A Million People On Mars
A Bonus Plan From Another Planet
Since SpaceX (SPCX 0.00%↑) went public, the stock has been on a tear.
The IPO pop was big. The Monday follow-through was big too. But the most interesting part of the SpaceX story isn’t just the stock action. It’s the scale of what Elon Musk is trying to build.
In an X article published yesterday, Marc Andreessen and Michael McGuiness of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted the first milestone in Musk’s SpaceX bonus plan: a $7.5 trillion market cap for SpaceX and a self-sustaining city of 1 million people on Mars.
A million people on Mars.
That’s not a normal growth-stock target. It’s not even a normal space-company target. It points to how large the investable space economy could become if even part of that ambition starts to look plausible.
Not Chasing This Rocket
We’re not chasing SpaceX shares themselves at this point.
The stock has already had a massive public-market debut. The float remains limited. Lockup expirations can change the supply/demand picture later.
SpaceX may keep working, but the easy version of the trade may have already happened.
Our approach is different.
Our Way Into The Theme
Every day the market is open, our system uses price history and options market sentiment to estimate potential returns over the next six months for thousands of securities with options traded on them in the U.S.
Since the end of 2022, the top ten names surfaced by Portfolio Armor have averaged six-month returns of 17.26%, versus 9.71% for the market-tracking SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.00%↑). After SpaceX has options traded on it for a while, our system will start ranking it too.
Rocket Lab USA (RKLB 0.00%↑) was the #2 name in our system on Monday night.
Rocket Lab isn’t “the next SpaceX.” That’s not the point. The point is that SpaceX’s ambition can expand the market’s view of the whole space economy: launch capacity, spacecraft, components, defense payloads, orbital infrastructure, and public alternatives in allied niches.
Rocket Lab fits that setup because it provides launch services, spacecraft, satellite components, and mission services. If the space economy grows from a niche market into a trillion-dollar infrastructure buildout, Rocket Lab doesn’t need to become SpaceX to benefit. It just needs more customers launching, building, and operating things in orbit.
We’ve traded Rocket Lab successfully before. We currently have two open trades on it, and both are well-positioned now. Today’s trade adds a third structure with a longer runway and a higher upside target.
Beyond Space
We’re not just throwing darts at whatever ripped yesterday.
We’re focusing on names in themes that are working now, then using options structures to try to turn strong stock moves into much larger percentage returns, while still defining our downside risk. Space is one of those themes. AI-linked infrastructure is another.
Today’s other two trades come from our Market Watchers → Chartmill workflow (we take names we like from investors we follow, and set alerts to notify us when they hit our technical “Goldilocks zone”) and extend that approach. One targets IP / media-technology infrastructure, where licensing and platform monetization remain relevant. The other targets AI / crypto data-center infrastructure, where compute demand and power-intensive digital infrastructure continue to attract capital.
If you want a heads up when we place those three trades later today, you can subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below.
Two Midday Updates
1) Our trade alert has gone out:
🚨 A Million People On Mars 🚨
— Portfolio Armor (@PortfolioArmor) June 16, 2026
The scale of the SpaceX bet. $SPCX $RKLB https://t.co/nuozbEk11z
2) If you missed this from the update to yesterday's post, it's worth a watch and listen: