Rocket Lab is down 16% over the past month to $104.63, the sector is still selling off, and something has quietly shifted in the positioning data since last week's note.
The most notable change is in short interest. After weeks of steady covering that took SI down from above 6% to a trough near 5.7%, shorts have been rebuilding. SI has climbed 7.3% on the week to 6.1% of free float — the highest reading in this data window and a reversal of the covering trend that had been in place since early May. That's a change worth naming explicitly: the previous note flagged shorts covering as a reason the bearish crowding thesis looked weak. That argument has eroded. Shorts have added roughly 2 million shares in the past week alone, and the direction-of-travel has flipped. The lending market remains loose — availability at roughly 965% means there is nearly ten times as much supply as there is demand to borrow — and cost to borrow is a negligible 0.38%, so there is no squeeze pressure from the mechanics. But the demand for shorts is growing. One divergent signal cuts the other way: options positioning has turned notably bullish. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.69, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.77, sitting near the more bullish end of its one-year range of 0.36 to 0.85. Options traders are buying more calls than usual at the same moment short sellers are adding to positions — a genuine split in directional conviction.
The insider picture adds another layer. Every recent trade in the data is a sale. Director Alexander Slusky sold 40,000 shares on June 2 at $123.60 — a $4.9 million transaction — after selling a further 60,000 shares on May 28 across three transactions totalling nearly $9 million. COO Frank Klein and General Counsel Arjun Kampani also sold in late May. The 90-day net figure looks technically positive at roughly 296,000 shares, but that aggregate obscures the fact that all the recent activity is in one direction. Insiders were selling into prices well above current levels ($143–$150 range in late May), and Rocket Lab is now trading more than 30% below those exit prices.
Blackrock added nearly 4.9 million shares as of May 31, making it the largest reported institutional holder at 6.6% of shares. Vanguard entities collectively hold another 8.6% across two vehicles, both of which appear to have initiated or significantly increased positions by end of March. That is a meaningful institutional ownership base for a pre-profit aerospace company. Peter Beck, the founder and CEO, is listed as adding 5 million shares to his reported holding — though the timing aligns with what may be an equity award rather than an open-market purchase, so that figure warrants independent verification before being read as a conviction buy.
Rocket Lab's next earnings date is August 6. The last two prints produced starkly different outcomes: a 1.5% decline the day after Q1 2026 results, followed by an 18% gain over the subsequent five days; and before that, a dramatic 24.6% single-day rally after what appears to be a separate event in May. The five-day window has consistently delivered larger moves than the immediate reaction, suggesting the market has needed time to digest the numbers. The valuation backdrop remains extreme — EV/EBITDA at roughly 1,784x and price-to-book above 35x — though both multiples have compressed meaningfully over the past month as the stock has sold off, and peers across the commercial space cohort (LUNR, RDW, FLY) have continued to underperform, all down sharply again this week.
The setup going into August is therefore defined by a tension between rebuilding short interest and unusually bullish options positioning, against a backdrop of insider selling at much higher prices and a sector that has not yet found a floor. Whether the options market or the short sellers have the better read will likely depend on what the August print says about Neutron development progress and Space Systems revenue trajectory.
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