I have tried a few times to find public stock offerings for Virgin Galactic, the space-tourism startup. I’m not knowledgeable about stocks in general, so browsing websites is about all I can do. So far I haven’t found anything; the public website for Virgin Galactic apparently requires Flash installation, which I have steered clear of to date.
I’ve also noodled through the Scaled Composites site a few times. That’s the company building the spacecraft.
I’m not an investor per se. I don’t care about the perceived profitability of this or any other orbital tourism company.
My real motivation is this: I want to buy a share, or as small an amount as is feasible, of stock in space travel, as a present for my brother.
He always wanted to be in space, growing up. He got sidetracked into a similar career, but it’s not space. He’s subsumed his buring desire and is raising a family while holding down a much better job than I have.
But I’ve been thinking hard about what to get him for his birthday, and nothing would say “I remember, and approve” like getting him into space. Since I can’t do anything remotely close to that, maybe I can make him an investor and backer in private space travel.
It would be ideal if he had just enough presence to recieve the firm’s annual report…what a great conversation starter that would be, sitting on the coffee table! Will they do that for just a tiny investment?
It doesn’t absolutely have to be VG – do they even have competitors? – but since I’m looking for flavor and excitement, it should be a space travel company that’s generating news and pioneering cool stuff.
I don’t know enough about stocks to make sense of the codes in the newspaper. I’d surely be grateful if someone who knows about this stuff could nudge me in the correct direction.
Here is a list of stock symbols for publicly-traded aerospace companies. If you don’t see one listed here, such as Scaled Composites, chances are they aren’t publicly-traded and therefore don’t have stock to sell.
SPAB and SPDV.OB have to be regarded as extremely speculative. SPAB just lost out as a finalist in the NASA COTS contract awards, and if they don’t pick up work as a subcontractor, it’s not clear what they are going to have beyond termination of the current shuttle missions. They are cash starved, more than a bit shaky, and in danger of being delisted from NASDAQ - a bullet they dodged once a few months ago. I know this because I placed a small bet on them getting the COTS contract and lost, which I was prepared to accept happening.
Most of that list are large - ORB may be a decent bet as a somewhat smaller company on that list, but they’ve been on a roll, and I’m not sure they can sustain it. I might watch them for an entry point. IMO, of course. Do your own bloody DD.
Oh, and Loral is actually LORL on NASDAQ. LOR is a closed end fund - Lazard World Dividend and Income Fund.
Another note: Loral USED to be NYSE:LOR a few years ago. They dropped off the NYSE, went into chapter 11, and emerged as the current company traded as LORL on the NASDAQ in late 2005.
If you just want this for the sentimental value, and not as an investment that will earn return, have you considered making a donation in your brother’s name to something like the X-Prize?
You can receive an annual report from almost any publically traded company, although they are quickly going away in printed form.
It doesn’t look like either of those two are publically traded. It is also very difficult, although not impossible to buy one share of a small company. There are a few companies who specialize in buying one share, but they tend to focus on companies like Disney or other large companies.