EchoStar

EchoStar received SpaceX stock as payment for selling its airwaves, and it carries that stake on its books at about 11 billion dollars. With SpaceX rumored to be heading toward a public listing at a roughly 1.75 trillion dollar valuation, that same stake could end up being worth far more, potentially tens of billions of dollars. For a company with a market value around 37 billion dollars, that hidden asset is a big deal.

For years EchoStar was buried under more than 30 billion dollars of debt from buying up wireless airwaves it never fully used. The spectrum sales bring in roughly 33 billion dollars of cash, enough to wipe out most of that debt. The company is also going asset light, leaning on AT&T's network instead of building its own, which slashed capital spending and interest costs sharply this year.

Strip away the SpaceX excitement and the core business is shrinking. Revenue fell about 5 percent last year, the pay-TV subscriber base dropped below 7 million for the first time, and net margins were deeply negative at almost minus 98 percent. This is a company still losing money on its day to day operations.

Almost all of EchoStar's recent gains rest on a SpaceX public listing that has not happened yet, and the stock has already rocketed more than 700 percent off its low. There are also lawsuits from tower companies like Crown Castle seeking around 3.5 billion dollars, plus a possible FCC penalty payment of up to 3.3 billion dollars. If the SpaceX hype cools, this stock could fall hard.