Four of 147: RTW Holds 43.2% of the Tracked Verastem Stake, and the Cohort Grew 16.3% in a Quarter When the Price Fell 27.9%

GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #119. Verastem surfaced on a trending-stocks screen this week listed as a Strong Buy with five Buy ratings and no Hold or Sell, and the filings describe a small, specialist register that was adding while the price fell: 4 of the 147 superinvestors held the stock at June 30, 2026, totalling 15,353,436 shares, and every one of the four verifies against the first quarter, for a combined increase of 16.3%. Insiders have recorded no purchase in any window of the parsed record, no congressional aggregate carries a row for the name, and short interest stands at 19.91% of shares outstanding.

The Hype

Verastem's attention this week is a screen story. The stock appeared on TipRanks' Trending Stocks by Analyst screener — in the page's order SCHW, SMTC, BAC and RKLB, all already covered in this series, came first, along with lens-skipped and covered names further up the page, and Verastem followed, listed as a Strong Buy with a price target of $18.17 (110.06% upside as printed on the page), 5 Buy, 0 Hold and 0 Sell ratings, in Healthcare, dated October 16, 2026. TipRanks Our price file shows the path behind the screen: the stock fell 27.9% in the second quarter, from $5.30 on March 31 to $3.82 on June 30, then more than doubled off that level to close at $7.70 on October 2 — up 101.6% from the June 30 close, down 0.3% year to date, 27.6% below the 252-session closing high of $10.64 (November 28, 2025) and 123.2% above the 252-session low of $3.45 (June 25, 2026). That is what this series checks against the filings.

The Tape

For Verastem — the one hundred and nineteenth Filing Tape audit — the tape shows a four-manager cohort that grew a verified 16.3% into a falling price, a full market adding filers and shares while its reported value fell with the price, an insider record with no purchase in any window, no congressional row, a passive-only 5% register whose maximum print of 9.99% recurs across filing groups, and a borrow equal to a fifth of the share count, retreating from its June peak.

Lens 1 — the superinvestors: four holders, all verified, growing 16.3% into the decline. 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 of them holding this name) — and the June 30, 2026 register for this name, on the single CUSIP 92337C203, is 4 distinct managers holding 15,353,436 shares worth $58,650,125, long only, with no option rows: 3 labelled INCREASED and 1 UNCHANGED. RTW Investments is the largest: 6,635,793 shares worth $25,348,729 — 43.2% of the tracked stake — at a 0.22% portfolio weight, labelled INCREASED at +0.9%. Deep Track Capital is second at 5,740,850 shares (37.4%), labelled UNCHANGED, so the top two hold 12,376,643 shares, 80.6% of the cohort. Baker Bros. Advisors holds 2,499,338 shares, labelled INCREASED at +327.4%, and Torray Funds holds 477,455 shares, labelled INCREASED at +59.7%. The growth verifies row by row under two independent register methods that agree on every holder (see methodology): the four continuing holders held 13,200,871 shares at March 31 and 15,353,436 at June 30 (+2,152,565 shares, +16.3%), with no unverified holder, no new holder and no exit. Every row implies exactly $3.82, the June 30 close. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.

Lens 2 — institutions: 8 more filers, 24.18% more shares, and a reported value down 10.45%. At June 30, 2026, 159 institutions reported positions, up 8 from 151 at March 31 (+5.30%); 157 are long. Reported shares rose 24.18%, from 76,583,834 to 95,100,950 (+18,517,116 shares), while reported value fell 10.45% to $364,365,592, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (see methodology) — the share count rose into the quarter's 27.9% price fall, so the dollar total fell anyway. Flow counts agree: 154 entered, 146 exited, a net of +8, and the single by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker row on every field. The reported value implies $3.83 per share against a June 30 close of $3.82 (+0.30%, from the unrounded implied price).

Lens 3 — insiders: no purchase in any window, against 57 sales. The parsed Form 4 record holds 66 filings through October 2, 2026, and it contains no purchase transaction: 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 4 sales: 48,044 shares for $381,484.12, by 2 sellers, all 4 of them officer sale transactions, across 4 filings. The one-year window holds 34 sales (145,920 shares, $1,161,332.84, 6 sellers) across 35 filings, and the full record holds 57 sales (253,032 shares, $1,933,671.03, 6 sellers, 46 of them officer sale transactions). The sales imply $7.94 per share in the 90-day window, $7.96 over one year and $7.64 over the full record, each inside that window's close range on our price file ($4.46 to $8.37, $3.45 to $10.64 and $2.20 to $58.20) — so the dollar totals are cited for every window. The site's insider aggregate does not match the full parse's 90-day window (methodology); the counts here are the full parse's.

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 — no congressional transaction for this name sits in any archive.

Lens 5 — the 5% register: 51 filings, all passive, and a maximum that repeats at 9.99%. Our full parse holds 51 SC 13D/G filings matching the site aggregate — 0 in the SC 13D family, 16 SC 13G and 35 SC 13G/A; 35 of them amendments, 68 reporter names in 168 reporter rows. The register maximum is 9.99%, and it recurs: that exact figure is printed on 20 reporter rows, by the BVF filing group (4,706,551 shares as of December 31, 2024, then 5,720,831 as of June 30, 2025), the Nantahala group (4,523,184 shares as of December 31, 2024, then 5,459,278 as of March 31, 2025), the Balyasny group (5,777,396 shares as of June 30, 2025) and the Deep Track group (7,719,390 shares as of November 14, 2025). The latest filing prints Armistice Capital, LLC and Steven Boyd at 7,024,000 shares each (7.76%) as of June 30, 2026 (filed August 14, 2026, SC 13G/A); other June 30 prints are BlackRock, Inc. at 6,187,012 shares (7.0%), State Street Corporation at 5,133,859 (5.8%) and Vanguard Capital Management at 4,423,544 (5.03%). The 567,726,209.13-share total counts reporter rows across dates, not distinct stakes.

Lens 6 — short interest: a fifth of the share count is borrowed, and the borrow is retreating from its June peak. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 18,028,616 shares sold short — 19.91% of the 90,563,441 shares outstanding — at 6.52 days to cover, down 1.47% from the prior settlement (18,298,315 on August 31, 2026). The series maximum across 137 settlements is the June 30, 2026 reading itself, 24,142,937 shares, so the latest sits 25.3% below that peak; against the year-ago settlement (16,820,046 on September 15, 2025) it is up 7.2%. The recent path falls at every settlement: 24,142,937 (June 30), 20,103,345 (July 15), 19,825,791 (July 31), 18,909,052 (August 14), 18,298,315 (August 31) and 18,028,616 (September 15). The full series contains two steps at or above 2 times and one collapse step, all in 2023–2024 and disclosed in the methodology; it is published as collected, with no smoothing, and every comparison here sits after those steps.

The Gap

The narrative arriving this week is an analyst-consensus story: a Strong Buy trending listing, 5 Buy ratings against no Hold and no Sell, a printed target far above the last close, on a small pharmaceutical stock that has more than doubled since its June 30 close. The filings describe who was already there before the rebound. Four of the 147 tracked managers held the stock at June 30, and all four verify: the cohort grew 16.3% during the quarter the price fell 27.9%, with Baker Bros. Advisors increasing its position by 327.4%. The broad market moved the same way, adding 8 filers and 24.18% more shares. Against that accumulation, the insider record runs one way: no purchase in any window of a 66-filing record, only sales, and no congressional aggregate carries the name. And the borrow is the largest fact in this audit relative to the company: 18,028,616 shares sold short, 19.91% of the share count — although it has fallen 25.3% since the June 30 settlement, which was itself the series peak. One plausible reading is that the trending case rests on the analyst screen and the price rebound, while the June tape shows a narrow specialist register that had already added into weakness, a broad register adding shares, insiders selling only, and a very large borrow that is now shrinking — committed holders and committed sceptics, with no insider or congressional confirmation 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). All four June holders verify, so the cohort's +16.3% is a clean baseline. Whether the four — above all Baker Bros. Advisors' enlarged 2,499,338-share position and RTW Investments' 6,635,793-share top stake — hold those positions in third-quarter filings dated after the price rebound decides whether the June growth reads as accumulation ahead of the move or as positions trimmed into it.
• 2. A first insider purchase. The parsed record holds 0 purchases in 66 filings, in every window. A first purchase transaction would break the sales-only record.
• 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 first SC 13D, or a 5% print above 9.99%. The register holds only passive SC 13G family filings, and its maximum has printed at exactly 9.99% on 20 reporter rows. A first activist-family filing, or a new filing moving the maximum, would change this lens.
• 5. Short interest back through the June 2026 peak. The borrow stands at 18,028,616 shares, down 1.47% on the settlement and down 25.3% from the June 30, 2026 peak of 24,142,937, but still 19.91% of shares outstanding. A reading at or above 24,142,937 would set a new series high; a continued fall would extend a six-settlement decline.

Related reading: 11 of 147: Dodge & Cox Holds 62.4% of the Tracked BNY Stake — and Cut It 29.0% in a Quarter When the Price Rose 21.9% — Filing Tape #118; One of 147: Howard Marks - Oaktree Capital Management Is the Only Superinvestor in Viper Energy. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. — Filing Tape #117. Verastem's own page: Verastem (VSTM) 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 14, 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, the tracked collection mixes period-ends in general, but for this name all four holders sit on June 30, 2026 period-ends and none of the three September 30 early filers holds it, so every superinvestor figure here is a single-date figure. Third, the full-market reported value fell 10.45% while reported shares rose 24.18%, because the quarter-end price fell; the value implies $3.83 per share against the $3.82 June 30 close (+0.30%, computed from the unrounded implied price), and filer and share counts are headlined. Fourth, the site's insider aggregate (90-day window, as of October 18, 2026) does not match the full parse's 90-day window — it shows 2 sale transactions and $7,988.12 of sale value against the full parse's 4 and $381,484.12 — so this audit uses the full-parse numbers throughout and records the mismatch rather than blending the two. Fifth, the short-interest series contains split-era steps in 2023–2024, detailed in the short-interest note below; the series is published as collected and every comparison in the article sits after those steps. Sixth, the fundamentals file carries a fiscal-vintage split for this name, detailed in the fundamentals note below: its revenue figure is labelled fiscal 2024 while its net income and assets are labelled fiscal 2025, and the three are never blended in this audit. Seventh, 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 beyond the listing's own printed target, which is reported as screen content in The Hype; every other 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); Verastem positions are counted on CUSIP 92337C203, long rows only. Four distinct managers hold a long position at June 30, 2026, totalling 15,353,436 shares worth $58,650,125, with a direction count of 3 INCREASED and 1 UNCHANGED, and no option rows. RTW Investments' share of the stake is 43.2% = 6,635,793 / 15,353,436, at a 0.22% portfolio weight; the top two holders (RTW Investments and Deep Track Capital) hold 12,376,643 shares, 80.6% of the stake. All four holders are continuing holders, and all four verify row by row against the first quarter under two independent methods that agree exactly. Under the rule used in the previous audits — a holder's first-quarter row accepted only when its implied shares-change reproduces the EDGAR shares-change label at one decimal place — the verified continuing total is 13,200,871 shares at March 31 moving to 15,353,436 at June 30 (+16.3%): RTW Investments 6,576,306 → 6,635,793 (+0.9%), Deep Track Capital 5,740,850 → 5,740,850 (0.0%), Baker Bros. Advisors 584,757 → 2,499,338 (+327.4%), Torray Funds 298,958 → 477,455 (+59.7%). Because two recent audits found the generic accession-prefix method failing on shared filing-agent prefixes, the check was also rerun identifying filings by accession (filing total equal to the manager's collection total, unique) and pairing second- and first-quarter filings of the same manager by maximum CUSIP-set overlap under the same agent prefix (Torray Funds overlap 85 CUSIPs, Baker Bros. Advisors 76, RTW Investments 75, Deep Track Capital 48 — each uniquely the maximum); the corrected method returns the identical four first-quarter rows, so no correction changes any figure here. The pipeline register then reconciles in both quarters with no residual (first quarter: 4 rows and 13,200,871 shares, exactly the verified continuing total, with no new-holder or exited rows; second quarter: 4 rows and 15,353,436 shares; the register change is +16.3%). Implied per-share value: every row implies exactly $3.82, the June 30, 2026 close, so the cohort implied price is $3.82, 0.0% against the close. No tracked manager exited, and no holder is labelled NEW.
• 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; 157 reported long positions out of 159 filers). Verastem carries a single CUSIP in this aggregation (92337C203), and the backfill fixtures' by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker row exactly on every field — holders (159), long holders (157), shares (95,100,950), reported value ($364,365,592), prior holders (151) and prior reported value ($406,883,114). The by-ticker file's entered/exited fields (154 and 146, a net of +8 that matches the change in holder count) are gross flows, so this audit headlines the net change. Reported-value caution: the aggregate value ($364,365,592 over 95,100,950 shares) implies $3.83 per share against a June 30, 2026 close of $3.82 in our price file, a gap of +0.30% computed from the unrounded implied price. 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 (66 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 4 sale transactions (48,044 shares, $381,484.12, 0 buyers, 2 sellers, 4 officer sale transactions) across 4 filings. The one-year window (October 3, 2025 to October 2, 2026) holds 0 purchases and 34 sales (145,920 shares, $1,161,332.84, 6 sellers, 29 officer sale transactions) across 35 filings, and the full record holds 0 purchases and 57 sales (253,032 shares, $1,933,671.03, 6 sellers, 46 officer sale transactions). The site's insider aggregate (90-day window, as of October 18, 2026) does not match the full parse's 90-day window: it shows 0 purchases (matching), 2 sale transactions, 2 sellers and $7,988.12 of sale value, against the full parse's 4 sale transactions, 2 sellers and $381,484.12. This audit uses the full-parse numbers. Window price checks on our price file: the sales imply $7.94 per share in the 90-day window, inside its close range ($4.46 to $8.37); $7.96 over one year, inside its range ($3.45 to $10.64); and $7.64 over the full record, inside its range ($2.20 to $58.20) — so dollar totals are cited for every window.
• 13D/G lens: full-parse SC 13D/G parsed filings (51 filings matching issuer CIK 1526119 on CUSIP 92337C203: 0 SC 13D family filings, 16 SC 13G and 35 SC 13G/A, 35 of them amendments), filings through August 14, 2026. The site aggregation carries this name under a ticker-keyed row; that row (51 filings, 0 D-filings, 51 G-filings, 35 amendments, 68 reporters, latest date August 14, 2026, maximum 9.99%, total reported 567,726,209.13 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 (168 reporter rows, one of which carries no percentage and is excluded from the maximum computation), so it is a filing-volume total, not a stake. The maximum of 9.99% is printed on 20 reporter rows, all by joint filing groups: the BVF group (BVF PARTNERS L P/IL, BVF INC/IL and LAMPERT MARK N printing 4,706,551 shares at 9.99% as of December 31, 2024 and 5,720,831 at 9.99% as of June 30, 2025); the Nantahala group (Nantahala Capital Management, LLC, Wilmot B. Harkey and Daniel Mack printing 4,523,184 shares at 9.99% as of December 31, 2024 and 5,459,278 at 9.99% as of March 31, 2025); the Balyasny group (five reporter rows printing 5,777,396 shares at 9.99% as of June 30, 2025); and the Deep Track group (Deep Track Capital, LP, Deep Track Biotechnology Master Fund, Ltd. and David Kroin printing 7,719,390 shares at 9.99% as of November 14, 2025). The latest filing prints Armistice Capital, LLC and Steven Boyd at 7,024,000 shares each (7.76%) as of June 30, 2026 (filed August 14, 2026, SC 13G/A); other filings with a June 30, 2026 event date print BlackRock, Inc. at 6,187,012 shares (7.0%, filed July 30, 2026), State Street Corporation at 5,133,859 shares (5.8%, filed August 7, 2026) and Vanguard Capital Management at 4,423,544 shares (5.03%, filed July 31, 2026). The Deep Track group's 13G print and Deep Track Capital's 13F position in Lens 1 are reported as filed, under the names exactly as they appear in each file, and are not summed. The parsed coverage for this issuer holds these 51 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. This is the standard single-symbol case: the series is every row under symbol VSTM, all 137 of them under the single issuer name "Verastem, Inc. Common Stock" exactly as printed in the files (the market-class column changes from NNM to SC across the series, as printed), covering 137 settlements from January 15, 2021 (6,873,891 shares) to September 15, 2026, with all 137 settlement dates distinct. The latest reading is 18,028,616 shares on September 15, 2026, down 1.47% from the prior settlement (18,298,315 on August 31, 2026), down 25.3% from the series maximum of 24,142,937 on June 30, 2026 and up 7.2% from the year-ago settlement of 16,820,046 on September 15, 2025, at 6.52 days to cover. Series discontinuity check — three steps flagged and disclosed: exactly two single-settlement steps in the series reach 2 times — 2.703x on May 31, 2023 (981,422 shares on May 15, 2023 to 2,653,237) and 2.945x on May 31, 2024 (809,678 on May 15, 2024 to 2,384,525), the largest step in the series — and one step collapses: 0.075x on June 15, 2023 (2,653,237 to 199,762, a fall of 92.47%, and also the series minimum). The June 15, 2023 row is the only row in the series carrying a FINRA stock-split flag ("S"); the only other flagged row in the series is a revision flag ("R") on June 15, 2021. Neither 2x step row carries a split flag in the FINRA file, but our own price file shows a single-day close jump immediately before each: $5.40 on May 25, 2023 to $12.12 on May 26, 2023 (2.244x), and $12.18 on May 23, 2024 to $4.12 on May 24, 2024 (0.338x) — the pattern of share-count-changing corporate actions in both cases. The full series is published as collected, with no smoothing or rebasing; the flagged steps sit in 2023–2024, and every short-interest comparison in this article (latest against prior settlement, against the June 30, 2026 peak and against the year-ago settlement) is computed inside the window after them. The recent path runs 24,142,937 (June 30), 20,103,345 (July 15), 19,825,791 (July 31), 18,909,052 (August 14), 18,298,315 (August 31) and 18,028,616 (September 15) — five consecutive falls across the six settlements from the peak. 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 (19.91%) uses the fundamentals file's shares-outstanding figure below.
• Fundamentals note: our fundamentals collection carries Verastem's revenue of $10,000,000, net income of -$209,471,000 and assets of $246,442,000, all sourced to the same financial-series cache — but with a fiscal-vintage split that this audit flags rather than blends: the revenue figure is labelled fiscal 2024 in the file, while the net income and assets figures are labelled fiscal 2025. The three figures are therefore reported here with their own labels and are never combined. The file is marked ok for this name, with no missing fields: shares outstanding of 90,563,441 (sourced in the file to the DEI entity-common-stock shares-outstanding count, with a shares-end date of August 3, 2026) and a file-computed market value of $701,866,667.75. The file does not flag the issuer as a foreign private issuer, and it carries SIC 2834, Pharmaceutical Preparations, and a Nasdaq listing. The file's price for the name is $7.75 as of October 6, 2026; our daily-close file ends October 2, 2026 at $7.70, and we keep the two files' figures separate rather than blending them.
• Prices: our own daily-close file for VSTM through October 2, 2026 ($7.70 close, -0.3% year to date on that file; the 252-session closing high is $10.64 on November 28, 2025, so the last close sits 27.6% below it; the 252-session closing low is $3.45 on June 25, 2026, so the last close sits 123.2% above it; closes of $5.30 at March 31, 2026 and $3.82 at June 30, 2026, a second-quarter change of -27.9%; change from June 30 to October 2 of +101.6%; change from the September 30, 2025 close of $8.83 of -12.8%; change from the October 2, 2025 close of $8.99 of -14.3%; the December 31, 2025 close is $7.72). The series in our price file begins June 1, 2021 at $47.40 and holds 1,342 rows; the file's full-period close range is $2.20 to $58.20.
• Market context sources: the TipRanks Trending Stocks by Analyst screener (full-page crawl, October 18, 2026), on which Verastem followed SCHW, SMTC, BAC and RKLB (all already covered in this series), lens-skipped names (Interactive Brokers and Taiwan Semiconductor among them, skipped for missing or unreliable lens data as recorded in this audit's datasheet), covered names (J.B. Hunt, U.S. Bancorp, BNY and Microsoft) and a skipped name (PNC), and was listed as a Strong Buy with a price target of $18.17 (110.06% upside as printed), 5 Buy, 0 Hold and 0 Sell ratings, in Healthcare, dated October 16, 2026 on the page; 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 beyond the screener's printed target as reported in The Hype.
• Verastem is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: Verastem (VSTM) stock page. Series data: vstm_lens_data.csv · vstm_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: BNY · Viper Energy · State Street.

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.