SharkWater Trading  •  Space Desk • Sector Tape Starship Reached Orbit. All Six Space Stocks Fell Anyway. September 30, 2026 Bottom Line Up Front SpaceX flew Starship Flight 14 on September 28 and, per a secondary mission log, put 26 Starlink V3 satellites in low Earth orbit. Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB), AST SpaceMobile (Nasdaq: ASTS), Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR), Planet Labs (NYSE: PL), Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY) and Redwire (NYSE: RDW) then fell on both the September 28 and September 29 sessions, down 3.9 percent to 7.7 percent over the two days. Volume ran from 0.83x to 1.46x of the 20-day average, so this was drift, not a stampede. No sourced cause exists yet, and I will not invent one. The Tape Every name on the space list closed lower on both sessions after the flight. RDW took the biggest two-day hit. ASTS took the smallest, but it also had the strangest session: it opened September 29 at $65.10, a 6.7 percent gap above the $61.00 prior close, then sold off to close at $59.40 on 15.9 million shares, about 1.46x its 20-day average of 10.9 million. Ticker Sep 25 close Sep 29 close Two-day Sep 29 Vol vs 20-day avg RKLB $73.95 $69.70 -5.75% -3.45% 1.07x ASTS $61.81 $59.40 -3.90% -2.62% 1.46x LUNR $15.61 $14.55 -6.79% -4.28% 0.83x PL $17.43 $16.38 -6.02% -2.33% 1.45x FLY $24.36 $22.86 -6.16% -5.18% 1.06x RDW $11.62 $10.73 -7.66% -4.20% 0.94x Source: StockAnalysis.com daily history, Sep 25 and Sep 29, 2026 sessions (S&P Global Market Intelligence feed). Aggregator figures, NOT VERIFIED against an exchange or issuer source. Two-day change and volume ratio computed by SharkWater from those rows; average volume is the mean of the 20 sessions before Sep 29 as read from the same page. What Is Confirmed and What Is Not Confirmed by a mission log (rocketlaunch.org, secondary, September 28, 2026): Flight 14 launched at 12:48 UTC, Ship 41 made a soft Pacific splashdown, the booster completed its landing burn with a targeted Gulf of Mexico ocean landing, and this was the first Starship flight to deploy satellites. An earlier account reported one of six ship engines shutting down on ascent; the mission log documents no issues. That conflict is unresolved, and I did not reach SpaceX's own account. NOT VERIFIED against a primary source. Not found: any dated catalyst for the selloff in the six names on either day. No watchlist company filed or released anything I could tie to the decline. FLY was the only name to fall more than 5 percent on a single session (-5.18 percent on September 29, on 1.06x average volume). Why a Win Can Look Like a Threat This part is inference, not sourced fact. The space group trades partly on the idea that heavy launch capacity is scarce. A Starship that reaches orbit and deploys a full Starlink V3 batch is a step toward cheap, abundant lift and a bigger direct-to-device competitor. That reading is bad for launch names (RKLB, FLY) and for ASTS, whose business is competing with Starlink. It is a stretch for imaging (PL) and lunar landers (LUNR), which fell just as hard. The uniformity of the drop points to basket behavior, not six separate stories. When the biggest boat in the harbor learns to dock itself, the charter captains do not cheer. They check the price of their own slip. The Bull Case Orderly, not forced. Volume ratios of 0.83x to 1.46x show no capitulation. A drift on ordinary volume is what a fade after a well-anticipated event looks like. A working Starship helps the whole ecosystem. More launches, more Starlink capacity and more demand for orbital services, imaging and lunar logistics is one way to read the flight. That case needs a source from the companies, and none appeared. Reversal potential. ASTS opened 6.7 percent higher before selling off. Buyers showed up at the open. Whether they return is untested. The Bear Case Competitive read-through. If Starship lift gets cheap, launch pricing power across the group is questioned, and Starlink V3 raises the bar for direct-to-cell rivals. Two down sessions, no bounce. Six of six lower twice in a row, with ASTS failing at a gap-up, is a market choosing to sell strength. No catalyst ahead is confirmed. I found no dated company event in the next session that resets the narrative. Absent one, the group trades on flows. The SharkWater Take I would not build a trade on this tape. The move is real, but the cause is a guess, and a guess is not an edge. What I can say is that a sector-defining flight produced no positive read-through, which tells me the good news was already in the price. The tell I am watching is ASTS: a 6.7 percent gap that fully reversed on 1.46x volume is the ugliest single print in the group. If the basket stops falling while ASTS keeps failing at the open, the weak link is showing itself. Until a sourced catalyst appears, I stand aside. Tight lines. SharkWater Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and dated. Price and volume figures come from an aggregator and are NOT VERIFIED against primary sources. No options data was pulled or computed for this post. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

SharkWater Trading  •  Semis Desk • NVDA Capital Return Nvidia's Record $150 Billion Buyback Is a Ceiling, Not a Purchase September 29, 2026 Bottom Line Up Front On September 28, 2026, NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) raised its share repurchase authorization by $150 billion, taking the total remaining to $235 billion, to be executed through fiscal 2028 (company press release, September 28, 2026). That implies about $85 billion was left before the increase (SharkWater arithmetic: $235 billion minus $150 billion). An authorization is permission, not a trade. The release gives no purchase pace, so the number that matters, dollars actually retired per quarter, is not yet public. What NVIDIA Actually Said The release is short. It states the size of the increase, the new remaining total and the execution window. It does not state a quarterly or annual pace, a funding source or a price limit. CEO Jensen Huang is quoted tying the company's growth to what he calls a once-in-a-generation platform shift to AI and accelerated computing. Item Figure Basis Authorization increase $150B NVIDIA release, Sep 28, 2026 Total remaining after increase $235B NVIDIA release, Sep 28, 2026 Implied remaining before increase ~$85B SharkWater arithmetic, not stated by NVIDIA Execution window Through fiscal 2028 NVIDIA release, Sep 28, 2026 "Largest increase in history" claim Company language NVIDIA release; not independently checked Source: NVIDIA Newsroom, "NVIDIA Announces a $150 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization Increase," September 28, 2026. No 8-K was confirmed for this item because SEC full-text search was unreachable during this scan. Authorization Is Not Execution Companies announce buyback authorizations they never finish. The board approves a ceiling. Management buys when cash and conviction line up. Nothing in a press release forces a single share to be retired. A buyback authorization is a fishing license, not a full cooler. The license tells you how many fish the law allows. Only the log book tells you how many came aboard. The log book here is the repurchase table in NVIDIA's next 10-Q. Until it prints, the pace is unknown. For scale only: if the full $235 billion were used evenly between now and the end of fiscal 2028 (roughly late January 2028, about 16 months), that works out to about $15 billion a month. That is illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast, and NVIDIA has not said it will buy at that rate. What Is Not Verified Four figures circulating in coverage are aggregator-only. This desk did not use them as fact. Cash on hand. One aggregator (investingLive, September 28, 2026) cites about $22 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of the July quarter. NOT VERIFIED against the 10-Q. Cash alone would not fund $235 billion, so free cash flow and marketable securities matter more than that line. Prior authorization. The same source says an $80 billion buyback was announced in May. NOT VERIFIED. It does not reconcile with the $85 billion implied remainder without knowing how much was spent since. Stock reaction. Monday, September 28 gains for NVDA are reported as roughly 1.7 percent to nearly 3 percent depending on the outlet. Close and volume NOT VERIFIED. Valuation. A reported forward multiple of 16.5 times is NOT VERIFIED and depends on whose earnings estimate sits in the denominator. Context for the same session, also from aggregators: the S&P 500 closed down about 0.8 percent, semiconductors fell more than 2 percent, and Micron (Nasdaq: MU) and AMD fell while NVDA rose. A buyback that lifts a stock on a day the group sells off is a signal about sponsorship. It is not proof of a floor. The Bull Case Management is signaling the shares are cheap. A board does not authorize $150 billion more if it expects the stock to look expensive next year. Persistent bid. Even partial use creates a steady buyer in a tape where semis are otherwise being sold. Capital return without cutting growth spend. The size implies cash generation large enough to fund both, which is the company's own framing. The Bear Case No pace, no commitment. The release states a ceiling and a window. It never states a purchase rate. A buyback can mean fewer places to spend. Some analysts read large authorizations as a sign management sees slower profit growth ahead. That reading is coverage commentary, not an NVIDIA statement. Macro is the bigger driver right now. Treasury yields at multi-year highs (aggregator-reported, NOT VERIFIED) and a Micron earnings print after the close on September 30 can swamp a buyback headline. The SharkWater Take I am not treating this as a catalyst yet. The headline number is real and it is a vote of confidence from the people who see the orders. But it is a ceiling with no stated speed, and I will not pay for a ceiling. The proof shows up in the repurchase table of the next 10-Q, where dollars retired per quarter either match the ambition or they do not. Until then the buyback is background support for the stock, not a reason to lean on it. Execution Notes There is no trade here to build. No options chain was pulled for this post, so no strikes, premiums or expirations are given. If you are watching volatility into the Micron report on September 30 after the close, one aggregator (Benzinga) reports an implied move of about 8 percent. That figure is NOT VERIFIED against a live chain. Pull the chain from your broker. What invalidates the "quiet support" read: a 10-Q showing repurchases well below the pace this authorization implies. Tight lines. SharkWater Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

CORRECTED: SharkWater Pre-Market Scan — September 28, 2026

SharkWater Trading  •  Desk Notes • Pre-Market Scan SharkWater Pre-Market Scan — September 28, 2026 September 28, 2026 Bottom Line Up Front No material company-specific developments surfaced this window. No fresh 8-K, 424B5, S-1, 13D, or 13G was found for any watchlist ticker since Friday's close, and no distribution or NAV event was found for the six income and pre-IPO funds checked. The day's only scheduled catalyst is SpaceX's Starship Flight 14, its first orbital launch attempt, targeting an 8:49am ET liftoff; the outcome was not known as of this scan. Nothing here clears the bar for a standalone post today. Correction to the record The "unpublished backlog" flagged in the September 20, 22, and 27 scans was a false alarm. Those scans searched Gmail's default inbox view, which excludes Trash, and concluded nothing had reached Blogger since September 17. Checking Trash this run, and confirming directly against sharkwatertrading.com, shows every post from September 18 through September 27 was in fact sent and is live on the blog, correctly dated through the September 27 TeraWulf correction. Nothing needs to be resent. No decision is needed from you on this. Publishing note, this run A diagnostic test this run found that Gmail's send tool silently strips every CSS background and background-color declaration from outbound HTML, on every send, with no exception found. That means every SharkWater post sent through this pipeline, back to the first one, has gone out and landed on Blogger without the intended dark navy panel backgrounds behind the light-colored text. This email uses table bgcolor attributes instead, which survive the strip, as a fix. Whether the prior posts actually read as light-on-light on the live blog depends on Blogger's own theme background, which was not checked this run; if you notice any past post looking washed out or hard to read, that is almost certainly this. Actionable None qualify this run. Checked and came up empty: fresh filings (8-K, 424B5, S-1, 13D, 13G) for all twenty-six watchlist tickers since Friday, September 25's close; distribution or NAV events for RVI, DXYZ, VCX, ARKVX, THTA, and AGNC; and any confirmed post-Friday price move, since no new session has closed between then and this scan. Monitor Space sector, forward-looking. SpaceX is attempting Starship's first-ever orbital flight this morning, an 8:15–9:30am ET window targeting 8:49am ET liftoff (SpaceX's own account and Space.com's live coverage; outcome unknown as of this scan). A clean result or a public failure could move sentiment across RKLB, ASTS, LUNR, PL, RDW, and FLY today with no company-specific news attached; none of those tickers has been confirmed as a stated payload or hardware partner on this mission. Macro, secondary sourcing. S&P 500 futures were down roughly 0.6 percent this morning on a reported US rejection of an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Brent crude reported near $107 a barrel (Investrade's morning note, secondary; not checked against a primary wire or exchange settlement). Fundrise Innovation Fund II, LLC filed an N-2/A on September 25, 2026 (EDGAR full text search, primary for the filing's existence, document not read this run). This is a separate legal entity from VCX, the Fundrise vehicle already on the watchlist. Whether it competes for the same investor base as VCX, RVI, DXYZ, and ARKVX, and what it means for VCX's NAV premium, was not traced this run. NVDA, secondary and not filing-based. Nvidia reportedly introduced a new hardware security architecture and may be permitted to sell its RTX Pro 5500 chip in China (Investrade's morning note, secondary; no primary Nvidia newsroom item checked this run). AVGO / OKLO / XE, unchanged. The FT-reported SASAC review of Broadcom's China switching-hardware dependency remains open and secondary-sourced only. Oklo's newsroom URL 404'd again this run; UBS's prior price-target cut and X-Energy's leadership change are unchanged. Noise Checked against EDGAR this window, no new filing found, unless noted. ASTS — no new filing; press page not re-checked (prior JS-rendering issue). RKLB — no new filing since the Sept 25 Electron launch already logged. LUNR — no change. PL — no change. FLY — no change. Reconfirmed as Firefly Aerospace Inc., not the legacy Fly Leasing entity. RDW — no change. RVI — no change. Reconfirmed as Robinhood Ventures Fund I, not the legacy Retail Value Inc. REIT. DXYZ — no change (checked against Destiny Tech100). VCX — no new filing under Fundrise Innovation Fund itself; see Monitor for the related Fund II item. ARKVX — no change (checked against ARK Venture Fund). AGNC — no change. September's $0.12 dividend was already declared September 10, ahead of this window. ORC — no change. September's dividend was already declared September 14, ahead of this window. USA — no change (checked against Liberty All-Star Equity Fund). THTA — no change. A 10.00 percent distribution rate was already announced September 14, ahead of this window. IREN — no change. NBIS — no change. KEEL — no change. Reconfirmed as Keel Infrastructure Corp. CBRS — no change. Ticker remains Cerebras Systems Inc. WOLF — no change. NVDA — no new SEC filing; see Monitor for a secondary item. MU — no change. AVGO — no new filing; see Monitor for the carried-over SASAC item. SMR — no change. Data Gaps No exact, primary-sourced VIX print for today exists in this scan; only secondary references to a risk-off tone were found. Oklo's newsroom URL 404'd again this run, same failure as September 27; its press page remains unconfirmed clean of any weekend or Monday-morning announcement. AST SpaceMobile's own investor press-release page was not re-checked this run (prior JavaScript-rendering issue). The relationship between "Fundrise Innovation Fund," "Fundrise Growth Tech Fund, LLC" (VCX's issuer name per Yahoo Finance), and "Fundrise Innovation Fund II, LLC" (the entity that filed the September 25 N-2/A) was not resolved. This needs a primary-source read before anything is written about VCX tied to that filing. Whether any watchlist ticker is a stated payload, hardware, or ground-systems partner on today's Starship Flight 14 mission was not verified. Liberty All-Star Equity Fund's (USA) most recent distribution declaration date was not independently re-verified this run. The Fundrise Innovation Fund II N-2/A's actual content was not read this run, only its existence and filing date via EDGAR metadata. Whether Blogger's own theme background is dark or light, which determines how badly the background-stripping bug above has affected past posts' readability, was not checked this run. Tight lines. — SharkWater SharkWater Trading pre-market scan. Educational and informational purposes only, not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication.

SharkWater Trading  •  Desk Notes • Pre-Market Scan

SharkWater Pre-Market Scan — September 28, 2026

September 28, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

No material company-specific developments surfaced this window. No fresh 8-K, 424B5, S-1, 13D, or 13G was found for any watchlist ticker since Friday's close, and no distribution or NAV event was found for the six income and pre-IPO funds checked. The day's only scheduled catalyst is SpaceX's Starship Flight 14, its first orbital launch attempt, targeting an 8:49am ET liftoff; the outcome was not known as of this scan. Nothing here clears the bar for a standalone post today.

Correction to the record

The "unpublished backlog" flagged in the September 20, 22, and 27 scans was a false alarm. Those scans searched Gmail's default inbox view, which excludes Trash, and concluded nothing had reached Blogger since September 17. Checking Trash this run, and confirming directly against sharkwatertrading.com, shows every post from September 18 through September 27 was in fact sent and is live on the blog, correctly dated through the September 27 TeraWulf correction. Nothing needs to be resent. No decision is needed from you on this.

Actionable

None qualify this run. Checked and came up empty: fresh filings (8-K, 424B5, S-1, 13D, 13G) for all twenty-six watchlist tickers since Friday, September 25's close; distribution or NAV events for RVI, DXYZ, VCX, ARKVX, THTA, and AGNC; and any confirmed post-Friday price move, since no new session has closed between then and this scan.

Monitor

• Space sector, forward-looking. SpaceX is attempting Starship's first-ever orbital flight this morning, an 8:15–9:30am ET window targeting 8:49am ET liftoff (SpaceX's own account and Space.com's live coverage; outcome unknown as of this scan). A clean result or a public failure could move sentiment across RKLB, ASTS, LUNR, PL, RDW, and FLY today with no company-specific news attached; none of those tickers has been confirmed as a stated payload or hardware partner on this mission.
• Macro, secondary sourcing. S&P 500 futures were down roughly 0.6 percent this morning on a reported US rejection of an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Brent crude reported near $107 a barrel (Investrade's morning note, secondary; not checked against a primary wire or exchange settlement).
• Fundrise Innovation Fund II, LLC filed an N-2/A on September 25, 2026 (EDGAR full text search, primary for the filing's existence, document not read this run). This is a separate legal entity from VCX, the Fundrise vehicle already on the watchlist. Whether it competes for the same investor base as VCX, RVI, DXYZ, and ARKVX, and what it means for VCX's NAV premium, was not traced this run.
• NVDA, secondary and not filing-based. Nvidia reportedly introduced a new hardware security architecture and may be permitted to sell its RTX Pro 5500 chip in China (Investrade's morning note, secondary; no primary Nvidia newsroom item checked this run).
• AVGO / OKLO / XE, unchanged. The FT-reported SASAC review of Broadcom's China switching-hardware dependency remains open and secondary-sourced only. Oklo's newsroom URL 404'd again this run; UBS's prior price-target cut and X-Energy's leadership change are unchanged.

Noise

Checked against EDGAR this window, no new filing found, unless noted.

ASTS — no new filing; press page not re-checked (prior JS-rendering issue).
RKLB — no new filing since the Sept 25 Electron launch already logged.
LUNR — no change.
PL — no change.
FLY — no change. Reconfirmed as Firefly Aerospace Inc., not the legacy Fly Leasing entity.
RDW — no change.
RVI — no change. Reconfirmed as Robinhood Ventures Fund I, not the legacy Retail Value Inc. REIT.
DXYZ — no change (checked against Destiny Tech100).
VCX — no new filing under Fundrise Innovation Fund itself; see Monitor for the related Fund II item.
ARKVX — no change (checked against ARK Venture Fund).
AGNC — no change. September's $0.12 dividend was already declared September 10, ahead of this window.
ORC — no change. September's dividend was already declared September 14, ahead of this window.
USA — no change (checked against Liberty All-Star Equity Fund).
THTA — no change. A 10.00 percent distribution rate was already announced September 14, ahead of this window.
IREN — no change.
NBIS — no change.
KEEL — no change. Reconfirmed as Keel Infrastructure Corp.
CBRS — no change. Ticker remains Cerebras Systems Inc.
WOLF — no change.
NVDA — no new SEC filing; see Monitor for a secondary item.
MU — no change.
AVGO — no new filing; see Monitor for the carried-over SASAC item.
SMR — no change.

Data Gaps

1. No exact, primary-sourced VIX print for today exists in this scan; only secondary references to a risk-off tone were found.
2. Oklo's newsroom URL 404'd again this run, same failure as September 27; its press page remains unconfirmed clean of any weekend or Monday-morning announcement.
3. AST SpaceMobile's own investor press-release page was not re-checked this run (prior JavaScript-rendering issue).
4. The relationship between "Fundrise Innovation Fund," "Fundrise Growth Tech Fund, LLC" (VCX's issuer name per Yahoo Finance), and "Fundrise Innovation Fund II, LLC" (the entity that filed the September 25 N-2/A) was not resolved. This needs a primary-source read before anything is written about VCX tied to that filing.
5. Whether any watchlist ticker is a stated payload, hardware, or ground-systems partner on today's Starship Flight 14 mission was not verified.
6. Liberty All-Star Equity Fund's (USA) most recent distribution declaration date was not independently re-verified this run.
7. The Fundrise Innovation Fund II N-2/A's actual content was not read this run, only its existence and filing date via EDGAR metadata.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

SharkWater Trading pre-market scan. Educational and informational purposes only, not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication.

CORRECTED: Google Doesn't Own TeraWulf Stock. It Owns 41 Million Warrants Struck at a Penny.

SharkWater Trading  •  Data Center Desk • Filings

Google Doesn't Own TeraWulf Stock. It Owns 41 Million Warrants Struck at a Penny.

September 27, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

A Schedule 13G filed September 25, 2026 shows Google, through Alphabet and XXVI Holdings, beneficially owns 41,011,803 shares of TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF), or 7.6 percent of the class, entirely through warrants exercisable at $0.01 a share. Those warrants were not bought. They were issued as collateral for Google's guarantee of Fluidstack's lease obligations on the CB-5 data center at Lake Mariner, first disclosed in an August 2025 8-K at 32,568,197 shares and now roughly 8.4 million shares larger. WULF closed Friday, September 25 at $15.74, down 3.38 percent, as the broader neocloud group (IREN, NBIS, KEEL) sold off together. This is a credit-support arrangement wearing the market's favorite AI-partnership costume.

What the Filing Actually Says

The Schedule 13G names three reporting persons: Google LLC, XXVI Holdings Inc., and Alphabet Inc., the parent chain that owns and directs Google. All three certify a passive stake, meaning the securities were not acquired to influence control of the company. The 41,011,803 shares are described as issuable upon exercise of warrants that are currently exercisable or exercisable within 60 days. There is no open-market purchase anywhere in this document.

Go back to the source of those warrants and the picture sharpens. An August 14, 2025 Form 8-K discloses that Google received 32,568,197 warrant shares at a $0.01 strike price in exchange for guaranteeing Fluidstack's lease payments under the CB-5 lease at TeraWulf's Lake Mariner site. The warrants themselves were pledged to CB-5's construction lenders as security, released only once the guarantee takes effect at lease commencement. Google was not writing a check for equity. It was putting its balance sheet behind Fluidstack's rent so TeraWulf could get the CB-5 buildout financed.

A bank co-signing your mortgage isn't the same as a bank buying your house. It gets you the loan. It also means the bank's name is now on the paper, and if you miss a payment, the bank's exposure is the thing that gets called first.

The Stake Has Grown, and This Desk Can't Fully Explain Why Yet

The gap between the 32,568,197 shares in the August 2025 8-K and the 41,011,803 shares in this month's 13G is about 8.4 million shares. TeraWulf announced a 160 MW CB-5 lease expansion with Fluidstack in the interim, and the growth in the warrant count is consistent with additional collateral tied to that expansion. This desk has not confirmed that link against a specific filing, and is not asserting it as fact. It's the open thread worth pulling before treating this as a settled story.

Date	Filing	Warrant Shares	Strike
Aug 14, 2025	Form 8-K	32,568,197	$0.01
Sept 25, 2026	Schedule 13G	41,011,803	$0.01 (per originating 8-K)

Source: SEC EDGAR, Form 8-K filed Aug 14, 2025, and Schedule 13G filed Sept 25, 2026, both read via TeraWulf's own investor-relations filing mirror. TeraWulf's total shares outstanding, approximately 498.97 million, is aggregator-sourced (stockanalysis.com) and not independently confirmed against the company's own most recent 10-Q cover page.

The Bull Case

• Google's credit is doing real work. A guarantee from a company with Alphabet's balance sheet is what let TeraWulf and Fluidstack get CB-5's construction financed on favorable terms, without TeraWulf issuing dilutive cash equity to fund the buildout directly.
• The relationship is expanding, not shrinking. A larger warrant block points to a larger backstop, which points to a larger footprint at Lake Mariner. That's a vote of confidence in the underlying AI-hosting demand, even if it isn't a vote of confidence expressed through open-market stock purchases.
• Warrants at $0.01 pledged as loan collateral are not the same as an active seller. Nothing in this filing shows Google distributing or selling shares. The overhang is theoretical until exercised.

The Bear Case

• 41 million shares at a penny is functionally free stock. If those warrants are ever exercised in full, the dilution hits per-share value directly, and the cost basis to Google is close to nothing.
• A guarantee exists because the underlying credit needed one. Fluidstack's lease obligations required Google to co-sign in the first place. That is a data point about the counterparty risk in the deal, not just a marketing headline about "Google backing TeraWulf."
• It landed inside a real group-wide selloff. IREN, NBIS, WULF, and KEEL all closed lower Friday. Layering a growing, penny-strike dilution overhang onto a sector already digesting a confirmed Nebius GPU-rental price hike and a Sell rating on a neocloud peer is not a coincidence this desk is ready to wave off.

The SharkWater Take

I don't read this as a bullish Google-backs-TeraWulf headline, and I don't read it as a bearish Google-is-dumping-shares headline either, because neither is what the filing says. What it says is that TeraWulf's biggest AI-hosting partner is extending credit, not cash, and getting paid in cheap dilution for the privilege. That's a normal, sensible way to finance a data center buildout. It is not, on its own, a reason to pay up for the stock on the theory that Google's name is now attached to it. Until I can trace exactly which expansion agreement accounts for the extra 8.4 million warrant shares, I'm treating this as a data point inside the broader neocloud pullback, not a standalone thesis. I am not taking a position here off this filing alone.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

SharkWater Trading  •  Insider Desk • Broadcom • Form 4

Samueli's $250 Million Broadcom Sale Cleared. The Stock Didn't Blink.

September 26, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) director Henry Samueli sold 702,190 shares on September 23, 2026 at an average price of $356.04, for proceeds of $250,006,184, confirmed by a Form 4 filed September 25. He also gave away a further 72,474 shares with no consideration attached. He still holds 52,680,018 shares directly, so the disposal is roughly 1.5 percent of his stake.

AVGO closed September 25 at $352.81, up 0.70 percent from Thursday's $350.36. A quarter-billion-dollar insider sale moved the stock less than a rounding error. The more relevant overhang right now isn't this filing at all, it's an unresolved, reportedly ongoing Chinese state review of how dependent its data centers are on Broadcom's switching chips.

The Sale, Confirmed

This desk flagged the setup two days before it resolved. On September 23, 2026, two related filers put the market on notice: D95GT, LLC, managed by Lapland Longspur LLC, filed a Form 144 for 631,972 shares valued at $225,004,972.58, and the Samueli Foundation filed one for $25,797,598.63. A Form 144 is a notice of intent to sell, not proof a sale happened. As of Wednesday's coverage, no Form 4 had posted confirming any of it traded.

That changed Friday. Henry Samueli's own Form 4, filed September 25 at 4:15pm ET, shows the transaction dated September 23: 702,190 shares sold at $356.04 average, $250,006,184 total, plus 72,474 shares disposed by gift. The gift carries no cash consideration, the kind of transfer that shows up in estate and foundation planning rather than in a liquidity scramble.

One honest caveat: the Form 144 totals from the two entities above (roughly $250.8 million combined) don't reconcile cleanly, share for share, against the Form 4's sold-plus-gifted total. Multiple Samueli-affiliated vehicles appear to be involved. I'm not going to force a clean story out of numbers that don't quite line up. What's confirmed is the Form 4 itself: the shares moved, priced, and are on the books.

Filer	Type	Shares	Value / Price
D95GT, LLC (Lapland Longspur LLC)	Form 144, filed 9/23	631,972	$225,004,972.58
Samueli Foundation	Form 144, filed 9/23	N/A	$25,797,598.63
Henry Samueli (director)	Form 4, sale, filed 9/25	702,190	avg $356.04 ($250,006,184)
Henry Samueli (director)	Form 4, gift, filed 9/25	72,474	no consideration

Source: SEC EDGAR, Form 144 and Form 4 filings, September 23 and 25, 2026. Form 144/Form 4 totals across the listed entities do not fully reconcile against each other; treat as related but not confirmed identical transactions.

A sale this size usually throws a wake big enough to rock anything nearby. This one barely rippled the surface, which tells you either the water underneath is calmer than the headline number suggests, or the market's watching a different current entirely.

What The Market Is Actually Pricing

Broadcom's stock has a bigger, unresolved question sitting on it, and this filing isn't it. The Financial Times has reported, and multiple secondary outlets have since repeated, that Chinese authorities are reviewing how dependent state-owned data centers are on Broadcom networking-switch hardware, with one figure cited at up to 90 percent of surveyed state-owned deployments. As of this writing, that review is still at the review stage. No primary Chinese-government document has surfaced, and no confirmed policy action, a ban, a directive, anything binding, has been found.

That's the asymmetry. Samueli's sale was signaled in advance, sized small against his remaining stake, and absorbed without a ripple. The SASAC review has had no such advance notice, no size anyone can put a number on yet, and the kind of binary outcome that moves a stock on a single headline whenever it does resolve.

The Bull Case

• No surprise, no new information. The Form 144 notices were public Sept 23. By the time the Form 4 posted, the market had two full sessions to price it in, and did essentially nothing.
• It's a small slice of a large stake. Against 52.68 million shares still held directly, 1.5 percent moving reads as routine diversification, not an exit.
• The gift component points to planning, not distress. 72,474 shares moved for no consideration is estate and foundation mechanics, not a signal about the business.

The Bear Case

• A quarter-billion dollars is still a quarter-billion dollars. Co-founder selling at this scale is worth logging even when it's routine.
• The actual risk sits somewhere else entirely. The SASAC review of China switching-chip dependency remains open, unresolved, and un-primary-sourced. It's the one variable here that can move the stock hard, and this filing says nothing about it.
• The paper trail doesn't fully add up. When related-filer totals don't reconcile cleanly, that's worth flagging on principle, even if it turns out to be nothing more than filing mechanics across entities.

The SharkWater Take

I'm not reading a signal into this sale. A founder-director moving 1.5 percent of his stake, telegraphed two full sessions ahead of execution, is closer to bookkeeping than to conviction changing. If Samueli were trying to get out ahead of bad news, the market's total non-reaction argues he isn't, or that he isn't the one who knows something the rest of us don't. What I'm actually watching is the SASAC review. That's the variable with the power to move this stock on a single headline, it has no timeline anyone's confirmed, and this filing tells us nothing about it either way. Treat AVGO as fairly priced on the insider story and unpriced on the China story, and watch the second one, not the first.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

SharkWater Trading  •  Space Desk • M&A • RKLB

Iridium Holders Just Cleared an $8 Billion Rocket Lab Deal, and RKLB Rallied Into It

September 25, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

Iridium (NASDAQ: IRDM) stockholders approved Rocket Lab's acquisition of the company on September 24, 2026, with 99.6 percent of votes cast in favor, representing 81.0 percent of shares outstanding. The deal pays Iridium holders $27.00 in cash plus Rocket Lab stock for a combined notional value of $54.00 a share, an implied Iridium enterprise value of roughly $8.0 billion. Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) closed the day up 4.69 percent to $73.61.

The vote clears the biggest hurdle on the calendar, but closing is still targeted for mid-2027, subject to regulatory sign-off the announcement doesn't itemize. The risk for RKLB holders now sits less in the vote and more in the collar, the financing, and eighteen months of runway for something to go wrong.

What Actually Happened

At a special meeting on September 24, 2026, Iridium stockholders approved the merger agreement first announced June 29, 2026. Rocket Lab's own investor relations release put the vote at 99.6 percent of votes cast, representing 81.0 percent of Iridium's total shares outstanding. That's about as clean an approval as a shareholder vote gets. Iridium CEO Matt Desch called it "an important milestone toward bringing together two companies," and Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck used almost the identical phrase in his own statement. No 8-K formally disclosing the vote tally had posted to SEC EDGAR as of this writing, so today's confirmation rests on the companies' own release, not yet a filed document.

The Deal Mechanics, Confirmed Against the Original Filing

The consideration structure, verified against the June 29 announcement and its SEC exhibit, is straightforward on the cash side and less so on the stock side. Each Iridium share converts into $27.00 in cash plus a number of Rocket Lab shares set by an exchange ratio that is subject to a collar. That collar bands Rocket Lab's stock price between $67.50 and $112.50. RKLB closed Thursday at $73.61, comfortably inside that band. The exact formula for how many Rocket Lab shares an Iridium holder receives inside the collar was not disclosed in the announcement itself. Rocket Lab's release says the full mechanics live in the transaction agreement filed with the SEC, and this desk has not yet located a definitive merger agreement document that spells it out share by share.

A collar works like a channel marker in a harbor. Inside the marked lane, the boat has room to drift with the current and still make it to the dock at roughly the value promised. Stray outside the markers, high or low, and the deal terms lock in place rather than floating with the tide. Rocket Lab's stock is sitting well inside the channel right now, which is the calm version of this story.

The Bill Rocket Lab Is Taking On

The cash half of a $27.00-per-share payment across Iridium's outstanding share count is a real number, and Rocket Lab isn't paying it out of pocket alone. The company has committed financing for a $3.6 billion, 364-day senior secured bridge term loan from Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, on top of balance-sheet cash and other debt and equity sources it hasn't fully specified. Rocket Lab also completed a $1.944 billion at-the-market equity offering on September 15, 2026, which this desk reads as at least partly aimed at funding this transaction, though the company hasn't stated that directly. A 364-day bridge loan is, by design, a short-term instrument meant to be refinanced or repaid quickly. That refinancing has to happen sometime between now and mid-2027, and the terms of it aren't public yet.

The Bull Case

• The vote is the cleanest kind of milestone. 99.6 percent approval on 81 percent share turnout removes stockholder risk almost entirely. What's left is regulatory, not political.
• Vertical integration is the actual thesis, not just deal size. Rocket Lab builds launch vehicles and satellites; Iridium operates one of the only functioning global satellite constellations. Owning both ends of that chain is a different business than being a launch contractor for other people's satellites.
• The market reaction on approval day was positive, not defensive. RKLB rallied 4.69 percent the same day the deal cleared its biggest hurdle, rather than selling off on dilution or leverage concerns, which is the more common reaction to a company taking on billions in acquisition debt.

The Bear Case

• Mid-2027 is a long runway. A year and a half between a stockholder vote and a closed deal is a lot of time for regulatory review, financing markets, or Iridium's own satellite business to hand the desk a surprise.
• $3.6 billion of bridge debt on a 364-day clock is a refinancing problem waiting to happen. Bridge loans get termed out or repaid, and the cost of doing either depends on credit markets Rocket Lab doesn't control eighteen months from now.
• The exchange ratio mechanics still aren't fully public. Until the actual formula inside that $67.50 to $112.50 collar is confirmed, nobody outside the two companies knows exactly how many Rocket Lab shares get issued, which means nobody outside the two companies can fully model the dilution.

The SharkWater Take

The vote is good news and the market treated it that way, but the vote was always the low-risk part of this deal. Stockholders rarely torpedo a board-approved merger, and 99.6 percent approval confirms that pattern rather than telling us anything new. What I actually want before I'd treat RKLB as a clean read on this acquisition is the exchange ratio formula and a clearer picture of how the $3.6 billion bridge gets termed out. Both of those live in documents this desk hasn't located yet. Until they surface, I'm filing this as confirmed progress on a deal that was already priced as likely to happen, not as a new reason to change how I think about the stock.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

SharkWater Trading  •  Insider Desk • Semiconductors • Broadcom

Broadcom's Chairman Just Filed to Sell $276 Million More Stock. It's the Second Time in Three Months.

September 24, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

Three entities tied to Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) co-founder and Chairman Henry Samueli filed Form 144 notices on September 23, 2026 to sell a combined 774,664 shares worth $275.8 million, at an implied price near $356 a share. It is the second such combined notice in three months. D95GT LLC and H&S Investments I LP filed to sell 694,241 shares for $250.0 million on June 26, 2026, at $377.10 to $388.50 a share.

Broadcom stock fell 2.6 percent to $354.99 the same day, on a session where the Financial Times reported China is reviewing Broadcom's data-center networking hardware in state-backed facilities. A Form 144 is a notice of intent to sell, not proof the trade executed, and none of the filings disclose what fraction of Samueli's total stake this represents.

What Actually Got Filed

Three separate Form 144 filings hit SEC EDGAR on September 23, 2026, all naming the same broker, Northern Trust Securities, and all listing the same approximate sale date: that same day. H&S Investments I LP's filing states its relationship to Broadcom in plain language: "Chairman of the Board of Broadcom." The Samueli Foundation and D95GT LLC are each listed only as "Affiliate."

Filer	Shares	Aggregate Value	Implied Price
H&S Investments I LP	70,218	$25,000,058.61	$355.99
Samueli Foundation	72,474	$25,797,598.63	$355.97
D95GT, LLC	631,972	$225,004,972.58	$356.02
Combined	774,664	$275,802,629.82	n/a

Source: SEC EDGAR, Form 144 filings for Broadcom Inc. (CIK 0001730168), filed September 23, 2026. Implied price per share is calculated from the aggregate market value and share count each filing discloses, not a quoted execution price.

This Is Not the First Time

D95GT LLC and H&S Investments I LP filed a nearly identical pair of notices on June 26, 2026, proposing to sell a combined 694,241 shares for $250,005,851, at a price range of $377.10 to $388.50 a share. That filing's disclaimer language tied D95GT directly to Samueli, stating he was "disclaiming beneficial ownership except to the extent of his pecuniary interest." Today's D95GT filing does not repeat that language. Its relationship is stated only as "Affiliate," so the link to Samueli here rests on the June precedent, the identical broker, and the same-day, same-family filing pattern, not on today's document standing alone.

A Form 144 is a flare fired before the boat leaves the dock. It tells you someone is planning to cast off and roughly how much cargo is going with them. It doesn't tell you if the trip actually happens, or how much line is still tied up back at the pier.

The Backdrop: A China Headline and a Rough Tape

Broadcom closed at $354.99 on September 23, 2026, down 2.62 percent from a prior close of $364.54, on volume of 22,438,949 shares (Yahoo Finance). The same day, the Financial Times reported, per aggregated coverage from Investing.com and SDxCentral, that Chinese authorities are reviewing Broadcom's data-center networking switches used in state-backed facilities. Separately, MarketBeat's same-day note pointed to a broader semiconductor-sector risk-off tone, alongside rising oil prices and Treasury yields. The CBOE Volatility Index closed at 15.18 that day, up 6.83 percent, consistent with a market-wide pullback rather than an AVGO-specific event.

None of these threads are confirmed to be causally connected. The Form 144 filings, the China-review report, and the broader risk-off session all landed on the same calendar day. That is a fact about timing, not a proven relationship.

The Bull Case

• This is diversification, not a vote of no confidence. Founder-and-chairman stock sales through personal LLCs and family foundations are a routine estate and philanthropic-planning pattern at companies with long-tenured founders, and Samueli has sold in comparable size before without it marking a top.
• The price basis argues against panic selling. Today's implied price, around $356, is roughly 3 percent below June's $377 to $388.50 range. That is a modest step down over three months, not a scramble for the exits into a falling stock.
• The China review is a report, not a ruling. No confirmed Chinese regulatory action, ban, or procurement change has been announced. A review can end in nothing.

The Bear Case

• A quarter-billion dollars, twice in a quarter, is not a rounding error. Whatever the motive, $275.8 million in fresh sale notices from the Chairman's own vehicles, on top of $250.0 million in June, is a meaningful and repeating supply of stock hitting the market from the most informed insider at the company.
• The timing invites scrutiny even if it's coincidental. Filing a large insider sale notice on the same day a China-hardware-review story breaks and the broader tape sells off is the kind of coincidence that erodes a stock's benefit of the doubt, whether or not the filer even saw the story first.
• Nobody discloses what's left. None of the three filings state what percentage of Samueli's total Broadcom holdings this represents, so there's no way to judge from the filings alone whether this is a trim or the start of a bigger unwind.

The SharkWater Take

I don't read this as a bearish signal on its own. Samueli has run this exact playbook before, in roughly the same size, three months ago, and Broadcom's business didn't fall apart in between. What I do think is worth tracking is the cadence. Two combined nine-figure sale notices in a single quarter, from the company's own Chairman, is a pattern now, not an isolated data point, and patterns are worth watching even when each individual filing has an innocent explanation. The China hardware-review report is the more interesting thread of the two stories today, because unlike the insider sale it actually has the potential to move Broadcom's revenue, and it deserves its own follow-up once there's an actual regulatory outcome to react to rather than a report of a review.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.

SharkWater Trading  •  Venture Desk • ARKVX • Tokenized Shares

The SEC Just Let ARK Venture Fund Build an Exchange Ramp and a Blockchain Ramp Off the Same Fund

September 23, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front

On September 21, 2026, the SEC issued Release No. IC-36333, an exemptive order letting ARK Venture Fund (ticker ARKVX, currently an unlisted closed-end interval fund) add a share class listed on a national securities exchange and a second share class that trades as a tokenized instrument on alternative trading systems. Nothing launches today. No exchange is named, no ATS is named, no fee percentage is disclosed, and the fund's own site still shows blank fields where a current NAV should be.

What it means for the reader: this is a regulatory door being unlocked, not a new way to trade ARKVX yet. The interesting part is what happens to a fund that spent its whole life as an illiquid interval fund once part of it can, eventually, print on an exchange or move on a blockchain ledger.

What the Order Actually Does

ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management LLC applied for, and received, an amendment to a prior November 2025 exemptive order. Reading the order directly (sec.gov/files/rules/ic/2026/ic-36333.pdf, File No. 812-16031), the operative language permits the fund to offer "a class of shares listed on a national securities exchange" and "a class of tokenized shares traded on one or more alternative trading systems." The Commission also cleared the fund to charge asset-based distribution and service fees, plus early withdrawal charges, on top of what it already collects.

The relief is effective immediately. That is a legal fact about the order, not a statement about the product. No launch date, no named exchange, no named ATS, and no fee schedule appear anywhere in the order or in the press coverage that followed it (crypto.news, CryptBull, KuCoin, CoinSpectator). ARK still has to actually build and register the specific share classes before anyone can buy either one.

What ARKVX Is Today

ARKVX, per its own fund page (ark-funds.com/funds/arkvx), is "an actively managed closed-end interval fund." That structure means no daily exchange trading. Investors get in and out through periodic repurchase offers on a schedule the fund controls, not whenever they want. Press coverage of the underlying application pegged the fund's assets near $562 million at the time it was filed; that figure is secondary-sourced, and ARK's own site did not display a current NAV or total net assets figure when checked for this post. If ARK publishes an updated number, this desk will use it. Until then, treat $562 million as directionally useful and dated to the application, not today.

The fund holds itself out as exposure to five buckets: AI and next-generation internet, space and defense, autonomous technology and robotics, digital assets and fintech, and genomic biotech. That is the pitch that made ARKVX a retail-accessible way to touch pre-IPO names without a venture fund minimum. The interval structure was always the tax retail investors paid for that access: you got the exposure, you gave up the ability to sell on your own schedule.

An interval fund is a boat with no engine. You can get on board, and eventually you can get off, but only when the dock schedule says so. This order is the SEC signing off on installing an engine. It does not say when the engine gets bolted on, and it does not promise the boat will actually leave the dock any faster once it is.

Why This Order, and Why Now

Tokenized fund shares have been circling U.S. regulators all year as tokenization platforms pushed to bring private-market and fund exposure onto public blockchain rails. An exemptive order naming a specific, well-known fund and granting both an exchange-listed class and a tokenized class in the same document is a bigger structural signal than another crypto-adjacent press release. It tells every other sponsor of an illiquid closed-end vehicle, business development companies, other interval funds, private-credit vehicles, that this path now has a precedent to point to at the SEC.

None of that changes what an investor can do with ARKVX this week. The order is dated September 21, 2026. As of this writing there is no confirmed follow-up filing naming an exchange, a transfer agent for the tokenized class, or a target launch quarter.

The Bull Case

• Real liquidity upgrade, eventually. An exchange-listed share class would let holders sell in the open market instead of waiting on a quarterly repurchase window, closing the single biggest complaint about interval funds.
• First-mover precedent. ARK is one of the first funds of this size and profile to get both an exchange class and a tokenized class approved together, which is a marketing and product edge if it actually ships.
• Retail access to pre-IPO names gets structurally easier. If tokenized shares trade on an ATS with lower minimums or faster settlement, the fund's stated pitch, retail exposure to private companies, gets closer to what it has always advertised.

The Bear Case

• There is no product yet. An exemptive order is permission, not execution. Plenty of SEC-approved structures sit unused for years, or never launch at all.
• The underlying portfolio didn't get more liquid. ARKVX's actual holdings are private-company stakes. Wrapping them in an exchange-listed or tokenized share class does not make the underlying assets easier to value or sell; it just changes how the wrapper trades.
• New fee authority cuts against holders, not for them. The same order that unlocks new share classes also clears the fund to add asset-based distribution and service fees plus early withdrawal charges. None of those numbers are public yet, and there is no guarantee they land in the holder's favor.

The SharkWater Take

This is a real, dated, primary-sourced regulatory event, and I'd rather flag it early than wait for the product announcement everyone else will cover at the same time. But I'm not buying ARKVX on this order, and I wouldn't tell a reader to either. There is no ticker to trade here that doesn't already exist, no new liquidity today, and no fee schedule to price into the decision. The order is the SEC saying "you're allowed to build this." It is not ARK saying "it's built." Watch for the actual S-1 or prospectus supplement naming an exchange and a tokenization partner. That filing, not this one, is the one that turns into a position.

Tight lines. — SharkWater

Educational and informational purposes only. Not personalized investment advice. All figures sourced as noted and accurate as of publication. Options involve substantial risk of loss. The author may hold positions in securities discussed. Do your own work.