Just over 24 hours since billionaire Richard Branson made history and took off into space and Virgin Galactic stock has plummeted from the sky
Shares in Virgin Galactic rose over 200 per cent in the two months ahead of Sunday’s world first flight.
The luck for the space tourism company continued with a stock climb of about 9 per cent in Monday’s pre-market trading.
However, shares took a steep fall around 17 per cent during the regular session on Monday.
The stock’s move feels odd given the success the company had on Sunday.
The landmark flight to the edge of space opened up a new frontier for commercial space travel in a race between billionaires that has investors eye’s peeled.
Part of the reason for the fall may have to do with Virgin Galactic’s plans to sell more stock.
Market Expert Christopher Uhl joined ticker news and says there are simply no more buyers willing to pay higher prices for Virgin Galactic stock, now that the huge event of heading to the skies has passed.
Market Expert Christopher Uhl
“I was once a kid with a dream”: Richard Branson blasts into space
Well he finally did it. 17 years after Richard Branson first launched Virgin Galactic, the thrill-seeking billionaire has taken to the skies and reached space.
In his boldest adventure yet, the 70 year old Richard Branson took off for the first stage of the flight.
On the ground, about 500 people watched on, including Richard Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren.
On board were his five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company.
The space plane detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 13km and fired its engine, reaching the edge of space about 88km up.
After a few minutes of weightlessness for the crew, the space plane is began its decent, set to end with a glide to a runway landing.
Richard Branson couldn’t contain his excitement, as he spoke on the journey back to earth.
He thanked his crew and remembered all those who had worked on the mammoth project.
After a decade of promises, the moment finally came for Richard Branson to unveil his spaceship for the people.
He said on board:: “To all you kids down there, I was once a kid with a dream. Now I’m up here, in a space ship!”
Customer spaceflight experience
As Branson took to space onboard Virgin Galactic, his official role for the journey will be “evaluating customer spaceflight experience”.
And that’s an important role – after all anyone who wants to rise Virgin Galactic will need to part with a quarter of a million dollars first, and that price is expected to rise.
Along with the two pilots, there is room for six passengers with a flight time of about an hour and a half.
The Virgin Galactic rocket ship detached from the mothership.
The spaceship will just go over the 82 kilometres, which is where the US recognises someone as having been into space.
Then, passengers will get to experience about six minutes of weightlessness and seeing the curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space.
They will then descend, landing on a runway much like the old space shuttle or a normal passenger plane.
Jeff and Blue Origin are promising a completely different experience for their customers.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which has no pilots and room for six passengers, reaches more than 100 kilometres high, which is the internationally recognised boundary of space
Passengers on Blue Origin will get about three minutes to float around and feel like they are in space.
Might be half the time, but the price is 50,000 dollars cheaper than flying on Virgin Galactic.
But either way, the expensive thrill ride marks the beginning of earth’s commercial passenger trips into space.
Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to start flying customers before next year.
Elon Musk has announced that companies and brands will have to pay $1,000 per month – plus an additional $50 per sub-account – to get verified check-marks on Twitter
The new pricing falls under the new Twitter Blue for Business service.
Within the next few months, only paying Twitter customers will have verified status.
Twitter has stacked on $12.5 billion in debt, and this move hopes to increase subscription revenue to meet Musk’s obligations.
Advertisers halted spending on Twitter after the takeover, but Twitter has since announced partnerships with two brand-safety vendors to win back marketers.
Musk also announced that Twitter would start sharing ad revenue with creators for “ads that appear in their reply threads”, but didn’t provide further detail.
The Bank of England and Britain’s finance ministry think the UK is likely to need to create a central bank digital currency later this decade.
“On the basis of our work to date, the Bank of England and HM Treasury judge that it is likely a digital pound will be needed in the future,” the Telegraph quoted BoE Governor Andrew Bailey and finance minister Jeremy Hunt as saying in the joint report.
“It is too early to commit to build the infrastructure for one, but we are convinced that further preparatory work is justified,” the Telegraph quoted the report saying.
The BoE declined to comment on the Telegraph article, but said a joint consultation on CBDC issues would be published shortly.
A government source said the report would be published next week.
BoE Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe is due to give a speech on Tuesday to update the finance industry on the BoE’s CBDC work.