GetCoattail Research — Rocket Lab is the launch and space-systems company behind the Electron rocket and the still-unflown Neutron, and it sits seventh on MarketBeat's trending-stocks list after reports of a possible NASA bulk launch purchase lifted the shares about 4% in a session and two banks opened coverage inside a week. The filings describe a register moving the other way at the top: two tracked superinvestors hold the stock and both cut it in a quarter the price rose 58.3%, the full market added 266 filers and 35.62% more shares, its insiders have recorded zero open-market purchases across the entire parsed record against 280 sales, Congress has never printed a trade in it, and the 5% register is a set of founder and early-backer rows that have been shrinking for eighteen months.
Start with the narrative. Rocket Lab's second quarter, reported August 11, 2026, showed revenue of $234.1 million, up 62% year over year, with Space Systems revenue up 94% to $189.5 million and a contract backlog of $2.36 billion; the adjusted loss was $0.08 per share, third-quarter guidance called for an adjusted EBITDA loss of $17 million to $23 million, and chief executive Peter Beck said the window for a first Neutron launch before the end of 2026 is narrowing — the shares fell about 8% on the report. The story since has been coverage and catalysts: Citigroup opened coverage with a Buy and a $105 target on October 1, Barclays opened with an Overweight and an $85 target on October 8, TD Cowen cut its target from $120 to $90 on October 9 while keeping a Buy, and reports of a possible NASA bulk launch purchase lifted the stock about 4% in a session in the same week. MarketBeat's consensus, as aggregated on October 10, is a Moderate Buy with an average target of $104.71. The agreed acquisition of Iridium, expected to close in mid-2027 and financed in part by at-the-market share sales, runs underneath all of it. Our own price file, which ends October 2, puts the last close at $73.92 — down 50.8% from the 252-session closing high of $150.23 set on May 27, 2026, up 87.2% from the closing low of $39.48 set on November 20, 2025, and up 6.0% year to date on that file.
Now the filings. For Rocket Lab — the forty-fifth Filing Tape audit — the tape shows a broad register getting broader, a tracked cohort of two getting smaller, an insider record with one column permanently empty, and a 5% register with no original 13D in it.
Lens 1: the superinvestors — two holders, 27,251 shares, both cut
We track 83 large, mostly long-only managers whose 13F portfolios we collect directly from SEC EDGAR. As of June 30, 2026, 2 held Rocket Lab long — no option rows — totalling 27,251 shares worth $2,770,064. The direction count, on the collection's own labels, is two decreased — no new positions, no increases, no unchanged rows, and no exits for this issuer.
Polen Capital Management holds most of it: 22,751 shares worth $2,312,639, a 0.02% portfolio weight, flagged decreased by 3.4% — 83.5% of the tracked cohort's Rocket Lab shares. Torray Funds holds 4,500 shares worth $457,425, a 0.06% weight, flagged decreased by 50.0%. The two holders report under different CUSIPs — Polen under 773121108, Torray under 773122106, the issuer's former "Rocket Lab USA Inc" identifier — and both CUSIPs carry the same issuer and, in these filings, the same implied price: the cohort's $101.65 per share matches the June 30 close exactly, holder by holder. The cohort total moved from 32,555 shares at March 31 to 27,251 at June 30, a change of -16.29%, a difference of -5,304 shares: Polen trimmed 804 shares and Torray halved, cutting 4,500 of its 9,000. The price rose from $64.22 at March 31 to $101.65 at June 30, a change of +58.3% — the tracked register trimmed, on net, into the strongest quarter in the stock's recent history, and the cohort's reported value still rose, from $2,090,682 to $2,770,064, because the price rose faster than the share count fell.
Lens 2: institutions — 1,134 filers, up 266, shares up 35.62%
Zoom out to the whole 13F market and the June quarter was a register expanding in every dimension the tracked cohort shrank. At June 30, 2026, 1,134 institutions reported positions, up 266 from 868 at March 31 (+30.65%), and 1,123 reported long positions. Reported shares rose 35.62%, from 235,834,942 to 319,844,880 shares — 84,009,938 more shares than the prior quarter. Reported aggregate value rose 108.46% to $39,219,137,393; the aggregate includes option rows, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollars "reported" (see methodology). The implied value per share, $122.62, sits 20.6% above the June 30 close of $101.65 — the widest gap between reported value and close in this series, and one more reason this lens leads with counts, not dollars. Set the two 13F lenses side by side and the quarter has two opposite signatures: the full market added 266 filers and a third more shares while the two tracked superinvestors cut 16.29%. Whatever the broad register was doing in the second quarter, the cohort this site follows was not doing it.
Lens 3: the 5% register — fourteen filings, no original 13D among them, and the big rows shrink
Our full parse holds fourteen SC 13D/G filings for Rocket Lab across both of the issuer's CUSIPs — nine SC 13D/A amendments, two SC 13G originals and three SC 13G/A amendments, and no original SC 13D at all, 51 reporting-person rows across 19 names, the most recent filed July 31, 2026. This register is active paper, not index paper: its largest rows belong to the founder and the earliest backers, and they have been stepping down for eighteen months. The Beck Peter row prints 51,306,468 shares (10.26%) as of January 7, 2025 — the register's maximum — then 51,345,936 shares (10.02%) as of June 13, 2025, then 46,443,180 shares (7.51%) as of March 27, 2026, a 9.5% reduction from the prior row; four affiliated rows, including Equatorial Trust, print the same trajectory alongside it in each filing and are reported here as filed, never summed. The VK Services, LLC row — printed identically for Vinod Khosla in the same filings — steps down in every print: 50,982,669 shares (10.2%) as of January 29, 2025, then 43,433,056 (9.0%), 40,036,964 (8.0%), 36,593,470 (6.9%) and 34,888,272 shares (6.5%) as of February 17, 2026, a 31.6% reduction across the chain. The Khosla Ventures V rows fall further, from 21,323,617 shares (4.3%) to 2,258,894 shares (0.4%), down 89.4%. The passive side moves too: The Vanguard Group prints 40,029,546 shares (8.82%) as of March 31, 2025 and then 0 shares (0.0%) as of March 13, 2026; a distinct reporting person, Vanguard Capital Management, prints 30,080,579 shares (5.19%) as of June 30, 2026 in the register's most recent filing — we report the two names exactly as filed and do not merge them. BlackRock, Inc. moves the other way, from 22,072,112 shares (4.8%) as of June 30, 2025 to 30,222,153 shares (6.2%) as of September 30, 2025, up 36.9%. No filer in this register has filed an original 13D in the parsed set: every filing on the active side is an amendment to a position declared earlier, and in this window every large amendment except BlackRock's points down.
Lens 4: insiders — zero purchases in the parsed record
The parsed Form 4 record holds 96 filings through October 2, 2026, and one of its two columns has never been used. Across the whole record, open-market purchases total exactly 0 transactions — not in the last 90 days, not in the last year, not at any point in the parsed coverage, by any buyer. Against that empty column stand 280 sales totalling 15,632,573 shares and $984,929,949.10, by twelve sellers, 212 of the 280 recorded as officer sales. The recent windows are one-directional as well: the last year holds 216 sales for $683,279,283.05 by eleven sellers, and the last 90 days hold 49 sales for $313,373,587.49 by six sellers, all 49 of them officer sales. Our site's insider aggregate, compiled as of October 11 over its 90-day window, likewise records zero purchases; it counts the sales differently — 22 transactions totalling $17,037,943.29 by five sellers — and we note the difference rather than blending the two collections (see methodology). On the fact this lens exists to answer, the two collections agree completely: in the windows both cover, no Rocket Lab insider has bought a share in the open market. We assign no motives to any of it; a purchase column that has stayed empty across 96 filings is the fact.
Lens 5: Congress — no record
Across the congressional record we maintain (combined record as of October 3, 2026), Rocket Lab shows no trades at all: the combined aggregate carries no Rocket Lab row, the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) carries none, and the House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) carries none. This lens is blank, and we print it blank rather than skipping it: in a series where most names show at least a handful of member trades, a heavily covered space stock with no congressional footprint in either chamber is itself a data point about who is not in the register.
Lens 6: short interest — 43,482,976 shares, a third below the peak
FINRA's files carry the borrow across 122 settlements, from August 31, 2021. As of September 15, 2026 — the most recent settlement — 43,482,976 Rocket Lab shares were sold short, with days-to-cover of 2.39, down 4.18% from the prior settlement. Against the fundamentals file's 598,350,482 shares outstanding, that is 7.27% of the share count — the highest share-count ratio in this series in several issues. But the level is not the trend: the series maximum is 63,654,443 shares on May 15, 2025, which puts the latest reading 31.7% below the peak, and against September 15, 2025 the latest reading is down 27.9% from 60,313,275 shares. The borrow has been shrinking for sixteen months while the share count it is measured against has grown. The June 30, 2026 settlement — the date the 13F lenses snapshot — printed 42,599,639 shares, close to the latest reading: through the quarter in which institutions added a third more shares, the borrow barely moved. The series minimum is 3,109,516 shares on October 29, 2021.
The recent settlements run 45,847,931 on July 15, then 45,819,240, 44,395,701, 45,378,891 and 43,482,976 — a high plateau, drifting down. Set beside the price file, the picture is a stock that closed at $73.92 on October 2, down 27.3% from its June 30 close, carrying a borrow equal to 7.27% of its share count that has nonetheless been retreating from its peak for over a year.
The gap, stated plainly
The registers describe a stock the analyst community rates with an average target of $104.71 — with the price down 50.8% from its May closing high on our file through October 2 — days after two banks opened coverage and a possible NASA purchase made the rounds, months after its institutions had already moved in opposite shapes. The tracked superinvestors held 27,251 shares at June 30 across two holders, with Polen Capital Management at 83.5% of it, having cut 16.29% in a quarter when the price rose 58.3%. The full market went the other way: 319,844,880 reported shares, up 84,009,938, across 1,134 filers — 266 more than the prior quarter. The 5% register printed fourteen filings, twelve of them amendments and not one an original 13D: its maximum row is a 10.26% Beck Peter print from January 2025 that has since stepped down to 7.51%, the VK Services row was cut 31.6% across five prints, the Khosla Ventures V rows were cut 89.4%, The Vanguard Group printed zero, and there is not one original 13D. Insiders, across 96 parsed filings, recorded zero purchases against 280 sales for $984,929,949.10. Congress registers nothing in either chamber. And the borrow, at 43,482,976 shares, stands 31.7% below the peak it printed in May 2025. One plausible reading is that the registers run on different clocks and different mandates: the broad register added through the second quarter while the two tracked managers trimmed into strength, the legacy 5% blocks are being reduced on a schedule set years ago while a new Vanguard reporting person prints the newest passive row, its own insiders have left the purchase column empty for the entire parsed record, and short sellers have been covering, slowly, for sixteen months. 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:
- 1. The 2026Q3 13Fs (filing window closing mid-November 2026). The tracked cohort held 27,251 shares at June 30 across two holders, after a 16.29% cut in a rising quarter. Whether Polen Capital Management's 22,751 shares grow, hold or shrink — and whether Torray Funds' remaining 4,500 shares survive the quarter at all — is the whole lens.
- 2. A first insider purchase, ever. The parsed record holds exactly 0 purchase transactions against 280 sales. A single open-market purchase — by any insider, of any size — would change this lens from a permanently one-sided tape into a two-sided one; continued silence would extend the emptiest purchase column in this series.
- 3. An original 13D filing. The 5% register holds fourteen filings — twelve of them amendments, and no original 13D among them — headed by founder and early-backer rows that have been stepping down. A first original 13D in the parsed set — any filer declaring a new active position — would change this lens from a record of reductions into something else.
- 4. Whether the borrow keeps retreating from its 2025 peak. Short interest stands at 43,482,976 shares, 31.7% below the series peak of 63,654,443 printed on May 15, 2025 and 27.9% below its year-ago level. A return toward the September 2025 reading of 60,313,275 would rebuild the borrow; a print below the June 30, 2026 settlement of 42,599,639 would extend the sixteen-month retreat.
- 5. A first congressional trade. The congressional register holds no Rocket Lab row in either chamber. A first member print, in either chamber and in either direction, would open a lens that has been blank for the stock's entire parsed history.
Until one of those prints, the record describes a stock held by two of our 83 tracked superinvestors — 27,251 shares, 83.5% of it one holder, both holders having cut in a quarter the price rose 58.3% — whose full market added 84,009,938 reported shares across 266 new filers in the same quarter, whose 5% register — twelve amendments and two original 13G prints, with no original 13D — is one in which the founder and early-backer rows were cut by a third or more, whose insiders have recorded zero purchases in the parsed record, whose congressional register is empty in both chambers, and whose borrow has been retreating from its 2025 peak for sixteen months.
Related reading: Two of 83: One Holder Is 79.1% of the Superinvestors' Constellation Energy Stake. Its Insiders Have Bought Once. — Filing Tape #44; Four of 83: One Holder Is 73.3% of the Superinvestors' DoorDash Stake. Its Insiders Bought $100,283,387.82 in a Year. — Filing Tape #43; Zero of 83: The Superinvestors Aren't in IREN — Filing Tape #1. Rocket Lab's own page: Rocket Lab Corp (RKLB) on GetCoattail.
Methodology and data notes
- Superinvestor lens: 83 managers collected directly from SEC EDGAR Form 13F (managers_13f collection), positions as of June 30, 2026; Rocket Lab identified by CUSIPs 773121108 and 773122106 (the same issuer, CIK 1819994, under its current and former identifiers — filers in the same quarter report under both). Two distinct managers hold long positions totalling 27,251 shares; both reported rows are long (no put or call rows); the direction count on the collection's labels is two decreased, and the collection's exit list contains no row for either CUSIP. Quarter-to-quarter cohort totals (32,555 shares at March 31 across two filing rows; 27,251 shares at June 30 across two filing rows; change -16.29%) are from the site pipeline's holdings files on the same two-CUSIP basis in both quarters, and the pipeline's second-quarter share and value totals match the EDGAR collection's long totals exactly (differences of 0 shares and $0). Polen Capital Management's share of the cohort is 83.5% = 22,751 / 27,251.
- Full-market lens: SEC Form 13F Data Sets full-market aggregation. The primary table is the full13f collection's by-ticker file (holders = distinct filers reporting either CUSIP; 1,123 of the 1,134 reported long positions). Its share count, reported value and prior reported value match the sum of the backfill fixtures' by-CUSIP rows for 773121108 and 773122106 exactly (319,844,880 shares; $39,219,137,393; $18,814,124,833). Holder counts differ by one on the same comparison — 1,135 summed per-CUSIP against 1,134 by ticker, and 869 against 868 for the prior quarter — because one filer reported both CUSIPs and is counted once in the by-ticker aggregation; this audit headlines the by-ticker counts. The by-ticker file's entered/exited fields (1,020 and 754, a net of +266 that matches the change in holder count) have no counterpart in the by-CUSIP aggregation, which does not publish them, so this audit does not rely on them. Reported-value caution: the aggregate value ($39,219,137,393 over 319,844,880 shares) implies ≈$122.62 per share against a June 30, 2026 close of $101.65 in our price file, a gap of +20.6%. The aggregate sums the VALUE of every information-table row — including put and call option rows — while the share count covers long common-stock rows only, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollar values "reported."
- Insider lens: full-parse Form 4 aggregation (agg_by_ticker), record as of October 2, 2026 (96 filings). Sale and purchase counts are transaction-code counts (S and P) in non-derivative rows; grants and exercises are not counted as purchases, and one filing can contain many transaction rows. Purchase transactions total exactly 0 across the parsed record — in the 90 days, the year and the full record through October 2, 2026, with zero buyers in every window. Sale transactions total 280 across the record (15,632,573 shares, $984,929,949.10, twelve sellers, 212 of the 280 recorded as officer sales), 216 of them in the year through October 2, 2026 and 49 in the 90 days through October 2, 2026 (all 49 recorded as officer sales). The site's insider aggregate (compiled as of October 11, 2026, 90-day window) also records zero purchases, and counts sales differently — 22 transactions totalling $17,037,943.29 by five sellers. The two collections use different sale-counting rules; both agree the purchase column is empty, and this audit headlines the full parse. "Purchases" in this audit is scoped to this parsed record, whose 96 filings are the coverage stated here.
- 13D/G lens: full-parse SC 13D/G aggregation and parsed filings (14 filings matching issuer CIK 1819994 across CUSIPs 773121108 and 773122106, 51 reporting-person rows across 19 names: nine SC 13D/A amendments, two SC 13G originals and three SC 13G/A amendments, no original SC 13D filings), filings through July 31, 2026. The site aggregation's RKLB row covers the current CUSIP only and counts 9 filings, which matches the 9 parsed files on that CUSIP exactly; this audit covers both CUSIPs because the issuer's older filings use the former identifier. Beck Peter's rows (51,306,468 shares at 10.26% as of January 7, 2025, filed January 10, 2025; 51,345,936 shares at 10.02% as of June 13, 2025, filed June 17, 2025; and 46,443,180 shares at 7.51% as of March 27, 2026, filed March 30, 2026 — with Equatorial Trust, Peek Street Equatorial Trustee Ltd, Beck Kerryn and Butler Warren printed alongside at 50,951,250 shares and then 45,951,250 shares in the same filings), VK Services, LLC's and Vinod Khosla's identical rows (50,982,669 shares at 10.2% as of January 29, 2025, filed February 18, 2025; 43,433,056 at 9.0% as of September 2, 2025; 40,036,964 at 8.0% as of October 21, 2025; 36,593,470 at 6.9% as of November 18, 2025; and 34,888,272 shares at 6.5% as of February 17, 2026, filed February 17, 2026), the Khosla Ventures V, L.P. rows printed identically for Khosla Ventures Associates V, LLC (21,323,617 shares at 4.3% as of January 29, 2025 falling to 2,258,894 shares at 0.4% as of November 18, 2025), The Vanguard Group's rows (40,029,546 shares at 8.82% as of March 31, 2025, filed April 30, 2025; and 0 shares at 0.0% as of March 13, 2026, filed March 27, 2026), Vanguard Capital Management's row (30,080,579 shares at 5.19% as of June 30, 2026, filed July 31, 2026 — a distinct reporting-person name, reported as filed and not merged with The Vanguard Group) and BlackRock, Inc.'s rows (22,072,112 shares at 4.8% as of June 30, 2025, filed July 18, 2025; and 30,222,153 shares at 6.2% as of September 30, 2025, filed October 17, 2025) are reported as filed, under the reporting-person names exactly as they appear. No rows are summed, because aggregation totals across these rows would add different dates together. No reason for any change is asserted — the filings themselves are the record.
- Congress lens: Senate PTR archive and House PTR archive as maintained on this site, combined record as of October 3, 2026 — no Rocket Lab row in the combined aggregate, the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) or the House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026). This lens records an absence, verified in all three aggregates, rather than a count.
- Short interest lens: FINRA Equity Short Interest files (biweekly settlement dates), collected directly from FINRA's public distribution. The published series covers 122 settlements from August 31, 2021 (3,676,910 shares) to September 15, 2026. The latest reading is 43,482,976 shares on September 15, 2026, which sits 31.7% below the series maximum of 63,654,443 shares on May 15, 2025 and 27.9% below the September 15, 2025 reading of 60,313,275; the change from the prior settlement is -4.18%. The latest row's prior-settlement field (45,378,891) matches the prior settlement file's reported figure exactly. The series minimum is 3,109,516 shares on October 29, 2021. FINRA publishes each settlement about two weeks after the fact. The share-count ratio (7.27%) uses the fundamentals file's shares-outstanding figure below.
- Fundamentals note: our fundamentals collection carries Rocket Lab's revenue of $601,799,000 labelled fiscal 2025, its net income of -$198,209,000 labelled fiscal 2025, and its assets of $2,324,478,000 labelled fiscal 2025 — all three fields carry the same fiscal year in the file. The file is marked ok for this name, with no missing fields: shares outstanding of 598,350,482 (as of August 5, 2026, sourced in the file to a dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding count) and a file-computed market value of $44,912,185,718.10339. The file's price for the name is $75.06 as of October 6, 2026; our daily-close file ends October 2, 2026 at $73.92, and we keep the two files' figures separate rather than blending them.
- Prices: our own daily-close file for Rocket Lab through October 2, 2026 ($73.92 close, +6.0% year to date on that file; 252-session closing high $150.23 on May 27, 2026; 252-session closing low $39.48 on November 20, 2025; closes of $64.22 at March 31, 2026 and $101.65 at June 30, 2026, a second-quarter change of +58.3%; change from June 30 to October 2 of -27.3% ((73.92 / 101.65) − 1)). The drawdown from the 252-session closing high is -50.8%, the gain from the 252-session closing low is +87.2%, and the series in our price file begins June 1, 2021 at $10.04.
- Market context sources: MarketBeat's trending-stocks list as checked on October 12, 2026 (Rocket Lab seventh, at $68.21, consensus Moderate Buy, average target $104.71); the analyst actions reported by Schaeffer's Research and The Cerbat Gem on October 9, 2026 (Barclays initiating coverage on October 8 with an Overweight rating and an $85 target; TD Cowen cutting its target from $120 to $90 on October 9) and by DailyPolitical on October 10, 2026 (Barclays' upgrade note; Citigroup initiating on October 1 with a Buy and a $105 target; consensus of Moderate Buy with an average target of $104.71 on MarketBeat data); reports of a possible NASA bulk launch purchase lifting the shares about 4% in a session (CoinCentral, Blockonomi and MoneyCheck, week of October 6, 2026); the company's second-quarter 2026 results as reported August 11, 2026 (revenue of $234.1 million, up 62% year over year; Space Systems revenue of $189.5 million, up 94%; backlog of $2.36 billion; adjusted loss of $0.08 per share; third-quarter adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of $17 million to $23 million; and the chief executive's statement that the window for a first Neutron launch before the end of 2026 is narrowing, with the shares down about 8% on the report — Zacks-derived reporting carried by MoneyCheck, CoinCentral and Blockonomi, with the earnings-day account also carried by Gate News); and the agreed Iridium acquisition, expected to close in mid-2027 and financed in part by at-the-market share sales (Tickeron and Barchart reporting). Figures we could not confirm against two sources were left out.
- Rocket Lab is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: Rocket Lab Corp (RKLB) stock page. Series data: rklb_lens_data.csv · rklb_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: Constellation Energy · DoorDash · IREN.
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
- v1.1 — October 12, 2026: corrected the 13D/G reporting-person count from 20 names to 19, and clarified the register composition: twelve of the fourteen filings are amendments and two are original SC 13G filings (the register still contains no original SC 13D). No holding, transaction, price or conclusion figures changed.
- v1.0 — October 12, 2026: first publication.