given the scale of the combined entity under consideration.
