One of 147: Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital Management Is the Only Superinvestor in Viper Energy. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share.

GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #117. Viper Energy surfaced on a trending-stocks screen this week listed as a Strong Buy, after a quarter in which its price fell 9.8% — and the filings describe a tracked register of exactly one: 1 of the 147 superinvestors holds the stock, unchanged at 3,791,432 shares, insiders have never bought a share in the full parsed record of 35 filings, no congressional aggregate carries a row for the name, and short interest stands at 6.55% of shares outstanding, 48.6% below its February 2026 peak.

The Hype

Viper Energy's attention this week is a screen story. The stock appeared on TipRanks' Trending Stocks by Analyst screener — in the page's order BAC, BLK, SCHW, WDAY, UNH, META, SMTC, JBHT, C and RKLB, all already covered in this series, came first, along with lens-skipped names further down the page, and Viper Energy followed, listed as Strong Buy trending with 6 Buy, 0 Hold and 0 Sell ratings, dated October 16, 2026 on the page. TipRanks Our price file describes a different recent path than the rating suggests: the stock fell 9.8% in the second quarter, from $46.99 on March 31 to $42.40 on June 30, then fell a further 4.2% to close at $40.64 on October 2 — up 5.2% year to date, 20.2% below the 252-session closing high of $50.95 (May 4, 2026) and 13.4% above the 252-session low of $35.84 (November 20, 2025). That is exactly the setup this series exists to check against the filings.

The Tape

For Viper Energy — the one hundred and seventeenth Filing Tape audit — the tape shows a one-holder tracked cohort verified share-for-share unchanged, a full market adding filers and shares, an insider record with no purchase ever against two sales, no congressional row in any of the three aggregates, a 5% register headed by a 47.8% sponsor print, and a borrow at 6.55% of shares outstanding with one flagged step in its series.

Lens 1 — the superinvestors: one holder, verified unchanged, share for share. We track 149 managers whose 13F portfolios we collect from SEC EDGAR — 147 are in the collection (144 at a June 30 period-end, 3 early filers at September 30, none holding this name) — so the single holder sits on the June 30, 2026 period-end, on the single CUSIP 64361Q101, totalling 3,791,432 shares worth $160,756,716, long only, with no option rows at all. Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital Management is that holder: 3,791,432 shares worth $160,756,716 — at a 2.23% portfolio weight, labelled UNCHANGED at 0.0%. The label verifies exactly against the first quarter: the holder's first-quarter register row holds the same 3,791,432 shares at March 31 as at June 30 (0 shares, 0.0%), so the verified continuing total is flat and there is no unverified holder. No tracked manager is labelled NEW in this name, and no tracked manager exited. The single row implies exactly $42.40, the June 30 close. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.

Lens 2 — institutions: 17 more filers, 18.03% more shares, and a reported value up 6.8%. At June 30, 2026, 491 institutions reported positions, up 17 from 474 at March 31 (+3.59%); 489 are long. Reported shares rose 18.03%, from 167,267,483 to 197,424,795 (+30,157,312 shares), while reported value rose 6.8% to $7,801,333,657, from $7,304,434,965, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (see methodology). Flow counts agree: 462 entered, 445 exited, a net of +17. The name carries a single CUSIP in this aggregation, and the by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker row on every field. The reported value implies $39.52 per share against a June 30 close of $42.40, a gap of -6.8% — below the close, printed as found.

Lens 3 — insiders: no purchase ever, in any window, against two sales. The parsed Form 4 record holds 35 filings through October 2, 2026, and it contains no purchase transaction at all: 0 purchases, 0 buyers and 0 officer purchases in the 90-day window, the one-year window and the full record. The last 90 days hold 0 purchases and 0 sales across 2 filings. The one-year window holds 0 purchases and 2 sales: 12,901,375 shares for $589,463,823.75, by 1 seller, none of them officer sales, across 13 filings. The full record holds the same 2 sales and nothing else. The sales imply $45.69 per share, inside both the one-year close range ($35.84 to $50.95) and the full-period range ($16.25 to $56.55) — so the dollar totals are cited for the windows that contain the sales.

Lens 4 — Congress: no row in any aggregate. The combined record (as of October 3, 2026) carries no row for this name. The House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) carries no row, and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) carries no row — so our congressional archives record no transaction for this name at all, in either chamber.

Lens 5 — the 5% register: 21 filings, headed by a 47.8% sponsor print. Our full parse holds 21 SC 13D/G filings matching the site aggregate — 1 SC 13D, 4 SC 13D/A, 7 SC 13G and 9 SC 13G/A; 5 in the 13D family and 16 in the 13G family, 13 of them amendments, 32 reporter names in 72 reporter rows. The register maximum is Diamondback Energy, Inc. at 155,058,093 shares (47.8%) as of August 19, 2025 (filed August 26, 2025, SC 13D), and the latest filing prints three reporters: Diamondback Energy, Inc. at 145,972,177 shares (42.9%), Diamondback E&P LLC at 10,874,987 shares (5.3%) and Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. at 70,633,640 shares (26.7%), all as of September 1, 2026 (filed September 3, 2026, SC 13D/A). The largest passive print in the register is Capital World Investors at 26,496,049 shares (13.6%) as of June 30, 2026. The 1,494,729,615-share total counts reporter rows across dates, not distinct stakes — joint filings print the same underlying position under several reporter names.

Lens 6 — short interest: 6.55% of the share count, 48.6% below its February 2026 peak, with one flagged step in the series. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 9,339,431 shares sold short — 6.55% of the 142,530,000 shares outstanding — at 8.17 days to cover, down 8.0% from the prior settlement (10,151,564 on August 31, 2026). The series maximum across 137 settlements is 18,169,294 on February 13, 2026, so the latest sits 48.6% below that peak; against the June 30, 2026 reading of 8,764,015 it is up 6.6%. The recent path runs 8,764,015 (June 30), 8,630,123 (July 15), 8,891,806 (July 31), 10,166,304 (August 14), 10,151,564 (August 31) and 9,339,431 (September 15). One single-settlement step reaches 2 times: a ratio of 2.457 on September 30, 2024, when the print rose from 3,590,676 (September 13, 2024) to 8,822,990 — the step is flagged, and the series is published as collected, with no smoothing.

The Gap

The narrative arriving this week is an analyst-consensus story: a Strong Buy trending listing, 6 Buy ratings against no Hold and no Sell, on an energy name. The filings describe a register that is broad underneath and almost empty at the tracked top. Exactly one of the 147 tracked managers holds the stock, and that position is verified unchanged — the same 3,791,432 shares in March as in June, in a quarter when the price fell 9.8%. Insiders have never bought a share across 35 filings, and the only insider sales on record are two transactions by one seller. No congressional aggregate carries the name at all. The broad market moved the other way from the tracked cohort's stillness: 17 more filers and 18.03% more shares. The largest filing presence is not a tracked fund at all but the sponsor register — Diamondback Energy, Inc. printing 47.8% at its maximum and 42.9% in the newest filing. The borrow, at 6.55% of shares outstanding, is material but sits 48.6% below a peak set in February 2026. One plausible reading is that the trending case rests on the analyst screen and the broad register, while the June tape for the tracked cohort specifically shows a single holder standing still — not a crowd arriving.

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 single holder sits on a June 30 period-end. Whether Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital Management's 3,791,432-share position — the whole tracked stake, verified unchanged in the second quarter — is still there, and whether any second tracked manager appears, decides whether this lens reads as one holder's patience or as a register about to broaden.
• 2. A first insider purchase. The record holds 0 purchases in 35 filings, in every window. A first purchase transaction would break the never-bought record; it would also be the first insider transaction of any kind since the two recorded sales.
• 3. A first congressional row. The combined, House and Senate aggregates all carry no row for this name. A first recorded transaction in either chamber would open this lens.
• 4. A fresh 5% print above 47.8%, or a sponsor move. The register's maximum is the Diamondback Energy, Inc. print of 47.8% as of August 19, 2025; its newest filing prints 42.9% as of September 1, 2026. A new filing moving the maximum, or a material change in the sponsor position, would change this lens.
• 5. Short interest back through the February 2026 peak. The borrow stands at 9,339,431 shares, down 8.0% on the settlement and 48.6% below the February 13, 2026 peak of 18,169,294. A reading at or above 18,169,294 would set a new series high.

Related reading: Seven of 147: Bill Nygren - Oakmark Funds Is 68.3% of the Superinvestors' State Street Stake. Its Insiders Have Bought Once. — Filing Tape #116; Three of 147: Disciplined Growth Investors Is 98.3% of the Superinvestors' Semtech Stake. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. — Filing Tape #115. Viper Energy's own page: Viper Energy (VNOM) on GetCoattail.

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 runs through October 2, 2026; Congress aggregates run through October 3, 2026 (Senate through October 1, 2026); 13D/G through September 3, 2026; short interest through September 15, 2026; the price file ends October 2, 2026. Six 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 carries a single CUSIP (64361Q101) and no option rows appear in either the tracked collection or a second full-market CUSIP, so no put/call separation is needed anywhere in this audit. Third, the full-market reported value implies a price below the June 30 close (-6.8%, computed from the unrounded implied price); the gap is printed as found and filer and share counts are headlined. Fourth, the site's insider aggregate carries no row for this name; the full parse's 90-day window records zero purchases and zero sales, so the absence is consistent with the parse rather than a mismatch — no site figure exists to compare. Fifth, the short-interest series contains one single-settlement step at or above 2 times (2.457x on September 30, 2024); the series is published as collected, with no smoothing or rebasing, and the step is flagged wherever the series is described. Sixth, the TipRanks screener listing (dated October 16, 2026 on the page) postdates the 13F snapshot and the short-interest series; the listing is known to this audit only from outside coverage, not from our own files, and none of its price figures are cited here; every price figure here is from our own price file.
• Superinvestor lens: 147 managers in the collection (of a 149-manager roster; 144 at a June 30, 2026 period-end and 3 early filers at September 30, 2026, none of them holding this name) collected directly from SEC EDGAR Form 13F (managers_13f collection, regenerated October 15, 2026 for the expanded roster); Viper Energy positions are counted on CUSIP 64361Q101, long rows only. One distinct manager holds a long position, at June 30, 2026, totalling 3,791,432 shares worth $160,756,716, with a direction count of 1 UNCHANGED, and no option rows. Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital Management's share of the stake is 100.0% = 3,791,432 / 3,791,432, at a 2.23% portfolio weight. The one continuing holder verifies row by row against the first quarter under the rule used in the previous audits — a holder's first-quarter row accepted only when it sits under the same filing-agent prefix as the manager's second-quarter accession and its implied shares-change reproduces the EDGAR shares-change label at one decimal place — so the verified continuing total is 3,791,432 shares at March 31 moving to 3,791,432 at June 30 (0.0%), with no unverified holder. The NEW-label register cross-check has no case to run — no holder is labelled NEW in this name — and passes vacuously; the early-filer cross-check likewise has no case to run, as no September 30 holder exists for this name. The pipeline register reconciles in both quarters with no residual (first quarter: 1 row and 3,791,432 shares, equalling the verified continuing total; second quarter: 1 row and 3,791,432 shares, equalling the verified continuing total with no new holders; the register change is 0.0%). Implied per-share value: the single row implies exactly $42.40, the June 30, 2026 close, so the cohort implied price is $42.40, 0.0% against the close. No tracked manager exited.
• 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 the ticker's CUSIP; 489 reported long positions out of 491 filers). Viper Energy carries a single CUSIP in this aggregation (64361Q101), and the backfill fixtures' by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker row exactly on every field — holders (491), long holders (489), shares (197,424,795), reported value ($7,801,333,657), prior holders (474) and prior reported value ($7,304,434,965). The by-ticker file's entered/exited fields (462 and 445, a net of +17 that matches the change in holder count) are gross flows, so this audit headlines the net change. Reported-value caution: the aggregate value ($7,801,333,657 over 197,424,795 shares) implies $39.52 per share against a June 30, 2026 close of $42.40 in our price file, a gap of -6.8% computed from the unrounded implied price — printed here as found. 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 (35 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. The 90-day window (July 5 to October 2, 2026) holds 0 purchase transactions and 0 sale transactions across 2 filings. The one-year window (October 3, 2025 to October 2, 2026) holds 0 purchase transactions and 2 sale transactions (12,901,375 shares, $589,463,823.75, 0 buyers, 1 seller, 0 officer sale transactions) across 13 filings. The full record holds the same 0 purchases and 2 sales. The site's insider aggregate (90-day window, as of October 18, 2026) carries no row for this name, so there is no site figure to match or mismatch: the full parse's 90-day window is itself zero on both sides (0 purchases, 0 sales), and the absence is recorded exactly as that relationship. Window price checks on our price file: the sales imply $45.69 per share, inside both the one-year close range ($35.84 to $50.95) and the full-period range ($16.25 to $56.55) — so dollar totals are cited for the windows containing the sales; the 90-day window contains no transaction and no dollar total.
• 13D/G lens: full-parse SC 13D/G parsed filings (21 filings matching issuer CIK 2074176 on CUSIP 64361Q101: 1 SC 13D, 4 SC 13D/A, 7 SC 13G and 9 SC 13G/A, 13 of them amendments), filings through September 3, 2026. The site aggregation carries this name under a ticker-keyed row; that row (21 filings, 5 D-filings, 16 G-filings, 13 amendments, 32 reporters, latest date September 3, 2026, maximum 47.8%, total reported 1,494,729,615 shares) matches the parsed filings on filings, form mix, amendments, latest date, maximum and the cross-date reported total. The total sums reporter rows across filings and dates (72 reporter rows), so it is a filing-volume total, not a stake — joint sponsor filings print related reporters side by side. The filings are reported as filed, under the names exactly as they appear: Diamondback Energy, Inc. printing 155,058,093 shares at 47.8% as of August 19, 2025 (filed August 26, 2025, SC 13D — the register maximum), alongside Diamondback E&P LLC at 8,066,528 shares (4.5%) and Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. at 69,626,640 shares (29.1%) in the same filing; Diamondback Energy, Inc. printing 145,972,177 shares at 42.9%, Diamondback E&P LLC printing 10,874,987 shares at 5.3% and Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. printing 70,633,640 shares at 26.7%, all as of September 1, 2026 (filed September 3, 2026, SC 13D/A — the latest filing); Capital World Investors printing 26,496,049 shares at 13.6% as of June 30, 2026 (filed August 12, 2026, SC 13G/A); The Vanguard Group printing 17,023,862 shares at 10.08% as of August 29, 2025 (filed September 8, 2025, SC 13G) and 0 shares at 0.0% as of March 13, 2026 (filed March 27, 2026, SC 13G/A), recorded as filed. The parsed coverage for this issuer holds these 21 filings; a 5% holder that has not filed in the covered window would not appear here.
• Congress lens: Senate PTR archive and House PTR archive as maintained on this site. The combined record (as of October 3, 2026) carries no row for this name; the House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) carries no row; the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) carries no row. The absence is recorded as it stands in all three files: no recorded congressional transaction for this name sits in any of the archives as we hold them.
• Short interest lens: FINRA Equity Short Interest files (biweekly settlement dates), collected directly from FINRA's public distribution. The published series covers all 137 settlements under the symbol from January 15, 2021 (2,062,894 shares) to September 15, 2026. Every settlement row under the symbol is this issuer's row, under two issuer-name variants across the file vintages — "Viper Energy Partners LP Commo" on 68 settlements (January 15, 2021 to October 31, 2023, with an NNM market-class code) and "Viper Energy, Inc. Class A Com" on 69 settlements (November 15, 2023 to September 15, 2026, with an NNM market-class code), recorded as printed; there are no other-issuer rows under the symbol. The latest reading is 9,339,431 shares on September 15, 2026, down 8.0% from the prior settlement (10,151,564 on August 31, 2026), down 48.6% from the series maximum of 18,169,294 on February 13, 2026 and up 6.6% from the June 30, 2026 reading of 8,764,015, at 8.17 days to cover. Series discontinuity check — one step flagged: exactly one single-settlement step at or above 2 times occurs in the series, a ratio of 2.457 on September 30, 2024, when the print rose from 3,590,676 (September 13, 2024) to 8,822,990; the full series is published as collected, with no smoothing or rebasing. The series minimum is 603,560 shares on August 31, 2023. The recent path runs 8,764,015 (June 30), 8,630,123 (July 15), 8,891,806 (July 31), 10,166,304 (August 14), 10,151,564 (August 31) and 9,339,431 (September 15). FINRA publishes each settlement about two weeks after the fact, so the October price action is not yet in this series. The share-count ratio (6.55%) uses the fundamentals file's shares-outstanding figure below.
• Fundamentals note: our fundamentals collection carries Viper Energy's revenue of $1,346,000,000, net income of -$68,000,000 and assets of $12,671,000,000 — all three labelled fiscal 2025 in the file and all sourced to the same financial-series cache, so there is no vintage split to flag. The file is marked ok for this name, with no missing fields: shares outstanding of 142,530,000 (sourced in the file to the weighted-average basic shares-outstanding count, with a shares-end date of December 31, 2025) and a file-computed market value of $5,927,822,721.75. The file does not flag the issuer as a foreign private issuer, and it carries SIC 1311, Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas, and a Nasdaq listing. The file's price for the name is $41.59 as of October 6, 2026; our daily-close file ends October 2, 2026 at $40.64, and we keep the two files' figures separate rather than blending them.
• Prices: our own daily-close file for VNOM through October 2, 2026 ($40.64 close, +5.2% year to date on that file; the 252-session closing high is $50.95 on May 4, 2026, so the last close sits 20.2% below it; the 252-session closing low is $35.84 on November 20, 2025, so the last close sits 13.4% above it; closes of $46.99 at March 31, 2026 and $42.40 at June 30, 2026, a second-quarter change of -9.8%; change from June 30 to October 2 of -4.2%; change from the September 30, 2025 close of $38.22 of +6.3%; change from the October 2, 2025 close of $38.06 of +6.8%; the December 31, 2025 close is $38.63; the September 30, 2026 close is $39.89). The series in our price file begins June 1, 2021 at $18.74 and holds 1,342 rows; the file's full-period close range is $16.25 to $56.55.
• Market context sources: the TipRanks Trending Stocks by Analyst screener (full-page crawl, October 18, 2026), on which Viper Energy followed a long run of already-covered names and lens-skipped names (Paladin Energy, Interactive Brokers and Accenture among them, skipped for missing or unreliable lens data as recorded in this audit's datasheet) and was listed as Strong Buy trending with 6 Buy, 0 Hold and 0 Sell ratings, dated October 16, 2026 on the page; the AltIndex StockTwits most-mentioned list refreshed on October 17, 2026, whose top names were already covered, skipped, crypto or index funds in this series; and the Google Trends United States daily list (CyberKendra snapshot updated October 18, 2026), whose top ten carried no single-stock query. Figures we could not confirm were left out; the external items above are reported speech from those outlets, not GetCoattail measurements, and none of their price figures are cited in this audit.
• Viper Energy is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: Viper Energy (VNOM) stock page. Series data: vnom_lens_data.csv · vnom_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: State Street · Semtech.

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 18, 2026: first publication.