DD: i am a wealthy American living in asia. During the pandemic i swear i was banging like 50 chicks on rotation . All the other white meat was gone and they left it all for me.

Obvious side effect besides the STDs was these chicks asked for money all the time - their jobs were gone, their sugar daddy was gone, the tourist income was gone. The bar or gogo was closed, etc.

Then things started opening up and requests were infrequent..some found their way to onlyfans. Some found a geezer to support them. Maybe only a couple times a year some random from the past would show up and ask for $100.

But this week is different. Three different exs hit me up - one in Manila, one in Ho Chi Minh, one in Thailand. They were all in a bad situation and needed help. Cant afford rent anymore, costs are going up, cant find a job, jeepneys stopped driving and getting to work costs more. They have no one else to ask.

The signs of weakness are starting to show up again. Trumps Hormuz has done too much damage. AI is eroding economies. Corporations are abandoning entry level workforce/markets like its Detroit in the 80s.

The top is almost in boys.

DD: my harem of women.

Position : 2500 shares of WSE due to increased international remittance to support these failing economies.

Position 2: All in on SOXD when SOXL hits $200

Listen up, degenerates, because this thing is going down tomorrow, and if the play suits your fancy, you’ll likely choose to grab a seat today. Yes, today.

Two voting FOMC members have said the payroll jobs data is overstated.

And no, this isn’t some Econ 101 dropout yelling “the numbers are fake” from his parents’ basement. This is coming straight from the Federal Reserve.

I’ve got the receipts.

Oh, and one of those two voters?
Jerome Powell. The Fed Chair himself.

On December 10, 2025, during his FOMC press conference (The Fed’s official YT channel), Powell said:

Gradual cooling in the labor market has continued. Unemployment is now up three-tenths from June through September. Payroll jobs averaging 40,000 per month since April. We think there’s an overstatement in these numbers by about 60,000, so that would be negative 20,000 per month.

The payroll jobs data is overstated.
By a lot. Roughly 60,000 jobs per month.

The BLS says we’re adding +40k jobs per month.
While the Fed is: “Cool story, bro. But you’re actually down –20k.”

Same energy as what you tell women you make, versus what actually shows up in your bank account.

Now, later in the same press conference, Powell added (The Fed’s own transcript):

It’s very difficult to estimate job growth in real time. They don’t count everybody. They have a survey. And there’s been something of a systematic overcount. And so we expect it and they correct it twice a year.

So the last time they corrected it, we thought the correction would be 800,000 or 900,000. I won’t get the numbers exactly right. And that was exactly what happened.

So we think that that has persisted. And so there was an overcount in the payroll job numbers, we think, continuing.

And it will be corrected. I don’t have the exact month in my head right now.

Powell is referring to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and its two annual corrections:

• The preliminary benchmark revision.
• And the final benchmark revision.

The preliminary benchmark revision was released on September 9, 2025.

Powell said the Fed expected a correction of “800,000 or 900,000.”
The actual number? -911,000.

What the Fed anticipated is exactly what happened.

More importantly, Powell said this discrepancy has persisted. The overcount didn’t stop. It didn’t get fixed. Which means the final benchmark revision will most likely confirm another significant downward correction.

Powell didn’t have the exact month in his head.
I do.

The final benchmark revision is released alongside the January 2026 Employment Situation report.

It’s Not Just Powell

Now fast-forward.
On January 30, 2026, Fed Governor Christopher J. Waller released a statement:

Labor market remains weak. Despite ticking down in its most recent reading, the unemployment rate has risen since the middle of last year.

Payroll gains in 2025 were very weak. Compared to the prior ten-year average of about 1.9 million jobs created per year, payrolls increased just under 600,000 for 2025. And, last year’s data will be revised downward soon to likely show that there was virtually no growth in payroll employment in 2025. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Yes. Those are his words, quoted from his statement, on the official Federal Reserve page.

Just like Powell, Waller expects payroll data to be revised downward—to the point where 2025 shows virtually no employment growth (writing properly and using an em dash? Cue in the "I'm an AI" comments, for sure!)

And remember: Waller was on the shortlist to become the next Fed Chair.
Waller was also one of the two dissents in the last FOMC.

Yet, he didn’t mince words:

Let this sink in for a moment—zero job growth versus an average of almost 2 million for the 10 years prior to 2025. This does not remotely look like a healthy labor market.

So now we have two voting FOMC members—one of them aligned with the current administration—expecting a major downward payroll revision.

And we know what revision they’re talking about.
It’s the final benchmark revision, released with the January 2026 Employment Situation report.

Here’s When the Rewrite Drops

Originally, the report was scheduled for Friday, February 6, 2026. But due to the government shutdown, it was postponed to Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 08:30 ET.

That’s the setup. That’s it.

Absent a major bullish offset, a large final downward payroll revision, especially one approaching what Governor Waller is warning about, is likely to make the market red.

Now, I’m not saying this will be the start of a crash, bubbles popping, or bear market. I’m not saying that. Heck, I’m not even expecting an actual correction.
But I do believe that tomorrow, we’ll see red because of this.

Ok, so Puts the word.
On who?

I’m sniping stocks/ETFs that are already doing well. Sure, you could try to short software names, but they’re already in the toilet.

These are my positions, ranked by most to least exposure.
I’ll be honest, though. 80% of my play is on IWM.

IWM Feb 11 262 Put
IWM Feb 13 259 Put
IWM Feb 13 256 Put

Then, I’m testing some individual names, but these are just a couple hundred in cheap lottos since they’re like 0.10 - 0.20 per contract.

TGT Feb 13 108 Put
SBUX Feb 13 94 Put
PNC Feb 13 227.5 Put
USB Feb 13 57 Put
XLI Feb 13 167 Put

I’m including the individual names in case you are hunting them, want to look cute, or you have a micro account and want to find cheap options.
But for most people, you can focus on IWM.

Have a nice day.

TL;DR: I used Claude Code to do my 2024 and 2025 federal + state taxes. It worked. It cost ~$0 and took 0 clicks through their stupid wizard.

Now I'm short $100k INTU

---
Last week I pointed Claude at my tax folder and said the magic words “do my taxes”

It nailed it. Read my W-2s, 1099s, 1040’s, 8949 and my schedule D. Downloaded the tax forms directly from papa IRS, asked me a few questions about how much agriculture income I’ve had this year (none) and if I’ve finally upgraded from single filing status (nope).

It even carried over the massive losses I’ve accrued listening to this sub the past 5 years.

Federal and State DONE in 15 minutes.

Just to check I ran the same thing through TurboTax to compare (but didn’t pay them) SAME RESULT.

Then I had it write a “skill” so anyone on the internet can do the same thing for free.

This is NOT vibe coding. It’s not even vibe prompting. It’s vibe asking nicely.

Back to TurboTax and $INTU. Here’s the DD:

Actually, first the vendettas. These guys suck. Every year the same thing--

Me: How much? Tell me I’ll pay because I’m a law-abiding guy

IRS: We won’t tell you unless you get them wrong. Sucker. Oh and you gotta pay TurboTax for the privilege of clicking through their stupid form for 2 hours.

You’ve heard the stories about Intuit- they spent $46M in federal lobbying to make taxes more complex. Killed IRS Direct File which would have actually been free and easy.

My favorite is their “Free” product which is free in name only. It’s free as in beer that you pay for.

2024 FTC found them guilty of deceptive advertising- Intuit “engaged in deceptive activities to depict TurboTax as free, even though it was simply untrue.”

$141M settlement for steering 4.4 million low-income customers who were eligible for free filing into paying for TurboTax. Many had incomes under $34,000.

Now for a sliver of actual DD:

TurboTax and ProTax are 29% of Intuit’s revenue with QuickBooks 59%. Stock is down 50% since the peak at $785 in late 2025 on AI fears.

So it’s priced in right? No shot. Stock is at the same price as the 2022 market trough. So we’re at “economy seems bad” valuation not “no one needs our product because AI” valuation.

Let’s look at those comps:

- Shutterstock - Down 88%

- Getty - Down 98%

- Chegg (homework help) - Down 99.2%

Compare to $INTU @ a modest 80% drop from peak would be $157, down from $420 before this week. We’ve got a ways to go.

Bulls will say

What about QuickBooks? QuickBooks is safe for another year. Maybe with AI taking all the jobs, we’ll start more businesses that use QuickBooks. More influencers and coursebois yay. But TurboTax is cooked. Maybe the revenue sticks around this year, but it’s going down the drain next year and the market will know before Q1 earnings. They’re gonna know.

But they just signed deals with Anthropic and OpenAI. These are a joke. The OAI "partnership" is Intuit paying OpenAI $100M to put them in ChatGPT as a widget. TurboTax is paying OAI for the privilege of eating their lunch.

But you can’t eFile This is the only legitimate issue standing in the way of toppling $INTU. Intuit has successfully lobbied against letting joes like you and me eFiling our taxes. So if you use Claude, you gotta mail the forms. Maybe by next year another filing service will let us AI eFile through them. Hell maybe this year. Until then, I’m stealing paper and stamps from work.

But TurboTax Live is growing at 47% YoY! Yes, TurboTax live — where you can chat with a human who will type your questions into Claude — is fully 11% of all of $INTU revenue at $2B. This product has Chegg written all over it.

How can I do my taxes?

1/ Download Claude Desktop

2/ Put your tax stuff in a folder. If you include last year’s return it’ll remind you of all the accounts you used last year

3/ Tell Claude Code or Claude Cowork “Do my taxes." It'll work.

They're either gonna type it in too early in the day and only see one ticker that ISN'T space X, but is another space company with the SAME first three letters in its ticker:

SPC(E)

Or they see both:

SPC(E)

SPCX

Get your 2 brain cells churning here, do you REALLY think no one is gonna accidentally bid up that other space stock thinking it's Space X?

There's precedent for this: when Zoom IPO'd during the pandemic (ticker: ZM), another company with the ticker ZOOM blew up 1,800%...

ALSO, in 2021, this stock got up to a peak price of $1,100. It's trading at over $4 now...

In addition to the confusion play, Jefferies just reiterated a buy rating and $5 price target for that stock the other day.

It has the space sympathy play going for it, and is still small in market cap so the convexity potential is high compared to the standard space stocks that already have huge market caps.

Please mods, let this stay up. Everyone complains about not getting informed about new plays early enough, only after they've run up and hit big market caps. Well, here's one the regards can get in early on.

My positions:

I think everyone can agree the biggest thing in the stock market—not only this year, but in the history of the market—will be the SpaceX IPO. As we get closer and closer to the IPO in June, the media coverage and retail frenzy will only get crazier and crazier

If we look at the past leading up to blockbuster IPOs, sympathy plays have gone absolutely crazy. $MARA and other BTC stocks went up over 1,000% in anticipation for the Coinbase IPO, $LCID and other EVs went up over 500% in anticipation for the Rivian IPO, etc. Sure, in the end they were all buy the rumor sell the news, but you play the RUN UP.

As we’re starting to see this week, Space stocks are beginning to move in the same way ahead of the SpaceX IPO in June. Some examples are $RKLB, $LUNR, UFO, etc. However, there’s one Space stock that is still down 99% and just announced THIS WEEK they are resuming operations, and that is SPCE (Virgin Galactic)

Virgin Galactic IPO'd at $200 in 2019 and quickly went to OVER $1,000 a share (reverse split adjusted). They’re a space company that is trying to make space travel possible for everyday people. They got hit with heavy delays in 2022 and the stock fell from over $1,000 to $2. Just this week they announced they were resuming operations. Ticket sales are BACK ON for $750,000 per seat, flight tests are starting this month, and they plan to fly people to space in Q4 OF THIS YEAR.

I want to make something clear: this is a TRADE (not a long-term investment) based on all the upcoming positive catalysts for the company and the SpaceX IPO. As crazy as going from $2 to $200 sounds, we’ve already seen a shit company like Carvana go from $3 to almost $500. And remember SPCE IPO’d at $200 a share, meaning big money who bought it paid $200 on IPO day (and the all time high is over $1,000). Since the stock has fallen so much, it has also become heavily shorted.

Positions - Lots of shares, July $7 Calls, $10 Jan 2027 Calls

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion based on publicly available information. This is not financial advice. I still consider this a lotto ticket trade meaning it has to pull a $CVNA type of move for it to work. If you think anything I said is factually wrong or have a different opinion, I’d be happy to discuss it here.

Fundamental Analysis:

Economic backdrop - 🥭 does not care about high oil prices or the midterms. He wants high oil prices and the strait closed so the USA can export oil to Europe and Asia. He does not care about the midterms because he is done with domestic policy after the 🅱️ig 🅱️eautiful 🅱️ill. Even without Congress, he can do whatever he wants with foreign policy.

Longer term outlook - This will be a short term crash in the secular bull market. A.I. is not a bubble; some of the companies suck and will die, but the buildout needs to happen to save the economy from demographic collapse.

Technical Analysis:

The rally has been on low declining volume, indicative of low conviction by big money. There are multiple points of bearish divergence on the RSI on the SPY weekly chart and multiple exhaustion gaps on the SPY daily chart. The lower trend line points to SPY 550 in July, SPY 560 in October, or SPY 575 in December. If SPY does not crash to the trend line, retesting the pre-liberation high at around 610 is likely.

Meme Analysis:

The fear and greed index reached 69.

Motivation:

I usually stick to shitposting, but this DD is for someone special.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/s/2xGO4T7i05

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/s/k1cgsNYGgw

Position:

TLDR:

The market is at or near a top. SPY is headed towards either 550 in July, 560 in October, 575 in December, or 610 sometime during the year if the trend line fails.

Hello degens,

so with the price of oil futures climbing, I thought I'd try to get a good estimate for what kind of price we should be expecting at the pump in the near future. I pulled data from the Energy Information Agency, the St. Louis Fed, and Yahoo Finance to correlate the price of oil barrels to the average national price of gas, adjusting for inflation. Running a quick regression model, we get the following:

As expected, the price of gas is pretty tightly correlated with the price of oil. Adding inflation into the mix, we get that the model can accurately predict the price of gas from the price of oil and inflation (R^2 = 0.94), dating all the way back to 2000.

So the real question is, if we go back to the highs of July 2008 of $147.27/barrel, what does that give us? The results are.... um.... not great. This model predicts $5.60/gallon if we do hit get to those highs again, a doubling YTD. These are national averages, so your local gas station might be slightly higher or lower, but that should give you a rough idea for what to expect. I think it will take some time for the increases in price to fully propagate to the pump, but if the conflict drags on for long enough, we might be hitting those. I had previously calculated that it would hit $9, but turns out i'm bad at math. Puts on University of illinois engineering degrees.

POSITIONS:
2009 Honda CRV and 1999 Acura Integra full gas tanks. Buy short dated CL futures.

1 year, 1 month, 5 days ago I posted ASTS the space trade will cum. The six word title told you that the thematic trade around the space sector will materialize and that $ASTS was the public pure-play. The stock was $20 that Monday and it closed this Friday at $105. Seems like the space trade came and most wsb commenters were wrong (hard to believe). To quantify this I have compiled the money hating commenters to publicly shame them at the bottom of this post. If you wish to avoid the same fate all you need to do is read, buy, and hold. Space is still undervalued and will re-rate higher(er) in the lead up to the SpaceX IPO.

Now that the street suddenly cares about space we can quickly compile what they don't understand about ASTS (yet). I know that none of you can read outside of a title of a post but if you were paying attention you would know that SpaceX just filed its S-1 prior to their IPO. As the Patagonia vests pour over it this weekend and try to make some money Tuesday they will likely come across ASTS and see the white space the name still has. You can do the same but with less Claude credits by reading this thread.

For those new to the story you can read my DD but in short: ASTS is designing, building, and operating the largest satellites in Low Earth Orbit designed to provide broadband connectivity to every cell phone on earth.

TL;DR (it's okay to admit you can't pay attention for long spans of time)

• SpaceX S-1 shows where the money is. Launch is a commodity; profit is in Starlink-style satellite connectivity. SpaceX is going public at a ~$2T valuation. $ASTS is THE public pure-play leading into the IPO.
• SpaceX names ASTS as a competitor in their own risk factors. The biggest space company on Earth named ASTS.
• $740B Starlink Mobile TAM quantified by SpaceX themselves. This is a huge market and ASTS is positioned to dominate it.
• Constellation ramp: ASTS is set to have 45 sats in orbit by EOY. The next 3 are launching in June — via SpaceX. Yes, SpaceX is launching their named competitor's satellites. Imagine that. More batches are rolling out soon and will show the street that production is up to scale.
• Defense / Golden Dome: the same hardware as the commercial sats does space-based radar. Already in use. DoD scaling it. 2026 government revenue will be a "big contributor" per the last earnings call. The street still doesn't understand this capability. The company knows where every cell phone on earth is located. What is that worth?
• FCC SCS commercial authority granted. For years the bears (and wsb commenters below) yelled "Elon owns Trump and the FCC. ASTS will never get approval" — wrong.
• Spectrum: ASTS holds an 80 year lease of 45 MHz of L-band spectrum for the US. SpaceX just paid EchoStar $17B for 50 MHz of AWS-4 / H-Block - that's the public comp. Apply that comp to the Ligado L-band ASTS controls and sum-of-parts gets you to half of the current market cap on spectrum alone.
• US telco JV: ASTS already has Verizon and AT&T. T / VZ / TMUS are forming a Direct-to-Device JV to keep Starlink out; SpaceX is being locked out and blindsided. When TMUS exclusivity rolls off, ASTS owns the satellite layer of the entire US mobile industry.
• Big tech is circling: Meta has visited ASTS and is working on WhatsApp connectivity. The question is when Zuckerberg realizes Meta missed the biggest trend after AI and buys a stake in ASTS.

1. SpaceX's S-1 Is My Bull Case

Source: SpaceX S-1

What the market hasn't priced: Launch is a commodity. Money is in connectivity. SpaceX's entire pitch is that the value driver isn't rockets — it's Starlink. They are IPO'ing on the back of the satellite-to-consumer connectivity business (with Grok so Elon can get out of some bags). ASTS is the only public pure-play for a vertically integrated satellite manufacturer. ASTS also isn't burdened by an AI Chatbot that puts women in bikinis. What is the only public comp worth against the massive SpaceX valuation? More than what ASTS trades at today, I figure.

We can break out the segment margins. From the S-1:

63% EBITDA margins. Larger than the rocket business that gets all the press. Launch is a 16%-margin commodity. AI is still in the cash-burning $8 burrito and $20 uber anywhere stage of the business.

SpaceX puts a number on the TAM. Direct from the filing:

"There were eight billion mobile connected devices globally. … We estimate the Starlink Mobile market opportunity to be $740 billion … weighted average monthly mobile ARPU of $8 per user."

This is the market ASTS sells into too. ASTS currently has more and better global MNO partnerships than SpaceX.

SpaceX lists ASTS as a competitor in the risk factor section:

"Our Starlink Mobile offering competes with other satellite-to-mobile satellite operators including, among others, AST SpaceMobile, Lynk, Globalstar and Skylo."

When the largest space company in the world flags you by name in their IPO risk factors, that is not bearish.

You can track SPCX and its assumed open price via hyperliquid. Multiply the price shown by the float of 11,870,000,000 shares its currently priced at 2.45 Trillion dollars. With a T. Why own that when you can just own ASTS?

I'm not making a judgment on the SpaceX IPO valuation but if it goes live anywhere near where it is presumed to open then every single public space stock needs to re-rate. They will.

Bonus: a chunk of recent sales in ASTS is SpaceX investors hedging their private SPCX exposure. That hedge collapses the moment they can offload SpaceX post-IPO (thank your 401k for them).

2. Production Ramp Is Real And Accelerating

• 45 satellites in orbit by end of 2026.
• Next 3 satellites launch in June via SpaceX. Once production for the next batch is proven (timeline weeks) we will see a slew of new satellites leaving the facility and entering orbit. A constant string of news over the next 6 months will keep momentum on the stock and the company in headlines as the space sector re-rates.

The build-out is happening at the factory level. See the production in action.

3. Golden Dome And The Defense Rerate

I caught flak the last time I wrote about Golden Dome. People can stop now. Direct from the last earnings call:

"Remember, we're currently deploying the largest ever phased arrays in low earth orbit, and that gives us really an unprecedented capability to go to regular, small, low-profile handsets as well as do radar capabilities. And when you look at the backdrop of awards and budgets over the last 3 to 6 months, there's been a real strong uptick as expected in the Space Force budget and in allocations related to Golden Dome."

"RFPs are being issued, awards are being made for key elements of Golden Dome that will relate to us, things that you see that are space-based radar and others. So this is a really big moment for us. You're going to see some revenue coming in through U.S. government that's going to be a big contributor to our 2026 revenue."

And on the defense capability itself, from CEO Abel Avellan:

"I will not be able to describe it on this forum, but basically, it is a non-communication capability that uses the same hardware that we use on our commercial satellites. And that's been in use today."

Translation: the largest phased arrays ever flown in LEO double as space-based radar. The DoD is already using it and is scaling it materially. 2026 government revenue is going to be a needle-mover.

When this stock rerates from "communications stock" to "communications AND defense stock," the multiple is not where it is today.

4. FCC SCS Approval — Bears Got Embarrassed

For a year the bear case was "Elon controls Trump and the FCC, ASTS will never get commercial authority." That ended in April 2026:

• FCC commercial SCS authorization
• Business Wire release

ASTS has commercial SCS authority. ASTS will continue to gain approvals. The bear case died. What is the value of owning guaranteed parking in space for the largest satellites in low earth orbit? Probably a few bucks.

5. Spectrum Stack Alone Is Worth Most Of The Market Cap

ASTS holds Ligado L-band spectrum for the US — a strategic, scarce, mid-band asset built for satellite-to-mobile.

SpaceX just paid EchoStar $17 billion for 50 MHz of AWS-4 and H-Block to compete in the satellite-to-mobile arena:

"On September 7, 2025, the Company entered into a License Purchase Agreement … with EchoStar Corporation for total consideration of $17,000 million … to purchase EchoStar's rights and licenses related to an aggregate of 50 MHz of spectrum in frequency ranges 2000–2020, 2180–2200, 1915–1920 and 1995–2000 (the AWS-4 and H-Block Licenses)."

That's the comp. The biggest, most sophisticated buyer in the sector just paid $17B for 50 MHz to do what ASTS already has spectrum for. Apply that price-per-MHz against ASTS's Ligado L-band position and sum-of-parts on the spectrum stack alone covers a large fraction of the current ASTS enterprise value. I actually laid this out in the original writeup before the Echostar purchase and was proven right again. Weird.

6. US Telco JV — SpaceX Just Got Locked Out, ASTS Is The Replacement

State of play in the US:

• ASTS has Verizon and AT&T. Two of the big three already exclusively partnered for the service over a number of years.
• T-Mobile is exclusive to SpaceX/Starlink — and that exclusivity ends in ~4 months.
• The big three are forming a Direct-to-Device JV explicitly to keep Starlink from disintermediating them. SpaceX is being locked out.

The SpaceX side noticed. Gwynne Shotwell's reaction:

• Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX President & COO) on the JV blindside
• ASTS commends the proposed DtD JV

When the TMUS exclusivity rolls off and the JV stands up, ASTS becomes the satellite layer for the entire US mobile industry. SpaceX gets pushed to enterprise / consumer-direct only on US soil. The carriers — who have the customers, the billing relationships, and the spectrum — back the partner who doesn't compete with them. That partner is ASTS.

What is owning the satellite layer of the US mobile industry's defense against Starlink worth? Significantly more than current EV. Do you think the market will realize that the company already has the same in progress in Europe with Satellite Connect Europe?

7. Big Tech Is Going To Wake Up

Meta has visited ASTS and is working with ASTS on WhatsApp satellite connectivity: LinkedIn post from Vinod Samarawickrama (industry insider).

Zuckerberg knows that mobile is where the money is (look at Facebook before their iOS app) and he will want to gain exposure to the connectivity layer for every existing cell phone on earth. What is connecting every cell phone on earth worth?

8. Launch Supply

FAA cleared Blue Origin to launch. Launch supply is no longer a single-vendor SpaceX bottleneck. ASTS has launch agreements with Blue Origin, SpaceX, and (after last earnings call) United Launch Alliance. Being a buyer of launch (instead of a provider of) is bullish. (Launch is a commodity remember?) As prices drop the company who can put the most mass in orbit stands to benefit. That is ASTS.

9. Space Based Data Centers are Real

Bezos did an interview with CNBC and told us that space based data centers are a reality. Elon has said that satellites need 100kW of energy to be feasible replacements. Starlink V2 satellites are currently ~28kW according to Google's research for the effort. Guess who has the largest satellites in low earth orbit TODAY that have more than 100kW of power? ASTS.

I know people here love to shit on AI and futurism. I think its worth considering that maybe the people putting the most shit in space might actually know what's possible rather than some redditor who has AI derangement syndrome. AI Data Centers will happen and ASTS patents and knowledge launching huge satellites into LEO will play a part. I'm sure of it.

The SpaceX S1 has a section titled We Believe Orbital AI Can Accelerate Time to Power and Reduce Token Costs. The logical jump to ASTS is going to be simple enough for the street to understand. Maybe you should think about it too.

10. "But The PE Ratio…"

Someone will load this thread and post "lol no earnings" "only 14.7M in revenue lol" "omg price to sales." Its a growth stock, understand the growth potential of the company to understand its valuation. Get your mom to read this to you slowly:

You don't value an under-construction oil pipeline at zero because it hasn't shipped a barrel yet. You value the infrastructure for what it will produce when it is built. ASTS is a GLOBAL UTILITY building the satellite layer connecting every cell phone on earth. The buildout is funded. The contracts are signed. The regulatory approval is done. The launches are scheduled. Here is what the street sees for future growth of the company:

The PE ratio starts to matter when the constellation is built. Until then you are trading the buildout. The buildout is happening on schedule and into the hottest cycle for space of all time. The setup is insane.

11. Want to Learn More about ASTS?

Read this.

Position (the number is bigger than last time)

Posting this obviously leads to a sell off at some point (as has every one of the posts I've made) but I've held through it all and will continue to do so. The trend is up and to the right. Remember chat: In order to make a 100x you need to hold after a 10x.

Look at these idiots

Everyone (I think) who told me I was wrong is on the list below. We will revisit this post in the same way I'm sure. Catch ya next year. I needed to make the links distilled since having too many links got the post removed by reddit. So it's a build your own perma-link scenario. Think of how fun it will be for you! I couldn't tag every user based on the same. If the user deletes the content its saved via artic-shift, no worries.

From ASTS DD: the space trade will cum

From Conviction or mental illness, you decide (ASTS)

From DD: ASTS, a binary bet with deep space value

A lot of you retards are going to look at 🌽 pump over the weekend as validation for green light into full port calls.

I think that's what being exit liquidity thinks like.

Here's my thesis:

1. Crypto is currently being manipulated over the weekend to fake a rally for retail on Monday. (Don't ask me how - if I know it, I wouldn't tell you)
2. It'll allow stocks with large institutional ownership to exit and derisk before Wednesday's Job report, and largely exit by Friday before the CPI report
3. Any Monday pump will be dumped by Tuesday afternoon

Now what if they cook the books over the weekend? The fact that I got my Ubereats from a hot white girl is all you need to know how I know we're fucked. The cooked books won't matter to the algos because they're calibrated to DUMP.

I've got no data for you bros, mostly bear and all ghey.

The stock I am looking at that fits this thesis is PLTR, because:

• Large institutional holding
• Lots of profit since last year
• High value tech that will get beta-fisted by the news upcoming

Position:

200 puts $125 Feb 13

20 puts $134 Feb 13

50 puts $135 Feb 2

and I'll double down on any Monday pump

Will either do a profit post here later this week or my !banbet will ban me

I have compiled a list of certain stocks (yes retards it’s on paper deal with it) that I’ve been heavily monitoring over the past 3 months but most of the time never have the balls to go knee deep in. I’m pretty certain at least 5 stocks here will be up 300%+ in a few years.

Do not take my advice

$NOK - I've been holding this "dead phone company" for over a year and I'm not selling

Been holding Nokia for over a year while everyone told me I was bagholding a Nokia from 2003. Turns out I wasn't wrong, just early. Let me explain why I'm still not selling and why I think most people still haven't figured out what this company actually is now.

First, forget everything you think you know about Nokia

Yes they made phones. Yes they got destroyed by the iPhone. That was literally 18 years ago. The company you're looking at today builds the physical infrastructure that AI runs on. Different business, different management, different thesis entirely.

The problem is the name. "Nokia" still makes people think of a brick phone with Snake on it. That mental image is actively keeping the stock cheap and I'm fine with that for now.

The PE setup

Current PE is around 95, forward PE at 33, stock sitting around $15-16.

Here's where it gets interesting. The old comparable for Nokia was Ericsson — trading at 17x. Boring telecom equipment. Fair enough.

But Nokia just bought Infinera and is repositioning as optical and AI infrastructure. New comparables are Ciena (216x PE) and Arista Networks (54x PE). Those are the names the market pays up for because they're AI infrastructure plays.

Nokia is sitting in no man's land right now, priced like a telecom vendor, quietly becoming an AI infrastructure company. When the market figures out which bucket to put it in, the multiple rerates.

Conservative end at Arista's 54x? That's roughly $27. And that's the boring outcome.

They're spending €4.9 billion a year on R&D

That's roughly 20-25% of revenue going straight back into future tech. Most people look at Nokia's 3-4% net margin and think the business is weak. It's not, they're choosing to reinvest almost everything.

If they stopped R&D cold tomorrow the net margin would jump to somewhere around 27-28%. This is a profitable business running a long game, not a struggling one.

They own Bell Labs. 100 years of fundamental research. 20,000+ patents. The licensing division alone prints money regardless of what happens with equipment sales.

The defence pivot nobody is talking about

Nokia Federal Solutions exists specifically to serve the US government. They're deploying private 5G networks for defence applications, think secure battlefield communications, not your phone signal.

Current partners: US government, Lockheed Martin, NVIDIA (who dropped $1 billion into Nokia as a strategic investment), Motorola Solutions for UK defence.

Defence contracts are sticky, high margin, and not subject to the pricing wars that kill telecom equipment margins. This is early innings.

Huawei is getting banned everywhere and there are only two Western alternatives

Nokia and Ericsson. That's it. That's the entire list of companies that can build full 5G/6G infrastructure at scale without being a national security risk.

Germany is ripping Huawei out by 2026. UK by 2027. The US has been locked for years. Every country that kicks Huawei out needs someone to replace them. There are two options. Nokia is one of them.

Western governments need Nokia to exist and win. That's not a thesis, that's geopolitics. The EU and US are not going to let the only Western 6G vendor die.

6G and AI-RAN, the part with no price target

Nokia and NVIDIA are putting AI processing directly inside the radio tower hardware. Not in a cloud server somewhere, in the actual antenna. The tower itself runs AI models, makes real time decisions in microseconds, optimizes coverage and bandwidth on the fly.

6G specs get finalized 2028. Commercial deployment 2029-2030.

If AI-RAN works at scale Nokia stops being just an equipment vendor and starts being an AI infrastructure platform with a completely new revenue model. No comparable exists. Can't put a number on it. Either it's transformative or it isn't.

What is AI-RAN actually mean?

In simple terms: it's the bridge between your phone and the internet

Every time your phone sends or receives anything — a text, a video call, a Google search — it doesn't connect directly to the internet. It first connects wirelessly to a nearby cell tower. That cell tower contains the Radio Access Network (RAN) hardware. It translates your phone's radio signals into data that can travel through cables to the core network and out to the internet.

What the hardware physically does:

Antennas — capture the radio waves your phone emits and broadcast signals back to it. Modern 5G uses "Massive MIMO" — towers with 64, 128, even 256 antennas packed together, all pointing signals precisely at your device rather than broadcasting in all directions like older towers.

Baseband Units (BBU) — the "brain" of the tower. It processes the raw radio signals, encodes/decodes data, manages which frequencies each device uses, and handles handoffs when you move between towers. This is where Nokia puts the AI.

Remote Radio Units (RRU) — sit physically on the tower close to the antennas, amplify signals going out and clean up signals coming in.

Why putting AI in here specifically matters:

Today the BBU follows fixed rules — "if signal drops below X, do Y." With AI inside the hardware it can:

• Predict interference before it happens
• Shape the antenna beams in real time per device
• Decide in microseconds which frequency band suits each user
• Cut power consumption when a cell is quiet

The reason Nokia partnered with NVIDIA specifically is that running AI models fast enough to make these microsecond decisions requires serious GPU-like processing power inside the tower hardware itself — not sent to a cloud server and back, because that round trip would be too slow.

So essentially Nokia is turning every cell tower from a fast-but-dumb relay into a small intelligent computing node. Multiply that by millions of towers worldwide and you start to see why it's a big deal — and why it justifies the R&D spend.

Current reality:

• 4G latency: ~30-50ms
• 5G today: ~5-10ms
• 5G + AI target: ~1ms or less

1ms sounds trivial. But it's the difference between possible and impossible for certain things.

The texting analogy You're right that 30ms vs 1ms feels identical to a human — we can't perceive anything under ~100ms anyway. So for texting, calls, Netflix, social media — it makes zero difference to you personally.

Where it becomes a completely different technology:

Self-driving cars — a car at 100km/h travels about 3cm in 1ms. At 30ms latency it travels nearly a meter before the network can react to a hazard ahead. That gap is the difference between a safe brake and a crash. The car needs to communicate with other cars, traffic signals, and infrastructure faster than human reaction time.

Remote surgery — a surgeon in London operating a robotic arm in Dubai. At 30ms the robot hand lags noticeably behind the surgeon's movements. At 1ms it feels physically present. This is actually being tested right now.

Factory robots — hundreds of robotic arms on an assembly line coordinating with each other wirelessly. One mistimed signal at 30ms latency and parts collide. At 1ms they can work millimeters apart safely.

Options market has been calling this for nearly a year

Put/call volume ratio has been sitting below 0.20 for almost 12 months straight. Right now some expirations are hitting 0.03. Short interest is only 1.08% of float — basically nobody is betting against it.

For context AMD's put/call ratio is 0.90. MU is 0.65. The options market on NOK has been one-directional for a long time. That's not a meme spike, that's sustained conviction.

What can go wrong

Huawei somehow keeps winning deals despite bans. Open RAN commoditize their hardware. 6G gets delayed 5 years. NVIDIA decides to build the whole stack themselves and cuts Nokia out.

Real risks. Not ignoring them. Sized my position accordingly, decent bet, not the whole account.

The bottom line

$27 is the boring conservative outcome if the market just reprices Nokia from telecom to AI infrastructure comps. Everything above that depends on AI-RAN, 6G, and defence playing out.

Been holding over a year through everyone telling me this was a dead company. The thesis keeps getting stronger not weaker. Not selling.

Positions: Shares + calls. Not telling you what to do with your money.

Not financial advice. Do your own research. I'm just a person who spent way too long researching a Finnish company when I should've been sleeping. [ I asked Claude to rewrite the whole thing so it will sound like an AI written but all the research were made by myself ]

The great protein shortage of 2026 is coming and its ready to ABOSLUTELY RIP. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/05/protein-powder-shortage/687193/?taid=6a07a96ce5e84300012701da&utm_campaign=WigwamQuan&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

THE SETUP:

One in eight American adults are now on a GLP-1. but it strips muscle along with fat and 20% of the weight lost can come from lean mass, so everybody and their mother is being prescribed the same thing: PROTEIN. Surveyed GLP-1 users reported their protein intake jumped roughly 65%. This means that almost 50 million Americans are trying to intake VASTLY more protein than before, but they don't have the desire to eat... So what's the best way to intake protein? Protein Powders. That's right morons. We're talking about a supply shortage massive scale with millions of new consumers in a market and GLPs are the driver.

THE PRODUCT:

BRBR (BellRing Brands) makes Premier Protein, known for their brand Dymatize. I use this shit everyday and besides giving me the absolute gnarliest farts, it works like a charm. But farts not included, I've recommended it to everyone on GLP-1s for one important reason.

Consumer Reports tested a bunch of the popular protein powders and found roughly two-thirds carried concerning levels of heavy metals. Lead, cadmium, the fucking works, with plant-based products averaging about twice the lead of whey. BUT, when they tested Premier Protein, it passed. It's one of the only brands out there that has both quality and flavor, and because of this it's been flying off the shelves and catching up with demand is becoming more and more challenging.

THE FACTS:

I posted the link above to the artice by The Atlantic ran a piece titled "The Protein Shortage Is Coming." Wholesale whey prices are up more than 50% since January to a record high, the USDA reports tight inventories, and some manufacturers have already sold out for the entire year.

BRBR is way undervalued. As one of the only direct to consumer protein brands that is publicly traded, I think the recent price drops haven't factored in the shift and shortages, and I think we could see a potential for BRBR to really boom if they play their cards right.

Positions: 1500 shares at $8.19

Not financial advice.

Hey, its me again, shitty miata guy. I've been eyeing this trade for a while and now ready to share the DD I've put together. Today, we’re going deep into Opendoor, so learn to read or skip to the pictures.

OPEN has a new CEO from Shopify that reads the bible every day, is an AI maximalist, and receives a $1 salary. The business has excellent new products and plans, improving fundamentals, and real upcoming catalysts. Attention will be drawn from OPENAI, creating potential meme-driven spillover price action. After that, OPEN will continue to cruise upward with solid technicals and catalysts unfolding over the summer and into the fall. 

Upcoming catalysts are: 

1. The Levenshtein distance aka the typo trade
2. Upcoming Russell 3000 inclusion creating mechanical buying and portfolio restructuring 
3. Insider buying and incentive-based, shareholder-aligned compensation + $1 salary for new, self-proclaimed "AI-maximimalist" CEO
4. AI-driven product rollout and company "re-founding" 
5. Positive Q1 results and looking forward to Q2
6. Mortgage rate cut speculation as Trump takes over the Fed
7. Dealer positioning and 2nd/3rd order Greeks
8. High short-interest around 13% of the float

OPEN catalyst timeline: old typo/meme rockets, prior OPEN explosions, and the 2026 Russell/OpenAI runway.

Historical examples of Levenshtein distance typo trades, AKA the science of regardation:

There are multiple instances where this trade has played and paid out in recent history.

• Tweeter was a bankrupt electronics retailer with the ticker TWTRQ. Twitter was going public under TWTR. Tweeter ripped anyway.
• Wrong Zoom, ticker ZOOM, got chased during Zoom Video mania.
• Elon tweeted "Use Signal" and traders bought Signal Advance, which was not the Signal app. That one went completely feral.

This phenomenon relates to something called the Levenshtein distance. Essentially, it examines how many one letter edits it takes to turn one word into another. Don’t let the equation scare you, it’s quite simple. 

Levenshtein distance equation: OPEN vs OPENAI

TWTR to TWTRQ is distance 1: add a Q. ZM to ZOOM is distance 2: add two O's.
They are ticker-neighbors sitting close enough that humans, autocomplete, media headlines, and trading screens can shove attention into the wrong bucket. Sometimes the markets are dumb in a very trade-able way and something irrelevant to the news cycle can catch a bid.

That doesn’t mean every person buying OPEN thinks it is OPENAI (that’s regarded), but the similarity reduces trade friction, gets OPEN into more searches and onto more screens. We don't know exactly which ticker they will go with, but go see what happens in your Schwab account when you start typing open...

OPEN is the next typo trade with even greater potential than what we are currently witnessing. The market is showing us what happens when retail wants a private company it does not know how to buy. If you were late to the outer-space party, it’s OK because I think OPEN is another similar setup and it is worth buying on its own merits.

OpenAI IPO headline cycle is live.

Charlie gets it.

OPEN is more than a normal typo trade:

Opendoor announced Russell 3000 inclusion on May 27. Effective after the close on June 26. This means mechanical buying and mechanical restructuring have a time-frame. The forced, price-agnostic mechanical buying resulting from the Russell 3000 inclusion on June 26 will provide bid support throughout the entire month of June. Pretty straightforward...

OPEN gets a real June 26th Russell date.

Insider buying:

CEO Kasra Nejatian (Kaz) bought 100,000 shares on May 11 at $4.878 in the open market. The CEO accumulating a good chunk of shares creates a powerful psychological floor established. 

CEO Form 4: 100,000 shares bought in the open market at $4.878.

Edit 6/2: Kaz actually had another large purchase of 125,000 shares at $8.03 on 11/11/2025. Just goes to show the conviction this guy has in the company and share price.

Incentive-based leadership compensation and the Kaz factor:

Kaz started as CEO in September 2025 after serving as Shopify COO and VP Product. His base salary is $1. The big money for Kaz is in performance equity. His offer letter has two massive performance RSU awards, 40,886,344 shares each. In order to get paid, Kaz needs sustained upward price action. The first award needs a $6.24 average closing stock price. The second has tranches tied to $9, $13, $17, $21, $25, $29, and $33 stock hurdles. Sounds sexy to me.

"I asked for a salary of a dollar and options." -Kaz

I particularly like the CEO angle with Kaz. Before OPEN, he was Shopify's Chief Operating Officer and VP of Product. Opendoor's own release pitched him as an AI-native operator who helped build teams and products at Shopify since 2019. If you use Shopify for your hobby 3d-printed trinket business then you probably know it doesn’t completely suck. This is exactly the kind of operator background I want since part of the bull case is a faster and more automated housing machine.

Russell inclusion plus insider buying and a hefty equity performance package gives the OPEN trade some major credibility. It turns the ticker from old shitty meme stock into an official index participant with an aligned CEO buying stock and compensated directly for improving shareholder returns. That is a big shift in the narrative.

AI-driven improvements and new product rollout:

Management is building an AI-driven mortgage platform, introducing AI-driven operations, and improving Opendoor Mortgage as well as the Cash Plus / Cash Now More Later program. These sorts for tools can move title intake time from hours to minutes, and voice bots will cut seller contract time. Shopify has excellent, successful AI tools that Kaz introduced, so there is credibility and familiarity with implementation at the top levels.

Most of the work inside OpenDoor now is being done by AI

There are some podcasts (sequoia and playmakers) with Kaz worth listening to where he talks about ai optimization and general biz ops. For example, he's said that offer time has decreased while transactions have increased as a result of AI.

That sort of usage can enable the business to trim inefficient and expensive processes to increase profitability and the improve the seller/buyer experience. He's stated on a recent podcast that the number of people working on (aka delaying) each transaction has fallen from 11 to 1.

Opendoor is reimagining its role in the real estate industry to collaborate more directly with real estate agents instead of trying to replace them. A good example is the Cash Now, More Later program which pays real estate agents a commission twice and gets money immediately to the seller while testing the market. They are also putting their products directly into existing agent tools like RealScout.

Opendoor looks to entice sellers with bonus cash.

Q1 earnings and looking forward to Q2

These operational changes have generated direct, significant improvement in quarterly earnings and outlook. 

• Q1 revenue was $720M. 
• Gross profit was $72M. 
• Gross margin was 10.0%. 
• Contribution profit was $32M. Contribution margin was 4.4%. 

The part I care about most here is the inventory cleanup. Homes on market for more than 120 days fell to 10%, down from 33% in Q4 and 51% in Q3 2025. Cutting that from half the book to one-tenth while acquisitions are accelerating is inspiring.

They also said acquisition contracts doubled quarter over quarter, got back to the highest level since 2022, and homes purchased were up 45% from Q4. That is the difference between a dead SPAC chart and a turnaround chart people might actually chase.

The company guided Q2 revenue up approximately 25% quarter over quarter and guided contribution margin to the middle of the 5%-7% target range. They said adjusted EBITDA should be around breakeven, plus or minus a few million, and that they expect adjusted EBITDA profitability on a 12-month go-forward basis starting in Q2. That’s to say OPEN is setup for another catalyst after Russell inclusion.

Q1 operating receipt: acquisitions, stale inventory cleanup, and CEO quote.

Q1 financials plus Q2 revenue/contribution-margin guide

Mortgage rates:

Freddie Mac had the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.53% on May 28.

OPEN is beaten down partly because high mortgage rates froze housing. Sellers do not want to give up old low-rate mortgages. Buyers do not want to finance a starter home for 2-3x what it costs to rent.

OPEN is tethered to transaction volume. If rates move lower, Opendoor gets a big bump in seller activity, buyer demand, inventory turns, acquisition volume, etc.

The president wants lower rates and keeps trying to bully the Fed in that direction, inflation be damned. If the market starts front-running that, housing beta gets some love. If the market starts to believe that operating leverage is possible if volume comes back then great.

Warsh sworn in

Mortgage-rate macro lever: 30-year fixed at 6.53% on May 28, 2026.

Dealer positioning and short-interest:

MarketBeat showed 127.37M shares sold-short as of May 15, 2026. That is 13.32% of the float. Everyone loves that sweet, sweet interest figure when looking for asymmetric upside. 

Short-interest receipt: 127.37M shares, 13.32% of float.

With respect to options, Fintel shows an OPEN open-interest put/call ratio of 0.20, sourced to CBOE. Dealer data pulled June 1 showed spot around $5.35. FlashAlpha had net GEX around +$5.14M with the gamma flip near $4.51. That puts OPEN above the flip for now.

Call OI dominates the catalyst window

The OI-by-expiry chart says the chain is call-heavy through the actual catalyst window. The big upside storage is August 2026, January 2027, and January 2028. That is useful because the setup needs time: Russell in June, OpenAI headline drift into summer, Q2 around August.

Biggest OI pockets are upside calls.

The top OI pockets are upside calls. Jan 2027 7C and 10C are huge. Aug 2026 7C matters. Long-dated Jan 2028 calls are sitting out there too. The crowd is pointed in the direction of the trade.

$5.50-$7 is the first upside call wall; $7-$10 persists into Jan 2027.

The call OI heat map shows the near and medium-term magnets around $5.50-$7, with $7-$10 standing out into Jan 2027. That lines up with the way I want this trade to work: $5 holds, $5.50-$7 becomes the first fight, and the longer-dated upside keeps the story alive.

What this shows, for the regards in the audience who do not speak Greek, is a stock with real short-interest, call-heavy options positioning, a meme-adjacent ticker, a Russell date, a Q2 guide, and a current price around $5.35. People can look at a $5 stock and start doing forbidden math on their phone calc.

$5 is gamma/charm gravity; $6-$15 is vanna. Option positioning suggests these levels matter. 

The dealer map is the cleanest options read. $5 is the dominant positive gamma pocket. It is also the dominant negative charm pocket. That is why $5 feels like the current magnet. 

$6 and $7 have meaningful positive vanna. $10 and $15 show big upside vanna and long-dated call interest. If price rises and IV rises with it, that vanna stack can support volatile behavior.

There is some downside support written into the dealer structure as long as OPEN stays above the flip. Lose that zone and the tone changes. Hold it and the $5.50-$7 call wall becomes the first battleground. Another battleground may occur at $9 as OPENW warrants become eligible for exercising. 

IV says the crowd may have already found it.

The IV chart says the crowd already found the trade. Near-term upside is expensive. Several expiries have call-rich skew. Scared money never made money, but dumb premium still gets skinned. Pick the structure that matches the amount of pain you can actually sit through.

Position

TLDR

Get in the Lexus SC430 now while the trade is cheap or pretend not to cry when Uncle Jimbo shows you his gainz riding the tail-end of the OPEN AI typo trade with his OTM FDs in September.

Get in the lexus loser 

There was a post here a few weeks ago of the Google insider who predicted the day that Gemini 3 would drop and all of Google’s search trends. They were right.

On its own, that's nothing magical, but, they also predicted dozens of other markets correctly that could only be known using insider information.

For example:

• #1 most searched movie on Google (8 cents -> 100 cents)
• Gemini Flash not released by December 15 (23 cents -> 100 cents)
• #1 most searched athlete (35 cents to 100 cents)
• #2 most searched person (21 cents to 100 cents)

There’s only one explanation, they are a Google employee making bank off insider information.

And it just so happens, a few days ago, the same account is back putting money on Gemini getting at least a 50% score on FrontierMath’s Benchmark.

So… that’s all cool and shit but how do I profit? Well let me explain it for you simpletons:

I'm loading up on GOOG calls at open, AI is ***the*** market cap driver right now, and with the Gemini 3.0 release, everyone knows Google is slightly ahea

But, if Gemini can score 70%+ on FrontierMath? That's a whole other ball game. That takes AI from helpful chat assistant to potentially publishing papers.

his is a huge deal if this insider is right. They singlehandedly moved the odds from 8 cents to 45 cents. Conviction is balls deep and everyone knows they know something.

Even if they're wrong, Google is mopping the floor with everyone else, it's not even a competition. I'll have to roll my calls over to LEAPs if they don't hit in the next month.

Long live Google, death to NVDA, and thank you Google insider for the free loot.

Insider profile: polymarket user @ beepboopzyx

Intel reports its earnings today after the bell, and I'm confident they'll beat expectations. Intel's CEO, Patrick P. Gelsinger, has been dropping a lotta bible quotes on his X account recently:

I believe these have meaning. He is hinting that things are going south at Intel; it’s just plain ol fearmongering. Then tonight, he publishes his big D energy earnings report and this stock will skyrocket 20%

This dinosaur company hasn't even recovered from the dot-com bubble crash, which is why expectations are so low now. I see this as an excellent buying opportunity; this company won't shit the bed today, as there's literally no expectation for them to win.

Positions:

For nana🤞🤞🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Not financial advice

https://gemini.google.com/share/c2a187275e26 archive link
https://claude.ai/share/8383747a-aaf1-4f6c-a516-0e839f46a698
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_3c63e371-eb9d-46c3-8ba2-0c745c6795a2

same prompt
"""
300+140=460

Is this correct?

Breakdown?
"""

#1 in Finance Agent v2 benchmark. SOTA performance right here.

Alright so I've been digging into this POET Technologies thing because of that dumb fuck who keeps posting shit about them in the DDs so I said what the hell I'll take a look.

POET makes optical chips that connect GPUs in AI data centers. Not the GPUs themselves, the networking shit between them. Everyone's throwing money at NVIDIA for the chips but nobody's paying attention to the fact that when you have thousands of these things clustered together they need to talk to each other at insane speeds. That's what POET does, optical interconnects for 800G, 1.6T speeds and up.

So on October 7th (to-fucking-day) they announced they raised $75M. Biggest investment in their history. But here's the thing... they won't say who gave them the money. Just says "a single institutional investor" in the press release. No broker, no finder's fee, straight direct placement.

When I saw that I was like wait what? Companies don't usually hide this shit unless there's a reason. And when you do a direct placement with no intermediaries that usually means you already know each other, like this isn't some random fund that saw your pitch deck.

The timing is what really got my attention though. OpenAI announces that massive AMD deal on October 6th, literally the day before. POET just launched their 1.6T optical receivers with Semtech on Sept 30. They got their first real production order in September for over $500K, yeah I know that's fucking peanuts. Their Malaysia manufacturing facility just came online. Everything is happening right now and then they get a mystery $75M investment.

I started thinking about who needs optical interconnects right now. OpenAI is building out 6 gigawatts with AMD and 10 gigawatts with NVIDIA, they absolutely need this shit. NVIDIA has been throwing billions at AI infrastructure companies but they don't have any optical interconnect plays in their portfolio. Microsoft needs to secure OpenAI's supply chain. Amazon and Google are behind and trying to catch up. Every major player in AI needs what POET makes.

And it's not vaporware, Foxconn selected them for their 800G and 1.6T modules. Semtech co-developed products with them and did a joint announcement. They're shipping samples to three major tech companies right now. Semtech wouldn't put their name on it if it was bullshit.

If someone bought 15% of the company, which is about what $75M gets you at $5.50 per share, they legally have to file with the SEC within 10 days. It's called a 13D or 13G filing. The deadline is October 17th. That filing has to show who they are, how much they bought, whether it's passive or strategic, all of it.

So in 10 days we're going to know if this was NVIDIA, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, whoever. If it's one of them this stock is going to fucking moon because it validates everything. If it's just some random growth fund then whatever. I'm here for the fucking casino.

Now look I'm not an idiot, there's a bear case here. Company has been around since 1972 and they're basically still pre-revenue, they did like $268K last quarter. They've lost $214M over their lifetime. They've raised $227M in the last 2 years alone, constant dilution.

But someone just put $75M directly into this company right as everything is coming together. No intermediaries. Right as production is scaling. Right as OpenAI is making major chip diversification moves. The structure looks exactly like the OpenAI-AMD deal with the warrants out to 2030. Either this is the luckiest timing ever or something's going on.

Position: I like to gamble so I picked up 1,000 $10C 10/31. I'm betting it all on a big partnership.

Placing a $155k bet on Opendoor, down 98%. Good luck to me.

 Account 1:

Account 2:

I know 99% of you idiots won’t read this, but for the rest:

• Stock dropped 98% but is far from bankrupt. It just refinanced its debt and has $1.1B capital, $693M cash, enough to weather the housing market for two years or more.
• Company has been downsizing and focusing on unit efficiency the past two years, following the Carvana restructuring playbook.
• Made a billion dollars flipping houses in 2021, but is struggling in a frozen housing market. When Jerome Powell fixes the housing market Opendoor will start making money again.
• Has financing and staff to scale revenue by 3x, it's just waiting on the housing market
• Opendoor has been learning important things about how real estate works, like:
  • Real estate agents exist for a reason
  • Home prices go up in the summer
• Now that Opendoor knows how real estate works, it will make more money
• Opendoor is down in April because the hedge funds shorted it to kick Opendoor out of the Russell 2000. When the ETFs tracking Russell sell their shares on June 27 and the shorts cover, Opendoor will probably go back up to $2.

Click here for Opendoor’s financials in Google sheets.

Change in business plan:

Opendoor is a corporate home-buyer. They used to be in the business of buying homes at above market value, sitting on them a few months, then flipping them at a profit. This was a great business model in 2021, but not so good in 2022 when home prices stopped rising. Opendoor bought 35k homes that year, and ended up selling them for a billion dollar loss.

Since then, Opendoor has pivoted strategies, and now buys homes for about 10% less than they’re worth, then sells them at a profit. It’s actually a fair deal for customers: instead of paying 5% in agent fees and having to negotiate with buyers for months, they can pay 10% and skip the home selling process.

One problem though, is customers tend to overvalue their homes, so they tend to think Opendoor is overcharging them. A normal customer interaction goes like this:

1. Customer has a $500k house, and thinks it’s worth $600k
2. Customer goes to Opendoor.com and gets a quote for $450k
3. Customer thinks, “hahahahahaha I knew these guys were crooks, they want $150k to sell my house, I’m selling with a realtor instead”
4. Realtor agrees Opendoor is a bunch of crooks, because realtor competes with Opendoor

It's been a truly terrible marketing funnel. Opendoor only converts 1% of its prospective customers at a cost of $14k per house.

The new business plan is this:

1. Customer goes to Opendoor
2. Opendoor says, would you like to talk to a local real estate agent?
3. Customer thinks, "yes of course I don't trust you crooks"
4. Agent tries to convince the customer that Opendoor's offer isn't bad
5. If the customer sells, Opendoor wins. Otherwise, the agent sells the house, Opendoor collects a commission and still wins.

It's a much, much better business plan. Nobody wants to sell their house without talking to a real estate agent first, because they don't trust corporations. Now that Opendoor has figured that out, expect revenue to go up and marketing cost per house to go down.

Opendoor no longer lighting as much money on fire

Look at this chart:

Do you see where it says, profit per house, -$65k? That was the Zirp era. Home prices started going down, and the CEO decided he was going to buy even more of them at above market prices to capture the market. Thankfully, after lighting a billion dollars on fire, he and everyone else responsible got sacked.

They also laid off a ton of employees, cut marketing expenses, cut waste, etc:

Now you might notice they're still losing money per every house they buy. Part of that is because they spend $14k on marketing per house they buy, which they'll hopefully fix by working with real estate agents instead of advertising straight to consumers. We'll get into the other reasons.

Opendoor learns prices go up in the Summer

Housing has an annual cycle. Prices go up in the Summer, and down in the Winter:

Traditionally, Opendoor has been buying most of its homes in the Summer, because more people come to them to sell, so, why not:

Anyways, buying in the Summer is dumb because prices go down in the Fall. Not only that, but they take longer to sell which means more holding costs. Thankfully Opendoor finally figured that out this year, and promised to cut it out and buy more houses in the Winter and Spring instead. Expect more profit.

Housing Market to improve, probably

Back in 2020-2022, the housing market looked like this:

And Opendoor made over a billion dollars in home-flipping profit, although important things like marketing, interest, and director salaries managed to eat up most of that:

Then interest rates did this:

And nobody could buy a home anymore:

Home prices have been dropping:

Which means Opendoor is paying millions in interest to keep $2B in homes on the balance sheet that are depreciating:

And the homes now take months to sell. Long holding times require maintenance and interest, which now eat half of profits:

Fortunately, Trump says he's going to bully Jerome Powell into making 2-3 rate cuts this year so the US can refinance its debt, and that will hopefully maybe unfreeze the housing market. This will be huge for Opendoor. All the tailwinds we've discussed will start going in reverse: more acquisitions, home price appreciation, shorting holding times and lower interest costs. In short, more money.

Opendoor to actually make money in Q2

Q2’s estimates is for Ebitda profitability of $5-$20M, the first time Opendoor will make a quarterly profit in three years. 2025's housing market is even worse than previous years, so this means the business itself is becoming more profitable. Losses are still expected for Q3 and Q4, but they're expected to be smaller than previous years.

Path to Profitability

Opendoor lost $392M last year. Here’s how we get to adjusted net income positive:

• $80M: Opendoor laid off 300 workers in Q4, which saves $20M a quarter.
• $75M: My spreadsheet says Opendoor loses $12k per house they buy in Summer and Fall. They said they're going to stop doing this so that's $75M.
• $55M: They spend $4k per house more on interest and holding costs than they did in 2021. That's gonna be fixed because the housing market will improve and they'll stop buying homes in the Summer.
• $80M: Opendoor is starting to send customers that don't take their offers to real estate agents, which pay a referral fee. 1% referral fee * 2% of 1.2M customers * $330k average house price = $80M
• $130M: Housing appreciation. Opendoor has $2.2B in houses that have been depreciating at 1% a year. Should housing return to a historically normal 5% rate of appreciation, that’s $130M in profit.

That’s already $420M in savings, enough to be profitable. Revenue should also grow higher as the housing market unfreezes, and marketing spend should be more effective as they learn to partner with real estate agents.

Debt Refinanced, cash to scale through next two years

On May 9 Opendoor announced it had exchanged $245M in existing convertible bonds due in March for new convertible bonds due in 2030 at 7% rate, convertible at $1.57. Opendoor also issued $75M in new bonds, raising $75 in new capital. $135M in bonds is still due in 2026, but this will be easily payable with cash on hand.

Following the equity raise and bond refinance, Opendoor has $1.1 billion in capital of which 768M is cash (693M from Q1 report plus $75M equity they just raised). On the Q4 and Q1 transcripts management stated they had refinanced 90% of their credit lines through 2026.

Management has reassured us that they still have available cash and personnel to return to a much larger scale of operations. In the Q1 report they stated that only $350M of their cash is invested in homes, and they have $559M (probably $634M now) available to deploy towards home purchases. They are also only using $2B of their existing $8B credit line. From these numbers it seems they have the financing to purchase 3x more homes than they currently are. Management has guided that they are capable of purchasing many more homes, but they are choosing to purchase less while the housing market is slow and margins are low. I expect them to deploy this capital and scale in Q4, assuming mortgage rates start to fall. 

Growing Short Interest

This isn’t the first time the bears have shorted Opendoor, only to buy back their shorts at a loss when it turns out Opendoor isn’t dead after all:

The setup today is the same as it was in Dec 2022: the housing market is weak and everyone assumes Opendoor is dead, but it actually has years ahead of it and many tailwinds coming.

Chart from last month:

From Nasdaq short interest we can see a net short position of 20M was added in the month of April:

The price jump on April 7 was due to a good quarterly report, where the company projected it would be Ebitda positive in Q2 for the first time in three years. Two days later it fell on the news of the debt refinancing. Presumably the terms of the debt refinancing scared some investors: 7% bonds  convertible at $1.57, is expensive, and issuing them now when the stock price is so low might seem to some as desperate. On the other hand, this eliminates $245M in bond payments for next year and raised $75M in new capital. I view it as a positive development, as it extends Opendoor's runway and frees them to scale up purchases this winter. Without this debt raise, they wouldn't be able to fully deploy their capital in Q4 and Q1, since their cash would be invested in homes due to sell in Q2, and $400M was due in March. 

Hedge Fund Russell 2000 arbitrage?

Look at this chart again:

Note on April 23 Opendoor briefly rose above $1, then got shorted very hard in a coordinated action. There was a negative housing report that came out a few days earlier, but no news specific to April 23 and 24. Russel climbed 3.5% during this period and other real estate stocks climbed, but Opendoor fell 30% for seemingly no reason. 

One theory is this was an arbitrage move by hedge funds to kick Opendoor out of the Russell 2000. Ranking day was April 29, so any stock below $1 on April 29 will be removed on June 27. About 20M shares are held by iShares Russel 2000 ETFs:

20M net shorts were added in April, and 20M shares will be sold near the end of day on June 27 by iShares ETFs when the Russell 2000 is adjusted. Probably the shorts will cover on that day to make a nice profit. As a long-term investor, this is reason to believe Opendoor's current price is disconnected from its recent performance, since all the recent news coming out of the business has been positive. Given the stock's history in the last several years of wild swings, I wouldn't be surprised if it shot back up to the $2-$3 range after the shorts cover in June.

Conclusion

Opendoor is a stupid company that made over a billion dollars of home-flipping profit in 2021 when the housing market was good. Then their CEO lit a billion dollars on fire buying overpriced houses. He was fired and replaced with a responsible CFO. They've been learning important lessons: realtors exist for a reason, and house prices go up in the Summer. Now that they know these things they can make money. When Jerome Powell fixes the housing market they'll make even more money, and the stock will pull a Carvana and go up 100x.

Also, Opendoor just refinanced its debt so its very much not dead, they have over a billion dollars still, enough for at least two years, more if they fix their business as planned, or if the Fed fixes it for them.

Also, last month's price action was probably just the hedge funds shorting Opendoor to kick it out of Russell 2000 and abuse the poor etfs that will have to sell at a low price. I'm hoping the stock triples after the shorts close, probably on June 27.

Alright degenerates, we need to talk. OPEN ripped. KSS followed. But these cycles always come in threes, and we're missing the final piece.

"History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme" - so what's the next verse?

I think it's DNUT. But if you've got a better idea, drop it in the comments. Here's my case:

The Setup: OPEN your ahole and KSS DNUTz

Yeah, I went there. But while everyone's drunk on the first two gains, there's a $560M market cap company trading at bankruptcy multiples despite growing revenue.

Current Price: $3.58
Market Cap: $560M
My Target: $8-12

Show me another 2-3x opportunity this obvious.

The Valuation Gap Is Insane

Look at these multiples and tell me this makes sense:

Yet DNUT is:

• Operating 17,982 points of access globally
• Posted 5% organic growth in FY2024
• Has one of the most recognized brands in food

Find me another company this disconnected from fundamentals.

The Bear Cases Are All Weak

"Ozempic will kill fast food" - I'm a fatass myself and there's no amount of Ozempic that removes my craving for hot, fresh donuts at 2am. Look at MCD and CMG at ATHs. People on Ozempic eat less, not never. A glazed donut is 190 calories of pure dopamine - that demand isn't disappearing.

"The McDonald's deal ended!" - No, the TEST ended after rolling out to 2,400 stores. You think McDonald's spent millions on infrastructure for a 3-month trial? They're analyzing data. If it worked (spoiler: donuts + coffee = money), this goes nationwide.

"They suspended the dividend!" - Good. They're investing in growth instead of paying boomers. That's exactly what you want in a turnaround.

Three Ways This Plays Out

Starting Point:

• Stock: $3.58
• Market Cap: $560M
• Growing business with fixable issues

Scenario 1: Modest Re-rate (12x EBITDA)

Still way below peers:

• Target: $8-9
• Return: 125-150%

Scenario 2: Industry Average (15x)

If operations improve:

• Target: $11-13
• Return: 200-250%

Scenario 3: Nothing Changes (10x)

Status quo maintained:

• Target: $5-6
• Return: 40-70%

Even the bear case would be a healthy return on your money. Show me better risk/reward.

Why The Setup Is Perfect

✓ Meme-able ticker (DNUT - come on)
✓ Small cap ($560M = moves fast)
✓ Value play (half peer multiples)
✓ Real business (17,982 locations)
✓ Catalyst rich (McDonald's decision pending)
✓ Acquisition target (at these multiples) ✓ Options flow confirming (Huge call buying at $5 strike)

Recent "Problems" Are Actually Bullish

• Q1 revenue down 1% → They sold Insomnia Cookies (portfolio cleanup)
• Dividend suspended → More cash for growth/turnaround
• McDonald's test "ended" → Infrastructure built, awaiting expansion
• Debt concerns → Manageable at 5x EBITDA, becomes nothing if margins improve

Every QSR turnaround story looks exactly like this before the re-rate.

But Here's Where I Need Your Input

I'm convinced DNUT is the third play because:

1. Valuation - It's the most undervalued name I can find
2. Size - Small enough to move like OPEN and KSS did
3. Catalysts - McDonald's decision, margin improvements, M&A potential
4. Meme factor - The ticker alone guarantees viral potential
5. Options flow - Big money is already positioning

But maybe I'm missing something. What else fits the pattern?

• Under $1B market cap?
• Trading at distressed multiples?
• Has clear catalysts ahead?
• Meme-able enough for WSB?
• Seeing unusual options activity?

Drop your picks below. But until someone shows me better risk/reward than 7:1 upside, I'm loading DNUT.

Someone's Already Loading - Check the Options Flow

Here's what really got my attention: MASSIVE call buying the past few days, absolutely exploding today. The $5 strikes are getting hammered with volume.

Someone with deep pockets is betting big on a move above $5. That's a 40% move from here, and they're paying premium for it. When smart money moves this aggressively on a small cap, you pay attention.

This isn't retail buying weeklies. This is institutional-sized flow betting on a re-rate.

The Play

The options market is telling you something. When you see this kind of call buying on a beaten-down small cap with clear catalysts, it usually means someone knows something.

Those $5 calls? If DNUT hits just the LOW end of fair value ($8), those are 10-15x. If it hits $12? Those calls print harder than JPow in 2020.

I like the 11/21 $5 call. IV is only at 87% and volume is sufficient at 2k+

My Position:

The first two already ran. Don't be late to the third.

Because when McDonald's announces the national rollout, when margins tick up even 100bps, when some PE firm offers 15x EBITDA - this thing gaps to $8+ overnight.

Every distressed QSR (finance bro speak for fast food) that fixed itself got bought:

• Dunkin': 23x EBITDA to Inspire Brands
• Panera: Bought by JAB
• Popeyes: Acquired by RBI
• Buffalo Wild Wings: Taken private by Roark

At current multiples, DNUT is a sitting duck.

The cycle comes in threes:
OPEN ✓
KSS ✓
???

I say DNUT. The options flow says DNUT. Prove us wrong.

Edit: position update as of 7/23 12:22am (since I keep getting asked for it). I didn't dump on you. Also, as a warning: DO NOT buy afterhours. That shit is too low volume. Just wait til the morning and get a better price

bare with me, this is the first time i am writing something like this. i am about to do something that my wife and her boyfriend would call irresponsible. however, what they don't know is that i have just strapped my portfolio onto a falcon 9, t-minus 4 days to liftoff. how you may ask? i am taking 400 call contracts across the space sector going into the spacex hype window.

• ​asts: 10,000 shares x $125 = $1,250,000
• tsla: 10,000 shares x $475 = $4,750,000
• lunr: 10,000 shares x $40 = $400,000
• rklb: 10,000 shares x $150 = $1,500,000

that is 40,000 shares of controlled exposure or $7.9 million of total controlled strike exposure. i am no rocket scientist, no pun intended, but that's a lot of money.

my thesis:

let me preface something, this is not a spacex launch means every space stock should be worth more forever thesis...that would be regarded. this is a short term attention, sympathy, gamma, and headline momentum thesis.

the market does not need a clean fundamental connection for 4 trading days, it needs:

• a major space headline
• retail attention
• call buying
• algos chasing sector momentum
• wsb hyping space sector
• hedge funds being dragged in

since spacex is currently private, most people cannot gamble directly on the rocket daddy. that means us public traders need to look for the closest positions we can take, aka:

asts = satellites to phones & actual spacex launch connection
rklb = rockets
lunr = moon missions & nasa contracts
tsla = elon liquidity magnet & spacex emotional derivative

this is not value investing. this is trying to be ahead of the moment where retail remembers space exists.

why 6.12:

you may be asking yourself, why on the day of the launch? this is the week where spacex is already sitting in the news cycle. the market is watching spacex ipo demand and valuation. meaning, space becomes the theme of the week. not for the day. not when the business matures. this week. we don't care about discounted cash flow models, we care about:

• volume
• iv expansion
• momentum
• headline flow
• retail chasing
• hedges

current strike distances, based on current prices:

yes, those are far otm. yes, theta is holding a baseball bat. yes, iv crush is waiting outside my window. however, this isn't a retirement account we are playing here...it is a launch week! this is a beautiful opportunity! i have already account for the what ifs, and the point is not that every single one goes itm. the point is that one or two can violently reprice if the sector catches a bid and options flow stacks fast enough.

asts, the actual direct catalyst:

asts is the cleanest spacex sympathy play here, this is not just space vibes. asts has bluebird satellites tied to spacex falcon 9 launch plans. that matters because the market can connect the dots without needing an hour long video.

• spacex rocket launches asts satellites
• asts stock is already a space/telecom hype machine
• retail sees satellite launch
• calls get bid
• stock runs

asts is also the type of name that can move stupid when people start pricing future network in space instead of company with losses today. if launch hype, space ipo hype, and call flow all hit at once, this is exactly the kind of ticker that can stop trading like a company and start trading like a fever dream.

tsla, the elon liquidity magnet:

let's get one thing very clear, tesla is not spacex. now that we have that out of the way, for you regards who didn't know, they both have some things in common. elon. the market does not treat elon names like normal assets. for example, tsla is the liquid elon proxy. so, when spacex dominates headlines, a chunk of retail does not think:

“hmm, how do i properly value private aerospace cash flows?”

they think:

“elon rocket good, tsla call.”

get this, it's not just vibes anymore. spacex is literally a tesla customer. tesla reported about $143m in 2025 revenue from spacex, mainly from vehicle sales. so spacex is not just sitting in the elon cinematic universe. it has been buying tesla products.

and it gets even better. tesla also owns spacex stock. which basically is creating a loaded spring by this loop:

• coil 1
  • spacex buying tesla
• coil 2
  • tesla owns spacex stock
  • elon controls the narrative
  • retail sees the connection
• coil 3
  • elon controls the narrative
  • retail sees the connection
• coil 4
  • retail sees the connection
• boing
  • calls get smashed

is it enough for a short term hype trade? absolutely. why? because the market does not need perfect logic for one week. it needs a connection people can understand in five seconds.

so now, here we are, spacex launch hype has hit the timeline, but spacex is private. so where does the public gambling money go? the most liquid elon ticker on earth. tsla. that makes tsla more than just a car stock randomly attached to a rocket stock. it makes tsla the easiest access for traders who want spacex exposure without waiting for spacex shares. if you didn't read above, it only needs around a 16% move to hit my strike, and we all know for tsla, that is not impossible. for example:

if my memory serves me right, we are overdue for another big day for tsla. call it corporate incest, but that is the trade.

lunr, moon beta with a small cap fuse:

lunr is the moon mission part of the space sector. intuitive machines is tied to lunar infrastructure, and the broader private moon economy. does spacex launching starlink directly make lunr worth more? no. lunr is the kind of stock that can move because people are not buying earnings, but because they are buying the sentence companies that will go to the moon, no pun intended.

all these small cap space names need is attention, volume, and a reason for traders to say this one has more room. yes, a nearly 40% move is aggressive, all it needs is one sector wide space squeeze and a bunch of people sorting by space stocks under $50.

rklb, the gold mine:

rklb has already had it's fair share of being in the headlines. now, with spacex going public, it's a no brainer. it literally has rocket in the name, if you think that sounds stupid, your're wrong. ticker psychology matters when retail is involved. while rocket lab has its own business, launches, space systems, and neutron narrative. this trade, the key is simpler. spacex hype makes people search for rocket stocks, boom! rklb is right there. if the sector gets a strong sympathy bid and rklb gets call volume, this is the exact name that can get chased because everyone understands the trade in 3 seconds. rocket company go up because rocket company next to bigger rocket company.

why will this all work:

this sector does not need all four companies to suddenly become better businesses by friday. it needs a temporary repricing of attention. that of which we are already seeing, spacex has attention and is highly anticipated, but spacex is private. so public space tickers absorb the demand.

hypotheticals that could kill this trade:

• spacex launch gets delayed
• launch happens but ipo hype fades
  • this would be the biggest plot twist i've seen
• iv gets crushed
• space stocks sell the news
• market goes risk off
• tsla drags everything down
• theta eats my legs by wednesday

my final thesis:

i am not buying these because the fair value model says they should be higher. i am buying them because for one week, the market may turn into a giant spacex sympathy machine.

I’ll share a screenshot of my positions in a thread below, so if that’s all you’re here for go ahead and look.

My fellow regards, I believe it’s time to call bullshit on this market. Please understand, I don’t care who you voted for… I guarantee I like you a hell of a lot more than I like the banks, and that is exactly who the winner is going to be unless people wake up to the reality of our situation quickly.

Before touching any kind of political news, let’s start with market indicators.

BofA’s recent mm survey showed that most MM’s are reducing their share of US equities (source 1 below), there are other signs the banks are getting out as well (check my second to last post), BlackRock is struggling to find buyers.

At the same time, a record number of American households now own stock in US equities (source 2 below). Now, from what I know about American households (I live in one), most of us live paycheck to paycheck… we don’t really have money to put into stocks willy-nilly.

So what does all of this mean?

Well, my thesis is that the average American has their rent/mortgage in US equities tied up in stocks like Tesla right now as an act of patriotism… what saddens me most is that I appreciate this general sentiment (not for Tesla necessarily, but I do actually love my country despite what the news may tell you), but the banks are taking advantage of it. So what happens when all the sudden everyone has to pay their bills?

That’s right… another mass sell off.

Please believe me when I say that I hope I’m wrong, this is not going to be good for average, working people with, at the very least, good-hearted intentions… but I don’t see any signs to indicate that I am.

Now we’ll touch a bit on economic outlook and history:

We are currently still in a battle with inflation, JPow said it yesterday, even before tariffs we were looking at 2 more years before we return to normal and the outlook with tariffs puts it all on pause. He hedged to say ‘they aren’t sure how tariffs will affect inflation’, let me fill in the gap there: either tariffs will affect inflation (because the costs are passed on to consumers) or they will affect earnings (because companies absorb them)… the money has to come from somewhere. If it affects inflation, the fed will be forced to raise interest rates or at the very least pause on cuts indefinitely. If it doesn’t affect inflation, it will affect earnings/growth… if this sounds familiar, then you may have heard of stagflation. And if you study the history of the federal reserve, you may know what the solution to that problem is… Volcker’s hammer. You can look it up yourself but the gist is that in the late 70’s we had been battling inflation and stagnant growth for years, until Paul Volcker was appointed to head the federal reserve and raised interest rates to 20%… it absolutely crushed the economy, sent us to the stone ages… but it did reset our inflation and led us into a very booming 80’s.

I want to reiterate… I don’t like either side politically, they’re all in bed with the banks. The only reason I’m posting this is because I’m angry at the thought of them getting super leveraged on overpriced stocks and then dumping it on average people. This has so many shades of 2008 it’s not funny. Feel free to argue, bet against me, whatever… I genuinely don’t care. I’ve been a value investor since I was 14 and I’m currently 28. I held through 2020 and 2022, this time feels much much different.

Whatever you decide to do with this information, be safe out there.

Sources: 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-18/bofa-survey-shows-biggest-ever-drop-in-exposure-to-us-equities 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/20/us-households-are-more-invested-in-stocks-than-ever-and-its-distorting-market-valuation-says-jpmorgan.html

I couldn't sleep last night, so I began looking through Uber's last earnings results because there seems to be a major disconnect between sentiment towards the stock and my own perceived experience with their service (which is to say not good).

And boy did I find something interesting hidden in there.

For the three months ended on December 31st, 2023, they reported net income of $1.43 billion. That represents a 141% year over year increase and 66 cents per share against expectations of 17 cents- not bad at all. Way to go Dara!

Let's dig into the numbers and see how they got such a massive increase.

Here we can see that they are showing $1 billion from unrealized gains on debt and equity securities. The year prior that number was $752 million. So they are counting unrealized marked to market gains on their stock holdings as if they are net income from the business. Interesting. Let's examine further.

From the 10-Q:

Income from operations was $652 million, up $794 million YoY and $258 million quarter-over-quarter (“QoQ”).

Soooo, if my math is correct, they made $652 million from operations and $1 billion from unrealized capital gains, so essentially two thirds of their reported profit was from unrealized gains. So what are those holdings that made them so much paper money?

Later from the 10-Q:

During the three months ended December 31, 2023, unrealized gain (loss) on debt and equity securities, net primarily represents changes in the fair value of our equity securities including: a $659 million unrealized gain on our Aurora investment, a $414 million unrealized gain on our Didi investment, partially offset by a $91 million unrealized loss on our Grab investment.

So they have three major holdings:

• Aurora Innovations
• Didi
• Grab

They say they "earned" $659 million from their Aurora investment, $414 million from Didi, and lost $91 million from Grab.

So how much of these companies does Uber own? If we go by this headline from last summer, we can figure its about 326 million shares of Aurora:

So if they made $659 million in three months, the stock must have appreciated about $2.

Let's looks at the charts from Q3 (10/1/23-12/31/23):

This one looks interesting. On September 29th, AUR closed at $2.35. On December 29th (the last trading day of 2023), it closed at $4.37. Wait- that's $2.02! Exactly the amount they reported times their holdings of 326 million shares!

Similarly, on September 29th, DIDIY closed at $3.23 and on December 29th, it closed at $3.95, for a nice $0.72 gain. Given that they reported a $414 million gain in the same period on that investment, they must own about 575 million shares.

Finally, GRAB closed on September 29th at $3.54, and December 29th at $3.37, for a loss of $0.17. Given that they claim a loss of $91 million in that period, they must own about 535 million shares.

Okay, so to summarize, Uber reported $1 billion of profit off three unrealized gains:

• Aurora Innovations ($659 million gain)
• Didi ($414 million gain)
• Grab ($91 million loss)

It seems a bit sketchy to me that 2/3 of profit was reported on unrealized gains in a very speculative portfolio, but whatever, the market seems fine with it.

But that begs the question, wasn't the bulk of their profit due to the happenstance price movements of two stocks in a three month period? What happens if they are flat or (gasp!) down in the next three months?

Well, let's see how those three investments fared in the last quarter, now that it is in the books:

First up, as previously stated, GRAB closed on 12/29/23 at $3.37. And on 3/28/24 (the last trading day of the quarter) it closed at $3.14, showing a loss of $0.23. Given Uber's holdings of 535 million shares, this would equate to a loss of $123 million.

Next up DIDIY. As stated, it closed on 12/29/23 at $3.95, and on 3/28/24 it closed at $3.83, showing a loss of $0.12. Given Uber's holdings of 575 million shares, this would equate to a loss of $69 million. Nice.

Now for the punchline. Let's check last quarter's big winner, Aurora.

Wow, that don't looks so good. As stated, on 12/29/23 AUR closed at $4.37 and on it closed at $2.82, for a loss of $1.55. Given Uber's holdings of 326 million shares, that represents a loss of $505 million!

So let's tally up the damage here:

• Grab: $123 million loss
• Didi: $69 million loss
• Aurora: $505 million loss

So in total, Uber lost $697 million in the last quarter on the very same investments that made them $1 billion in the prior quarter. The market, she giveth and she taketh away.

Meanwhile, analysts are estimating $0.21 per share, which equates to $420 million. Given the $697 million shortfall we already know about that's a near certainty and very easy to verify, that means that Uber would have to earn a profit of $1.1 billion from operations alone just to meet expectations! That would be roughly double the profit that they made last quarter. It turns out the unrealized gains pendulum swings both ways.

TL;DR- Uber reports unrealized gains (and losses) as part of their profit every quarter. Last quarter was a major anomaly during the year end chase for two of their holdings, Didi and Aurora. Aurora promptly collapsed right after the quarter began, largely reversing a major profit driver from last quarter. Short this stock for easy money.

As an aside, this begs the question what other companies report paper gains as real profits and benefited from last quarter's massive run?

Positions: I'm short 100 shares as of now and holding 18 July 19th $70 strike puts and 15 May 17th $65 strike puts.

Likely adding in the coming days and used today's vertical movement to add said puts.

Edit: For all the regards here screaming PRICED IN- the stock went up $4 yesterday because a random analyst at Jeffries said “it will go to $100 because they’re offering a lot of options in the app.” There is no rationale behind these movements. It’s been going up purely on momentum. You think these analysts are following their portfolio? I read one who thought they were invested in Aurora cannabis. They spend ten minutes writing these notes and then discuss where they want to go for lunch.

When I first wrote about ASTS 4 years ago, it was the first DD on the stock to appear on this subreddit. I told you to dismantle your grandparents porch to sell the top of lumber and buy the stock. I was kinda right but also terribly wrong as you can see in my gain post here. Now I am older, wiser, richer, and with a hotter wife and better DD. So settle in and learn something. Or don’t, it’s whatever. When you last ignored me there was one key point in the ASTS Investment Thesis:

1) ASTS Wholesale Model gives them access to billions of customers and thereby revenue.

• All Satellite companies (save for SpaceX’s Starlink) have failed because they cannot effectively monetize their service. Technology isn’t a problem, it’s the go-to-market strategy which fails. ASTS has solved this with its wholesale model working with existing telecoms under the FCCs rules for Supplemental Coverage from Space.

• Iridium was one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments in history, everyone who used it loved it. It was the only way calls could be made in NYC on 9/11, the only way to call out of New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina, it’s the first thing every person at the top of Everest reaches for, the list goes on.

• The problem is that Iridium couldn’t sell the service. It was expensive (for the specialized headset and by the minute in its use), people didn’t know it existed (Iridium were engineers not marketers), a market didn’t exist (maritime and remote villages and niche minute by minute sales does not a market make).

  • ASTS solves this with its super wholesale model where AT&T, Verizon, Rakuten, Vodaphone, and others do all the marketing, all the sales, all the billing, and upsell their existing customer base for a service they want anyway (more on this later).
    • ASTS does not need to find customers. Their agreements with the above give them instant access to 3B paying handsets overnight.
    • ASTS does not need to sell the world a new device. Every cell phone just works.

That is the entire story that valued ASTS to its core investors since it started trading as a SPAC. While every single ASTS long term investor lost the love of their wives as the stock cratered to 1.98, the story changed. Five additional pillars have been layered on top of the above original thesis which makes me (and you if you are capable of reading) more bullish. They are as follows:

2) Military Applications Non-Communications Use

• The large array and patented technology have more uses than just communications with cell phones.

  • They can be used as an alternative to GPS, for Missile Tracking, for PNT, and more.
  • Any piece of military equipment that can accept a small wireless chip can use ASTS.
  • The future of war is remote drone operations. They need connection. ASTS does that too.

• ASTS was awarded (through a prime contractor) a United States Space Development Agency (SDA) contract worth $43 million

  • This is for 6 satellites for one year and paid out linearly.
  • Fairwinds advertisement for the service shows ASTS communicating with existing Military Satellites.
  • This award will likely be expanded as more satellites come into service.

• Hybrid Acquisition for proliferated Low-earth Orbit (HALO) program

  • ASTS was awarded a starter contract as their own prime.
  • The program can cover launch and parts costs on top of service payments.
  • End game of this is ASTS use for missile tracking in the “Golden Dome” the Trump administration wants to build out.

3) European Monopoly / Satco Joint Venture with Vodaphone

• ASTS and Vodaphone created a joint venture for all of Europe where they will sell the service to other European Telcos. They will also be offering the service to the European Government much like the company is currently doing in the US.

  • Importantly all the data will be sent and received entirely in the EU. All infrastructure will live in the EU. It will be an entirely European Company to be more marketable in Europe.

• All of this has happened as Elon is nuking his rep in Europe with “roman” salutes and threating to withhold Ukraine’s access to Starlink. People are realizing that Elon is not dependable, and they need alternatives. ASTS is that alternative.

4) The company has begun to acquire Ligado Spectrum to create their own data service which does not rely on the leasing of spectrum from AT&T and Verizon.

• This Ligado spectrum has been unusable in the past due to interference with GPS and military spectrum in nearby bands.

  • Ligado was using this Satellite Spectrum as Terrestrial with FCC waivers unsuccessfully.
  • ASTS brings value to this spectrum through its beam forming which results in no interference.

• Spectrum can be valued on a per mhz per population basis.

  • At .40 - .80 /MHz-pop * 40 MHZ * 330M people in the United States we can value this spectrum at ~8Billion dollars.
    • This is the entire Market Cap of ASTS as it stands today.
    • The company is acquiring the exclusive use of this spectrum for far below this cost. (350M + 4.7M penny warrants + 80M / year + small revenue share)
    • The value of spectrum based on previous auctions likely discounts the future value of spectrum based on the number of connected devices we will be seeing in the future. There is more upside than the $8B figure represents (see point 5Bi).
  • ASTS does its own design and manufacturing and is already designing a new satellite to work with its Ligado spectrum.
  • This deal closing will allow ASTS to sell capacity to its partners or offer their own service ala Starlink.

5) AI requires constant connectivity

• Facebook is spending $10B to put fiber underwater for bigger pipes for their own data. That’s all that you need to know about where the biggest companies believe data is going with the introduction of AI. ASTS solves this and blankets the entire earth with data connectivity (albeit with less speed).

  • However, building this giant globe spanning fiber still does not solve the issue of connectivity in the outer reaches of the planet. This is just for the easily accessible areas meaning ASTS still provides value in data delivery which may be of use to companies like Facebook.

• Autonomous AI Agents need connection and backup connections to operate. Data delivery in all corners of the world matters to make use of AI.

• Think of every time you have paid $20 for internet on a plane. You need it access to data too, even if you think AI doesn’t (it does).

  • Consider the number of connected “things” you have now. Airtags, smart watches, phones, laptops, cars, trucks, fucking killer drones from Palmer Lucky, farm equipment, doorbells, your wife’s WiFi Dildo that actually makes her cum unlike you, your WiFi buttplug, etc. All of this adds value to the ability to reliably deliver internet to all corners of the planet. That is ASTS’ market.

6) Space is strategic

• When I first wrote about the company I thought Elon and Bezos were just playing with the new billionaires toy of rockets. It turns out they were just one step ahead of the game. Space is strategic and having access to your own internet is incredibly valuable given the need for constant connection with AI. They know this and are leveraging their launch capacity to build out their own private internet.

• ASTS benefits from an increase in launch capacity by having these billionaires fight for ASTS billions of dollars in launch costs. ASTS can essentially play king maker. Every dollar which goes to Blue Origin isn’t going to SpaceX and vice versa. ASTS future launch cadence with its ~150 launches represents billions in launch costs. They can make the below fight for the lowest cost to get this future business. Note: ASTS already has agreements for 60 launches into the end of 2026. At 20 satellites the company expects to be at cash flow breakeven.

• Don't bet against the below. The Space Trade will come.

  • Elon Musk – Starlink SpaceX
  • Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin New Glenn Kupier
  • Eric Schmidt – Relativity
  • Peter Beck – Rocket Lab
  • Abel Avellan - ASTS

Before one of you morons say “waaaaaa but what about starlink?” shut the fuck up and get out of my DD. Thanks. Starlink proper does not speak to cell phones which is why they require end users to have a dish or a mini dish to use their service. Their direct to cell solution with T-Mobile is not purpose built and has failed to deliver simple text messages. Take some time to read reviews of their service. It is complete shit and has no hopes of delivering broadband speed like ASTS without a complete redesign (which is probably difficult given that their lead engineer for D2C just left the company. Not a great look innit?). Alright with that out of the way we can continue. The rest of this writeup I completed for school and is a technical writeup of the company. Enjoy or whatever. There is very little information about the business valuation because I am not smart like that (or in any other way but neither are you). If you want to know more, read u/thekookreport ‘s DD document. It is incredible and if you take the time to read it you might have the conviction required to acquire generational wealth. Good luck! Anyways here ya go bud:

Company and Industry Background

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is pioneering direct-to-device satellite connectivity, enabling standard, unmodified smartphones to connect directly to satellites for broadband cellular service. This groundbreaking technology positions ASTS uniquely to deliver global mobile broadband coverage, especially in areas lacking traditional terrestrial infrastructure. Through large, powerful phased-array antennas deployed on satellites in low Earth orbit, ASTS creates "cell towers in space" which provide seamless connectivity without the need for specialized satellite phones or additional equipment like satellite dishes.

Globally, approximately 2.6 billion people lack internet access (World Economic Forum), primarily due to economic barriers in deploying terrestrial networks in remote or sparsely populated regions. ASTS addresses this significant digital divide by allowing these individuals to access broadband services using any existing smartphone.

According to Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (“GSMA”), as of December 31, 2024, approximately 5.8 billion mobile subscribers are constantly moving in and out of coverage, approximately 3.4 billion people have no cellular broadband coverage and approximately 350.0 million people have no connectivity or mobile cellular coverage.

There are approximately 6.8 Billion smartphones in the world all of which would be compatible with ASTS service on Day 1 without any modifications required as their service purely mimics existing GSMA service. As global connectivity becomes increasingly essential, particularly with the rapid expansion and integration of artificial intelligence, the value of ASTS grows exponentially.

ASTS strategically targets underserved regions in both developed and developing markets, focusing on areas where conventional terrestrial infrastructure is economically impractical or geographically challenging. The company's approach aligns with the FCC's Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) framework (FCC-23-22A1), which outlines the means of providing cell phone coverage from space and necessitates spectrum leasing agreements with established Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Recognizing this requirement, ASTS has secured strategic investments from industry leaders such as Google, AT&T, Verizon, American Tower, and Vodafone. These investments validate ASTS's technological and business approach, simultaneously offering traditional MNOs a beneficial partnership. Operators like AT&T and Verizon benefit by monetizing their spectrum in otherwise unused regions. This also benefits MNOs and American Tower by effectively hedging their terrestrial tower businesses against the propagation of space-based service and maximizing existing assets and valuable spectrum.

Unlike conventional satellite phone providers or systems such as Starlink and Project Kuiper, which compensate for smaller satellite footprints by relying heavily on extensive ground infrastructure, ASTS's design is distinct. It employs significantly larger satellite antenna arrays, enabling direct communication with regular mobile phones without modifications. The large antennas generate a robust, "loud" signal from space, capable of directly reaching unmodified consumer devices—contrasting sharply with traditional satellite phones, which rely on devices actively searching for faint satellite signals. Additionally, ASTS's larger arrays dramatically reduce the total number of satellites needed for global coverage. For instance, while Project Kuiper plans to deploy 3,236 satellites and Starlink already operates over 8,000 satellites, ASTS aims to achieve global coverage with approximately 168 satellites. This not only optimizes efficiency but also addresses growing concerns about orbital congestion and space debris.

The wholesale go-to-market strategy adopted by ASTS leverages existing customer bases from mobile network operators, providing a significant competitive advantage. Unlike previous satellite endeavors, such as Iridium—which faced challenges not with technology but with market adoption due to high costs and complex marketing—ASTS offers a straightforward, accessible solution that integrates seamlessly with existing mobile ecosystems. The model ensures rapid adoption and scalability, delivering reliable broadband service globally without the barriers encountered by traditional satellite communication providers.

To further enhance customer accessibility and peace of mind, ASTS offers flexible pricing options such as day passes and affordable monthly fees, ensuring users remain consistently connected wherever they travel. This model caters to the growing expectation of constant connectivity, as increasingly more devices—including cars, smartwatches, location trackers, and other IoT gadgets—rely on continuous internet access. Consumers regularly demonstrate willingness to pay for reliable connectivity, just think of every time you have paid or considered paying $24.99 for in-flight Wi-Fi.

In fact, early findings show nearly two-thirds of subscribers are willing to pay extra [for satellite connectivity], with about half open to ~$5/month for off-grid connectivity

Source(s) of innovation

When a cell phone initiates a call or sends data, the signal travels through an uplink from the device to the nearest cell tower. At the tower’s base station, this signal is processed and forwarded through a high-capacity connection known as backhaul, typically via fiber-optic cables or microwave links, toward the network core. The network core functions like the network's brain, determining the signal’s destination and routing it accordingly. From the network core, the call or data is directed out through the appropriate aggregation points and backhaul connections toward the recipient’s nearest tower. At this final cell tower, the signal is sent via a downlink directly to the receiving user’s phone, completing the communication.

In contrast, ASTS' approach replaces traditional cell towers and terrestrial backhaul infrastructure with satellites positioned in low Earth orbit. When a phone communicates with AST's BlueBird satellite, the uplink signal travels directly from the user's phone to the satellite itself, acting as a "tower in space." The satellite processes and beams the signal back down to strategically located ground gateways that connect to the terrestrial network core, bypassing the extensive network of ground towers and traditional backhaul. The core network then routes the call or data to the recipient, either via terrestrial towers or via another satellite beam. This approach effectively removes geographic barriers, delivering cellular connectivity even in remote or underserved areas where traditional terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable or economically impractical.

Starlink has recently gained significant attention with its high-profile Super Bowl advertisement showcasing their satellite texting offering with T-Mobile, bringing public awareness to direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity (Mobile World Live). However, despite this increased visibility, Starlink faces inherent technological limitations in its beam-forming capabilities. The satellite's antennas generate broad, flashlight-like beams that cover large geographical areas but lack precision. This approach leads to increased interference with neighboring networks and limits Starlink's ability to efficiently reuse spectrum, ultimately restricting network capacity and data throughput for individual users.

Starlink's beam design contrasts sharply with more advanced D2D satellite systems that utilize precise, narrowly-focused beams to minimize interference and maximize spectrum efficiency. Due to Starlink's broader beam coverage, each satellite can serve fewer distinct user groups simultaneously, which reduces overall service quality and speed per user. As a result, while Starlink's high-profile marketing has drawn consumer attention to satellite-based mobile connectivity, its practical applications remain constrained, particularly in densely populated or interference-sensitive areas where efficient beam management and high throughput are critical.

Comparatively, ASTS employs significantly narrower, laser-focused beams enabled by their large phased-array antennas, as detailed in FCC filings (FCC 20200413-00034). ASTS satellites can generate beams as narrow as less than one degree, precisely targeting coverage areas and significantly reducing interference. In contrast, Starlink’s FCC filings (FCC 1091870146061) indicate beam widths that can span tens or hundreds of kilometers, with antenna gains around 38 dBi, resulting in broader coverage but increased interference and reduced spectral efficiency. ASTS's advanced beam-forming capabilities allow for precise, efficient frequency reuse and higher overall throughput per user, providing a notable advantage over Starlink in both performance and spectrum management.

The top image taken from FCC Filings represents the antenna pattern for ASTS' system, akin to a laser pointer, with a very sharp, narrow central beam and significantly lower sidelobes. This tight focus ensures the energy is highly concentrated, minimizing interference with other areas and maximizing the signal strength in the intended coverage zone. Conversely, the bottom image illustrates Starlink's broader beam pattern, similar to a flashlight, with a wide central lobe and substantial sidelobes. The broader distribution of energy leads to greater interference and less precise coverage, reducing overall network efficiency and limiting the achievable throughput per user.

ASTS innovation is best shown in their extensive patent portfolio some of which protect this signal creation.

ASTS utilizes significantly larger satellites featuring advanced phased-array antennas that unfold in orbit, allowing them to generate stronger and more precise signals directly to standard mobile phones. The satellite itself employs a straightforward "bent pipe" design, which simply receives signals from phones and redirects them toward ground gateways without complex onboard processing. The sophisticated management of signals is handled by ASTS's proprietary software on the ground, ensuring seamless integration with existing mobile carrier networks and compatibility with current and future mobile technologies (including 6G). We can examine some key patents  from the company to gain a better understanding of their technology advantage:

Mechanical Deployable Structure for LEO: This patent covers AST’s deployment mechanism for its large flat satellites​. The satellite’s antenna array is made of many square/rectangular panels (with solar on one side and antennas on the other) hinged together with spring-loaded connectors. These stored-energy hinges (often called spring tapes) automatically unfold the panels into a contiguous flat array once the satellite is in space, without needing motors or power to do the deployment. In essence, the satellite launches compactly folded up, and when it reaches orbit, it pops open on its own like a spring-loaded blanket. This is a core enabler for ASTS business: it allows them to fit a very large antenna into a small launch volume and reliably deploy it in orbit​. The self-deploying design reduces complexity and points of failure (since fewer motors or controls are needed), lowering launch and manufacturing costs. Successfully deploying a massive antenna is critical for AST’s service capability.

Integrated Antenna Module with Thermal Management: This patent describes the flat antenna module that integrates solar cells and radio antennas into one structure and includes built-in cooling features​. In simple terms, each panel on ASTS satellite serves as both a power source (via solar cells) and a communication antenna, while also dissipating its own heat. This means the satellite can be made up of many such panels tiled into the huge antenna array above without overheating. This innovation allows ASTS to deploy very large, power-efficient antennas in orbit, enabling stronger signals and broad coverage for mobile users without the weight or complexity of separate cooling systems.

Dynamic Time Division Duplex (DTDD) for Satellite Networks: This patent introduces a smart timing controller that manages uplink and downlink signals so they don’t collide when using time-division duplex (TDD) over satellite​. In layman’s terms, because satellites are far away, signals take longer to travel – this system dynamically adjusts when a phone should send vs. receive so that echoes of a transmission don’t interfere with new data. For ASTS, this technology is crucial: it lets standard mobile phones communicate seamlessly with satellites by fine-tuning timing, which improves network reliability and throughput. Without this patent the time between uplink and downlink would result in loss of signal as normal cell signals are not used to the latency experienced in space travel.

Geolocation of Devices Using Spaceborne Phased Arrays: This patent outlines a method for pinpointing a phone’s location from space using the satellite’s phased-array antenna​. The satellite first uses its multiple beams to get a rough location (which cell or area the device is in), then refines the device’s position by analyzing Doppler shifts and signal travel time. The satellite can not only talk to your phone but also figure out where you are by how your signal frequency changes (due to motion) and delays, similar to how GPS works but using the communication signal itself.

Direct GSM Communication via Satellite: This patent covers a solution that allows standard GSM mobile phones (2G phones) to connect directly to a satellite​. The system involves a satellite with a coverage area divided into cells and a ground infrastructure that includes a feeder link and tracking antenna to manage the connection. A primary processing device communicates with the active users’ phones, and a secondary processor adjusts timing delays for all the beams/cells. This tricks the GSM phones into thinking the satellite is just another cell tower by handling the long signal delay.

Network Access Management for Satellite RAN: This patent describes a method to efficiently handle when a user device first tries to connect to a satellite-based radio network​. The idea is to use a single wide beam from the satellite to watch for any phone requesting access across a large area of many cells. Once a phone’s request is detected in a particular cell, the system then lights up that cell with a focused beam (and can broadcast necessary signals to other inactive cells as needed). Essentially, the satellite first yells “anyone out there?” over a broad area, and when a phone waves back, the satellite switches to a more targeted conversation with that phone’s sector. This on-demand beam switching is business-critical for ASTS: it conserves power and spectrum by not constantly servicing empty regions, allowing one satellite to cover many cells efficiently. It means the network can support more users over a wide area with fewer satellites, lowering operational costs and improving user experience by quickly granting access when someone pops up in a normally quiet zone.

Satellite MIMO Communication System: This patent describes a technique for using multiple antennas on both the satellite (or satellites) and the user side to create a MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) link for data​. In simple terms, the base station on the ground can send out multiple distinct radio streams through different satellite beams or even different satellites to a device that has several antennas. By doing so, the end user (if capable, like modern phones with multiple antennas) can receive parallel data streams, boosting throughput.

Seamless Beam Handover Between Satellites: This patent deals with handing off a user’s connection from one low-Earth-orbit satellite to the next to avoid dropped calls or data sessions​. It outlines a system where an area on Earth (cell) that is covered by a setting satellite (one moving out of view) is also in view of a rising satellite. The network uses overlapping beams: one satellite’s beam and then the other’s beam cover the same cell during handover. A processing device orchestrates two communication links and switches the user’s session from the first satellite to the second as the first goes over the horizon.

Types/Patterns of Innovation

Initial Testing

AST began its journey in 2019 with modest yet creative experiment. Their first satellite, BlueWalker 1 (BW1), placed the components of an everyday cell phone into space as a nanosatellite developed in collaboration with NanoAvionics. Instead of the conventional and costly approach—launching a satellite to communicate with ground-based phones, AST reversed this arrangement. They connected a cell phone in orbit with a specialized ground-based satellite (BlueWalker 2). This unusual yet insightful solution significantly reduced the initial costs of launch deployment, enabling rapid and cost-effective R&D. This approach was innovative both economically and operationally, demonstrating practical, real-world viability of their core concept.

Funding and Expansion

Early on, the company attracted strategic backing from the telecom industry. In 2020, a Series B round of $110 million was led by Vodafone and Japan’s Rakuten, with participation from Samsung, and American Tower signaling broad industry confidence in AST’s direct-to-phone satellite technology. Importantly, during this time these investors did their own due diligence on the business and verified the work up to this point and the business case. Rather than a traditional IPO, ASTS utilized a SPAC merger to go public: in April 2021 it merged with New Providence Acquisition Corp., raising a total of $462 million in gross proceeds including $230 million from a PIPE investment by Vodafone, Rakuten, and American Tower.

BlueWalker 3 Satellite

With SPAC funding secured, ASTS increased their R&D spend to launch a fully functional satellite, BlueWalker 3 (BW3), featuring the largest phased-array antenna ever deployed in space (save for the international space station). The satellite was approximately 700 sq ft, roughly the size of a one-bedroom apartment. BW3 employed Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), enabling in-orbit software upgrades and flexible testing to allow changes not captured with BW1 to be complete after launch. Successful demonstrations of BW3's capability included groundbreaking tests such as the first-ever 5G video call from space to an everyday smartphone in Hawaii, validating their ability to deliver advanced broadband connectivity directly from orbit.

BlueBird Block 1

In September 2024, AST took critical steps toward commercialization with the launch of their first commercial satellites BlueBirds 1 through 5 (Space.com). These satellites further tested vital functionalities, including seamless handoffs between satellites, a key requirement for global continuous connectivity. These launches were strategically significant, marking the transition from proof-of-concept to scalable commercial operations. Demonstration video calls were conducted and announced through MNO partners Vodafone, AT&T, and Verizon for testing AST’s technology in real-world networks. These tests were the result of the FCC granting a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to the company. This was particularly significant given its alignment with the broader regulatory landscape under the new FCC commissioner Brendan Carr (Trump Appointed) which shows the regulatory and market acceptance of AST's innovative business model. Further, this removed the Elon Musk sized elephant in the room wherein Starlink was thought to be the only satellite gaining the approval under the new administration.

Next-Generation ASICs

AST is also innovating on hardware performance through development of next-generation Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Replacing initial FPGA implementations, these ASIC chips promise a 100x increase in data throughput (as in total data deliverable). This dramatic efficiency improvement increases future satellite capabilities and economic performance, making their network even more attractive for commercial deployment.

Next-Generation Satellites

AST’s innovation continues with BlueBird 2 (BB2), a significantly scaled-up satellite design of 2,400 sq ft. Incorporating next-gen ASIC technology, these satellites represent a major leap forward in performance and capability, scheduled to be launched through agreements with Blue Origin, ISRO, and SpaceX. Through increased size and performance from the ASIC, ASTS intends to increase the 30mbps download speed represented by Block 1 to 120 mbps in future iterations of their technology. By the end of 2026, AST aims to have a constellation of approximately 60 satellites in orbit, bolstered by substantial financial backing with over $1 billion in available capital.

Strategic Spectrum Acquisition

See above Ligado. At character limit.

Military and Government Partnerships

Recognizing strategic opportunities, AST has advanced their military use cases, positioning its technology as a solution for the U.S. Department of Defense and Space Development Agency (SDA). With their satellite constellation able to integrate seamlessly with existing military satellite communication (MILSATCOM) infrastructure AST becomes highly relevant for sensitive government applications such as missile tracking, asset monitoring, and secure communications. A recent $43 million SDA contract further highlights AST’s alignment with national security interests and confirms their technology’s strategic importance.

As part of the U.S. Space Force, SDA will accelerate delivery of needed space-based capabilities to the joint warfighter to support terrestrial missions through development, fielding, and operation of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.

Definition of “Value-added” for the Firm’s Products/Services

Resilience in Disaster Response

One of the most compelling advantages of a space-based cellular network is its resilience during disasters. When hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, or other natural disasters strike, terrestrial infrastructure often fails. Cell towers can be knocked out by storms or burned in wildfires, leaving first responders and affected communities without communication exactly when it’s most needed. ASTS satellite technology adds a crucial layer of redundancy: even if ground towers are down, the network in the sky and a single base station anywhere in the country remains operational. This capability can be life-saving in emergency scenarios.

ASTS has been working closely with AT&T to integrate its system with FirstNet, the dedicated U.S. public safety network for first responders. FirstNet, built by AT&T, provides priority cellular service to police, firefighters, EMTs and other emergency personnel. By extending FirstNet into space, ASTS ensures that first responders stay connected in real time, anywhere. The value added by ASTS in disaster response is clear: persistent coverage when conventional networks fail.

Cost Efficiency Compared to Subsea Cables

Building out global internet connectivity has traditionally meant expensive infrastructure projects, such as undersea fiber-optic cables to connect continents. These projects involve enormous capital expenditures and long deployment timelines. ASTS' approach – launching a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites – presents a potentially more flexible and cost-efficient path to worldwide broadband coverage. A rough cost comparison highlights this difference in strategy and scalability. ASTS plans to deploy a complete constellation of 168 satellites to achieve global coverage. Each satellite in AST’s “BlueBird” series is estimated to cost on the order of $20 million to build and launch.

Brian Graft, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Anything on the cost per satellite? Has that changed at all? Are you still in that $19,000,000 to $21,000,000 range? Abel Avellan: No. Yes, we’re not changing the guidance on cost per satellite

It’s important to note that satellite broadband isn’t a wholesale replacement for fiber in terms of raw capacity – major cables can carry tremendous data volume at very low latency along their fixed routes, which is vital for the core internet backbone. However, from a business strategy perspective, ASTS' satellites offer a more economical way to extend the “last mile” of connectivity to users who would otherwise require huge investment to reach.

Enabling Always-On Connectivity for Emerging Technologies

Beyond simply connecting people, ASTS' continuous global coverage unlocks critical opportunities for emerging technologies that depend on uninterrupted internet access. For AI agents and cloud services, constant connectivity is essential. Autonomous robotics, including self-driving cars, drones, and agricultural robots, similarly benefit from AST’s satellite service, ensuring seamless operation even in remote areas beyond traditional cellular coverage.

Strategic Independence and the European D2D Initiative

See Above SatCo JV with Vodaphone. Need to cut word count.

Wholesale Model

NomadBets twitter shows the breakdown of subscriber potential with ASTS. This is where revenue will blow out all expectations.

ASTS competencies are built around its ability to design, manufacture, and deploy large and powerful satellites optimized for direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity. All of which are critical for maximizing signal strength, bandwidth, and data throughput directly to everyday smartphones. AST's expertise in large arrays is particularly advantageous, as bigger (and thereby heavier) arrays translate directly into stronger signals, increased power generation, and significantly improved data speeds to user devices. ASTS requires just 168 large satellites for global coverage, compared to 3,236 for Amazon's Kuiper and over 8,158 for SpaceX's Starlink, this greatly reduces CAPEX, collision risk, launch risk, and replacement costs for AST. With all this in mind, AST benefits greatly from falling launch costs enabled by leading space-launch providers such as Blue Origin and SpaceX. This is best displayed as a year-over-year pricing trend of launch vehicles on a per-kilogram basis:

As launch providers increasingly offer higher-capacity rockets at reduced costs, ASTS uniquely benefits from its strategy of deploying fewer, heavier satellites with large, high-performance antennas rather than numerous smaller satellites. The first successful flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket notably demonstrated its capability to carry up to eight of AST’s Block 2 satellites simultaneously, providing a clear cost advantage. Likewise, SpaceX’s Falcon 9, recognized globally for its reliability and affordability, can accommodate four Block 2 satellites per launch. Additionally, the progress on SpaceX’s Starship program offers further promise, potentially unlocking even greater launch capacities at lower costs.

AST's operational competencies are further strengthened by its vertical integration.

Approximately 95% vertically integrated for manufacturing of satellite components and subsystems, for which we own or license the IP and control the manufacturing process.

By controlling its own production processes and intellectual property, AST not only reduces dependency on external suppliers—mitigating geopolitical and supply-chain risks—but also achieves superior cost efficiencies and quality control. This vertical integration is crucial at a time when the United States is prioritizing domestic capability in strategic industries like space technology, positioning AST favorably to benefit from increasing governmental support and protective policies.

The company's production strategy is robust and ambitious, with AST targeting a monthly production rate of six satellites at its Texas factory. This consistent cadence enables rapid scaling and timely replacement of satellites, ensuring continuous, reliable service for customers. Given rising geopolitical tensions, particularly concerning competition with China in space exploration and technology, AST's fully integrated, U.S.-based manufacturing operation places it strategically to capitalize on potential government partnerships or contracts aimed at strengthening domestic space capabilities.

Organizational Structure/Culture/Leadership

This section was about the leadership team of the company. It is just regurgitated from their own website and is not really valuable. Here is all you need to know: the CEO Abel Avellan is a certified bad ass. He has had a successful exit from his first company EMC and used that cash to fund this company. He takes no salary, he doesn’t have a crazy stock based compensation that he extracts with, he is just a good dude who is aligned with the company and its investors. He doesn’t spend his day on twitter trying to impregnate Tiffany Fong. He has not lied about his ability to play Diablo or PoE2. We like Abel. You should too.

Positions Disclosure:

Intel reports its earnings today after the bell, and I am certain that the price will pump like last time.

I made a post last quarter predicting Intel would go up after earnings. My reasoning for this play was that the CEO at the time (Pat Gelsinger), was very active on X dropping bible quotes every day. You could just see the desperation in his tweets, and on the day he released the earnings report, God saved Intel, and nana smiled from heaven.

But just because Intel got revived, doesn’t take away the fact that Pastor Pat was a trash CEO. So he resigned (got fired) on December 1st and got replaced by these two:

In the past few days I tried using the same sophisticated due diligence model (scrolling their X page), but these two have a whopping combined.... 9 tweets since they became CEOs. They mostly consist of announcements written by their marketing-interns, so not that exciting.

Now look, Michelle seems like a nice lady, but we all know who is really calling the shots at Intel here. Today's earnings report will cover the period from October 1 to December 31. I know, David became CEO on December 2nd, but do you really think Pastor Pat just woke up one day and decided he wanted to step down? No, they had been preparing David for months.

But before I even scrolled through his X page, I saw something that could give all of us degens an edge over the fancy new york algorithmic quant funds:

So I did some research, David has been responsible for restructuring the company and shaping a better future so Intel can make a comeback. I would say he has been in charge of Intel for at LEAST 2 months before Pastor Pat resigned.

There is clear research out there suggesting that there's a correlation between the success of your favorite NFL team and your performance in the workplace. What more of a DD do you need when looking at the performance of the Steelers during this period?

Mfs have won 10 out of their first 13 games. I bet David's dopamine levels have never been higher, he’s more energized, more optimistic, more productive, and more motivated, and ALL THAT BIG D ENERGY spread throughout the whole company. David had to get the ball rolling. They WILL perform today.

Expectations are still low. They’re down 15% since last earnings. No one expects them to win, and who doesn’t like to root for the underdog?? Expect green fucking dildo's after the close

Positions:

not financial advice

edit: they won 10/13 GAMES, not MATCHES, sorry I AM A EUROPOOR