GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #183. APA Corporation through six filing lenses, as of the latest filings. Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
The Hype
APA Corporation sits third on a list that is itself the hype. Zacks' "Best Stocks to Buy Now" page, updated October 24, 2026, lists APA (APA) third — after Suncor Energy and Par Pacific, the subjects of the two previous Filing Tapes — at $51.90, with a 12-week price change of +42.86%, a forward PE of 8.32, projected one-year EPS growth of 65.46% and projected sales growth of 1.99% (Zacks). The detail section carries a Buy (2) badge. Its case rests on the operating business: an international oil and gas exploration and production company whose GranMorgu development is expected to drive organic oil production growth, a proposed Savant acquisition that may accelerate Alaskan development, and an Eni partnership in Uruguay that strengthens exploration prospects, with improving capital efficiency and lower operating costs. Third-quarter results are due November 4, 2026.
The price tape behind the attention is a sharp V, not a steady climb. APA closed 2025 at $24.46, rose to $42.44 by March 31, 2026, then fell 23.3% in Q2 to $32.57, recovered to $41.54 by September 30, and closed the price file on October 2 at $43.68 — 34.1% above its June 30 close and 78.6% above its 2025 year-end close. The daily refresh puts the October 23 close at $51.90 — the same figure as the Zacks list line — 18.8% above the October 2 close and 59.3% above June 30. The question the filings let us ask: while the price fell hard in Q2 and then rebounded past its March level, what did the tracked holders, the broad institutional market, and the company's own insiders actually do?
The Tape
| Lens | As of | What the filings show | Direction vs prior period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 3 of 147 tracked managers hold; 256,021 shares ($8.34M reported). Ariel is 72.9%. | Verified cohort cut −12.8%; no new holders; no exits |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 815 filers hold 356,372,673 shares ($11.74B reported). | Shares +17.99%; filers +4; reported value −9.62% |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | 0 buys and 0 sells in 90 days; 1 buy in the whole corpus (Apr 2025). | Silent in 90 days; 2 sells ($1.23M) in a year |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | No member of either chamber reported an APA trade in the window. | None |
| 13D/G | Aug 12, 2026 | Passive only: 9 filings, all 13G; latest Hotchkis 8.97% at Jun 30, 2026. | Vanguard Group exited at 0.0%; no activist filing |
| Short interest | Sep 15, 2026 | 24,498,195 shares short, 6.99% of shares outstanding; 4.92 days to cover. | −22.4% vs Jun 30; −37.5% year over year; −45.8% from peak |
Chart: APA Corporation through six filing lenses — who is actually there?
Superinvestors. The tracked register for APA is small and top-heavy. John Rogers' Ariel Investments holds 186,521 shares — $6,074,989 reported, 0.06% of its portfolio — and it is 72.9% of the tracked cohort. Samantha McLemore's Patient Capital Management holds 50,000 shares (19.5%) and did not move, and Dodge & Cox Funds holds 19,500 shares (7.6%) after cutting 9.3%. Together the three hold 256,021 shares, $8,338,604 reported, with no option rows. The verified continuing cohort fell 12.8% in Q2, from 293,647 shares in Q1 to 256,021 in Q2, a reduction of 37,626 shares — Ariel alone accounts for 35,626 of it. Every label recomputes exactly from paired register rows (Ariel: Q2 accession 0000936753-26-000050 against Q1 accession 0000936753-26-000025, 98-CUSIP overlap; Patient Capital: 0001854794-26-000005 against 0001854794-26-000004, 38-CUSIP overlap; Dodge & Cox: 0001193125-26-349535 against 0001193125-26-223352, 213-CUSIP overlap, all unique pairings), and both register reconciliations close with residual zero — the Q1 register holds exactly those three rows, and the Q2 register exactly those three rows. There are no new holders, no exits, and no September early filer holding APA. The June implied price ($32.57) matches the June 30 close ($32.57) exactly. The cohort is 0.07% of the full market's reported APA shares. Three holders, two of them trimming, is the whole tracked story.
All institutions. The broad market moved the other way, and by a lot. Filers rose by 4 to 815, of which 810 are long, and reported shares rose 17.99% (+54,324,847 shares to 356,372,673). Reported value fell 9.62% to $11.74 billion — not because institutions sold, but because the June 30 close ($32.57) sits below the March 31 close ($42.44), and value carries that price fall. Underneath, 733 filers entered and 729 exited, net +4. So while the tracked cohort cut 12.8% of a small position, the broad institutional market added more than 54 million shares. The tracked selling and the broad buying are both real; they simply point in opposite directions, and the broad buying is far larger in share terms.
Insiders. This lens is quiet where it matters most: the recent window. In the 90 days to October 2, 2026, insiders filed 9 forms with 0 buys and 0 sells. Over one year: 79 filings, 0 buys, 2 sells, 32,800 shares, $1,225,764.80, from 2 sellers, including 1 officer sell. Across the whole corpus: 185 filings, 1 buy and 2 sells. The single buy is old: April 3, 2025, Joung Chansoo, a non-officer, bought 75,000 shares at $18.2482 for $1,368,615. The two sells are both from 2026: Bob Matthew Regis, a non-officer, sold 23,000 shares at $36.2336 on March 18, and Maddox Mark D, an officer, sold 9,800 shares at $40.04 on May 20. The aggregate and an independent parsed-file scan for issuer CIK 1841666 agree on every count and value, and no other open-market purchase appears anywhere in the 185 filings the corpus holds (earliest January 3, 2025). The one-year implied sell price ($37.37) sits inside the one-year price range, so the sell values are consistent with the price tape rather than an artefact of bad prints. One disclosed gap: the site's insider aggregate file has no APA row, so there is no site-aggregate cross-check for this ticker — the bucket-versus-scan agreement is the check that stands, and the missing site row is reported here rather than hidden.
Congress. Nothing to report, and the nothing is checked rather than assumed. APA has no row in any of the four congressional files within their stated windows — no combined row, no House row, no Senate row, and no member row — as of October 3, 2026. That is a zero-activity-in-window finding, not a claim that no member ever traded the stock outside those windows.
13D/G. The control register is passive-only but has a churned top. It holds 9 filings, all 13G, from 7 reporters, with no activist 13D. The latest filing, dated August 12, 2026, is an amendment at the June 30, 2026 event date: Hotchkis and Wiley Capital Management, LLC, 31,695,303 shares at 8.97%, jointly filed with Vanguard Windsor II Fund at 4.97%. The register's only initial filing is Vanguard Capital Management at 7.36% (26,034,385 shares, event March 31, 2026). The maximum percentage in the register is older: The Vanguard Group at 12.45% (45,339,021 shares, event March 31, 2025), which then filed at 0.0% on an event date of March 13, 2026 — exited. The three Vanguard-named reporters are distinct entities and are not merged here: The Vanguard Group (exited), Vanguard Capital Management (new 7.36%), and Vanguard Windsor II Fund (4.97% in the latest filing). Hotchkis itself stepped down from 10.01% at March 31, 2025 to 8.97% at June 30, 2026, while BlackRock moved the other way, from 6.3% to 8.3% over the same span. The register's cross-date share total (305,588,956) sums rows from different dates and is not an economic total.
Short interest. The bear trade is shrinking, fast, and from a high base. FINRA short interest stood at 24,498,195 shares at September 15, 2026, with 4.92 days to cover and 6.99% of the 350,351,510 shares outstanding (a July 31, 2026 count). That is 22.4% below June 30 (31,563,570), 37.5% below the year-ago figure (39,169,502), and 45.8% below the series peak of 45,177,040 shares at August 15, 2025. The last five settlements trace the slide: 32,284,924 (July 15), 30,088,863 (July 31), 26,113,640 (August 14), 24,205,148 (August 31), 24,498,195 (September 15) — the latest tick is a small +1.21% uptick after three straight falls. The series is calm in step terms — across 137 settlements there is not a single move over 2× or under 0.5× — so this reads as a steady unwind, not a squeeze or a spike.
Chart: APA short interest — 137 FINRA settlements, January 2021 to September 2026.
Fundamentals context. The fundamentals record is partial on the fields quoted here, and the gap is stated rather than filled: shares outstanding are 350,351,510 as of July 31, 2026, net income is $1,434,000,000 and assets are $17,761,000,000, both for FY2025 — but revenue is missing from the record, so no revenue figure is quoted anywhere in this package. The recorded market capitalisation is $15,450,501,056.41, on the record's own price_close ($44.10 as of October 6, 2026), not the October 23 close. APA is not a foreign private issuer, so no ADS-ratio caveat applies to the share count.
The Gap
The hype and the filing tape disagree about who is actually behind the name — and this time the tape also disagrees with itself in an instructive way. The October story is a list name up 42.86% in 12 weeks with a Buy badge, a GranMorgu growth story, and a price 59.3% above its June close. The filings show that the entire tracked superinvestor presence is three funds, and two of them trimmed in the quarter the price fell — the cohort cut 12.8% while the price fell 23.3%, then did not add in the data we have. The company's own insiders, meanwhile, filed nothing on the open market in the last 90 days, and their only purchase in the corpus is more than a year old. But the broad institutional market added 17.99% in shares in Q2, and the short position fell 22.4% from June into September — the two forces that usually accompany a rebound are both present, just not from the tracked cohort or from insiders. With Congress silent in-window and the 13D/G register passive-only, the rebound's filing verdict rests on the broad market's Q2 addition and the shrinking short position — a real base, but not the tracked-money base the series name suggests.
What Would Change the Picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. What would change it:
- 1. Q3 13F season (filings due by November 16, 2026). Watch whether Ariel adds back to its 186,521-share position, whether Patient Capital moves from its flat 50,000 shares, and whether any tracked manager opens a first APA position — the register starts Q3 from three holders, so any entry is measurable against that base.
- 2. A first insider trade after the quiet 90 days. Any open-market purchase or sale in the next Form 4 window would end a run of zero trades across the 9 filings in the 90 days to October 2, 2026; a second purchase in the corpus would end a run that currently has exactly one, from April 2025.
- 3. A new 13D or 13G. A return by The Vanguard Group (exited at 0.0% in March 2026), a Hotchkis move from 8.97%, or any activist 13D would replace the current passive-only picture.
- 4. Short-interest direction. A rebuild back above the June 30 level of 31,563,570 — or a continued fall well below 24 million — would each tell a different story about the unwinding bear position.
- 5. Filings after the November 4 results. The third-quarter report will show up in the next round of filings before it shows up anywhere else.
As-of & Limits
| Lens | As of | Limit or note |
|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, the quarter-end. Funds have up to 45 days after quarter-end to file, so this is the most recent complete picture — and it is always a lagging one. The cohort is three holders; Ariel alone is 72.9% of it. |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | Reported value includes option rows by definition; implied price ($32.93 in Q2) is not a price check. Value fell while shares rose because the June close sits below the March close. |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | "Silent in 90 days" means zero buy and zero sell transactions in the 9 filings in the 90-day window. The single corpus purchase (April 3, 2025) is the only P-coded transaction in the 185 Form 4 filings the corpus holds for issuer CIK 1841666 (earliest January 3, 2025). It is not a claim about filings outside the corpus. The site insider aggregate has no APA row, so no site-aggregate cross-check exists for this ticker. |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | Zero-activity-in-window finding only; windows are the files' stated windows, not all history. |
| 13D/G | Aug 12, 2026 | Passive only in the parsed register; no activist 13D. Total shares reported (305,588,956) sums reporter rows across dates and is not an economic total. The three Vanguard-named reporters are distinct entities. |
| Short interest | Sep 15, 2026 | Shares-outstanding count as of Jul 31, 2026; the 6.99% ratio inherits that staleness. Series is calm (no move over 2× or under 0.5×) — read the level and the slide, not a spike. |
| Prices | Oct 23, 2026 (fresh close) | Price file ends Oct 2, 2026; the Oct 23 close ($51.90) and moves derived from it are cross-source (chart_stats) and labelled as such. |
| Fundamentals | FY2025 | Revenue is missing from the fundamentals record (status partial) and is not quoted. Recorded market capitalisation uses the record's own price_close ($44.10 as of Oct 6, 2026), not the Oct 23 close, and is quoted only as the record's figure. |
| Hype source | Oct 24, 2026 (Zacks) | List-table figures are used for APA. The detail section shows a different projected EPS growth figure (59.15%) and a forecast paragraph that conflicts with the detail header's Buy (2) badge; the article uses the header badge and the list-table figures only. |
Methodology & disclaimer: 13F holdings are long common shares unless stated; reported values include option rows for the all-institutions lens by definition. Short interest is FINRA twice-monthly settlements. Trading costs and taxes are not reflected in any figure. Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
This article describes filings and market data for education. It is not investment advice. Data: SEC EDGAR 13F (as of June 30, 2026, filed within 45 days), Form 4 corpus checked through October 2, 2026 (185 filings for issuer CIK 1841666), House/Senate disclosures through October 3, 2026, SC 13D/G parsed register through August 12, 2026, FINRA short interest at September 15, 2026 settlement. 13F covers long positions of $100M+ managers only and is always a lagging picture. Trading costs and taxes are not reflected.
Related research: One of 147: Par Pacific's Only Tracked Holder Cut 27.4% in Q2 — While the Full Market Added Shares · Six of 147: Dodge & Cox Is 90.4% of the Tracked Suncor Stake — and the Verified Cohort Cut 36.2% in Q2 · Track the tape on APA's stock page and the 13F filing season hub.
Revision history: v1.0 — October 25, 2026. Initial publication. Signals and lens aggregates: apa_lens_data.csv. Short-interest series: apa_short_interest_series.csv.
Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.