Four of 147: One Holder Is 48.9% of the Superinvestors' NRG Stake. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share.

GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #156. NRG Energy sat on Zacks' most-searched list into October 22, 2026 — a power name cut in half from its February high, days after two target cuts. The June filings show just 4 tracked holders, a full market that added 27.1 million shares, and an insider record whose one giant sale was reported twice.

The Hype

The attention is a falling power stock under estimate pressure. NRG Energy has been one of the most searched-for stocks on Zacks.com lately; over the past month its shares returned −4.8% against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite, while the Utility — Electric Power industry gained 2.4%. Zacks, October 21, 2026 On October 19, Jefferies cut its price target on the stock from $160 to $131 and Seaport Research cut its own from $190 to $160, both keeping Buy ratings, according to The Fly. Stocktwits, October 19, 2026 The same day, the board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.475 a share, payable November 16 to holders of record November 2. Seeking Alpha, October 19, 2026 Third-quarter results are estimated for November 5, 2026. MarketBeat company calendar, accessed October 22, 2026 Our price file, which ends October 2, tells the path in: flat in Q2 ($146.14 on March 31 to $146.06 on June 30), then down to $95.23 by October 2 — the 252-day low close itself, 48.3% below the 252-day high close of $184.03 (February 24).

The Tape

For NRG Energy, the one hundred and fifty-sixth Filing Tape audit, the tape shows 4 tracked managers split two up and two down, a full market that shed 27 filers while adding 27.1 million shares, an insider record with no purchase and one block sale reported by two filers at once, no congressional transaction in any aggregate we hold, a 5% register whose maximum print belongs to the same seller, and a borrow down 27.9% since June.

Lens 1 — the superinvestors: 4 holders, split evenly. The collection holds 147 managers (144 at June 30; 3 early filers at September 30, none of them holding this name). The June 30, 2026 common-stock register is 4 distinct managers holding 5,495,420 shares worth $802,661,044, long only, with no option rows. Lyrical Asset Management holds 2,689,623 shares, 48.9% of the cohort, at a 4.98% weight, labelled DECREASED at −3.4%; David Tepper – Appaloosa Management holds 1,760,000 shares, 32.0%, labelled INCREASED at +1.5%; W.H. Reaves & Co. holds 640,357 shares, labelled DECREASED at −12.8%; Tortoise Capital Advisors holds 405,440 shares, labelled INCREASED at +2.6%. Every continuing holder's label verifies by two pairing methods (methodology): the 4 continuing holders held 5,648,295 shares at March 31 and 5,495,420 at June 30, a verified change of −2.7%. Two tracked managers exited in the quarter — Howard Marks – Oaktree Capital Management (49,028 shares at March 31) and Lee Ainslie – Maverick Capital (10,537 shares). Every holder implies $146.06, the June 30 close exactly. At 2.81% of reported institutional shares, this cohort is a sample, not the register. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.

Lens 2 — institutions: fewer filers, 27.1 million more shares. At June 30, 2026, 1,023 institutions reported positions on the name's single common-stock CUSIP, down 27 from 1,050 at March 31 (−2.57%); 1,017 are long. Reported shares rose 16.05% to 195,864,191 (+27,081,563 shares), while reported value rose 16.85% to $28,584,819,658, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (methodology). Flow counts agree (904 entered, 931 exited, net −27), and the single-CUSIP aggregate matches the by-ticker total on every field. The aggregate implies $145.94 against the $146.06 close (−0.08%). Fewer filers held materially more shares, while the tracked 4 trimmed 2.7%.

Lens 3 — insiders: no purchase, and one sale reported twice. The parsed Form 4 record holds 171 filings, beginning with filings dated January 6, 2025, and running through September 9, 2026 (the collection's window end is October 2, 2026; no filing in the record is dated after September 9). The last 90 days (a filing-date window, per the aggregate's own definition) hold no open-market purchase, against 2 sale-coded rows across 12,725 shares worth $1,758,502.20, by 2 sellers, both of them officer rows. The last year holds no purchase either, against 15 sale-coded rows worth $5,326,319,198.66 as reported, by 7 sellers, 11 of them officer rows — and that headline needs its own note. Four of the 15 rows, all filed March 4, 2026, report the same block twice: LS Power Equity Advisors, LLC and David Nanus each filed sales of 14,300,000 and of 1,829,269 shares at $164.00, so the reported 32,488,819 shares count a single 16,129,269-share block, worth $2,645,200,116, two times. Net of duplication, the year's sales are 16,359,550 shares worth $2,681,119,082.66. The full parsed record holds no purchase at all: 0 purchase rows, against 19 sale-coded rows worth $5,343,135,558.66 as reported, 14 of them officer rows, by 9 sellers — 4 sale rows, in 76 filings dated before October 3, 2025, sit outside the last year's filing window. The claim is bounded by the record's span: the parsed record for this name begins in January 2025, and within that record the purchase column is blank.

Lens 4 — Congress: nothing in any aggregate. The combined aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) carries no row for this name at all — nor does either chamber file behind it: the House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) are both empty for NRG, as is the House member file. Not a balance of buys and sells, but an absence in every congressional collection we hold.

Lens 5 — the 5% register: the maximum print is the seller from Lens 3. Our full parse holds 11 SC 13D/G filings, all in the SC 13G family (6 SC 13G and 5 SC 13G/A amendments); there is no SC 13D. The 11 filings carry 34 reporter rows from 20 distinct reporters, because several are joint filings. The register maximum is LS Power Equity Advisors, LLC, 24,250,000 shares and 11.3%, as of January 30, 2026, filed February 6, 2026 — with David Nanus printing the same 24,250,000 shares and 11.3% in the same filing, as a joint reporter. The follow-up amendment prints the same reporter at 8,120,731 shares and 3.82%, as of March 4, 2026, filed March 4, 2026: a drop of exactly 16,129,269 shares, the block in Lens 3. The latest filing is Franklin Resources, Inc., 13,049,349 shares and 6.2%, as of June 30, 2026, filed July 28, 2026. The register also holds The Vanguard Group at 0 shares and 0.0% as of March 13, 2026, filed March 27, 2026, reported as printed, without attributing a reason (methodology).

Lens 6 — short interest: a June step up, then a steady unwind. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 5,836,515 shares sold short at 2.16 days to cover, 2.78% of the share count in our fundamentals file (a measured count, methodology). It is down 2.54% from the prior settlement, down 27.9% from the June 30, 2026 settlement (8,098,908 shares) and up 7.8% from the year-ago settlement (5,412,214 shares). The series maximum is 20,599,605 shares at December 29, 2023, and the latest reading sits 71.7% below it; the minimum is 3,943,425 shares at December 31, 2025. The summer's path: 8,098,908 (June 30), 7,657,874 (July 15), 6,144,462 (July 31), 6,112,901 (August 14), 5,988,815 (August 31), 5,836,515 (September 15) — five straight declines after the June step up.

The Gap

The narrative arriving this month is a searched-for utility in a slide: down 4.8% in a month, two target cuts on October 19, a maintained $0.475 dividend, and a last price in our file that is the 252-day low close itself. The June tape — taken at the end of a flat quarter, before the fall to $95.23 — shows a register consolidating rather than fleeing. Four of 147 tracked managers hold the name; the largest is 48.9% of the cohort; the verified cohort trimmed 2.7% while two small holders exited. The full register shed 27 filers and still added 27,081,563 shares (+16.05%). Insiders have sold 19 times in the parsed record and never bought in it — and almost all the reported dollar volume is one event: LS Power's 16,129,269-share block at $164.00, filed March 4, 2026, counted twice because two beneficial owners reported it, and visible independently in the 5% register as the drop from 11.3% to 3.82%. Congress shows nothing at all. The borrow stepped up once in June, then fell five settlements in a row to 5,836,515 shares — 2.78% of the share count, at 2.16 days to cover. One plausible reading is that the October story is carried by the price slide and the estimate cuts, while the filing record underneath is mostly one large, already-completed exit, a consolidating institutional base, and a tracked cohort never large enough to drive the story either way.

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 4 June holders with 5,495,420 shares, the continuing cohort verified at −2.7%, and 2 exits. Whether Lyrical and Appaloosa hold their split, whether Reaves and Tortoise reverse, and whether any of the other 143 tracked managers opens a position would change this lens.
• 2. A first insider open-market purchase — the first in the parsed record — or further sales. The record through the October 2 window end holds 0 purchases against 19 sale-coded rows. A single purchase filed after October 2 would break a pattern that currently has no exception in the record; more sales would extend it.
• 3. A first congressional transaction, in either chamber. Every congressional collection we hold — combined, House and Senate — carries no row for this name. Any transaction in either chamber would change this lens from empty to present.
• 4. A first SC 13D, a 13G print above 11.3%, or a further LS Power print. The register holds no activist filing at all; its maximum is the passive 11.3% print dated January 30, 2026, already cut to 3.82% by March 4, 2026. A 13D from any reporter, a passive print above 11.3%, or a new print that moves the LS Power line again would change this lens.
• 5. Short interest above 20,599,605 shares, or below 3,943,425 shares. Above the December 29, 2023 series maximum would set a new series high; below the December 31, 2025 series minimum would set a new series low and extend the summer's unwind past its starting point.

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 (the last NRG Energy filing in the parsed record is dated September 9, 2026); Congress aggregates run through October 3, 2026 (Senate through October 1, 2026); 13D/G through July 28, 2026; short interest through September 15, 2026; the price file ends October 2, 2026. Nine limits are specific to this audit. First, the roster expanded before the recent audits — from 85 managers (83 filing) to 149 (147 filing) — so "of 147" counts are not comparable to earlier pieces' "of 83" figures. Second, this name's common stock carries a single CUSIP (629377508), 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 register's change labels are verified, not taken on trust: all 4 continuing holders were verified by two pairing methods — accession-prefix matching and accession identity plus CUSIP-overlap — with every label recomputing exactly (Appaloosa paired to accession 0001656456-26-000002, CUSIP overlap 19, unique; Tortoise to 0001280965-26-000002, overlap 82, unique; Lyrical to 0001062993-26-002457, overlap 39, unique; Reaves to 0000740913-26-000006, overlap 82, unique), and the two methods agree on every holder. The registers then reconcile exactly: the first-quarter register holds 5,707,860 shares, equal to the verified continuing holders' 5,648,295 plus the 2 exited holders' 59,565, with no remainder; the June 30 register holds 5,495,420 shares, equal to the June cohort's 5,495,420, with no remainder, no new holders and no September 30 early filer in this name. Every June holder implies $146.06, the June 30 close exactly (0.00%). Fourth, the full-market aggregate implies $145.94 against the June 30 close of $146.06 (−0.08%): 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. Fifth, the insider lens rests on a single aggregate bucket — this issuer's filings sit under one symbol spelling, "NRG", with no case split — cross-checked against a row-level scan of all 171 parsed filings for the issuer (CIK 1013871): filing counts, transaction counts, share counts, officer-row counts and values reproduce exactly in every window, with a value difference of $0.00 in all three windows and no accession appearing under more than one symbol spelling. On that record, every insider implied-price check passes: the 90-day implied sale price of $138.19 sits inside the filing-window close range ($95.23–$142.99), the one-year figure ($163.94) inside its range ($95.23–$184.03), and the full-record figure ($163.75) inside the full price range ($30.82–$184.03); there are no purchase rows, so no purchase-side check applies. Within the one-year and full-record windows, the reported share and value totals double-count one block: the March 4, 2026 filings of LS Power Equity Advisors, LLC and of David Nanus each report sales of 14,300,000 shares and of 1,829,269 shares at $164.00 — the same 16,129,269 shares and $2,645,200,116 reported by two beneficial owners — so the de-duplicated totals are 16,359,550 shares and $2,681,119,082.66 for the year, and 16,500,222 shares and $2,697,935,442.66 for the full record; transaction counts and seller counts are counts of filings and filers as reported, and are not de-duplicated. The site's 90-day insider aggregate (dated October 22, 2026) prints 1 sale totalling $191,069.40 by 1 seller, which does not match the full parse's 90 days ending October 2, 2026 (2 sales, $1,758,502.20, 2 sellers) — the two windows end on different dates and may be defined differently; this audit uses the full parse throughout. Sixth, the congressional lens is empty at every level we hold: the combined aggregate, the House aggregate and the Senate aggregate each carry no row for this ticker, and the House member file (politicians_members.json, as of October 3, 2026; window: 2026 House PTR filings, transactions dated on or after April 1, 2026) holds no NRG row — an absence in our collections, reported as such, not a claim about filings outside them. Seventh, the 5% register's cross-date share total of 369,098,393.8 is an arithmetic sum of 34 single-reporter rows across different reporters and as-of dates, including joint filings in which several reporters print the same position (the January 30, 2026 filing alone carries 9 reporter rows, two of them at the register maximum), and is not a current combined stake; each print is reported individually in the text. Parsed totals match the aggregates exactly. Eighth, the short-interest series holds no step of 2x or more and no step to one-half or less (the largest step is 1.623x, at June 30, 2026, from 4,989,477 to 8,098,908 shares; the smallest is 0.659x, at March 28, 2024), so the series is continuous on this measure across its full span. No row carries a split flag; two rows carry a FINRA revision flag (February 26, 2021; June 15, 2021). The issuer-name field reads "NRG Energy, Inc." at all 137 settlements, on a single market class (NYSE) throughout. The share count behind the short-interest percentage is 210,210,483 shares in our fundamentals file, a measured period-end count (dei/EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding, as of July 31, 2026), so the 2.78% figure rests on a measured denominator. Ninth, our price file records no single-day close move across the thresholds this audit normally treats as split patterns, and records no split factor for this name. The company's fundamentals as collected print fiscal 2025 revenue of $30,713,000,000, net income of $864,000,000 and assets of $29,140,000,000 (fiscal year ended December 31, 2025); those figures are reported as collected and are not used in any lens above. Every price statement from our own file is mechanical, a date and a close. The October figures in The Hype — the target cuts and the dividend declaration — are events published after our price file ends, and are cited as such, not blended into file-based calculations.
• Market context sources: Zacks most-searched article, October 21, 2026 (NRG Energy among the most searched-for stocks on Zacks.com; shares returned −4.8% over the past month against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite; the Utility — Electric Power industry gained 2.4% over the same period). Stocktwits, October 19, 2026, reporting The Fly (Jefferies lowered its target from $160.00 to $131.00 on October 19, 2026, keeping a Buy rating, and noted the shares are back to levels seen before the LS Power acquisition; Seaport Research lowered its target from $190.00 to $160.00, keeping a Buy rating). Seeking Alpha, October 19, 2026 (quarterly dividend of $0.475 a share declared, payable November 16, 2026, to holders of record November 2, 2026). MarketBeat company calendar, accessed October 22, 2026 (next earnings estimated November 5, 2026; dividend record and ex-dividend date November 2, 2026, payable November 16, 2026). Figures we could not confirm were left out; the external items above are reported figures from those outlets, not GetCoattail measurements.
• NRG Energy is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: NRG Energy (NRG) stock page. Series data: nrg_lens_data.csv · nrg_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: Realty Income · Texas Instruments.

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 22, 2026: first publication.