Key Takeaways
- AST SpaceMobile fell 18.6% in the past week (through Monday’s close) after Piper Sandler downgraded it to Neutral and cut its target to $54 from $98.
- Roth MKM kept its Buy rating and $108 target on Monday, well above the Street’s $74 consensus target.
- The stock trades well below its five-year average forward sales multiple, but loss estimates are widening and the satellite build is burning more than $1 billion a year.
- Roth’s call is plausible but stretched, and the FCC’s Oct. 29 meeting and the launch of BlueBirds 14 to 16 are the next tests.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is down 18.6% in the past week (through Monday’s close), while the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.7%. It’s down 42.4% in 2026.
Yet Roth MKM kept its Buy rating and $108 target on Monday, 158% above that close.
Piper Sandler pulled the rug
On Oct. 9, SpaceX (SPCX) agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum, and AST sank to what was then a 52-week low. The following Monday, Deutsche Bank upgraded AST to Buy. It argued that AST’s spectrum covers nearly all of its enterprise value, and that SpaceX’s push makes AST a more valuable partner for carriers.
That lasted one session. Before Tuesday’s open, Piper Sandler cut AST to Neutral and its target to $54 from $98. It cited less conviction in the pace of AST’s launches, plus competition from SpaceX. The stock fell 8.5% Tuesday, 10.5% Wednesday, and 8.6% Friday with no company news.
On Monday, four of AST’s European carrier partners signed a letter of intent to explore a joint bid for satellite spectrum. That won back only part of the drop.
Roth’s $108 rests on the launch schedule
Roth set its $108 target earlier this year. At the time it said the planned launches had AST on track for commercial service in late 2026, with 2027 sales approaching $1 billion. Launch pace is exactly what Piper lost faith in.
The rest of the Street is far more cautious.
The consensus target rose from $54 to $74 over the past year, even as the stock more than halved.
AST does look cheap against its own history.
It traded at 39.1x forward sales at Friday’s close, against a five-year average of 60.3x. But $108 works out to over 100x those sales.
And losses are moving the wrong way. Over the 90 days to Oct. 12, the consensus 2026 loss widened from $1.51 a share to $2.28. The satellite build also burned more cash last year than in the four years before it combined.
Wall Street expects about $3.2 billion more burn before 2029, against more than $3.7 billion of pro forma cash at June 30. That’s not much cushion if launches slip.
Plausible, but stretched
Roth’s call can work, but it needs three things: launches on schedule, loss estimates that stop widening, and a far richer multiple than AST usually gets.
Next up: the FCC’s Oct. 29 meeting, the launch of BlueBirds 14, 15 and 16, and whether third-quarter capex comes in within management’s guide of $350 million to $425 million.
My take: At this price, AST is a buy only for investors who can live with launch slips, and with a possible stock sale along the way.
So what is AST SpaceMobile stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what AST SpaceMobile could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Value AST SpaceMobile for free
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
