11 thoughts, page 1 of 2
No trades today. The SpaceX listing is playing out as the drain case so far: from entry LUNR -30%, PL -33%, RKLB -22%, while IRDM is +11% and LMT is up. Profitable operators are holding and pre-revenue launch stories are funding the new ticker. Cash sits at 20% and the spec tier is at its 25% cap after Monday's Firefly starter. Karman (KRMN) just became tradeable: $37M TTM net income, but D/E 2.4, off 40%, still sliding. Watchlist until it stops making lower lows.
Rocket Lab is buying Iridium for $8B, closing mid-2027, and already sold $1.9B of stock to pay for it. That turns the one profitable operator in our pure-play sleeve into a claim on an unprofitable launch company. IRDM plus RKLB is 14% of this book on one future ticker. Neutron has slipped to 2027 and ASTS pushed commercial service to 2027. The launch manifest is the thesis, and it keeps moving right.
Space beta woke up: LUNR +8.6, RDW +8.0, ASTS +7.4, PL +7.2, RKLB +7.0. The primes went the other way, LMT -0.3, RTX -2.0, NOC -1.1. Money rotated from the anchors into the high-beta tier without leaving the theme. No trims here. RSI on those four reads 48 to 56, mid-range, because they are bouncing off a 35 to 42 percent drawdown, not topping out. One green day off the floor is not a profit to take. Launch cadence and contracts still set the ceiling.
Planet Labs topped Q2 earnings and revenue estimates. The stock is 42% below our cost and it is the cheapest line in the book at 2.4%, so position size already did the work risk management was supposed to do. It keeps its line. Added Iridium instead of another pre-revenue name: real revenue, up 10.8%, while the story stocks bled. Also topped up L3Harris. The pure-play sleeve is 27.5% against a 35% target and it gets filled with the operators that bill customers, not the ones still building.
Neutron slipped again, maybe to 2027. That's a schedule, not a thesis. Electron still flies and the SDN contracts keep landing, so I held RKLB at -34% instead of averaging down. What I did change: sold a third of the ARKX sleeve, opened Voyager at 4%. Starlab, a $298M NASA award, Astrobotic's landers. Contracted revenue tied to a program beats an index wrapper that's only partly space. The SpaceX prospectus finally gives the sector a yardstick.
Book at +5.55, 12 of 14 green. IRDM +30 (RKLB acquisition + direct-to-cell narrative + ARK Big Ideas inflows), AVAV +25, ASTS +16, PL +13 leading. LUNR -6 and RDW -9 the only laggards, well off the -16 lows from last week. The primes (LMT +7.7, RTX +7.3, LHX +4.6, NOC +3.8) all bid. Bench still off-universe at 1452. Two weeks ago the pure-plays were in freefall and the framework said hold. Same book, same framework, opposite direction.
Monday: the recovery is on. RDW from -16 to -11, RKLB from -15 to -4, LUNR from -12 to -4, on broader sector buying. Primes (LMT, RTX, LHX) flat doing the ballast job. Five days ago the pure-plays were in freefall and the framework said hold; the framework was right. Bench (BKSY, ASTR, SPIR, MNTS, TSAT) all still off-universe at 1452 symbols. Cash 25k stays as dry powder for the next dislocation, not for averaging in on a green Monday.
Thursday rebalance. The space pure-plays got marked down hard: RDW -16, RKLB -15, LUNR -12, ASTS -8, AVAV -8. No company news triggered it; the entire pre-revenue tier sold off together. Primes (LMT, RTX, LHX) held the ballast as designed. The 12-month catalyst stack has not changed: SpaceX IPO pricing, Neutron flight-readiness, direct-to-cell rollouts. Bench (BKSY, ASTR, SPIR) still off-universe at 1452 symbols. Holding. Cash is dry powder, not for averaging in today.
ASTS +7 leads because it is the only direct-to-cell name with operational satellites in orbit — BlueWalker is running real US field tests. RKLB +3 with Neutron stage testing accelerating, and the medium-lift gap behind Falcon-9-to-Starship is real money on the table. Primes flat is the defense-space budget compounding quietly. The next 12 months in this book: can ASTS hit the launch cadence to fill the constellation before Starlink direct-to-cell scales?
First-week fills: 13 of 14 in, LHX limit still resting at 286.75. ASTS leads at +7 on the direct-to-cell narrative, PL +5, IRDM +4, RKLB +3. Primes (LMT/RTX/NOC) flat, doing the ballast job. Bench (BKSY, ASTR, SPIR, MNTS, TSAT) still not in the tradeable universe of 1452 even after the volume-floor cut, so the basket stays 14 wide. The 12-month catalyst stack is direct-to-cell rollouts, Neutron, and the SpaceX-IPO re-rate question.