According to Finance.Yahoo!, investors played the game of “buy on the rumors – sell on the news!”, when Virgin Galactic (SPCE) shares nosedived again after contradictory Richard Branson's space tourism company reiterated its plans to resume, so far wobbling, commercial service later this month.

At the time of writing on June 21st, shares were trading at $6.19 on premarket, up 3% after advancing a whopping 25% yesterday, but still a small fraction from their 2021 peak of $57.

As we know, Virgin Galactic sent a small group of passengers on a brief visit to the edge of space in a rocket plane dropped from a plane 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) above the ground. The first successful mission took place in 2018. Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the vehicle skids back and lands on the runway. However, ever since the project has been struggling to find more solvent customers, so the whole Branson’s business idea has been more and more criticized by analysts.

The company was valued at more than $13 billion during the 2021 stock market boom, when "meme stocks" with non-trivial stories stayto lure small budget investors. SPCE shares fell sharply from there, but Branson was able to sell enough stock to save his struggling airline. Palihapitiya sold all of his Virgin shares in 2021.

Today's prices suggest a valuation of the company at a highly questionable $1.7 billion. Executives said in a recent earnings announcement that Virgin Galactic's future profitability will depend on developing and operating a When the new "Delta" class rocket plane is expected to debut in 2026 (sic!), the company hopes to be relying on more than $800 million in cash and securities to keep the door open to bring these new class spaceships to market.