Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - BONG 9x4, DB conference, and Market rout

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Anpanman - BONG 9x4, DB conference, and Market rout · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

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3 minus 10987659. 4321 Lift up. Detective First motion, Everyone
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has cleared the bowels. Is the AST Space mobile podcast.
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Just basically turn your phone and be seamless, regardless of
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where you are. We don't want the user even to
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know that it's connected by satellite.
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Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
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Everyone, thanks for joining. This is a bit last minute, but I
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figured I'd get people together just given everything that
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happened that has happened over the past week and especially
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today. Wow, we had some serious
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volatility. But yeah, I just wanted to talk
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about some news today on AST Space Mobile, but then also just
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talk about the market in general.
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Maybe I'll start with the market.
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I think, you know, obviously the market's been a bit on a knife's
1:27
edge and I think, you know, part of the issue is that the Fed has
1:32
been flying blind right now just given that we had this
1:35
government shutdown. I think initially the market was
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OK with that and, and could you to rally quite frankly, as the
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government will shut down. However, as we approach, you
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know, record level of days that that were closed, the market
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started paying attention and and some of the issues that have
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come out of that is, well, first, you know, you had a
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number of employees that were not getting paid and that's
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going to be a hit to the economy.
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But then also it started impacting, you know, commercial
2:06
activity. Like, for example, airlines
2:10
started canceling flights. And so I think that feeling got
2:13
politicians to get off the pot and do something about it and
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they reopen government. The issue though, is that we've
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been flying blind in terms of economic data for quite some
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time now. And so that, you know, people
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have been kind of looking for private data to give it give
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some sense of where, you know, folks, an idea where the economy
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has been going. But of course, you know, the
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Fed's not going to rely on private data.
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It's going to wait until information, official
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information comes out, which, you know, it looks like
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everything through October is pretty much off the table.
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And so we'll have to wait for the BLS and all these other, you
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know, organizations to catch up. And so now we're heading into
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this rate decision in December where without information, the
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Fed's got to make some decision. I think heading into the last
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week or two, it was pretty much fait accompli that the Fed was
3:12
going to cut rates. And, you know, the market was
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this is I guess going back to just look here like the
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beginning of October when basically it was risk on
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everyone. It was assured that that the
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economic numbers look good. Inflation seemed to be in check
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and rates were going to come down further.
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And so you saw a risk on in assets, you know, occur over the
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month of October. But then I think the markets,
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you know, that people start getting a sense that perhaps the
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Fed governors were not all line for a rate cut.
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And, and, and now we've seen, you know, comments coming from
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various governors over the last few days that that they're
4:01
they're a bit uneasy about, you know, for example, where
4:04
inflation is. Perhaps, you know, you've got
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like all this weird data coming out, like Atlanta GD Atlanta
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Fed, you know, GDP estimates are like above 4%.
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You know, you've got some mixed, I guess I can employment data
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earlier today that did come out. And so people don't really know
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what to make of it. I think the, the December Fed,
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you know, interest rate decision is now at a 30 to 40%
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probability of a cut. And so that type of backdrop and
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you know, we've had some issues with the repo market.
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I mean, there's just all kinds of shit going on, but you know
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that and then you've got private credit, which has been taking
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hits. You've had like a few bad actors
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where, you know, Tricolor and 1st brand, some of these
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companies have have gone under and that's rattled the private
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credit markets. And of course, people, you know,
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and people are focused on the AI bubble weather or not that's
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real. And then you've got the whole
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host of other people are like, hey, there's this other market,
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which is private credit. There's, there's a bunch,
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there's probably like a bunch of cockroaches there.
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And and so there's a bunch of things.
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There's like a wall of worry what's going on right now.
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And so on the one hand, you've got people wondering if, if AI
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is a bubble and, and you know, if CapEx is actually all this
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CapEx spend is actually going to yield any type of investment
5:30
returns. And then you've got worries
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about private credit, which has hit all these companies in
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consumer credit and, and auto and you know what, what have
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you. And so, you know, you might have
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read about Black Rock, one of their funds having markdowns and
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then they've waived fees. And then I think Owl Blue Owl
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tried to merge two of its, you know, problematic funds and that
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thing got shot down. And for the people who have gone
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through the 2/8/2008 financial crisis, these are the types of
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things where they raise your antenna a bit, right?
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Because I remember in the financial crisis when, you know,
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everyone was like, oh, you know, things are going fine.
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But then there were there were these cracks that started to
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develop where there was like, I forgot there was one real estate
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fund that had that. I think it was Bear Stearns.
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Actually, it, it was a Bear Stearns real estate fund that
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had to get liquidated. And that was like one of the
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first drops in the bucket, which was like then became a tidal
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wave of, of like the entire real estate market collapsing.
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But there was like the little hints of it, right?
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And so you've seen some of that in private credit where I mean,
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the a name that I'm involved in, which is Pagaya, that company
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has been doing just fine. But then if you look at the
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company's bonds, they're down to like 8182 that they were just
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issued, you know, this past summer.
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So they're trading at a pretty wide yield.
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And so people are, you know, people are shooting 1st and
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asking questions later. And I think that, you know,
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private credit AI, you know, those are the kind of big, big
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areas of contention right now. The other one is crypto, which
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you know, I was talking with Tut and I see him on right now.
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It's talking about talking with him earlier about how that was
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just a massive leverage trade. And you know, when Trump
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announced the the the restrict the trade restrictions against
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China in retaliation for critical, you know, rare earths,
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you know, when trying to put impose restrictions.
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That was on October 10th. That was a huge liquidation
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event for crypto, which that caused a cascading of people
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just unwinding trades and people getting blown out basically.
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And then you actually had a number of shaky like stable
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coins actually not be stable and they they D pegged.
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And so so there, you know, that was some initial deleveraging,
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which I think has continued to cascade to even today until
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Bitcoin, you know, traded down to what, 80 ish 80 high 80s from
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a high of 1 twentyish or so. And so that's a pretty big move.
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And I know there's quite a bit of people who and I I, you know,
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debated this like, I don't know why brokers allow people to go
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2050 a hundred times leverage on crypto.
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It doesn't make any sense. I mean, I've talked about like
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how holding ASD space mobile, for example, like you should
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know, hold down margin. You might deploy margin
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tactically from time to time, but it should be very, it should
8:43
be limited in timing and you should have, you know, very well
8:46
defined stops. But you know, I, I personally
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don't ever use margin for that, for that reason.
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Like, you know, for a volatile asset you're going to get,
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you're going to get stopped out at the wrong time, right?
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And so for people who do crypto to go 20 or 50X, you're just
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asking for like 1 bad thing that has nothing to do with the asset
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you own. But, you know, there could be
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some macro, macro issue or, you know, Trump tweeting something
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and then you get wiped out. And so so, yeah, I mean, for the
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most part, the market has been resilient after, you know, since
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April when we had the the tariff tantrums.
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But now we're at this point in time where what was thought to
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be kind of smooth sailing and that, you know, the Fed was
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going to continue to ease quantitative tightening had
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ended. Now we're kind of in this weird
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decision point where you had today, you know, obviously
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NVIDIA yesterday, there was some if you know, the the
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information, the the Fed minutes were for the most part, like I
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would say on balance, somewhat hawkish, But then, you know,
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NVIDIA, NVIDIA results like got people bullish again.
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And overnight, you know, markets rallied.
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And then coming into today, you had the NVIDIA and a bunch of
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other names, you know, rally, but then get faded because then,
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you know, there's keep our pointing to various things,
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whether, you know, with crypto sold down, which, you know,
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people who own crypto typically have some sort of equities and
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maybe they're they had to beat margin calls because they and
10:20
they sold their equity holdings. I mean, they're all, you know,
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somewhat cross related, right? And but I think what kind of
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accelerated things today is that you had a number of Fed
10:31
governors, 2 voting members, one not voting, come out with pretty
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hawkish comments about how inflation is stubborn and that,
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you know, it's likely that they may not be back cut in December.
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And I would say, like, based off of what I see it, it seems like
10:48
the economy is weakening. I don't know where the Atlanta
10:52
Fed gets like 4% GDP, but when you look at, you know, all the
10:57
layoffs and yeah, inflation seems to be someone in check.
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I know it's, it's someone, it's someone elevated.
11:06
But it seems to be like, I think the Fed should be continue or
11:10
should continue to move forward with a cut this coming December.
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But but we'll see. But I think that's, you know,
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markets hate uncertainty. And I think that's where we are
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right now, which is you've got probably more than 50% the
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majority, I mean, depending on how you read the Fed minutes.
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But it said many members think that December rate cut doesn't
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make much sense, although and and then of course, we don't
11:34
have data to support one way or the other because of the
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shutdown. And so we're in this odd place
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where the market wants certainty and the Fed is putting out like
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very mixed messages. And so market hates that.
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And then you got like some other things going on, like, you know,
11:52
in Japan, they put out this big budget and rates are going up
11:55
there. And so that's potentially
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causing an unwinding of a carry trade, which people, you know,
12:00
you can, you can fund a trade in Japan very cheaply, but now and
12:05
then go buy stuff elsewhere. But now because rates are going
12:07
up in Japan, you've got to unwind that.
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So yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff going on.
12:13
But but yeah, I, I think, you know, obviously it's painful to
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have a draw down. And I think I saw a number of
12:22
people pretty upset today about AST Space Mobile coming off.
12:26
And you know, I think it's important to remember, you know,
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the stock is now what, at 50 bucks and it's back to where it
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essentially was in June. And if you kind of think back to
12:39
what has transpired since June, there's, there's quite a bit,
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right? There's obviously, you know, you
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have let me just look at my list here.
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I mean, I won't go through the entire thing, but you know, they
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Legato was approved, they raised $1.2 billion or $1.15 billion of
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convert Verizon definitive commercial agreement to sign
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Saudi Telecom. They closed the $420 million
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bridge for Legato. Let's see here, you know,
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expanded manufacturing floor to 500,000 square feet.
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They just closed over 1 billion in aggregate contracted revenue
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commitments. I mean, there's, there's a whole
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host of things that have occurred since, since this past
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June, right. And so company has made a lot of
13:24
progress. I mean, that's balanced with the
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fact that, you know, there has been delays around launch, which
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now we're coming up on, you know, the first BB 6 launch,
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which will be in either the first cycling in December.
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So the, the, the multi launch campaign is about to kick off,
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right. So, so that's, that's a
13:43
positive. But then we're we're in this
13:45
environment where there's a lot of uncertainty.
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And I think what kind of what tipped me off on how the market
13:52
was, you know, we're entering to the First off phase, is that
13:55
after the Saudi telecom deal was announced, which, you know, for
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all such purposes, like if you were in a very supportive
14:02
environment, that would have sent the stock, in my opinion,
14:05
up, you know, 20% or so, because that's $175,000,000 prepaid
14:10
revenue. And then you've got a contract
14:13
worth, you know, at a minimum $1.8 billion / 10 years and
14:18
revenue, minimum revenue commitments that, that piece of
14:23
news I thought was going to send the stock, you know, pretty the,
14:27
the reaction would have been quite positive.
14:29
But however, you know that the reaction that day was muted.
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And then of course, you know, the stock continue to, to sell
14:35
off thereafter. And so I think when you have a
14:39
situation like that, it kind of tell you where the market
14:42
sentiment is in terms of risk, where it really doesn't matter
14:46
what a company's fundamentals are, it's going to matter more.
14:50
The macro kind of a whims it. And so, you know, there's been
14:53
the number of people on Twitter who have complained like, oh,
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the stock is off. You know, it's it's had a 5050%
15:00
drawdown, which is brutal. But then if you look at all the
15:04
other areas of speculative growth, you've had drawdown
15:08
instead of them equal if not greater.
15:11
And so at this point, we're kind of in this situation where it's
15:15
really the macro driving everything until and until
15:18
things settle down, the market really gets its footing as to
15:21
what the Fed is going to do and what the, the, the, you know,
15:25
the market backdrops going to look like that.
15:27
I think we're kind of at the whims of, of the macro picture
15:30
right now. And so I think people should
15:32
like understand that and position accordingly, meaning,
15:37
you know, do not be in margin now.
15:39
Now is not the time to do it. And you know, if you're if
15:43
you're looking to get leverage bets, then do it in such a way
15:46
that that is capped and you understand what your risk is.
15:51
For example, you know, you might deploy call options or call
15:54
spreads. You know, right now is not a
15:57
good idea to short puts. That's just giving you more
16:02
potential exposure, you know, in a down market.
16:05
And when ball explodes, like it's not just the price
16:07
movement, but it's also volatility.
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And so, you know, just make sure that you're structured in such a
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way that you can write out this, this, you know, this volatility,
16:18
Because I think there were some people who tweeted that they
16:23
aggressively like tapped in the margin on the way down, which I
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think, you know, it's that's that's unfortunate because I
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think, you know, it can work in certain instances.
16:33
But when you have a situation like today, I was just reading
16:36
on Bloomberg, just people's, you know, market strategist respond,
16:42
you know, kind of commenting on what happened over the day and
16:45
pretty much everyone like trying to find answers and no one
16:48
really knows. And I think it's a host of all
16:50
these things, right? But again, when you're in that
16:54
type of situation, you don't want to be over leveraged and
16:58
basically get forced out of your position, which I think
17:01
unfortunately, and just look at, you know, people in crypto,
17:04
that's that's what's happened in spades, unfortunately.
17:06
But but yeah, so that's, I mean, that's kind of the market right
17:11
now. I, I think, you know, I, I can't
17:14
say for sure like we're going to bottom or we have bottomed or
17:18
maybe things will RIP from here. I posted some charts about how,
17:25
you know, you're ahead to put out that short, short interest
17:29
as a as a percentage of market value for some of these, like we
17:33
have more speculative names is at, you know, back to highs.
17:37
And that's usually a good recipe.
17:39
You know, when you have a risk on environment where people feel
17:42
confident and you know, if you have an NVIDIA type of, you
17:45
know, the earnings and, and being raised where it changes
17:49
the narrative, that can help. But I think today, as I
17:52
mentioned before, like the fact that you had three fed governors
17:55
come out, two of which are voting, you have very mixed
17:58
signals of market or, you know, hawkish signals that kind of put
18:02
a damper on things. So anyway, I still think, you
18:06
know, depending on how, you know, Powell's got a pretty
18:12
tough decision heading into this December, you know, upcoming Fed
18:16
meeting. If you know, if they cut rates
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and if they cut rates like that may or may not do it right.
18:22
Like it's going to depend also on the commentary around it,
18:24
which is, you know, maybe they don't cut rates, but then he
18:27
gives very dovish commentary that, you know, they, they were,
18:31
they, they're ready to do it, but then they got to wait for
18:33
data. But you know, all maybe, perhaps
18:36
they'll hint at at the meeting after that they'll do it.
18:39
So it all depends. Like it's not as if like a, a
18:43
cut in rates is going to do it. It depends.
18:45
It also depends on how, how they, how his comments are going
18:50
to go around that. But anyway, but yeah, that's the
18:53
market. It sucks.
18:54
The market sucks right now. No, you know, I, there's no
18:59
sugar coating it like a 50% drawdown in, in our favorite
19:02
name. It is what it is.
19:04
If you guys will recall, in the spaces that I did in previous
19:08
weeks, I'd mentioned when we were hitting all time highs,
19:11
like if you have made life changing money, like potentially
19:18
think about, you know, selling a portion to either cover your
19:22
initial investment or even better, like cover your net
19:26
worth even before you bought the thing.
19:28
Bought AST space mobile, which I, I did hear from some people
19:32
that actually did that, which is great.
19:35
But I think also, you know, going back to I, I do want to
19:40
talk about this whole idea of like buying and selling and
19:43
trading around positions. I, I trade a, a portion of our
19:46
position around because it's in a tax free account, which is why
19:49
people are like, how do you have infinite amount of money?
19:51
It's like, well, sometimes they sell and then when it's up and
19:54
then when it's down, like I buy it back and, and like, I'll
19:56
tweet about it, right, like, Oh, I'm going to buy some riskier.
20:00
And I have a four position which is in taxable count which I
20:02
don't touch because. Obviously there's like really
20:07
big like capital gains in that in those shares.
20:11
And if I ever sell, then I've got to pay taxes.
20:13
And so this is just a reminder for people like you might get
20:19
people on Twitter saying, oh, you should buy and sell and buy
20:22
high and, or sorry, buy, buy low and sell high.
20:25
And then you can just trade around position.
20:27
The issue with that though, is obviously you're, you're, you're
20:30
going to create a taxable event. And one thing that I think
20:34
people should be aware of is like when you do sell and you do
20:37
owe taxes, like set aside funds for those taxes and do, do your
20:41
best, do your absolute best like not to touch those funds.
20:43
Because often times what happens is that, you know, let's say
20:48
you, you did sell AST at 100. Let's say you sold your entire
20:51
position and you have, yeah, I'll just make up a number.
20:55
Let's say you, you crystallized, you know, you're one of the
20:58
short term trading guys and you crystallized $1,000,000 of
21:01
profit, but you've got to pay, you know, short, short term.
21:06
I'm just going to make up a number, but let me, if you were
21:08
here in New York, maybe you're, you pay like, I don't know,
21:11
4050% on that, right? But then the stock, the stock
21:15
trades down and then it goes to 50.
21:17
You're like, oh, great. Or sorry, this is, I'll make a
21:20
better example. So the stock trades down to 70
21:22
and you're like, oh, great. So you buy it, you buy it back,
21:26
you buy more shares back at 70 and you, you actually utilize
21:29
everything that you had sold and you buy it back at 70.
21:32
You don't keep set aside whatever you have for taxes.
21:36
And then all of a sudden the stock goes from 70 to, you know,
21:40
it goes to 40. And so you're, you're down money
21:44
on that position. And then let's say you Fast
21:48
forward to a year and let's say the stock is still at 40 or
21:50
whatever. However, you owe taxes on that
21:54
$1,000,000. You know, you owe 40% of the
21:58
taxes on that, but you've lost money on getting back in the
22:00
stock and it's going back down. And so I think an important
22:03
thing for people to remember is that if you do trade and, and
22:08
crystallize gains and you owe money, make sure you set aside
22:11
taxes. Because often times you'll see
22:13
people like get back into stocks and then they're, they lose a
22:16
lot of money. And then the IRS, you know,
22:19
maybe they, they could either hold on to it or they, you know,
22:23
they don't sell it before the year end to offset the game that
22:26
they, they, they realized. And then you end up owing more
22:30
money than, for example, you might actually own in, in stocks
22:34
the following year. And so you don't want to be in
22:37
that type of situation. And I think that's where, when
22:41
people are actively trading stuff, they kind of, you know,
22:44
when, when people talk about it on Twitter, they kind of
22:47
conveniently ignore that aspect of it, which can be quite
22:51
dangerous. So, you know, as opposed to like
22:54
if you held, if you own the stock and you know you bought
22:58
it, let's say your average is like $5 and it went to 100 and
23:01
you didn't sell it and then you're down to 50.
23:04
Well, you probably feel pretty bad about it, but then you don't
23:07
have a taxable event in the year and you just can get a hold of
23:10
what you have and write it to the next year.
23:12
Whereas if you did sell it at 100 and then you bought it back
23:16
at 70 and then it went down to, you know, 40 or whatever it is,
23:20
you do have a taxable event. You have to pay a capital gains
23:24
on the difference between 5:00 and 5:00 and 100.
23:26
And then you bought it back and then you, and then it went down.
23:30
And so now you're, you're down money and you've got to sell
23:33
some portion of that to cover your, your capital gain.
23:38
That's a pretty tough proposition.
23:40
And by the way, like if you bought it back within 30 days
23:44
and you know, you, you do have somewhat of a loss.
23:47
I mean, you, you there's like other implications from a tax
23:51
perspective to think about because then, you know, if you
23:54
if you have a loss and you, you try to crystallize that loss for
23:57
the year end so that it offsets your taxes, then you can sell
24:00
it, but then you can't buy it back for 30 days.
24:01
And so, yeah, there's like all those stuff things.
24:03
But anyway, yeah, just I, I think be aware, especially for
24:12
those people who have pretty significant capital gains, like
24:14
just be, be cognizant of what you owe, especially as we come
24:18
into year end here with, with what, a month and a half left?
24:23
And so just be careful to set aside money from what you owe.
24:29
And you know, there there'll be people who are like, well, I'll
24:32
just hold on to this stock and it'll rally in, it'll rally next
24:36
year. And, and you know, I'll be, I'll
24:37
have enough to pay for my taxes in April or you know, you can
24:41
obviously get an extensions all the way through October, but who
24:46
knows, who knows what the future holds.
24:47
So just be aware of that. But anyway, by the way, like if
24:52
people have questions or comments, feel free to to drop
24:55
them in the comments and I'll try to address them.
24:58
But on to better things. Yeah, so today I think was a
25:04
pretty interesting day of disclosure for Blue Origin.
25:10
And so I was commenting to someone else today that had Blue
25:17
Origin not landed due Glen, then obviously they wouldn't have
25:20
rolled this, this, this, this road map information out today.
25:24
But because of the fact that now they have market credibility,
25:27
they landed the booster. Now they can roll out kind of
25:30
the big guns here. And So what was interesting
25:32
today is that David Lamp of Blue origin, they they released their
25:38
next, you know, the next iteration of new line or not the
25:42
next iteration. It's, it's, it's, well, it's the
25:46
next, it's the heavy version of new line, which you know, they,
25:49
they obviously launched the, the, the new Glen one and new
25:54
Glen 2 recently. But then this next iteration, I
25:57
think based off of what I read is going to be sometime
26:00
available, is going to be available sometime in 2027.
26:03
But the key thing is that this larger version of New Glen,
26:07
which is called heavy lift or super heavy lift variant is
26:11
going to have 9 by 4 engines, SO9PE4 engines in stage 1 and
26:17
then 4PE3 engines in the upper stage.
26:20
And So what that's going to allow the rocket to do and and
26:23
it's going to have it a larger fairing is that it's going to
26:27
allow the company to launch 70 tons to lower Earth orbit, which
26:31
I think I might be off, but I think the the current New Glen
26:35
can do 40 to 45 tons to lower Earth orbit.
26:39
So, you know, Catsy was kind enough to look at the
26:44
measurements of the dew fairing and then figure out how many
26:47
Bluebird block 2 or block 2 Bluebird satellites can actually
26:49
fit in this heavy variant. And based off of his math and
26:54
looking at the designs, he he was coming out to around 12
26:58
Bluebirds, which is pretty crazy.
27:01
I think New Glen in its current form can take up to 8 block 2
27:07
Bluebirds. But then I think at least the
27:10
initial, the early versions of New Glen are probably going to
27:14
be limited to six block 2 Bluebirds.
27:16
And so my guess is that, you know, come February or March
27:20
when the first maybe, well, not the first New Glen, but it'll be
27:25
either the third or fourth New Glen to, to have launched takes
27:28
up, you know, Bluebird satellites.
27:32
Then that one will probably take up six.
27:35
And then, you know, today Blue Origin discussed the, you know,
27:40
their focus in improving the efficiency of the engine.
27:42
So my guess is that the current New Glenn uniform factor will be
27:47
able to take 8 eventually, maybe, you know, maybe perhaps
27:50
in the second-half of of 2026. But but of course, the bigger
27:55
news today is that there is this heavy version which will have
27:59
the ability potentially take up 12 Bluebird satellites, which is
28:04
crazy to think about because then, you know, in order to get
28:08
if that's 12, in order to get 60, you know, 60 satellites up
28:13
into space, that's that's just five launches.
28:16
Now obviously like that, that rock is not going to be
28:20
available till 2027. But the fact that that's on the
28:24
road map and you know, the company eventually wants to get
28:27
to well over 100 satellites in in orbit.
28:31
You know, new Glen heavy is going to be a really big deal in
28:35
terms of a launch vehicle that's going to provide, you know, a
28:39
cost effective way to get the constellation up.
28:41
So that so that's good news. So that that came out today,
28:44
which I think was a surprise for everyone.
28:46
I think you know how they not landed the the booster, then
28:50
they probably wouldn't have released this road map.
28:51
But then now that they have credibility and the market is
28:55
very excited about blue Origin, they were able to put this
28:58
information out there, which which is great.
29:01
And I think it's something that for AC space mobile shareholders
29:05
is was a surprise. I don't think anyone expected
29:08
this. However, as I mentioned before,
29:12
I, I know Abell and Scott in management are very close with
29:15
Blue Origin. You know, they've, they've
29:17
toured their facilities a number of times and they diligenced,
29:22
you know, the company's ability to get this rocket, you know,
29:26
this, this program off the ground and onto a, a regular
29:30
cadence. And they, they know Dave Limp
29:32
quite well. And they've, you know, obviously
29:34
they've met with Bezos a number of times.
29:36
And so, so, yeah, I, I, I assume that this, this road map was
29:41
part of their decision to go with the origin for majority of
29:45
the launches. And, you know, we're still using
29:47
ISRO and SpaceX as well. But, but yeah, I, I think today
29:52
was a pleasant surprise. Of course, you know, the market,
29:56
it's one of the few pieces of positive information that came
29:58
out today. But but, yeah, I think that's,
30:01
you know, once the market kind of settles down and people kind
30:03
of really think through what this means for the company in
30:07
terms of the ability to deploy the constellation.
30:10
You know, obviously production has to get up to to scale as
30:12
well. But yeah, this is a big, big
30:15
positive. The other thing is, let's see
30:18
here now, I, I wasn't able to hear Scott speak at Deutsche
30:26
Bank and nor do I think any, you know, no one that I knew
30:30
directly, but there was some feedback from folks who did
30:33
attend that conference. And for what it's worth, it
30:38
sounded like Scott there, there was some type of dinner event
30:41
and, and it sounded like he was very confident that the Israel
30:45
launch is going to happen in, you know, the first half of
30:47
December. And it sounded like, you know,
30:53
overall, the company is chugging along in terms of getting, you
30:58
know, production up to speed and, and they believe they'll
31:00
meet their cadence. Obviously, you know, proof is in
31:03
the pudding and we'll see, but it does seem like we should be
31:07
able to get some update on Bluebird 7, you know, being
31:12
shipped to to Cape Canaveral. From what I understand.
31:16
I, I believe like, you know, there was some comments about at
31:19
at Deutsche Bank about inviting some of the institutional
31:22
showers to come visit for that launch in Cape Canaveral.
31:25
So, so you know, those are positive signs.
31:27
I mean, we'll see obviously, but but that, that was some positive
31:32
feedback. Let me see your anyway, I'm
31:36
going to look and see if there's some comments here.
31:40
OK, Cook report TDLR is the stock going up or not?
31:45
OK, I think let's see in the near term, I'm not going to be,
31:49
I, I'm not sure if it will go up or not, but in the medium and
31:54
long term, I'm fairly certain the stock is or I'm, I'm
31:57
positive the stock is going up. And I think as I've mentioned
32:01
before, you know, we're at this point where we are at, you know,
32:05
we, we're on the cusp of the launch campaign.
32:07
You know, we've got December kicking off the first launch.
32:10
And then the key thing for me, which was a big, you know, a big
32:15
uncertainty is was Blue Origin, right?
32:18
The fact that we're relying heavily on New Glen and to see
32:23
that that rocket land its booster complete its mission in
32:29
terms of delivering the two Rocket Lab satellites that are
32:32
going to be heading to Mars. And then to see that booster
32:36
being returned to Cape Canaveral.
32:38
You know, they, they today they they took it off of the the the
32:42
barge and then now it's being rolled to facility to be
32:46
refurbished for the stacks launch, which which crazy enough
32:49
like they are targeting January for that for that booster.
32:54
So yeah, we'll see like how that goes.
32:56
But I think, I think unlike previous times where, you know,
33:01
you had this big event for the company and then you had to wait
33:04
for, you know, months for the next thing to kind of happen.
33:08
We're we're at this point where, and I've said this before, like
33:12
we are, we're going to be launching commercial, you know,
33:14
the cancellation and in commercial service.
33:16
And so I'm bullish. I mean, I think macro is what it
33:21
is and the market's going to be volatile until it figures out,
33:25
you know, until the Fed figures out what they want to do.
33:28
And we're, we're kind of adjusted to whatever the new
33:29
normal is going to be. But in the meantime, you know,
33:32
today I bought, I bought more shares in AC.
33:34
Some people will ask, like, how do you have unlimited liquidity?
33:39
I'm human just like everyone else.
33:41
I don't have unlimited liquidity.
33:43
I, as I've been before, I do trade some part of my position
33:46
in taxable accounts. And so that allows me to buy,
33:49
you know, things when they go down.
33:51
And, you know, sometimes I sell a portion of that tax advantage,
33:56
you know, the shares are in tax advantage account.
33:57
I sell them when they're up. But then what I've been doing
34:00
over the last, you know, I guess two weeks is that I've actually
34:05
started to consolidate some of my positions.
34:07
And so some of the spec stuff that I'm in that I still like,
34:11
but but kind of, and this is kind of the the choice that that
34:15
folks should make or consider if you feel like you need to do
34:19
something and, and often times, by the way, like some, you know,
34:22
the time, sometimes the best thing to that, the best thing to
34:26
do is to do nothing at all. And that that definitely holds
34:29
true. Being a a long term show holder
34:31
in AST space mobile like just sold your shares.
34:33
Don't don't like try to trade them around or don't, you know,
34:39
go crazy in options, you know, sell your stock and just buy
34:42
options because, you know, options are finite in time and
34:47
when you have a macro backdrop like we do and volatility, if
34:52
you have short term options, often times you might be right
34:55
about a company's improving fundamentals, but it won't
34:58
matter and you end up losing in that type of trade.
35:02
But, but as I was saying, I tweeted about this earlier
35:05
today, when you have periods of drawdown where everything is
35:09
correlated and everything goes down the same about like, let's
35:11
say you've got three different investment ideas that you like.
35:15
And let's say, you know, AST is one of them, you've got two
35:19
others as well. And then you have a market
35:22
correction going on and everything.
35:25
You have all three names draw down, I don't know, 50% equally.
35:30
All of a sudden, you know, one of them might look much better
35:33
than the other two. And, and so you might sell the
35:36
other two and recognize a loss, which by the way, from a tax
35:39
perspective that that's great. And then you might consolidate
35:43
into the position that you have more conviction in, right.
35:47
And maybe maybe the risk award is much better at that point
35:49
too. And so that's what I've been
35:51
doing as well. I've I've sold, I've lined up on
35:55
some other things and I've actually consolidated back into
35:58
Asds. And so to the extent like
36:01
that's, that's something that people can do, like that's,
36:06
that's, that's something you consider anyway.
36:11
Let's see. But yeah, to Cooks question, is
36:14
stock going up or not near term, who knows what it'll do
36:18
tomorrow, but over the medium long term, I'm very confident
36:21
it's going to go up. Let's see, give us your best
36:26
guess, the likely bottom and absolute bottom.
36:31
Let's see under 20 possible if BB6 doesn't launch and BB7 gets
36:34
shipped say mid-december. OK, so let's put that into
36:39
context. Sorry, someone's texting me, I'm
36:42
in my car waiting for a sudden soccer practice, which he has
36:45
late under 20. So let's look at the current
36:51
market cap of ASD space. Mobile current market cap is
36:57
$18.7 billion. And so you know the company just
37:01
raised $1.2 billion. I don't know if Bloomberg's cash
37:08
amount cash is, is updated. I don't think it is.
37:11
But you know, they'll say the company has like 3, call it
37:14
height, let's say $2.8 billion of cash.
37:17
And so you know, you back that out and then actually there's
37:22
debt. So you know the enterprise value
37:24
is going to be roughly the same, so 18.6 billion.
37:27
So at $50, like let's just do this on the parts, right?
37:31
Like the company ownership in Legato is worth, you know, that
37:37
80 year spectrum rights, obviously you know, there's,
37:40
there's CapEx that has to go around it to actually deploy it
37:43
for it to be valuable. But let's just say it's worth, I
37:48
don't know, $15 billion. So $15 billion back in that
37:54
you're, you're basically here if you're buying the stock at 50,
37:57
you're getting, you're getting the rest of the business for 3.7
38:01
billion, which to me that seems kind of crazy.
38:04
Like can the stock go to 20? I guess it could in some weird
38:10
scenario, but I would be, I kind of think you have a hard floor
38:15
value just on the spectrum alone, right, Which is, I mean,
38:19
you pick a number if it's 12 or 15, but we're not that far off
38:23
from it. So, you know, it's kind of
38:25
funny, like you've seen global star trade up recently because
38:30
people are now like, oh, hey, global Star owns a bunch of
38:33
spectrum, which, but then they, yeah, I, I saw this right up in
38:37
Seeking Alpha of all places, which, you know, most of you
38:41
will post there, right? Some pretty bad, bad pieces.
38:45
But there someone was writing about how global Star spectrum
38:49
is very valuable. And so you do this, some of the
38:51
parts analysis and, and voila, like it supports the stock price
38:54
work. But, but the issue with Global
38:56
Star, as we mentioned before, is that Apple owns 85% of that
39:00
capacity. And in that, in that article, it
39:03
it by the way, it didn't mention that at all.
39:05
And So what you're really playing with is like 15% of that
39:08
capacity. And then of course, you know,
39:11
they do have some other spectrum, like they have this,
39:13
this, you know, 2.4 terrestrial spectrum as well.
39:17
But anyway, but yeah, I would argue that now, you know, you're
39:22
getting AC space mobile, you know, back out the spectrum,
39:26
you're getting it for like 3 or 4 billion.
39:28
And you know, we just saw the company announce a $1 billion in
39:33
minimum revenue commitments. You know, you've got the defense
39:38
business, which is probably, you know, Scott, Scott quantified it
39:42
as likely to generate hundreds of millions of revenue next
39:45
year. And the following, you know,
39:46
they eventually want to grow it to over a billion in revenue.
39:50
You've got commercial which is going to be I believe hundreds
39:54
of millions next year, then that's going to grow as well.
39:57
And so I don't know, this seems pretty damn cheap to me, like 3
40:02
to $4 billion for that business outside of just the spectrum
40:05
that they've purchased the rights to use for next 80 years.
40:10
That seems pretty damn cheap to me.
40:11
I, I feel like, you know, can we go down to 45?
40:15
Maybe, I don't know. But if you look at the chart,
40:20
excuse me, if you look at the chart where the market started
40:23
to recognize the value of Legato.
40:25
And so Legato was announced in January.
40:28
And the stock kind of traded in the 30 range and then it wasn't
40:33
until June actually. Let me see when did Echostar
40:37
SpaceX happen? Bear with me here.
40:45
That was September, so let me go look.
40:51
So the Echostar SpaceX spectrum transaction happened in
40:56
September. However, my guess is that the
40:58
market yeah, there and it was rumored and it probably started
41:03
getting leaked around the summer.
41:04
And so the stock kind of traded into the 40s to 50 range.
41:08
And so we're kind of back at that point now, right?
41:10
Like the company has made a ton of progress.
41:12
They raised money. They've announced 2 definitive
41:16
commercial agreements. One was Verizon, which by the
41:18
way, like the bears were were, would, would try to convince us
41:21
that Verizon is going to walk away.
41:25
They they somehow, you know, we're going to walk away, not
41:29
sign a commercial agreement. I mean, Tim Farrar was making
41:32
all these various like conspiracy theories about it
41:35
and, and speaking about it as if they were fact, which, you know,
41:41
Verizon, by the way, like they signed that definitive
41:43
commercial rate. It was only a few weeks ago.
41:45
And as I've stated before, like that's a key validation point
41:50
because Verizon evaluated, you know, Starlink, you, you would
41:56
think they could do to evaluate Starlink up until that point.
41:59
And they still signed with AST. And then you also had Saudi
42:02
Telecom, which is owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the,
42:05
the government, you know, PIF, PIF owns a large stake in
42:12
SpaceX. You know, they, they know Elon
42:16
Musk well, they own Tesla and yet they chose AC face mobile
42:22
for their direct advice service, right.
42:25
Saudi Telecom entered into a 10 year deal and that was just a
42:30
few weeks ago as well. And so I think, yeah, I think I
42:35
think we're kind of at the bottom.
42:37
Maybe I guess starting tomorrow, unfortunately I'm a bit busy,
42:41
but I'm going to maybe this evening I'll just kind of make
42:43
that case like just some of the parts of you back on the
42:47
spectrum, which I know a lot of event driven investors like
42:50
that's what they're doing with Echostar and Global Star.
42:54
But yeah, you're getting the commercial and defense business
42:57
in ASD space mobile for peanuts at this point.
43:00
It's like 3 to $4 billion. So yeah, I think we are, I think
43:05
we're at the bottom. But you know, can things get
43:10
more rational? Sure.
43:11
And you know, in the short term things can get, you know, too
43:16
far one way and too far the other way.
43:17
I mean, the other thing I would say is like when we had 100 this
43:21
past this past October, I mean, a decent amount of that was
43:27
froth, right? Because I, I talked about this
43:29
in spaces about how, you know, the Fed is there was this
43:32
optimism in the market where people thought we are on this,
43:36
this course for lower rates and more liquidity in the markets
43:38
because maybe inflation was contained.
43:41
And, and then you had the all this like euphoria round AI, you
43:47
know, nuclear power, exploration, nukes and, and
43:51
quantum computing. And so investors appetites for
43:56
pulling forward, you know, discounting the future became
44:00
much higher, right? Like people actually were, you
44:03
know, for for nuclear companies that are not going to be
44:06
generating any type of revenue and you know, are not going to
44:09
be deploying their technology for maybe perhaps a decade.
44:13
People were valuing these companies and the very, you
44:16
know, the valuation for those companies were very rich and
44:19
people are willing to pull that forward in terms of, you know,
44:23
giving discounting that that opportunity.
44:26
And so AST was no different. Like, you know, the company
44:29
traded into that level, which I think also to be fair, you know,
44:35
we're heading into this launch campaign and you've got these
44:37
definitive agreements that were announced.
44:38
I think there was, there was rightly so a decent amount of
44:42
optimism. But I think for the company, you
44:46
know, for the stock to then have this draw down to 50% with the
44:50
basically the rest of the market for, for, you know, speculative
44:54
high growth names, you know, it is what it is, right?
44:57
And so now it's a matter of, you know.
45:02
When you when you look at the. Opportunity and think about
45:05
launch that's coming up and we're we're on the cusp of
45:08
commercial service next year and now we're signing all these
45:11
definitive commercial agreements like yeah, it sucks at the stock
45:15
price is at 50, but I feel really good about where we are
45:19
in terms of, you know the opportunity set and and
45:23
execution. And obviously, like the company
45:25
needs to get its manufacturing cadence up and and that's
45:28
something that, you know, we've talked about how to me it's,
45:32
it's just a matter of timing and it's, and it's inevitable.
45:36
And, you know, for example, some of these risk, whether it's, you
45:39
know, funding used to be a huge bear case about, you know, the
45:42
company. Yeah, the company's technology
45:44
is interesting and, and it's, it has this big opportunity, but
45:47
they're never going to be able to fund it.
45:48
Well, we have funded it and we have enough money to to make
45:53
more than and, and launch more than 100 satellites, right.
45:56
And then, and then, you know, one of the bear cases of the
46:00
launch provider you're going with, you know, they're, they're
46:04
unproven and they, they haven't landed a booster.
46:07
Well, they actually got 2 rockets to orbit the first time
46:11
and the second time and they landed the booster the second
46:13
time. And, and apparently they were
46:14
really close to landing the booster the first time, but they
46:17
couldn't, you know, due to some small issue, they couldn't get
46:19
the engines to, to relight. So, so that's, that's gone away.
46:24
And so now it's a matter of can they produce Bluebirds?
46:27
And so, you know, the, they can make enough microns, which is
46:32
the, the flat panels that have solar, you know, generation on
46:36
one side and, and antenna rays on the other side.
46:38
But it's key thing is the control sat the the bus, right?
46:42
And so the first two are tough because those were metal, metal
46:46
buses, which I believe, you know, we've speculated that
46:49
those first two are probably associated with the government
46:52
and related to some experiments. But then now they were, they're
46:56
pumping out these composite ones, which, you know, we saw
46:59
pictures in the last presentation where they've got a
47:02
number of these currently in process.
47:04
And I think the company disclosed that they've got #8
47:07
through 19 at various stages. And so, so, yeah, I think it's a
47:12
matter of inevitability. It's, it's, it's going to
47:15
happen. But of course, you know, time
47:16
can slip. But yeah, I feel good.
47:18
I mean, the company's well capitalized and you've got a
47:22
number of commercial partners that had the blast 2-3 weeks
47:27
ago, you know, signed definitive commercial agreements, which
47:31
they wouldn't have done that if the company was in not in a good
47:33
spot. You know, people forget like
47:35
AT&T was recently at the factory and they probably signed, you
47:39
know, signed Bluebird 7, which is on the cusp of being shipped
47:43
to the floor. So I feel good I the stock price
47:48
doesn't reflect it and, and it sucks.
47:49
I would draw them, but at the same time, like, you know, we
47:53
talk about sleeping well and I like, I sleep pretty damn well.
47:56
I mean, I know there's some haters on Twitter like, oh, you,
47:58
there's a, there's a 50% drawdown.
48:00
But it's like, hey, guys, you, you probably don't know this,
48:02
but a lot of people have a spaces around single digits or
48:07
double digit, you know, low double digits.
48:09
So no one's really sweating it. But anyway, let me see look at
48:16
some of these other questions here.
48:24
Someone's asking about some of the parts.
48:28
Yeah, so I, yeah, I mentioned the some of the parts.
48:31
I mean as I depending on how you value Legato, if you want to
48:34
value at 10/12/15 billion, I mean, this is kind of crazy, but
48:39
Legato and the court were and this is full ownership, right,
48:43
Not just a year spectrum rights, but I think they were valued at
48:46
like 30 billion. But in terms of the parts like,
48:49
I think you can, you could say. That legato is probably.
48:54
Worth, you know, 12 to 15 billion and if the market cap is
48:58
18 billion right now, then yeah, people aren't really valuing the
49:01
commercial defense side of the business very much.
49:03
And so I think, I think you know, this person's asking
49:07
about. You know patent patent values
49:11
which you. Know the company disclosed 3800
49:14
patent and patent pending claims, which are really
49:18
critical. I think, you know, obviously is
49:20
more and more players try to get into a direct advice.
49:22
They're going to have to find workarounds on the patents and I
49:24
don't think we've seen yet the company enforce patents.
49:27
But sometimes you let people kind of try to do, you know,
49:32
figure it out and then you come out, you come after them later,
49:37
you know, once they've spent all this money and they've developed
49:39
something, you come out later and say, hey, by the way, you
49:41
your refrigerator patents and you have to stop or you have to
49:44
in, you know, if, if the court determines like some of these
49:47
patents are fundamental and, and they have, you have to, you
49:51
know, allow them to, to license them for a fair, fair,
49:56
reasonable use, then, you know, they have to pay your royalty.
49:58
But but yeah, I mean, we haven't that's only, I guess the market
50:02
kind of doesn't fully comprehend is the fact that the company's
50:05
built this massive technological Moat around patents.
50:09
And they're a lot of these are fundamental patents in terms of,
50:13
you know, satellite to direct advice technology.
50:16
And so it'll be interesting to see, you know, how that develops
50:19
over time. But, you know, are those patents
50:20
worth, I don't know, a few billion dollars or a billion
50:25
dollars? I mean, you assign a value like
50:26
the spectrums worth 15 and the patents are worth a billion.
50:30
The companies train 18 billion. And so that's 2 billion of
50:34
equity value. That seems pretty cheap to me.
50:38
OK. Let's see, someone's asking
50:44
about gold. OK, I'm not going.
50:46
To answer that question. Let me.
50:52
See here how much is AST immune to Fed changes in Fed policy.
51:00
No stock is immune to changes in Fed policy in the in the short
51:04
term, all stocks have some level of beta like Co movement with
51:08
the market. And so the Fed, the Fed came out
51:11
tomorrow and said we're raising interest rates by 200 basis
51:14
points like every stock would drop.
51:16
I mean, I don't think I don't think any stock is immune to Fed
51:21
policy. But obviously, you know, over
51:25
the long run, as long as the Fed is rational and the government's
51:27
rational, like the fundamentals should should outweigh the macro
51:32
backdrop. But anyway, some weird questions
51:37
here, I guess someone saying always nice to be reminded that
51:43
we are not alone in this. That's right.
51:45
You're not alone in this. There's a few of us.
51:47
And so today, like today suck. And I think part of the, the,
51:54
you know, the importance of, of having a community.
51:58
Well, a community can be good and can be bad, right?
52:01
Like if you're in a bad investment idea and, and people
52:05
just kind of have this cult like cult like, you know, attachment
52:11
to a given stock or management and it's a bad company and they
52:15
do bad things and people overlook those things, then that
52:18
can be bad, right? Like you can, you can have
52:23
blinders on and not have proper judgement and, and just get
52:26
sucked into bad situations, which there are quite a few of
52:29
those by the way, from, you know, the, the SPAC class of
52:32
2020-2021 and so on. But, but in situations where you
52:38
know, this applies to, for example, you know, early days in
52:41
Tesla or you know, some of those investors that were in Palantir
52:45
or AC space mobile. It is good to have a community
52:49
where I think having shared due diligence is important in terms
52:53
of making a proper investment decision.
52:57
Knowing, for example, I think you know the retail community,
53:00
the space mob knows, probably. You know, relative to your.
53:05
Average hedge fund guy, we definitely know a lot more about
53:08
this company than any of those guys.
53:11
But I think also part of this, this journey is like having the
53:15
ability when you, you know, when you have experience market
53:18
volatility or the company, you know, faces setbacks or, or
53:21
whatever it is, right? Like just having a community do
53:23
that you can have this shared. Experience right where?
53:28
You're not alone and in periods of volatility because do we
53:33
quite candid like over the last five years, had I not had
53:36
friends like Kook and Katzie and Steve and and many others here,
53:41
I don't think I would have made it.
53:42
I don't think I would have made it three to five years.
53:45
You know, it's it's it's it's tough to I think have a
53:50
concentrated position in in any stock.
53:53
But even if you had a diverse portfolio, right, and, and you
53:56
had, you know, if you ran into a situation like this, I mean,
54:00
even this past April when the market sold off, it would have
54:04
been hard for people to have a high level conviction and, and
54:08
hold on and kind of see the forest from the trees.
54:12
And so I think having a community where and, and the
54:18
reason about space mob is like you have people from all walks
54:21
of life in different disciplines.
54:23
You know, for people like me, I've, I've been through a number
54:25
of cycleslike.com financial crisis, you know, the US, the US
54:32
ratings downgrade. And what was that 2011, 2012?
54:35
I mean COVID, of course, I mean, there's, there's so many, right?
54:38
And so you see a lot of market cycles and understand, you know,
54:44
that, that this is just part, this is a feature like markets
54:47
go through the cycles and you're going to have moments where it's
54:52
absolutely euphoria. And this was like what, middle
54:55
of October, the first half of October, it was like absolutely
54:58
euphoria. And, and I'm sure if everybody
54:59
was like, there's nothing I can do wrong.
55:01
I'm making money everywhere. And that's, that's when your,
55:03
your, your antenna should go up and, and you should be thinking
55:06
about potentially, you know, hedging or reducing some of your
55:10
risk, right. And so now when the market is
55:14
going completely one way and, and by the way, it's like, it's
55:17
not just, you know, there are people like, well, if someone's
55:19
out there shorting everything, it's like, no, there's, there's
55:21
like real sellers, like people, institutions, retail.
55:25
I mean, unfortunately, like I saw some people on Twitter like
55:28
they got margin called. And, and so that's that's why
55:31
you see this cascading effect of stocks going down.
55:34
And it's like, and then you know, when you have algos get
55:37
into it and you've got these, you know, Ctas, which are trend,
55:41
trend, trend following hedge funds that you know, are
55:45
quantitative, like they'll, they, they ride momentum up and
55:48
they also sell on the way down. It kind of just cascades, right?
55:52
And so we kind of saw that today where you had a number of any
55:57
basically everyone wanted to go one way, whether it's like long
56:00
only sellers, hedge funds selling for probably de grossing
56:04
there. You know, maybe some people are
56:06
are, you know, shorting, which by the way, like shorting into
56:09
this type of environment is not easy.
56:11
Like when you've got stocks down, I mean, obviously you know
56:15
the mark, I think the S&P is off what 5-6 percent from the highs.
56:17
But it's hard to show short stuff when when things are down.
56:22
You know, if you look at like some of these momentum names and
56:26
Asti guess you can kind of include in there as a high
56:28
growth name. But when stocks are down 10,
56:31
eleven, 12%, that's not something that you probably want
56:34
to press as a short. If anything, you're probably
56:37
looking to cover recover some part of your position if you
56:41
were, if you were, you know, if you had some profit.
56:45
But, but yeah, I think I think having the ability to especially
56:51
for retail investors, you know, having the ability to
56:54
commiserate with others and, and kind of keep an even keel and
56:57
vent, you know, and, and you see it in Twitter where people kind
57:01
of use it as a as a, as therapy, where they'll just vent and
57:06
they'll like go off on management or they'll, they'll
57:08
complain about the, you know, find some reason like, oh, short
57:12
sellers are doing this. And it's, it's kind of
57:14
interesting because I think there was someone today who was
57:18
kind of lambasting management about today.
57:21
And whatever wrongs that they were thinking or that the
57:25
commander could be doing better over the last few weeks just
57:27
came out. And it's like, yeah, it's like,
57:30
and you know, the price, price rights, the narrative, right?
57:34
Like people freaking out and it's like, you know, it's this,
57:38
the company is no different. Like every, every stock is down
57:42
from October peak like 50-60 percent, 40%, whatever it is,
57:46
right? And so just be able to recognize
57:50
and be aware of that in yourself.
57:51
And and so next time you'll be a better investor, right?
57:54
Like maybe if you do have that regret now and you feel bad,
58:00
then the next time when you do have kind of hit all time highs
58:03
like you should, instead of thinking and, and by the way,
58:07
like people have this fear, they're like, if I sell now, if
58:10
I sell some now then and it goes up even higher, then I'm going
58:13
to be kicking myself where I'll feel worse.
58:15
And it's like, well, do you really, would you feel worse or
58:18
would you feel worse if like there's a 50% drawdown and you
58:20
didn't do anything about it? Which I think like to me in my
58:25
case, like when I do something when I'm at an all time high and
58:29
I take some action and, you know, crystallize some profits
58:32
and, and take it off the table, like I feel better because it's
58:36
like mentally I have a win. And then and I did something
58:38
about it. And then when there is a draw
58:39
down, it's like, oh, well, it's OK.
58:41
Like I, I took some something off the table and, and so I feel
58:44
good about it and I'm able to ride volatility much, much
58:47
better in that case. But anyway, it's something to
58:50
think about. But but yeah, I agree.
58:51
I think having people with, with a common interest in in
58:57
particular like this company, it helps you through the ups and
59:01
downs, right? And so even me doing the space,
59:04
I mean, some of you guys are benefiting from listening to me
59:06
just ramble, but then I'm also benefiting because I'm getting
59:09
all this stuff out, right? And so it's almost like, I guess
59:14
as Cuckoo would say, it's almost like therapy.
59:15
But let's see here. Just going to see if there's any
59:18
other questions on here. But yeah, it's a tough time.
59:29
You're not. Alone, everybody has drawdowns,
59:31
I think. I think importantly, just make
59:34
sure you don't do anything rash like I think not going into
59:39
margin in the sense under certain environment if you do
59:42
have margin like I would recommend you know cancel.
59:48
Removing that margin because. Because I think the other thing
59:51
is like when you're, when you're on margin in a highly volatile
59:56
stock and in a volatile backdrop, one or two things can
1:00:00
happen either or one of three things happen.
1:00:02
Either you're lucky and stock rebounds and you do well because
1:00:06
you're on margin and hopefully you take it off at that point or
1:00:09
things go get worse and you get tapped out.
1:00:13
You know, you're forced to cover, which is like the
1:00:15
absolute worst thing because when you're forced to cover, you
1:00:18
know, sell and and cover your margin, that's usually at the
1:00:22
worst possible time. And then the third, the third
1:00:25
part, which I think is it is even worse, is that the mental
1:00:30
anguish of being on margin right?
1:00:31
Where you, you're sweating every tick.
1:00:34
And, and by the way, like if anyone feels this way where
1:00:37
you're watching the stock and every tick is like brutal,
1:00:40
whether it's it's up or down and, and you're praying like
1:00:43
it's the stock doesn't go up if you're long or, or down.
1:00:45
If you're short, then you're too big, you're too your size, too
1:00:48
big to the point where it's mentally it's going to crush you
1:00:52
and you're going to end up possibly, you know, you know,
1:00:56
make bad decisions like you might decide to, you know, do
1:01:01
more margin or you might sell at the wrong time or whatever it
1:01:03
is, right? You're being forced into like
1:01:06
this unnatural decision, which is not good or at worse, like it
1:01:11
mentally, you know, takes you out, which is not good either.
1:01:15
So I think it's important to have mental health, you know,
1:01:17
physical health, of course, but by by being on margin, you're
1:01:22
just forced into this like contract where you can't just
1:01:27
kind of let the process play out, which is what AC Space
1:01:29
Mobile has been over the last five years.
1:01:32
And it's not always been happy. It's been brutal, like
1:01:35
absolutely brutal at times. And then for those people who
1:01:39
are able to, who had the conviction of mental fortitude
1:01:42
to ride through those periods of uncertainty and, and
1:01:47
destitution, it was highly rewarding, right?
1:01:51
And, and everything has come together.
1:01:52
And we're at this point, like I've talked about this with that
1:01:56
meme of, of the guy who's running with the football and
1:01:59
he's about to, and they're, he's celebrating, right?
1:02:01
And he's, he's like pseudo spiking the ball, but basically
1:02:05
like drops, you know, because he's so cocky, he like drops the
1:02:08
football on the 1 yard line and doesn't score the touchdown.
1:02:10
We're kind of at that point right now.
1:02:12
And, and I think don't be on margin where the football's
1:02:16
being forced from you and you can't, you can fund the fall
1:02:19
into the, into the end zone like you've got to be able to, I
1:02:24
don't know, you've got to Juke a few more players in order to
1:02:26
make it into the end zone. And so that's what market
1:02:29
volatility is. And I think heading into 2026,
1:02:33
you know, we're here at the end of 2025, the, the process like
1:02:37
everything looks so good for this company.
1:02:41
You know, you've got commercial momentum and we've got, we just
1:02:44
signed like the biggest commercial contract ever with
1:02:47
Saudi Telecom. And it's not like Saudi Telecom
1:02:50
is some little, you know, M&O out in the Caribbean.
1:02:54
Like this is the marquee mobile network operator in the Middle
1:02:58
East where they're kind of like the, you know, the AT&T and
1:03:01
Verizon in the Middle East where people look to them, right?
1:03:04
And so not only do they cover the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
1:03:07
they also cover, you know, 13 other countries and they provide
1:03:11
services there that, you know, it's over what, 170 million
1:03:13
subscribers that they cover. And they've got access to 60
1:03:19
megahertz of S band spectrum. They also are probably going to
1:03:22
get L band spectrum. Like the setup is so amazing.
1:03:26
Like we're going to dominate in in the Middle East.
1:03:28
And of course, like Saudi Arabia, you know, the, the
1:03:31
Prince just met with, with President Trump and sign a
1:03:35
defence pact. Like, yeah, we have the
1:03:39
satellites orbiting the Earth. Like, you know, what if Saudi
1:03:41
Arabia's like, hey, we want a golden gnome too.
1:03:45
Sure, like we're already partners with Saudi Telecom like
1:03:48
yeah, we can make that happen. And depending on you know, the
1:03:50
comfort of course of comfort level of of the US government,
1:03:53
but that that's just like one M&O out of 50 and we've got all
1:04:02
these other mores, you know these others to sign.
1:04:04
Now obviously the you can't sign all 50 at the same time.
1:04:07
You need to stage, stage us out depending on how the
1:04:10
constellations deployed and, and obviously you turn on each
1:04:12
country and each region at a time and then once everything's
1:04:16
OK, then you turn on another one.
1:04:18
But that kind of gives you the, a sense for like the power,
1:04:23
right? Like we, we got $175,000,000
1:04:26
prepayment. That's nuts.
1:04:27
Like we went from 20 and 25 with AT&T Vodafone to 65 with, with
1:04:33
Verizon. And now we're at 175 with, with,
1:04:37
with Saudi Telecom. And then who's next?
1:04:39
Like, you know, Bell Canada, Eddie Salat, which is Abu Dhabi,
1:04:43
which you know, there's some links the reason why I keep
1:04:45
bringing that one up, like there's some speculation that
1:04:48
that could be another MNO that that comes online and, and
1:04:52
potential premium there could be pretty big.
1:04:56
So yeah, there's Telefonica. I mean there there's a whole
1:05:00
host of them. And then we haven't even talked
1:05:01
about like Sacco JV. You know, we just, we just
1:05:06
established our network operating center in Germany and
1:05:08
you've got like people from Vodafone who are now part of
1:05:12
Satco JV. They're talking very bullishly
1:05:14
about all the MNO interest that didn't signed up.
1:05:16
And we're well positioned to get 2 gigahertz S band spectrum out
1:05:21
of the reallocation in 2027 for Europe.
1:05:25
And yeah, there's there's just like, so much like.
1:05:30
There's so many positive things that are that.
1:05:31
Are that are happening and and yeah, the the market, it sucks.
1:05:36
We had to take draw down price change of sentiment.
1:05:39
People are are now when when the stock's at 100, everyone's
1:05:43
thinking about everything that's positive about the company.
1:05:45
When the stock's at 50, it's like, Oh my gosh, yeah.
1:05:48
What if BB6 doesn't launch in the first half of the what if
1:05:51
BB7 doesn't go to the Cape? They're just thinking about all
1:05:55
all the negative things, right? Justifying why the stock is at
1:05:58
50. It's like, well, the stock must
1:05:59
be at 50 because of this. And it's like, no, the stock is
1:06:02
at 50 because the macro environment sucks.
1:06:05
There's so much uncertainty and for companies that are pre
1:06:08
revenue, they're going to get tagged more.
1:06:10
And by the way, like we we're you know, we just had a $14
1:06:14
million quarter. It's not, not massive, but it's
1:06:16
a start. And then next quarter is going
1:06:18
to be what 35 to 60 million in revenue, which is the quarter
1:06:24
that we're in right now. Right.
1:06:25
Like the where, what is it November 20th.
1:06:27
So we've got, we got like 40 some odd days left.
1:06:32
Yeah, we're we're going to have material and and 10 million of
1:06:36
that is going to be gateway say also the rest of it as the
1:06:38
company has mentioned is going to be defense contract revenue.
1:06:42
And so it'll be interesting to see what the company has to say
1:06:44
about that. But anyway, but yeah, we've got
1:06:48
Golden Dome. I think the timing on that
1:06:49
because of the government shutdown is, you know, we're
1:06:51
supposed to find out according to our work, it's going to be
1:06:55
probably sometime in January or by January.
1:06:58
So yeah, there's a lot of things that are that are on the cusp
1:07:02
here. And so I think I'll, I'll, I'll
1:07:05
end the space with this. I think in closing, yeah, it's
1:07:08
important to stay focused. Like there's, the market sucks
1:07:12
and it mentally it's going to put you in a bad place.
1:07:16
But just remember, just know what you own.
1:07:18
Like this company has raised, you know, in total liquidity and
1:07:22
potential liquidity $3 billion. We have like 4 marquee
1:07:28
definitive commercial agreements.
1:07:30
We've got, you know, 4647 more of these things to sign.
1:07:35
So these are all distinct economic events that are going
1:07:38
to happen. And, and then you can start
1:07:40
modelling in what the impact is. And you know, it's like we
1:07:46
mentioned Bank of America has like I think in 2027, just a few
1:07:50
100 million revenues, like that's going to be.
1:07:52
And that, that's the beauty of it, right?
1:07:54
Like the Street is underestimating this company and
1:07:55
that's what you want, right? You want the ability for the
1:07:59
company to come out once Commercial Services launch and,
1:08:02
and you know, financial performance kicks in.
1:08:05
You want to be in a situation where analysts are having to
1:08:09
revise their, their, their finished productions higher,
1:08:11
right, and raise price targets. And, and these guys and, and
1:08:15
we're actually lucky that we have a number of research
1:08:18
channels now that are neutral or we even have some that are
1:08:21
underperform. Those are the ones that have to
1:08:23
ultimately upgrade the stock later, right when when things
1:08:27
kick off. So let me see.
1:08:32
Actually, there are a few more questions.
1:08:33
That came up. Let me talk.
1:08:35
Let. Me just see real quick here
1:08:40
actually, you know. What I I do have to end the
1:08:42
space because my son should be down the soccer soon.
1:08:45
But yeah, everyone just stay focused.
1:08:47
Like, yeah, tomorrow the market could be down again and the
1:08:50
stock could be down a few more bucks.
1:08:51
But just keep in mind all those things that I mentioned that,
1:08:58
you know, you the market is the macro is going to kind of swish,
1:09:03
move stocks around and volatility in situations like
1:09:06
this is actually your friend because if you're playing your
1:09:08
cards right, like you might be able to stack more shares and
1:09:12
use these opportunities. And I think knowing, you know,
1:09:17
to the, the lay lay person who might be short of the stock or,
1:09:22
you know, might be looking at it and, and thinking, oh, you know
1:09:25
what, it it was really high up. It's pre revenue.
1:09:27
Like I'm not going to touch it. Like that's their lost
1:09:29
opportunity. Like for you understanding that,
1:09:32
Hey, there's, there's some of the parts for here.
1:09:34
The spectrum value is 15,000,000 billion dollars and the, the
1:09:37
stock, the stock, you know, the market capitalization of the
1:09:39
company is 18 billion. Like what's a disconnect here?
1:09:42
And and so it's like, oh, there's an opportunity to buy it
1:09:45
and, and you're buying it for three to $4 billion right on the
1:09:49
cusp of this launch campaign, which we know like has usually
1:09:53
positive momentum to it. You know, commercial service is
1:09:55
going to be launched. They're going to be signing more
1:09:57
M&O agreements. You know, Bell Canada is going
1:09:59
to happen. Edisa lot like some of these
1:10:01
others are going to going to happen.
1:10:03
And so now's a good time. Like the market sucks, but I
1:10:07
think it's, it's weird, like some people find it easier to
1:10:10
buy a stock at 100 versus buying it at 50 after a big draw down,
1:10:14
right. And so, you know, try to think
1:10:17
like a long term investor and know what you own.
1:10:21
And, and yeah, I think, I think it's these types of it's these
1:10:26
types of Corrections and, and pull backs are, are what really
1:10:30
determines like who, you know, the ability to generate wealth,
1:10:36
you know, long term wealth versus, you know, people who get
1:10:39
money taken away from them, who, who don't have the ability to,
1:10:42
who have, who don't have staying power.
1:10:44
It's like when you own a stock and you don't really know much
1:10:47
about it, like maybe you, you know, put on a speculative
1:10:50
position. Those are situations where it's
1:10:52
down 20 to 30%. You have no idea.
1:10:54
Like should I buy more of this? Should I own it versus like AST
1:10:57
space mobile? You know what you're on, you
1:10:59
know what's on the what's coming?
1:11:01
It's like, yeah, I'm going to buy more.
1:11:02
Or, you know, depending on your situation, like you, you'll have
1:11:06
a better sense of what you want to do, whether that's, you know,
1:11:10
buying more or, you know, maybe maybe you did take a
1:11:13
speculative, you know, margin position and you want to stay in
1:11:16
the game, but you're faced with a tough decisions like, you know
1:11:19
what, I'm going to close out this margin and it's going to be
1:11:22
painful, but I I want to be able to ride this because, you know,
1:11:25
there volatility. I don't want to be tapped out.
1:11:28
But anyway, that's I I'm now I'm rambling so I'll stop there.
1:11:31
But yeah, I hope this conversation was helpful.
1:11:36
I know it's painful, but you know, I think long term
1:11:39
everything's fine and yeah, we'll we'll we'll see what
1:11:43
tomorrow brings. But anyway, on to there.
1:11:46
I'll let run for a bit and we'll catch up again soon.
1:11:49
Take everyone. Thanks for.
1:11:52
Listening to the AM. AST Space Mobile Podcast If you
1:11:55
enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
1:11:58
podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
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media, or leave a rating and review to catch all the latest
1:12:05
news about. AST Space Mobile.
1:12:07
Make sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
1:12:10
next time. We're doing something very, very
1:12:16
big and I think. With this technology, we can
1:12:18
really affect billion lives. AST Space Mobile is the only
1:12:22
company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
1:12:26
broadband connectivity directly from space to do everyday
1:12:30
smartphone. People will just basically turn
1:12:32
their phone and be simplest regardless of where you are.
1:12:35
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
1:12:38
satellite. Our role is.
1:12:40
To bring this. Into reality, always in
1:12:43
partnership with the MMO. Listen, Waffles.