RESEARCH — THE FILING TAPE #11

Three of 83: The Superinvestors Cut Dell Shares 82.8% While the Price Rose 162.9%

October 9, 2026

GetCoattail Research — Dell just reported the strongest quarter in its history — revenue up 58%, a $95 billion AI server backlog, and full-year guidance raised by $25 billion — and its stock has risen 346.9% this year in our price file. We ran it through every filing lens we maintain. The broad register piled in. The concentrated cohort almost entirely left, in the very quarter the price rose 162.9%.

Start with the narrative, because it is unusually concrete. Dell reported fiscal second-quarter 2027 results on September 1, 2026: revenue of $46.97 billion, up 58% year over year and ahead of a consensus of roughly $44.9 billion; non-GAAP EPS of $7.04 against expectations of about $4.91, up 203% year over year; $60.9 billion of AI server orders booked in the quarter, $16.4 billion of AI-optimised server revenue, and a record $95 billion AI backlog. Management raised full-year revenue guidance by $25 billion to $192 billion and AI server revenue guidance to $74 billion, from $60 billion. The stock rose 15.8% the day after the print and another 4.8% the day after that. Dell was the eighth most-searched ticker on Benzinga Pro for September — its first appearance in that top twelve in 2026 — and consensus price targets average roughly $560 to $571. Forbes had the shares up about 345% in 2026 by late September.

Now the filings. GetCoattail tracks the portfolios, trades and disclosures of the investors best placed to know any given company: superinvestors, institutions as a whole, insiders, members of Congress, and 5% holders. For Dell — the eleventh Filing Tape audit, after IREN, CoreWeave, Micron, NVIDIA, Tesla, AMD, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Oracle — the story the broad market is telling and the story the concentrated filings tell are not the same story.

Lens 1: the superinvestors — three holders, down 82.8% in the best quarter

We track 83 large, mostly long-only managers whose 13F portfolios we collect directly from SEC EDGAR. As of June 30, 2026, three held Dell in long common-stock positions — every one of the three reported rows is a long position, with no option rows in the count. On a like-for-like pipeline basis the cohort's combined position fell from 480,167 shares at March 31 to 82,478 shares at June 30 — down 82.8% — in a quarter when the share price did the opposite, closing at $164.13 on March 31 and $431.46 on June 30 in our price file (+162.9%). The pipeline and EDGAR-collection second-quarter totals agree exactly, at 82,478 shares, worth $35,585,958.

The composition matters more than the count: the row count did not change — three rows in March, three in June — while the holders did. The March register's largest position, First Pacific Advisors with 382,985 shares, was 79.8% of the entire first-quarter cohort, and it has no Dell row at all in the second-quarter collection: a complete exit. The one new name, Maverick Capital, opened a position of 2,935 shares. What remains is 82,478 shares: Century Management with 62,293 shares — 75.5% of what is left — cut 20.4% in the quarter, and Dodge & Cox with 17,250 shares cut 8.7%. Of the three second-quarter holders, two decreased and one was new; none increased. This is not a cohort that rotated. It is a cohort whose largest member left during a 162.9% quarter, leaving a residual position smaller than the rounding on the story outside.

Dell through six filing lenses
Chart 1: Signal presence by cohort. Superinvestors: 83 managers, 2026Q2 13F (as of Jun 30, 2026). Institutions: full-market 13F aggregation, same date. Insiders: Form 4 record through Oct 2, 2026. Congress: Senate and House PTR record through Oct 3, 2026. 13D/G: filings through Sep 11, 2026. Short interest: FINRA biweekly settlement data through Sep 15, 2026. Source: SEC EDGAR; FINRA; GetCoattail collections.

Lens 2: institutions — 2,122 filers, up 31.5%

Zoom out to the whole 13F market and the register points the other way, as it did for Oracle. At June 30, 2026, 2,122 institutions reported positions in Dell, up from 1,614 at March 31 — a 31.5% rise — and 2,111 of them reported long positions. Reported share counts rose 9.23%, from 215,733,793 to 235,648,323 shares, with 1,705 filers entering and 1,197 exiting during the quarter. The dataset's reported aggregate value rose 189.6% to $117,886,783,158, a rise mostly explained by the quarter's 162.9% price increase; the aggregate includes option rows, so we treat filer and share counts as the reliable series and the dollar figure as reported (see methodology). The contrast inside one quarter is the fact: breadth expanded by almost a third and the full register added shares, while the concentrated cohort cut 82.8% of its position.

Lens 3: the 5% register — a sponsor leaving in instalments, a founder trimming

Dell's 5% register contains the two holders who know the company best, and both series point down. Eleven SC 13D/G filings cover Dell in our full-parse aggregation — six 13D filings and five 13G filings, from 15 reporters, the most recent filed September 11, 2026. The 13D chain belongs to Silver Lake, the private-equity sponsor of the 2013 buyout. In the group row of its own amendments, Silver Lake Group reported 62,513,399 shares (14.8%) as of January 8, 2025, then 58,887,472 (14.7%) in July 2025, 54,300,981 (13.8%) in October 2025, 50,240,830 (13.6%) in March 2026, 46,485,717 (12.5%) in June 2026, and 42,809,317 shares (11.9%) as of September 9, 2026 — a decline at every one of the six parsed filings, and 31.5% below the first. The founder's own register moved the same direction, more slowly: Michael S. Dell's amended 13G reported 283,169,860 shares (46.8%, as reported in the filing) as of March 31, 2025, and 265,674,689 shares (45.7%) as of December 31, 2025, a reduction of 17,495,171 shares (−6.2%). The passive register is present — Vanguard entities report 29,121,530 shares (8.57%) and 22,512,097 shares (7.07%) — but no new 13D, the filing an investor uses when it wants something from management, has appeared.

Lens 4: insiders — zero purchases, in every window

The insider lens is the starkest in this audit. Across the entire parsed Form 4 record for Dell (311 filings through October 2, 2026), there is not one open-market purchase transaction — zero in the last 90 days, zero in the last year, and zero across the full parsed record, by officers or by any other insider. The selling side is heavy and continuous. In the 90 days through October 2, 2026, insiders filed 89 reports covering 1,102 sale transactions totalling 2,148,372 shares and $1,103,128,611.20, by twelve sellers; counts here are transaction rows, and a single filing can carry many. Over the full year, sales total 2,777 transactions and $5,083,421,660.74 by 22 sellers. Across the entire parsed record, sales total 3,178 transactions and $8,059,444,861.56 by 25 sellers. Some selling is mechanical — vesting, tax withholding and pre-arranged plans generate filings regardless of anyone's view — and we assign no motives. What the record establishes is narrower: in a year when the stock rose 346.9% in our price file, no insider at any point recorded a purchase at market price.

Lens 5: Congress — one sale, no buys

Across the Senate and House transaction record we maintain (as of October 3, 2026), Dell shows one sale transaction and zero purchases. The single sale sits in the House aggregate; the Senate aggregate carries no Dell record at all. Congressional disclosures report value ranges rather than exact amounts, so we record direction only.

Lens 6: short interest — half the February peak, at 2.14% of the share count

As of September 15, 2026 — the most recent FINRA settlement date — 13,693,224 Dell shares were sold short, down 5.20% from 14,444,059 at the August 31 settlement. That is 2.14% of the 640,000,000 shares outstanding in our fundamentals file (a share count as of July 31, 2026), with days-to-cover of 1.00.

Short interest in Dell, January 2021 to September 2026
Chart 2: Shares sold short in Dell at each FINRA biweekly settlement, Jan 15, 2021 – Sep 15, 2026 (n = 137 settlements). The series peaked at 27,449,476 shares on Feb 13, 2026; the latest reading, 13,693,224 shares on Sep 15, 2026, is 50.1% below that peak and up 15.9% from 11,811,846 a year earlier. Source: FINRA Equity Short Interest files; GetCoattail collection (dell_short_interest_series.csv).

Short interest peaked at 27,449,476 shares on February 13, 2026 — before the second-quarter explosion — and the latest reading is 50.1% below that peak: the borrow halved while the price roughly quadrupled from its January levels. Over the last five settlements the series has been roughly flat, between 13,094,061 and 14,444,059 shares.

The gap, stated plainly

Dell's filing record splits by register size. The broad register accumulated: 2,122 filers, up 31.5% in a quarter, reported shares up 9.23%. The concentrated registers did the opposite. The superinvestor cohort fell from 480,167 shares to 82,478 — down 82.8% in a quarter when the price rose 162.9% — because its largest holder, at 79.8% of the cohort, exited completely, and neither of the two remaining holders added a share. The sponsor that took Dell private has reduced its reported stake at six consecutive filings, from 62,513,399 shares to 42,809,317. The founder's reported stake fell 6.2% across 2025. Insiders have sold $8,059,444,861.56 across the parsed record and recorded zero purchases in it. Congress has sold once and never bought, and the short borrow has halved from its February peak. One plausible reading is that the record describes a stock carried upward by breadth, index machinery and a genuine operating print, while nearly every register that requires a named, concentrated decision has been reducing. The record supports each clause separately; it does not say which register is right.

What would change the picture

Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. These are the filings that would change the description:

Until one of those prints, the filing record describes a stock the broad register accumulated and the concentrated money left, whose sponsor has been selling in instalments for almost two years, and whose insiders have never recorded a purchase.

Related reading: Fourteen of 83: One Holder Is 62.6% of the Superinvestors' Oracle Stake. Short Interest Just Hit a Record. — Filing Tape #10; Zero of 83: The Superinvestors Aren't in IREN — Filing Tape #1; 80% Overlap, No Copycat Signal: Congress vs. the Superinvestors. Dell's own page: Dell Technologies (DELL) on GetCoattail.

Methodology and data notes

This article describes public filings as of the dates stated. It is not investment advice and makes no recommendation. Filings lag reality: 13F positions are as of June 30, 2026, and later trading is not yet public.

Revision history

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80% Overlap, No Copycat Signal: Congress vs. the Superinvestors
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