Two of 147: Icahn Is 92.7% of the Tracked JetBlue Stake — and Cut 38.6% in Q2. Short Interest Is 25.44% of the Share Count.

GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #168. JetBlue is on Friday's pre-market watchlist after printing a record low on Thursday. The filings show two tracked holders of 147 — one of them Carl Icahn, who cut 38.6% in a quarter when the price rose 29.6% and kept cutting into August — a full market that reported 23.01% more shares, an insider record with no officer purchase at all, no congressional trade on file, and a short position sitting 0.2% below its series maximum.

The Hype

JetBlue Airways is Friday's watch name. Tech & Money Press's pre-market watchlist for Friday, October 23, 2026 puts it third, right after Nokia and Crown Castle, with the setup spelled out: JetBlue "hit a record low of $2.40 on Thursday," closed at $2.65, down 9.6%, on 84.0 million shares — about 2.2 times its 10-day average. The same note says short interest is "above 30% of the float," that American Airlines' Q3 report showed how high fuel costs are hurting airline profits while "JetBlue does not hedge its fuel," and that the company reports Q3 results on October 27. Tech & Money Press, October 23, 2026 The stock traded down to $2.40 and closed at $2.65, so buyers showed up at the low even as the broader tape was weak — SPY closed Thursday down 1.2% at $763.96. Our own price file ends October 2, 2026 at $4.15, so the record-low print belongs to the outlet's figures, not ours; what our data adds is the full arc into June and what the filings recorded while it happened.

The Tape

For JetBlue, the one hundred and sixty-eighth Filing Tape audit, the tape shows two tracked managers whose dominant holder cut 38.6% while a new name entered, a full market that reported 61.7 million more shares across 18 more filers, an insider record with three purchases and no officer purchase at all, no congressional trade in any file, an activist 13D trail that keeps shrinking after quarter-end alongside a second activist's 10% print, and a borrow of 25.44% of the share count sitting at its series maximum.

Lens 1 — the superinvestors: two holders, one of them 92.7% of the stake. The June 30, 2026 register is 2 distinct managers holding 22,278,498 shares worth $127,655,794, long only, with no option rows. The dominant name is Carl Icahn – Icahn Capital Management: 20,658,179 shares, 92.7% of the cohort, at a 1.43% weight, labelled DECREASED at −38.6%. The other is Aequim Alternative Investments: 1,620,319 shares, labelled NEW at a 0.14% weight — and the label audits as genuine, with no Q1 row under its accession prefix. Icahn's cut verifies under both pairing methods: his March 31 register row held 33,621,735 shares, his June row 20,658,179 — a verified change of −38.6% (−12,963,556 shares), in a quarter when the price rose 29.6%. One tracked manager exited an option position entirely (Carronade Capital Management — a 2,433,500-share call at March 31, not common stock). A second exit row — Howard Marks' Oaktree, 95,093,000 — sits on CUSIP 477143AP6, a debt CUSIP, so it is not common stock and does not enter the cohort. The June cohort's implied price is $5.73, exactly the June 30 close, and the cohort is 6.76% of full-market reported shares. No September early filer holds the name. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.

Lens 2 — institutions: 18 more filers, 61.7 million more shares. At June 30, 2026, 396 institutions reported positions on the single common CUSIP, up 18 from 378 at March 31 (+4.76%); 380 are long. Reported shares rose 23.01% to 329,604,576 (+61,657,048 shares), while reported value rose 61.67% to $2,197,231,785, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (methodology). The by-CUSIP fixture matches the ticker row exactly. The share count is the cleaner measure: nearly a quarter more stock reported by a wider crowd, in the same quarter the dominant tracked holder cut 38.6% and the price rose 29.6%.

Lens 3 — insiders: no officer purchase anywhere on the record. The parsed Form 4 record holds 101 filings (February 6, 2025 – October 2, 2026), and a CIK-level rescan of the parsed files matches the aggregate on every transaction count. The last 90 days (a filing-date window) hold no purchases and 5 sales totalling 83,253 shares and $474,449.00, all officer rows, from CLEMENTS CAROL ANN and HURLEY URSULA L. The full record holds 3 purchases totalling 150,000 shares and $820,340.19 — from BONEPARTH PETER and MITTAL NIK — and 14 sales totalling 187,104 shares and $1,032,542.97. The notable line: 0 officer buy transactions in every window (w90, w1y, and the full record). The three buys are all non-officer rows. Implied per-share prices in each window sit inside our price file's range for the same window.

Lens 4 — Congress: no row in any file. The combined aggregate (as of October 3, 2026), the House aggregate, and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) carry no row for this ticker, and the member file carries no member rows either. That is a null finding, reported as one — the absence of a trade is not a claim about anything else.

Lens 5 — the 13D register: Icahn keeps cutting; a second activist prints 10%. Our full parse holds 11 SC 13D/G filings: 6 SC 13D/A amendments, 2 SC 13G, and 3 SC 13G/A amendments, carrying 59 reporter rows from 19 reporting names. The register maximum as printed is BlackRock, Inc., 42,892,176 shares and 11.8%, in an SC 13G/A filed October 17, 2025 as of September 30, 2025 — passive paper, and the print is a year old. The live action is in the 13D amendments. Icahn's group prints 9.52% (33,621,735 shares) in February 2025, 6.72% (24,990,000) on May 14, 2026, 5.55% (20,658,179) on June 9, 2026 — matching the June 13F row exactly — and 3.32% (12,528,346) on August 20, 2026. The last print post-dates the quarter: he kept cutting. A second activist trail appears in the spring: Galkin Vladimir and Galkin Angelica, with the Angelica Galkin Revocable Trust, print a group maximum of 37,200,000 shares and 10.0% (the trust itself prints 35,200,000 shares and 9.5%) across an SC 13D/A (April 23), an SC 13G (May 6), and another SC 13D/A (May 5, 2026). FMR LLC's 13G faded from 6.0% to 0.4%, and The Vanguard Group printed 0 shares and 0.0% on March 27, 2026.

Lens 6 — short interest: 25.44% of the share count, at the series maximum. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 95,986,917 shares sold short at 5.06 days to cover, 25.44% of the 377,312,181 shares in our fundamentals file (a measured period-end count, methodology). The borrow sits 0.2% below the series maximum of 96,175,450 shares at August 14, 2026 — effectively at the top of a series that runs 137 settlements back to January 2021. It is 67.9% above the year-ago settlement (57,153,525) and 14.7% above the June 30 settlement (83,653,484). The summer's path: 83,653,484 (June 30), 85,545,783 (July 15), 95,500,899 (July 31), 96,175,450 (August 14, the maximum), 92,945,483 (August 31), 95,986,917 (September 15) — a climb into August, one settlement down, then back up. The watchlist's "above 30% of the float" is the outlet's figure on a float base; ours is 25.44% of the full share count at September 15.

The Gap

The watchlist story is a record low with the borrow maxed out: $2.40 on Thursday, a bounce to $2.65, short interest described as above 30% of the float, and earnings on October 27. The filings underneath describe the quarter before the fall, split in two directions at once. In Q2, when the price rose 29.6%, the broad institutional register reported 23.01% more shares across 18 more filers — the widest crowd moved with the price — while the dominant tracked holder, Carl Icahn at 92.7% of the two-name cohort, cut a verified 38.6% and kept cutting into August, down to 3.32% in his latest 13D. At the same time a second activist, the Galkin group, printed 10.0% in April and May, and a small new tracked name (Aequim) opened a 1.6-million-share position. The insider record is one-directional at every horizon that matters for officers: three purchases exist on the full record but none is an officer purchase, while the last 90 days hold five officer sales and nothing else. Congress has recorded nothing at all. One plausible reading is that the October tape is a positioning argument — a record short position into a record-low print ahead of earnings — while the June filings show the broad market adding shares into the rise, the biggest tracked name selling into it, and a second activist building the opposite way. We have not tested whether any of these gaps is larger than chance; the tracked side is two managers, so treat it as two managers, not a cohort trend.

What Would Change the Picture

Nothing above is a recommendation. These filings would change it:

• 1. The 2026Q3 13F season (filing window closing mid-November 2026). The baseline is 2 June holders with 22,278,498 shares, Icahn at 92.7% of the cohort after a verified −38.6%, Aequim's genuine new 1,620,319-share position, and one tracked exit of a 2,433,500-share call-option position. Whether Icahn's 13F confirms the 3.32% his August 13D printed, whether Aequim adds or vanishes, and whether the Galkin group's 10% appears in any tracked register would change this lens.
• 2. Icahn's 13D/A trail. Four amendments in eighteen months, each one lower. A print that holds steady — or a new name appearing on a 13D — would change the activist half of this picture.
• 3. Form 4 purchases. The record has zero officer purchases across 101 filings. A first officer-coded purchase would be a new fact, not a confirmation of anything above.
• 4. FINRA settlements after September 15. The borrow is at its series maximum. The October settlements will show whether the record-low print came with covering or with more shorting.
• 5. Congressional trades. None on file. The first PTR or Senate filing naming JBLU would open a lens that is currently blank.

As-of & Limits

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. Short interest: not estimated — every figure above is a FINRA settlement as collected. For education only — not investment advice. Past patterns are not a promise of future results; trading costs and taxes are not reflected in any figure here.

Methodology and data notes

• As-of & limits: The lenses rest on different clocks, none live: 13F is a June 30, 2026 snapshot published up to 45 days later; Form 4 windows run through October 2, 2026; Congress aggregates run through October 3, 2026 (Senate through October 1, 2026); 13D/G through August 20, 2026; short interest through September 15, 2026; the price file ends October 2, 2026. Limits specific to this audit. First, the tracked cohort is two managers — the smallest possible non-trivial cohort — so every "cohort" statement is really a statement about two names, and the verified −38.6% is one holder's move. Second, JetBlue common stock carries a single CUSIP (477143101), and the full-market by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker aggregate on every field — holders, long holders, shares, reported value, prior holders and prior reported value — so no CUSIP blending question arises. Third, the tracked change labels are verified, not taken on trust: Icahn's continuing position was verified by two methods that agree — a total-value prefix pass and accession identity plus CUSIP-overlap pairing — with the label recomputing exactly; Aequim's NEW label was audited separately, with no March filing under its filing prefix carrying this CUSIP, so it is reported as genuine. No September early filer holds this name. The registers reconcile with no remainder: the March 31 register holds 36,055,235 shares, equal to the verified continuing holder's 33,621,735 plus the exited option holder's 2,433,500 (a call, not common stock); the June 30 register holds 22,278,498 shares, equal to the June cohort exactly (all common stock, no option rows). The Oaktree exit row sits on a debt CUSIP (477143AP6) and is excluded from the common-stock register. Fourth, the June cohort's implied price is $5.73 against the June 30 close of $5.73 (0.00%). Fifth, the full-market aggregate implies $6.67 against the $5.73 close (+16.34%): the aggregate is a reported sum that includes option rows, so its implied price need not equal the close; this audit uses filer counts and share counts as this lens's primary measures and reports the value as reported only. Sixth, the insider lens rests on a single aggregate bucket — this issuer's filings sit under one symbol spelling, "JBLU", with no case split — cross-checked against a row-level scan of all 101 parsed filings for the issuer (CIK 1158463): filing counts, transaction counts, share counts, officer-row counts and values reproduce exactly in every window, and no accession appears under more than one symbol spelling. Every insider implied-price check that applies passes: the 90-day implied sale price of $5.70, the one-year implied sale price of $5.35 and the full-record implied sale price of $5.52 each sit inside their filing-window close ranges; the full record's three purchases imply $5.47, also inside the range. Form 4 windows in this audit are filing-date windows. Seventh, the congressional lens is reported across four files: the combined aggregate, the House aggregate, the Senate aggregate and the member files (transactions dated on or after April 1, 2026) — all carry no row for this ticker, and that absence is reported, not interpreted. Eighth, the 5% register's maximum print needs its date in full: BlackRock's SC 13G/A (filed October 17, 2025) prints 42,892,176 shares at 11.8% as of September 30, 2025 — passive paper, a year old. The parsed totals match the aggregates exactly, and each print is reported individually in the text. Ninth, the short-interest series holds 137 settlements beginning January 15, 2021, so its maximum and minimum describe that span only. Within it, no settlement steps to 2x or more of the prior settlement and none steps to one-half or less, so the series carries no discontinuity on this measure. No row carries a split flag; one row (June 15, 2021, 12,556,950 shares) carries a FINRA revision flag. The issuer-name field reads "JetBlue Airways Corporation Co" at all 137 settlements, on a single market class (NNM) throughout. The share count behind the 25.44% figure is 377,312,181 shares in our fundamentals file (a measured period-end count), not a float estimate. Our price file records no split factor for this name. The Tech & Money Press figures in The Hype — the watchlist ranking, the record-low print, the volume multiple, the "above 30% of the float" figure, the October 27 earnings date and the fuel-hedging detail — are that outlet's published figures, cited as such, not blended into file-based calculations.
• Market context sources: Tech & Money Press, October 23, 2026 ("Stocks to Watch Friday, Oct. 23": JetBlue #3; record low $2.40 on Oct 22; close $2.65, −9.6%; 84.0M shares, ~2.2× 10-day average; short interest "above 30% of the float"; Q3 results due Oct 27; American Airlines' Q3 showed fuel costs hurting airlines; JetBlue does not hedge fuel; SPY closed Thursday at $763.96, −1.2%). Figures we could not confirm were left out; the external items above are reported figures from that outlet, not GetCoattail measurements.
• JetBlue is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: JetBlue (JBLU) stock page. Series data: jblu_lens_data.csv · jblu_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: GE Vernova · Lamb Weston.

Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.

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: v1.0 — October 23, 2026: first publication.