Seven of 147: Lone Pine Exited Vistra in Q2. Its CEO Bought Three Times in August and September.

GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #140. Vistra has recently been on Zacks.com's list of the most searched stocks, and the filings behind that attention describe a register in motion: 7 of the 147 superinvestors held the common stock at June 30, 2026, totalling 8,045,020 shares — but a quarter earlier the register held 13,231,724 shares, because Lone Pine Capital, which alone held 6,187,585 shares at March 31, exited entirely. The six holders who stayed raised 7.3% between them. Inside the company, the chief executive bought three times between August 24 and September 1 — 8,665 shares for $1,173,069.25 — against 89 recorded sales in the full insider record.

The Hype

Vistra's attention is search-driven. Zacks reported on October 20, 2026 that the stock "has recently been on Zacks.com's list of the most searched stocks," with shares returning +6.3% over the past month against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite, and a current-quarter consensus earnings estimate of $2.89 per share, up 65.1% from a year earlier. Zacks Our price file tells a longer story: Vistra rose just 5.5% in the second quarter, from $150.33 on March 31 to $158.63 on June 30, and has since fallen to $140.02 by October 2 — down 11.7% from the quarter-end close, down 13.2% year to date, down 30.9% from a year ago and 33.6% below its 252-session high close of $210.85, set on October 15, 2025. A large power producer whose price has slid for a year, drawing search traffic again: the filings answer who left, who stayed, and who inside the company has been buying.

The Tape

For Vistra — the one hundred and fortieth Filing Tape audit — the tape shows a tracked register cut by two-fifths by a single exit even as its continuing holders raised, a full market that added filers and a fifth more shares, three chief-executive purchases against a much larger history of insider sales, no congressional row at all, a passive-only 5% register, and a borrow down 39.0% since June 30.

Lens 1 — the superinvestors: seven holders, one very large exit. 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 at September 30, so there is no period split) — and the June 30, 2026 register for the common stock (CUSIP 92840M102) is 7 distinct managers holding 8,045,020 shares worth $1,276,181,523, long only, with no option rows: 4 are labelled INCREASED, 1 NEW and 2 DECREASED, with one exit during the quarter. David Tepper - Appaloosa Management is the register's largest holder: 2,215,272 shares worth $351,408,597 — 27.5% of the tracked stake — at a 4.55% portfolio weight, labelled INCREASED +9.5% (filed August 14, 2026). W.H. Reaves & Co. is next (2,070,918 shares, 25.7% of the cohort, DECREASED -1.1%, at a 4.98% weight), so the top two holders together are 53.3% of the tracked stake. Behind them sit Rubric Capital Management (1,794,953 shares, INCREASED +19.7%), Harry Burn - Sound Shore (577,385 shares, INCREASED +20.3%), John Armitage - Egerton Capital (485,253 shares, NEW), Energy Income Partners (477,199 shares, INCREASED +1.3%) and Tortoise Capital Advisors (424,040 shares, DECREASED -11.0%). Verified row by row for all six continuing holders under two register methods that agree exactly (methodology), those six held 7,044,139 shares at March 31 and 7,559,767 at June 30 (+7.3%). The register nevertheless fell 39.2%, from 13,231,724 shares, because Stephen Mandel - Lone Pine Capital exited 6,187,585 shares — 46.8% of the March register — while the one new holder added 485,253 shares; the register reconciles with no residual in either quarter. All seven common rows imply $158.63, the June 30 close (methodology). 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.

Lens 2 — institutions: 114 more filers, and a fifth more shares. At June 30, 2026, 1,406 institutions reported positions, up 114 from 1,292 at March 31 (+8.82%); 1,396 are long. Reported shares rose 20.62% to 283,599,232 (+48,477,534 shares), and reported value rose 28.74% to $49,459,239,749, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (methodology), in a quarter when the price rose 5.5%. Flow counts agree (1,196 entered, 1,082 exited, net +114), and the single-CUSIP breakdown matches the by-ticker aggregate on every field (methodology). Against that total, the tracked cohort's 8,045,020 shares are 2.84% of reported institutional shares.

Lens 3 — insiders: a buying chief executive, against a selling record. The parsed Form 4 record holds 100 filings through October 2, 2026. Its purchases are few and concentrated: President and CEO James A. Burke bought 2,000 shares at $135.00 on August 24, 2026, 2,200 shares at $135.99 on August 31 and 4,465 shares at $135.25 on September 1 — 8,665 shares for $1,173,069.25, each verified transaction by transaction in the parsed filings (methodology). Those three are all of the last 90 days' and the last year's purchases; the only other purchase in the record is 1,500 shares at $126.75 on March 12, 2025, by a second buyer. The last 90 days also hold 4 sales (64,444 shares for $9,768,144.75, by 2 sellers, all of them officer sales); the last year holds 45 sales (706,970 shares for $131,552,302.51, by 10 sellers, 39 of them officer sales); and the full record holds 89 sales (1,595,711 shares for $286,859,927.14, by 10 sellers, 70 of them officer sales) against its 4 purchases. The sales imply $151.58 per share over the last 90 days, $186.08 over the last year and $179.77 across the full record — every cited sales figure sits inside its window's close range (methodology). The site's insider aggregate, on a later window, records the same 90-day purchases and sales, share for share (methodology).

Lens 4 — Congress: no row. The combined aggregate (as of October 3, 2026), the House aggregate (same date) and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) each carry no row for this name — an absence of any row, not a count of zero trades asserted from one.

Lens 5 — the 5% register: six passive filings, maximum 7.25%. Our full parse holds 6 SC 13D/G filings matching the site aggregate — 0 SC 13D family and 6 SC 13G family (4 SC 13G, 2 amendments); 8 reporter names across 8 rows. The maximum is Vanguard Capital Management LLC at 24,565,610 shares and 7.25% as of March 31, 2026 (filed April 28, 2026, SC 13G). The latest is STATE STREET CORPORATION at 16,867,244 shares and 5.0% as of June 30, 2026 (filed August 7, 2026, SC 13G). Two prints are co-reported pairs — FMR LLC with Abigail P. Johnson, and Qatar Investment Authority with Seismic Holding LLC — and one file, from The Vanguard Group, prints 0 shares (methodology).

Lens 6 — short interest: down two-fifths since June, still above a year ago. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 9,701,865 shares sold short — 2.89% of the 335,635,195 shares outstanding — at 2.04 days to cover, down 9.98% from the prior settlement. The series peak across all 137 settlements is 18,158,570 shares, set on December 31, 2021, so the latest reading sits 46.6% below that peak; it is also 39.0% below the June 30, 2026 settlement (15,917,274 shares) and 33.8% above the year-ago settlement (7,249,187 shares on September 15, 2025). The recent path runs 15,917,274 (June 30), 12,604,861 (July 15), 8,680,253 (July 31), 9,636,577 (August 14), 10,778,003 (August 31) and 9,701,865 (September 15) — two falls, two rises, then a fall. No step in the full series reaches 2x, and none falls to half (methodology).

The Gap

The narrative arriving this week is a search-and-earnings one: a most-searched utility with a consensus estimate up sharply, after a month in which it outpaced the index. The June tape shows a more divided picture. The broad market did add — 114 more filers and 20.62% more shares — and the tracked holders who stayed raised 7.3% between them, with four of the seven labelled INCREASED and a new holder arriving. But the tracked register's headline movement is an exit: Lone Pine's 6,187,585 shares were nearly half the March register, and their removal cuts the tracked total by 39.2% in a single quarter, in a stock whose price rose only 5.5% over that quarter and has fallen since. Inside the company the recent record points the other way from that exit, in miniature: the chief executive's three purchases total $1,173,069.25, set against $9,768,144.75 of sales by two sellers in the same 90 days and $286,859,927.14 of sales across the full record. Congress is simply absent, and the borrow has shrunk since June — down 39.0% in five settlements — even as the price fell. One plausible reading is that the filings caught a handover rather than a consensus: one large tracked holder left entirely, those who remained added modestly, the broad filer base grew, and the only insider buying this year came from the chief executive, near the stock's lows.

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 verified continuing baseline is 7,559,767 shares across six holders, and Appaloosa's is 2,215,272 shares — 27.5% of the tracked total. Whether Lone Pine Capital reappears after its Q2 exit, whether Egerton Capital adds to a position that began at 485,253 shares, and whether the four holders who raised in Q2 keep raising would each change this lens.
• 2. A fourth insider purchase — or a return to sales only. The parsed record holds 4 purchases against 89 sales, and three of the purchases are the CEO's August–September cluster. Any further open-market purchase, by the CEO or by a third buyer, would extend the cluster; a further quarter with sales and no purchases would leave it as a single episode.
• 3. A first congressional row. The combined, House and Senate aggregates all carry no row for this name. Any recorded purchase or sale, in either chamber, would change this lens from blank to populated.
• 4. A first SC 13D filing, or a new 5% print above 7.25%. The register's 6 filings are all SC 13G family, and its latest print has State Street at 5.0%. A first activist-form filing, or any print above Vanguard Capital Management's 7.25% maximum, would change this lens.
• 5. Short interest back above the June 30 settlement, or below the latest reading. The borrow stands at 9,701,865 shares, 39.0% below the June 30, 2026 settlement of 15,917,274 and 33.8% above the year-ago settlement of 7,249,187, after a mixed recent path. A reading back above 15,917,274 would reverse the summer unwind; a reading below 9,701,865 would extend it.

Related reading: Fifteen of 147: TCI Is 81.6% of the Superinvestors' GE Aerospace Stake. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share.; Seven of 147: Jericho Is 52.1% of the Superinvestors' Western Digital Stake. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share.. Vistra's own page: Vistra (VST) 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 August 7, 2026; short interest through September 15, 2026; the price file ends October 2, 2026. Seven 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 no period split in its headline count — all seven tracked common-stock holders sit on a June 30, 2026 period-end and none of the three September 30, 2026 early filers holds this name — and the register reconciles exactly: the March 31 register (13,231,724 shares) equals the verified continuing cohort's Q1 total (7,044,139) plus the exited holder's 6,187,585 shares, and the June 30 register (8,045,020 shares) equals that cohort's Q2 total (7,559,767) plus the one new holder's 485,253 shares, as detailed in Lens 1. Third, the full-market aggregate for this issuer rests on a single CUSIP line (CUSIP 92840M102), and the by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker aggregate on every field; its implied price of $174.40 sits 9.94% above the June 30 close of $158.63 because the reported aggregate includes option rows, which is why share counts, not reported value, are this audit's primary institution measure. Fourth, the insider purchases were verified transaction by transaction in the parsed Form 4 filings: the three purchases in the last 90 days and last year are all by President and CEO James A. Burke — 2,000 shares at $135.00 on August 24, 2026 (accession 0001268406-26-000007), and 2,200 shares at $135.99 on August 31 plus 4,465 shares at $135.25 on September 1 (accession 0001268406-26-000009) — totalling exactly the aggregate's 8,665 shares and $1,173,069.25. Their weighted average price, $135.38, sits $0.28 below the lowest close in the 90-day window ($135.66, on August 24, 2026) because our price file records closes only and these were intraday executions near that low; the same transactions sit inside the one-year and full-record close ranges, and every sales figure cited sits inside its window's close range. The site's 90-day insider aggregate (dated October 20, 2026) records the same counts, shares and values as the full parse's 90 days to October 2, 2026, including the CEO-purchase flag and a last purchase date of September 1, 2026. Fifth, the 5% register's cross-date share total of 130,313,669.04 sums prints from different dates and is not a current stake; within it, FMR LLC and Abigail P. Johnson co-report the same position in one filing and Qatar Investment Authority and Seismic Holding LLC co-report the same position in another (each such filing contributes two reporter rows with identical share counts), one FMR print carries a fractional share count as filed, and one file — The Vanguard Group at 0 shares and 0.0% as of March 13, 2026 (filed March 26, 2026, SC 13G/A) — is keyed to the same CUSIP, so it sits inside the aggregate by definition and changes neither the maximum nor the economics of the register; the parsed total matches the aggregate total to within a floating-point rounding difference of less than one share. Sixth, the short-interest series carries one revision flag (June 15, 2021) and no split flag; our price file records no split entries for this name, and no settlement step in either direction reaches the 2x or one-half thresholds (largest step 1.675x at the April 30, 2021 settlement, smallest 0.590x at the October 31, 2022 settlement), so settlements across the full series are compared directly. Seventh, the Congress lens is an absence, stated as such: none of the three aggregates carries a row for this issuer, so this audit makes no count claim about congressional trading beyond that absence. All seven tracked common-stock 13F rows imply the June 30 close of $158.63, and the cohort's blended implied price is $158.63. The company's fundamentals as collected print fiscal 2025 revenue of $17,738,000,000, net income of $944,000,000 and assets of $41,550,000,000, with 335,635,195 shares outstanding as of August 3, 2026; those figures are reported as collected and are not used in any lens above. Every price statement here is mechanical, a date and a close from our price file. The Zacks report (published October 20, 2026) postdates the 13F snapshot and the short-interest series; its search-list status, one-month return and consensus estimate are reported as outlet content in The Hype, and no other figure from it is cited.
• Market context sources: Zacks, "Vistra Corp. (VST) Is a Trending Stock: Facts to Know Before Betting on It", published October 20, 2026 (Vistra on Zacks.com's list of most searched stocks; shares +6.3% over the past month against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite; current-quarter consensus EPS estimate $2.89, +65.1% year over year). Figures we could not confirm were left out; the external items above are reported speech from that outlet, not GetCoattail measurements.
• Vistra is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: Vistra (VST) stock page. Series data: vst_lens_data.csv · vst_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: GE Aerospace · Western Digital.

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 20, 2026: first publication.