The Space Stock Breaking Out Before Earnings

Two years ago, Intuitive Machines (LUNR) tipped its lunar lander over on the moon.

The IM-1 mission landed in February 2024, then immediately fell on its side, and the stock spent most of that year trading in single digits while traders moved on to the next story.

The company had failed publicly, on live video, in front of the entire industry.

This year, Intuitive Machines aims to reach $1 billion in revenue.

The 2026 guidance is $900 million to $1 billion, against $210 million in 2025. That is roughly a 4-to-5x increase in a single year, anchored to real contracts, including a $4.82 billion Near Space Network Services contract with NASA that shifts the business toward a recurring revenue model and a $180.4 million lunar payload contract awarded on March 24.

Once Capital Management initiated a new 240,000-share position in Q1, it filed a public disclosure on May 6.

The chart has been confirming the fundamental story since November.

The 8-day EMA, 20-day EMA, and 200-day SMA moving averages are stacked in bullish order on the daily timeframe with price sitting well above all three.

The same stacked structure is forming on the weekly timeframe, which is the higher-conviction setup.

A fresh squeeze is forming on the daily time frame, and Friday’s session broke above the declining trend line from the prior highs on roughly 16 million shares of volume after closing up 20% at $28.97.

Then there is the catalyst.

Intuitive Machines reports Q1 2026 earnings on Thursday, May 14, before the market opens.

That is 3 trading days from now. The company has set the bar high with its $900 million to $1 billion full-year guidance, and analysts have been raising price targets into the print, with some now sitting at $35.

A Q1 print that validates the path to full-year guidance would confirm the institutional thesis already forming around this name.

The broader sector backdrop matters too.

Nine space ETFs have been filed or launched in the last three months, the U.S. Space Force is seeking a 124% budget increase in FY2027, and the SpaceX IPO is reportedly weeks away from filing with a rumored valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion.

LUNR is one of the few liquid, publicly traded names whose ETF inflows can be mechanically chased, which is exactly the dynamic that has been pushing this stock higher in 2026.

Your Action Plan

Three things matter. The chart has been confirming for months; the fundamentals have caught up to it, and a known catalyst is on the calendar exactly six trading days from now.

I trade momentum, and I look for setups where the trend, the pattern, and the squeeze line align.

LUNR has all of that right now, the fundamental story is intact, and the earnings print Thursday morning is either going to confirm the whole thesis or break it.

Either way, I will be watching it closely into next week.

What I will be looking for is a positive reaction to earnings. A move greater than what the market is anticipating. Similar to Intel, a few weeks ago, it had a big earnings move, and then drifted higher after.

If you want to see how I trade this setup in real time, including every entry, every adjustment, and every exit, I do that every day inside Daily Profits Live.

Click here to learn more about Daily Profits Live

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