Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Sifting Through the FUD and the Path to Orbit

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Anpanman - Sifting Through the FUD and the Path to Orbit · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
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We just basically turn your phone be seamless regardless of
0:14
where you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite, satellite.
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Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:27
Everyone, thanks for joining today.
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It's a beautiful day in New York City.
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And of course people are frustrated with stock price
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performance of AST, which I can fully understand because I'm a
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large shareholder myself. But but yeah, I just wanted to
0:43
fire up his face and talk about a few different things, which I
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guess bubbled up during conversations with people
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online. And so I thought maybe better to
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just have a space and and talk about some of these things.
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So first topic I wanted to cover is sector beta.
1:01
And so I think, and I, I've said this multiple times, but for
1:04
those that don't do this, like if you have AST space mobile on
1:08
your watch list, you should also have Rocket Lab.
1:12
The two companies trade pretty much on top of one another.
1:15
You know, sometimes they, in terms of the actual stock price,
1:18
sometimes AST will be higher, sometimes Rocket Lab will be
1:20
higher, but they have a very high correlation.
1:23
Actually, I haven't looked at the correlation.
1:26
Let me see. But I I would assume correlation
1:29
is probably close to, let's see, probably close to not one, but
1:37
but high up there. Let me just look here, actually,
1:44
yeah, I mean the yeah, the correlation between the two, I
1:47
think it's in the 96th percentile.
1:48
So whenever people are upset about AST specifically, but
1:54
they're not looking at Rocket Lab, some of these other
1:57
companies, Firefly, Lunar or intuitive machines, ticker LUNR
2:05
or Black Sky, BKSY, sometimes it's good to have contacts
2:09
because these companies more and more are all traded as a basket.
2:14
Whether it's SpaceX guys who are short a basket of these names as
2:19
a hedge or for all the numerous ETFs that have recently popped
2:24
up where ASC, Rocket Lab, Intuitive machines, Red wire,
2:30
even Firefly, you know that all these companies are top
2:33
holdings. And so when people trade around
2:36
ETFs and they send them up, then they, you know, the sector
2:40
typically trades higher together.
2:41
And then when they're selling ETFs and you know, if there's,
2:46
if there's a difference between the underlying and the and the
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ETF price, you know, obviously arbitragers will go out there to
2:52
recreate the basket, but whether that's up or down, but but yeah,
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these names are going to trade together.
3:00
And so today is no different. You have Rocket Lab, Firefly,
3:03
they're down for whatever reason, intuitive machines, but
3:07
obviously off the bottoms, these these names are, are doing
3:10
better as well as AST. But it's important to have that
3:13
context where, you know, the company has, after the Bluebird
3:21
7 mishap, you know, the failure to be inserted into proper
3:25
orbit, the company has underperformed the sector by, I
3:28
think roughly 10%. But it, you know, the, the
3:31
entire sector has drawn down from April highs.
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And so I think for day-to-day movements, it's important to
3:38
have these on your watch list. And, and I think that will give
3:42
some people a better sense of, you know, sanity, that perhaps
3:48
the world is not against you, that if the sector's training
3:51
down, there's a good chance that AST is going to be down.
3:53
Or if the sector's up, just like yesterday, there's a good chance
3:56
that AST is going to be up. And so that will help you get a
4:00
better grip on day-to-day volatility, right.
4:04
And so I think, you know, that said Bluebird 7 because it was
4:09
lost it I just, I just did a stock price comparison, you
4:14
know, return relative to, I think it was April 17th, which
4:18
is that Friday before the launch on Sunday.
4:21
And you know, AST has underperformed some of the other
4:26
names by call it 10%, but all the names are down.
4:29
So, so yeah, the loss of Weber Seven clearly has had an impact.
4:34
And of course, you know, it's not just the loss of satellite,
4:36
but it's also the potential for Blue Origin to be offline for
4:41
some period of time, which is, you know, our primary launch
4:45
vehicle. And so, so that, that has put a
4:48
damper on things, but but I'll talk a bit more about when we
4:53
could expect that vehicle to come back online shortly.
4:57
So moving on in terms of short interest, I know people like to
5:02
put out there that perhaps AST is one of the highest short
5:05
interest stocks, you know, relative to other names.
5:09
And I figured I would just finally put together some of the
5:12
numbers around it. And so I tweeted this earlier
5:16
and just breaking down the short interest, I'll just go through
5:20
the calculations. But AST if you count Class A,
5:23
Class B and Class C shares, the total shares that's seeing right
5:26
now is 388 million. And out of that for Class A,
5:31
there's a number of shares that are are not part of the float.
5:35
They're, you know, owned by strategics.
5:36
And those strategics with the exception of Rakatan, which is
5:39
selling down to a level of half of their previous ownership,
5:44
those strategics now perform of that account for 42.4 million
5:48
shares that are held, which includes Rakaton at 15 and a
5:52
half million. Once they've, you know, finished
5:53
their selling, Alphabet 8.9 million, AT&T 6.3 million,
5:58
Verizon 6.1 million in Vodafone at 5.5.
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So that's about 42.4 million shares that are not really in
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the tradable float, right? So these are shares that are
6:08
owned by strategics. They're not.
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They're not selling it anytime soon.
6:12
And then moving on to Class B, there's only two holders.
6:15
Vodafone has 9 million shares there.
6:17
And American Tower, you know, they did monetize a portion of
6:21
their stake in order similar to Rakuten in order to deleverage.
6:26
And so they still own 2.2 million shares.
6:28
And then Class C, of course, which is a Bell Avalon, he owns
6:32
78.2 million shares. So if you subtract all those
6:35
shares from the total shares outstanding OF38088, that leaves
6:40
you a tradable float of 256,000,000.
6:43
And the most recent real time short interest, which is now at
6:46
its all time high is at 64,000,000.
6:49
And so if you make some assumptions around the
6:52
convertible bonds that are outstanding, you know some of
6:55
them are in the money, but you know there's some associated
6:59
level of delta, which is the amount of shares that you would
7:02
hedge if you're a convertible ARB.
7:04
These guys don't have a fundamental, typically don't
7:07
have a fundamental view on the stock.
7:08
They are hedged against the underlying warrant or you know,
7:11
call option in the bond. And what these guys do is they
7:15
will trade around the deltas or the volatility, right?
7:17
So if the stock goes up, they pick up deltas, you know, the
7:21
the underlying warrant gains value.
7:23
And so then they short more stock and then if the stock goes
7:26
down, they buy that hedge or the short interest back because
7:31
they're at the underlying warrant loses deltas, right?
7:35
And so by trading this back and forth, you're basically
7:38
monetizing the value of that option.
7:42
And as a result of that, you know, at the current stock
7:46
price, I'd assume that, you know, 80% of convertible bond
7:50
holders are arbitragers. And you know, the resulting
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deltas is call it, you know, there's probably 11,000,000
7:56
shares short related to convertible ones.
7:59
And so if you subtract 11,000,000 out of 64, that gets
8:03
you to 53. And so 53 / 256, you know, the
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actual fundamental or basket shorts or whoever it is, you
8:12
know, that's approximately 21% of the float or 20.7% of the
8:16
float short. So, so that's, that's a pretty
8:19
high number. I mean, it's not a crazy number
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like 50% or 40%, but it's, it's pretty high.
8:25
And so I think the, the set up here is similar to what we had
8:29
seen back in and I posted about this before, but back in 2024
8:34
ahead of what was back then unknown catalyst, which was a
8:40
well AT&T was expected to enter into a commercial agreement.
8:43
But then Verizon was the unknown catalyst.
8:44
And, and that ignited the stock, which you don't saw the stock go
8:50
from what is it $3 to a high of $39.00 that summer.
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And, and at that time, I think we were at really high levels of
8:57
short interest. And then last year we're going
9:01
into May, we had a pretty high level of short interest.
9:06
And then of course we had a number of catalysts that that
9:10
kicked off into June and, and the stock, you know, ramped up
9:15
from there. I think if I recall, and this is
9:18
something that, yeah, Dave posted an account that I follow
9:21
who is a, is a big shareholder who I, I respect quite a bit.
9:25
He, he invested in his team, quite a few other names, but he,
9:29
I reposted this tweet where he had talked about how sentiment
9:33
was very low. People were complaining.
9:35
I mean, it's a very similar dynamic to today where the stock
9:38
price is in the 20s. They're calling for blood from
9:40
management and short interest is high.
9:42
And then of course, the stock took off.
9:45
I mean, part of it back then, I believe was ASD getting, you
9:51
know, the Vodafone India or Vodafone Idea contract.
9:55
But also, let me just look here, got to look at my post.
9:59
I believe that's, that's the time when Trump also made some
10:01
comments about removing some of the business from Elon Musk in,
10:05
in SpaceX. And so that kicked off a pretty
10:08
big rally. There were a few other catalysts
10:10
as well. I'm just trying to go back to
10:12
my, my tweet here. But, you know, we, we kind of
10:17
have this interesting, I guess, seasonality, right, where things
10:21
kind of kick off. We, we consolidate over the
10:24
course of the first quarter and then heading into the second
10:26
quarter things get spicy, right. And similarly we have a the same
10:31
type of setup happening this year, interestingly, which I
10:34
think it would have started and you know, we, we we're all
10:38
hoping it would start with the, the successful deployment of
10:40
Bluebird 7, but of course that did not go off as it as planned.
10:45
And as a result, you know that the, the stock has
10:49
underperformed, right. And so actually, let me see
10:53
here. I did find, yeah.
10:56
So in 2025, during that May, June time frame, that's when
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Trump threatened Musk with, with, you know, the pulling
11:05
business from him. Also, that's when we were added
11:08
to the US large cap Russell 1000, which by the way, ranked
11:13
day happened yesterday. And so over the coming 4 weeks,
11:17
there will be an update on what are pro form of waiting will be
11:22
in that index. And so you know, given that the
11:25
market, you know, we've we've essentially more than tripled
11:28
since the last time we were added to the Russell 1000.
11:32
There will be an additional waiting to our stock.
11:34
And that will, you know, prompt indexers to have to buy
11:38
additional shares, you know, ETS funds in order to mimic and
11:43
properly track the performance of the Russell 1000.
11:46
So that that's happening by the end of June, which or sorry, by
11:51
the end of May. And so over the next 4 weeks,
11:54
we'll get updates on what our weightings going to be.
11:57
I and I did ask a friend who has access to index arbitrage
12:02
research, you know, we'll see what, what people are
12:05
projecting. But that could depending on how
12:09
you think the weighting might change, that could drive
12:11
additional demand for, call it, 10 million shares in ASC, which
12:14
is not a small number. I mean, we've seen how at least
12:17
from the sentiment point of view, how a Rakaton selling
12:19
15,000,000 shares has set people off and also I'll go as well I
12:24
guess. But I, I think we're probably
12:27
pretty close to Rakaton being done.
12:31
Maybe they have, I don't know, 2 to 3,000,000 shares depending on
12:34
what the price sensitivity is. But the grand scheme of things,
12:37
that's not really a lot that's left.
12:39
And so when, I guess the, the last update on their 13D
12:44
amendment, they were selling with the stock price lower,
12:46
there was lying like 250,000 shares a day, which quite kindly
12:50
is not going to impact the stock price much.
12:52
But once they're done, I think from a sentiment point of view,
12:56
perhaps that will help 'cause I, I think like people are, are
12:59
very focused on that. And then the other thing that
13:02
happened last May was when was I believe the Legato spectrum that
13:07
term sheet that deal got went definitive.
13:10
And so that was a pretty big, big catalyst.
13:12
So similar to back then. I think we're we're setting up
13:15
for what is going to be a pretty big May, which is going to be
13:19
our first batch shipment. And, and then of course, you
13:21
know, shortly thereafter the second batch shipment and, and
13:24
seeing the, the time between those two.
13:27
And then of course the third one will tell us a lot about
13:31
cadence, right, production cadence of have they solved all
13:34
the issues that which I believe they've solved stacking issues.
13:38
But then of course, once you're, once you've put a satellite
13:41
together, you have to test it and that takes quite some time.
13:43
And, and testing in the environmental chamber that I
13:47
think that takes like 2 weeks or so, which, you know, there is a
13:51
big, big upfront investment in doing that because then out of
13:54
that testing, you might find something didn't perform and
13:57
then you've got to fix it. And so that's why it sometimes
13:59
when you think you're done, it might actually take a little
14:03
more time in order to resolve these issues, which, you know,
14:06
again, this is space. And so you don't want to launch
14:09
a satellite with known issues. You want to make sure that
14:13
everything is working as as planned and properly.
14:16
And and so once you want satellite, you know, the company
14:21
has been perfect in terms of on their side building satellites
14:25
at work and unfold and and operate.
14:27
Of course, Bluebird 7 was a a launch failure.
14:31
But outside of that, they've got a spotless record, right?
14:33
And so I'd like for them to keep that record.
14:37
But yeah, so moving on to Blue Origin, New Glen, and this is
14:42
part of this is part of the near term catalyst, quite quite
14:45
frankly. But the there, there's an
14:47
article about, I think Blue Origin had posted a job where
14:53
they were looking for an integration specialist who or,
14:56
or someone who's who would help them build their second stage
14:58
booster capacity. And so I think right now, as has
15:04
been, you know, publicized and of course Dave and Limp has
15:07
talked about this as well, but the company is at the cadence of
15:10
building 12 second stage boosters at this point.
15:12
And why is that important? Well, if you build 12 second
15:16
stage boosters, that means you can launch 12 rockets these,
15:20
unlike Starship. And I think this is an important
15:23
distinction when people talk about Starship versus New Glen,
15:27
Starship is doing something pretty difficult, right?
15:30
They're not only reusing the the first stage booster, but they're
15:34
trying to reuse the second stage, which is the top portion
15:37
of the rocket. And So what they're doing is not
15:41
easy 'cause you know, that second stage goes up space, it
15:44
has to do multiple burns and then they're trying to bring
15:48
that second stage back to Earth and have it land on its own
15:52
after doing multiple burns and deploying cargo, you know,
15:56
payload in space. And so that's very different
15:58
than what Blue Origin is doing. Blue Origin is reusing the first
16:02
boost, first stage booster, but the second stage is not
16:05
reusable. So that that second stage, once
16:07
it delivers cargo, it will then come back to Earth and, and you
16:11
know, it will burn up. However, Blue Origin is looking
16:17
at eventually getting to a reusable second stage, but
16:22
that's, you know, that's something that's further out.
16:25
So when looking at how much they could actually launch, the key
16:29
thing is production cadence for the second stage booster,
16:32
because at this point, the first stage, they've got two of them.
16:35
And if they can get to a 30 day cadence of refurbishing those
16:39
things, you know, a 30 day turn around, you're essentially able
16:41
to launch 2 * a month, right? And so that, that would be huge
16:47
if, if they can get to that, that level of reuse and then the
16:52
constraint becomes the second stage booster, which which is
16:58
not reusable, it's expendable. And so I believe Blue Origin is,
17:02
is, you know, obviously they're not going to just rely on two
17:04
first stages. They're, they're working on
17:07
probably bringing another stage into the rotation.
17:11
So that would be 3. And so eventually, again, you
17:14
know, I think they want to get to at least two launches a
17:18
month. And then for the second stage in
17:21
this job posting, they were talking about how they want to
17:23
go from 12 to eventually 62nd stage production, production of
17:29
the second stages by I think Q3 of 2028 and ramp up to 100 by
17:37
2029. And so that's pretty massive,
17:40
right? Like if you can imagine Blue
17:42
Origin, New Glen launching, you know, going from, but this year
17:47
is probably going to be 6 to 8 going from there to at some
17:51
point over the course of 2028, a cadence of 60 a year and then in
17:56
2029 cadence of 100. That's that's a lot of launch
17:59
capacity. And that's that's not inclusive
18:01
of Starship or any of these other vehicles that are going to
18:05
come online. And so, yeah, as a key partner
18:09
for AST, one key one important thing to watch out for is the is
18:16
the FAA investigation. And I I pointed this out before
18:21
in the tweet, but that's going to be pretty big capitalist,
18:24
right? Like I think if the FAA
18:25
investigation follows a similar path as the the first time they
18:31
investigated the New Glenn one launch, you know, the failure of
18:37
the booster where the first stage booster, it deployed the
18:41
second stage properly. And as it returned, there were
18:44
some issues around I think some of the propellant.
18:47
And then, you know, they were unable to reignite the engines
18:49
and they lost that, that first booster.
18:52
That investigation took about 71 days.
18:55
And then after it was concluded, the FAA announced it, I think 2
18:58
days later. And back then Blue Origin, there
19:02
were seven different areas where they, they, they, they were
19:07
applying fixes. And then of course, as we know,
19:11
the second launch of, of New Glen was successful, the booster
19:14
landed and then of course, the third one, but obviously, you
19:16
know, the second stage was not successful.
19:19
And so that's, that's kind of the hold up right now where I
19:22
think if, if we follow a similar, and, and now, by the
19:26
way, like Blue Origin has gone through an FAA investigation,
19:29
they know how to now, they know how to engage with regulators.
19:33
And obviously they'll, they'll need to get to the root cause as
19:38
quickly as they can. But if they, we follow a similar
19:41
type of timeline that puts us into this investigation, perhaps
19:45
closing by the end of June or, you know, July 1st or the 1st
19:50
week of July. And so if they're able to, if
19:54
it's a small problem and they implement fixes, you could
19:56
probably see Blue Origin new Glen launching its first
20:00
commercial cargo sometime in August, right?
20:02
And and that first cargo will most likely be Amazon Leo
20:06
satellites because I, I don't. Think any commercial customer
20:09
will say, hey, let's, let's give it a shot.
20:10
Let's put on a bunch of satellites coming out of this
20:14
investigation. I think Blue Origin 2 will want
20:16
to make sure that they do something.
20:19
Either it would be, it would likely be Amazon Leo satellites
20:23
or it could be a dummy cargo that's pretty heavy.
20:25
They could do one of those two things, but my guess is like
20:28
they'll do it is on Leo cargo because they need to get that
20:33
for flight certification from Space Force, right?
20:36
And for Space Force, I believe and someone can correct me if
20:40
I'm wrong, but I believe you have to send, you know, real
20:43
cargo up in space to get that certification.
20:46
And so that clock restarts. And so they need to do four of
20:49
those in a row perfectly before they can start launching Space
20:53
Force cargo. And as a result of that, by the
20:56
way, because that that count gets restarted, they are
21:01
precluded from launching any government payloads.
21:03
And so as a result, the manifest for Blue Origin is actually in a
21:08
weird way, you know, even though it's been delayed and now it's
21:12
delayed and, you know, there's some concern around the timeline
21:15
for AST, all of those launches are now freed up.
21:18
And so the manifest becomes much less crowded.
21:22
And so for AST, as long as Blue Origin, as long as they can
21:28
address the issue and fix it and launch a successful mission with
21:33
Amazon Leo, then you know, you have a clear path to getting a
21:38
lot of satellites actually launched this year.
21:40
And so so yeah, that that's something to keep an eye out
21:43
for. Any, any Nuggets around the FAA
21:47
investigation, how long that potentially could go, what
21:49
they're finding, if it's if it's a, a minor issue or if it's a
21:53
bigger issue. I, I'm sure the company will
21:55
have, you know, their, their talk and talks with Blue Origin
21:58
day-to-day. And they probably get, they
22:00
probably have a pretty good insight into what happened and
22:04
what, you know, what type of investigation is going to come
22:07
out of that. But but at the right time, you
22:09
know, we'll probably hear a bit more about it from Blue Origin
22:12
and perhaps even AST. And that's, that's only that it
22:18
is shareholders. I recommend people ask that
22:21
question to management for the upcoming quarterly update, which
22:26
by the way, is only 10 days away.
22:28
And so I, I guess one thing I'll, I'll point out in regards
22:31
to communications yesterday there were people, you know, on
22:35
the back of the company, obviously, you know, the stock
22:39
not trading well the day before yesterday, people are really
22:42
losing it, right? And so one of the, the, the
22:46
comments that people had was, you know, management needs to
22:49
communicate more. And, and I went back and I
22:52
looked and the last update we got was actually on April 20th,
22:57
right? Or actually I see that back
22:58
April 22nd. So a little over a week ago, we
23:02
got communications from the company that, you know, we got,
23:05
and this is only people forget, we got FCC approval for
23:07
consolation. And then just three days prior
23:10
to that, which was unfortunate news, but the DPR that, you
23:13
know, they lost blue birds even update on production.
23:18
And so it's like, I don't know, sometimes I feel like some of
23:22
our like crypto guys like they need to hear from Dez or
23:25
something. They need PR on a minute by
23:28
minute or hourly basis or daily basis to explain why the stock
23:32
price is down or why they need like some positive NEWS UPDATE
23:36
to get the stock price up. And it's like, you know, that's
23:38
not how companies, multi billion dollar companies work.
23:41
They don't put out tweets or engage with retail investors
23:47
holding their hand because the stock price is down 5 or 6% or
23:50
whatever it is 10 percent, 20%. They, they focus on execution,
23:56
right? And so, and obviously, like the
23:58
company is behind on that. And as we've discussed ad
24:02
nauseam, like space is hard, right?
24:04
And so the key question is like, as investors for some of these
24:09
people, do they want to hear daily updates?
24:12
Like should a bell take a good hour out of his time and and,
24:16
and catalog accomplishments for the day and and setbacks and
24:20
then tweet it out or PR it? No, that makes absolutely zero
24:24
sense. Like what, what public company
24:26
does that? Most public companies only
24:29
report material information, you know, obviously, like if
24:33
something big happens, then they report it at the time, but then
24:36
beyond that you're going to get a quarterly update, right?
24:39
And this Trump administration, by the way, which I think it's
24:41
this is bad. Is is moving to this this
24:45
framework where they may allow companies to just update you on
24:48
a semi annual basis just twice a year, which is insane.
24:52
Which I think, you know, if you want to talk about radical
24:57
opaqueness like that, that would be a terrible way for, you know,
25:01
companies to go in terms of SEC reporting.
25:04
But but yeah, you know, it's it's it goes back to like what
25:07
Tut says, right, Since nothing drives sentiment like price,
25:11
like when or what. Yeah, Dave was saying, you know,
25:14
we we got, we had a satellite that was not placed in proper
25:17
order, but we lost that. And the company communicated
25:20
that right after it happened, which, you know, they could have
25:23
said on that for a while, but they they communicated it that
25:26
that later that day, which I applaud them for.
25:30
And then we got FCC approval on April 22nd.
25:34
And so these are like two major 11 negative and one massively
25:38
positive communication. And yet here we are, you know,
25:41
the stock obviously is, is has underperformed the sector, but
25:45
the sector is down a lot. And people are calling for the
25:49
heads of management. They're like, oh, they could
25:50
have did this better, they could do that better.
25:52
And it's like, what, what more do you want?
25:54
Like the stock price is down, all the space names are down.
25:59
And So what would you like from a multi billion dollar company?
26:04
Do you want them to hold your hand?
26:06
Do you want them to, I don't know, have like an investor call
26:10
and be like, well, today I, I ate, I ate a ham and cheese
26:13
sandwich. And you know, I, I got like, I
26:17
gave a speech to some of the employees are making microns.
26:21
I, I inspected the composite rings and, you know, we feel
26:26
comfortable with those and we're integrating the payloads.
26:29
And this is for like second batch, the first batch, it's
26:31
currently in testing and we hope to get, you know, maybe we'll
26:34
give an update at which by the way, like we're telling people
26:36
30 days and that's what, 2, a little over 2 weeks from now as
26:40
of today. Like, what do you want?
26:43
I mean, what, give me a, an example of a public company that
26:47
is doing something really hard, that's executing, that's giving
26:50
daily or weekly updates. Like I, I want to know, like I'd
26:53
be interested to see like what, what that's about.
26:55
Like, how does that work? And so, you know, I remember
27:00
back in the day in 20, gosh, 2020, I mean, every year
27:04
2022232425 where people, you know, the stock price
27:09
underperforms and then people are over their heads like
27:12
they're, they're losing it. They're like, the company needs
27:14
to put out more PR. They need to do a better job of
27:17
marketing, blah, blah, blah. And it's like I've seen those
27:19
companies, the companies that are focused on PR and marketing
27:23
and they don't execute. And yeah, they, they, I mean, if
27:28
you want APR machine, there's plenty of, you know,
27:31
questionable companies to go invest in.
27:32
But if you're investing in a company that's doing something
27:35
hard, that takes time and there's, there's little to no
27:38
margin for error, which is why this stuff is hard, then then
27:43
that's what a CS doing, right? And I don't think it's
27:46
appropriate nor nor very specifically a good use of time
27:51
for executives to go out and try to hand hold right.
27:55
Like, I mean, they did as much handle only as they could in
27:58
regards to the Blue origin, you know, failure of inserting
28:02
Bluebird 7 into, into orbit. But you know, it's, and it's
28:07
interesting 'cause I think there, there was someone online
28:09
that was saying, and look, this is not like a huge population,
28:13
but someone's like, well, there's rumors that the
28:15
satellite failed because of AST. And it's like, what, where,
28:18
where is that coming from? Specifically?
28:21
Blue Origin said that A/B E3 engine did not ignite out of the
28:24
two, one did not work. And so they couldn't get enough
28:28
thrust given the, you know, they were able to do the, the initial
28:32
orbit, which is the elliptical one, but they didn't get a
28:36
second burn in order to get to a circular orbit, right.
28:39
And so, you know, it's just like one anonymous account that's
28:42
saying this. And, and so sometimes it's like
28:44
my frustration where look, I'd probably be helpful and you
28:48
know, talk to talk to because I can, but sometimes I mean, I'm
28:52
going to get frustrated too, where people are just throwing
28:55
spaghetti at the wall and trying to come up with reasons why the
28:57
stock is down. It's like the stock is down
28:59
because the sector's down. Like it's as simple as that.
29:01
There's like sector, there's factor flows.
29:04
There's, you know, obviously, like right now people are
29:07
plowing money in semiconductors. I mean, asks like software
29:09
folks, right? Like some companies that have
29:11
done well in software operationally, but that you have
29:14
this like massive overhang of AI, It doesn't matter how your
29:18
company's doing. Like the entire sector is being
29:20
sold on the fear of AI. And so that that's like, you can
29:26
be right, but you can be wrong for a long period of time until
29:30
the market corrects for that, right?
29:33
And so I think it's important for people to understand that a
29:37
lot of these things are out of your hands, right?
29:39
Like the the factors moving around, you know, people, maybe
29:43
they're taking risk out of space and they they're finding value
29:47
in somewhere else, right. And sometimes that happens and
29:49
that's where when we have these periods of consolidation where
29:53
AST learn 2025 and 2024, you know, the stock is kind of
29:58
consolidating around Before it was like $20.
30:00
Now it's at 7070 eighty dollars. People get pressure.
30:04
They're like, you know, do something that I want why isn't
30:06
the stock moving up? Like OK, I want the company to
30:10
communicate more PR things. It's like, well, what, what are
30:14
they supposed to communicate? Like they told us that the batch
30:16
is going to be ready in 30 days. We have an earnings update on
30:19
May 11th. What could they possibly tell
30:22
you right now, which is their quiet period, by the way?
30:24
Like what do you need to know? Because the stock is down and
30:28
you need to feel better. OK, I get it.
30:31
Like that's human psychology. And and so if you need to feel
30:36
better, then maybe you should, you know, maybe go to a loved
30:40
one and say give me a hug or something.
30:41
I don't know. But anyway, I will finish this
30:46
thought. I did want to talk a little bit
30:48
about SpaceX Falcon 9. Sorry, I'm jumping around here.
30:51
So there was some questions around, you know, the Falcon 9.
30:56
Is it truly or do we truly have launches set up?
30:59
Why aren't why aren't we seeing them?
31:01
So in the informal websites at track launch, you will see 2
31:06
Falcon nines that are scheduled for ASD Space mobile.
31:09
But you know, some people have asked, well, why isn't the
31:11
company been very specific or where is there official, why
31:14
isn't there official PR about it?
31:16
So it is kind of funny like back in 2022 when the company entered
31:21
into its first multi launch agreement with SpaceX, there was
31:24
a provision in there where the company could not disclose that
31:28
SpaceX was launching their satellite until an agreed
31:31
mutually agreed time, which was literally like probably a few
31:35
weeks before launch. And so we're still under that
31:38
framework. And and so we can't unilaterally
31:41
disclose that we're launching on Falcon Nine.
31:44
That can happen when it becomes very clear and obvious, which
31:46
is, you know, a few weeks prior. And so the reason why we know
31:51
that is the in 2022 that multi launch agreement was actually
31:54
8K. And so going through it, you'll
31:56
see that there is a non disclosure which is binding
32:01
until obviously, you know, both parties agree that it's time to
32:04
announce it. And so with Space XI wouldn't
32:08
expect the company to announce anything until we're closer to
32:11
launch. And So what does that mean?
32:13
Someone asked, you know, when, when are we expecting to go up
32:15
on SpaceX? Well, if you look at the first
32:18
batch, if it's being shipped down to Florida, let's call it
32:20
on May 19th, and it takes a day to get their integration into
32:25
the Falcon 9 fairing. If it follows a normal timeline,
32:29
which is call it two to three weeks, then you know you're
32:32
looking at a June launch. However, because because this is
32:36
a new satellite, it may take a little more time to do
32:38
integration. And the bearers, by the way,
32:40
will have you believe that the satellites don't fit into the
32:44
pairing, which is the funniest thing because like any good
32:50
engineer has a ruler, has the ability to measure, has specs at
32:55
the, I mean by, by the way, like one of our space mob guys who I
33:00
believe works at aerospace company shared with me the
33:03
SpaceX Falcon 9 manual. And so there's a real manual out
33:07
there. It's APDF, it's pretty big and
33:09
it's very exhaustive of yeah, it's like how to use a SpaceX
33:16
Falcon 9. Like if you have a payload,
33:17
these are the things that you need to do to to to integrate
33:20
it. Here's different launch
33:22
adapters. These are the the stresses and
33:24
strange. You should expect to launch it.
33:27
It is pretty cool. It's like this large PDF manual.
33:31
It's it's a it's as if you like, if you can imagine like the car
33:35
manual that you get the manual you get when you buy a new car.
33:38
It's similar to that. But but yeah, it's, I mean, the
33:42
ACS engineers have flown on Falcon 9 twice with Blue Walker
33:46
3 and obviously the Block 1 satellites, they know how big
33:50
the fairing is. They know also the different
33:52
pairing sizes and different adapters.
33:54
So any suggestion that, and this is I, you know, I'm kind of, I'm
34:00
kind of low to, to repeat this stuff, but you know, you have
34:02
some pairs that are pushing this narrative that somehow the
34:04
satellites won't fit. And you know, we're talking
34:07
about 3 satellites, which eventually will go to 4.
34:11
It's just pretty funny, right? It's like guys, guys grasping
34:15
for straws. But but yeah, so for Falcon 9, I
34:19
do expect that we will have 3 launches of three.
34:22
And so that will be over the period of time, which is going
34:25
to be June, July and partially August.
34:30
And so that's 9 satellites. And then I think sometime
34:33
thereafter in September, you'll probably see the first multi
34:37
satellite Blue Origin launch. And so that one is going to be,
34:44
you know, 6 satellites. And so that's how I think
34:47
depending on how you know when, when Blue Origin comes out of
34:50
this FAA investigation and how quickly they launched that first
34:54
commercial satellite payload that that will determine when we
34:59
really start getting like the big numbers of satellites
35:02
launched, right? And so that's why the company is
35:05
still, this is, this is a stretch goal is saying they
35:08
could get to, they're still targeting approximately 45
35:11
satellites by the end of the year.
35:12
And we've talked about this before, like with space
35:14
companies, you're going to give stretch goals because it's not
35:17
just for, I mean, as investors, we should all know that, that
35:21
these are stretch goals, but it's also for internal and
35:26
external purposes, internal meaning employees.
35:29
It's like, hey, we want to get to 45 and that's what we're
35:31
going to execute against. And it's for suppliers, right?
35:34
It's for guys who are providing components.
35:37
It's also for Blue Origin. It's like, hey, we're serious.
35:39
We've made a public statement that we still want to get to
35:42
approximately 45. And as a result, like we need
35:45
you guys to get your ass in gear and find the root cause for the
35:49
second stage booster failure, work with the FAA and fix it so
35:54
we can watch more satellites. And of course, that's in that's
35:57
in Blue Origin's interest too. There's like some suggestion
36:01
like, oh, hey, maybe Blue Origin's trying to sabotage AST.
36:05
That makes like zero sense, right, because Blue Origin, they
36:08
needed two additional commercial flights to then become certified
36:12
for Space Force in order to launch government cargoes, which
36:14
is a big part of their business plan.
36:17
And so losing, losing a payload on your second stage is no boy,
36:24
no right for, for Blue Origin, They, they want to fix that and
36:27
it's, it's going to it's key to unlocking customers.
36:31
It's, it's as if like, you know, if someone were to say that,
36:34
that Rocket Lab, you know, let's say like Neutron gets up to a
36:37
cadence and, and they're putting up a lunar Lander for, for, and
36:43
I'm just making up like Firefly, right?
36:45
And then, and, but then they intentionally destroy their own
36:49
rocket in order to keep Firefly from going to the moon 'cause I,
36:53
you know, Rocket Lab still has like Mars and lunar missions.
36:57
Like why would they do that? Doesn't make any sense.
37:00
It would shut down the rocket program for how many, however
37:02
long? And then in terms of commercial
37:04
cargo, it would give people second thoughts, right?
37:06
It just doesn't make sense. But but, you know, I get it.
37:08
Like people, when something bad happens, there's this coping
37:13
mechanism of humans. Like the initial reaction is to
37:16
think of all the bad things that could possibly happen.
37:19
And you know, what was me and why?
37:21
Why is this happening to me? And, and so you're going to go
37:24
to a pretty dark place, which, but then of course, when you get
37:27
back to a normal sense, you know, more even, you know,
37:31
mental state, then you can get over that, I guess that coping
37:35
mechanism and get to a point where it's like, oh, how to
37:38
think about it constructively. So, but yeah, so going back to
37:42
SpaceX, Falcon 9 will be the next three launches.
37:46
I believe there are additional Falcon 9 launches booked as
37:49
well, but we don't know the total number of those.
37:51
I I there's bears out there speckling that all we have is 3
37:54
and then there's no more, which I knew is wrong.
37:57
But you know, whatever sentiment they can put or whatever
38:00
narrative they can push, you know, so be it, right?
38:04
Which leads me to like the final thing I want to talk about,
38:06
which is bears and panicans. And so as I mentioned before,
38:10
you know, nothing drives sentiment more than price.
38:12
And so I think when you have a pretty big draw down and people
38:16
really lose their shit, that in of itself is a good signal,
38:21
which, you know, we joke about like the cuckoo bottom, where
38:25
when you get to these extreme levels of bearishness and, and
38:28
some people, you know, they, they can hold it together, but
38:31
then at some point they, they enter this period of
38:33
capitulation, you know, mentally, then that can be a
38:37
really valuable signal. And and so for people who, you
38:41
know, are emotionally in a bad place and look for me, by the
38:46
way, like, you know, to have a 40% drawdown, you know, most of
38:51
my public portfolios and AST it's not fun.
38:54
Like it's not something that I revel and or not happy about it.
38:59
Who who who wants to lose money? But for me, yeah, I meant I
39:05
mentally am in the right state where it's like, OK, you know,
39:08
I've had a multi $1,000,000 draw down, but have I sold shares?
39:12
No. Am I prepared for volatility
39:14
like this? Yeah, this is part of it.
39:16
Like, you know, the the volatile swings when the stock was at 2
39:19
and it was, it was, you know, up 30-40 cents, down 20-30 cents
39:23
like that. Those are big swings, right?
39:26
Not in terms of absolute dollars, but they were big.
39:28
And then it was no different when we went to 39 or let's say,
39:33
you know, when we went to 8910 and we drew, we came back down,
39:37
went to 15, came back down, 39 went back down.
39:40
Was it like 17? I mean, people were just
39:42
absolutely losing it at that point.
39:44
And there was a ton of regret. People were like, I wish I'd
39:47
sold there. And I wish, you know, everybody
39:49
wants to be like the perfect trader where I sold at the top
39:52
and I bought at the bottom. And that's that's impossible,
39:54
right? Like not to not to mention, you
39:58
know, there's tax implications and doing, you know, being
40:00
actively an active trader for perhaps your entire position.
40:05
But but I think it's important to note like.
40:09
Understanding yourself, like are you someone who's emotional?
40:12
Are you able to look at things clinically?
40:14
Have you, how much risk do you have on?
40:16
Are you able to tolerate volatility?
40:18
Are you set up to ride this volatility out?
40:20
And so I think it's important for people to reflect on that
40:24
because, yeah, investing's hard. It's not for everybody,
40:29
especially for individual names. And then if you're going to have
40:31
a concentrated position, it takes a certain kind of, I'll
40:35
just say it takes a certain kind of crazy right?
40:37
And, and crazy meaning you are, you understand what you've
40:42
written underwritten in terms of due diligence and you're willing
40:45
to accept the volatility. And, you know, if obviously,
40:49
like if it's a bad, if it's not a good company or a bad
40:51
investment, there's no amount of due diligence you can do like
40:56
it's going to fail, right? Whereas here, you know, I I
40:59
believe me personally that I've picked a one of one investment
41:04
that, you know, has tremendous white space and value creation
41:08
potential and I'm willing to write it out, right.
41:10
And so it that kind of crazy is someone who rides it from I
41:14
don't know what was it the high of 1415 to 2 and then to where
41:20
we are 72, but then also, you know, stop to 130 now out of my
41:24
core position, you know, I haven't touched those.
41:26
But then on the periphery, like, you know, some portion of my
41:29
position have I traded around around.
41:31
Yeah, I and that's, that's, that's like who I am like I, I
41:35
do trade a little bit of my position, but for the core
41:38
position that obviously like, you know, there's tax
41:41
implications if I were to sell just given the capital gains
41:44
that are built in, which I'm trying to avoid, I don't want to
41:46
pay capital gains. But for the trading part of the
41:50
position, yeah, I'll trade some of my ASD around.
41:53
But for the core position, I'm not touching it.
41:55
And I didn't sell any of that core position at 1:30 and I'm
41:59
not selling it here 'cause I think there's more upside,
42:01
right. And if you look at the if you
42:05
look at a bell, he's like the the penultimate, like owner,
42:11
founder, right and operator, right?
42:13
Like he hasn't sold any of his position.
42:15
You know, you have like these bears come out and say whatever
42:19
they what do they want about the company?
42:21
But the proof is in the pudding. Like the CEO who's founded this
42:23
company, he hasn't sold anything.
42:25
You know, he has, he didn't sell anything at 10.
42:28
He didn't sell anything at 2 and he didn't sell anything at 1:30
42:32
in the face of, you know, the company's financing.
42:35
He didn't sell anything and, and he's not selling anything now,
42:38
right? And so, and I think that's a bit
42:40
extreme. Like I think for a bell, it's,
42:44
it's a very unique thing because I, I would expect executive to
42:48
sell some port like take some money down and, and, but, but I
42:53
think he's a unique individual, right?
42:55
And so for example, Scott Wisniewski and, and Andrew
43:00
Johnson and, and some of the other executives, they've sold
43:03
some shares, they haven't sold a majority, they've sold a
43:05
portion, which I think makes sense because you can't, you
43:08
know, you can't. This company does not pay much
43:11
in terms of salaries. Like you're looking at the key
43:13
executives getting paid, call it $250,000 a year and some
43:17
benefits. And it's many of you know, if
43:20
you have a large family and you live in A1 more expensive
43:24
metropolitan area, 250,000 doesn't go very far, especially
43:28
if you're working 24/7 and your and your wife or your partner is
43:32
there doing everything on their own.
43:35
And we got like 3 small kids, you might need to hire help and
43:39
throw money. The problem like get
43:40
babysitters, get, you know, nannies, things like that.
43:43
It's expensive. And so people selling some
43:46
shares to cover their taxes importantly, but I'll also, you
43:52
know, giving themselves some breathing room operationally,
43:55
because the last thing you want is executives sweating over
43:58
their finances and they should be sweating over the business,
44:00
right? And so by selling some stock and
44:04
taking getting me them some financial cushion, they're not
44:06
worried about things that are going on at home.
44:09
They're worrying things that are going on at factory, right.
44:12
And so I think it's important to make that distinction where when
44:16
when execs do sell like they've earned it and it's for AST, it's
44:20
a big part of their compensation.
44:21
It's shares. It's not, you know, cash
44:23
compensation because the company does doesn't really pay people
44:26
cash. And so, you know, going back to
44:30
the the Bell reference, I, I think he is very unique in that
44:34
he hasn't sold anything. And I wouldn't be surprised and
44:37
I would expect him to sell something at some point.
44:40
I, you know, in his previous company, EMC, he did make some
44:43
money, but this is his, this is his Magnus opus.
44:47
Like this is his, his passionate dream, right?
44:50
And so he hasn't. And, and I think Kook has
44:54
mentioned this too, maybe he feels that there's this
44:57
shareholder pact with, with individual investors who pretty
45:00
much saved the company back in the day.
45:02
Like he's going to try to stick it out and hold long as long as
45:05
he can. And at some point, you know,
45:07
some, some rationality, like an estate planner or somebody's
45:11
going to come to him and say, hey, I, I get it, but come on.
45:14
Like set aside 5/10/20 percent of your holdings and monetize
45:20
that and the rest. Like you're going to have plenty
45:22
of skin in the game, which, yeah, Bell's like very unique in
45:25
that regard. Like he hasn't, if you look at
45:27
like Palantir or some of these other companies where insiders
45:31
have sold hand over fist and the company's done well, like that's
45:33
kind of the other side of the coin where it's like that the
45:35
company has a massive opportunity, it's done well and
45:37
executives have sold and as they should, like they're, they're
45:40
being rewarded, right? Whereas in the case with AST,
45:45
yeah, it's very unique situation.
45:46
But but going back to, you know, the Panikins, I think, I think
45:51
it's important to know what you own, right?
45:52
Like if you're sweating over, I mean, I've said this many times,
45:55
but if you're sweating over day-to-day stock price movements
45:58
and you feel this urge to lash out at on Twitter, I guess, and
46:02
do like public therapy or go, go after executives that they
46:07
should be communicating more or that the executives have dropped
46:11
the ball and they haven't executed, which is all fair
46:14
criticism, right? Like then yeah, then if, if that
46:18
really bothers you and the stock rises down, like maybe you're
46:21
too big, maybe you own too much, right?
46:23
Maybe you should de risk to the point where it's not a mentally
46:28
taxing on you every day, right? And I think that's where, that's
46:33
where you know someone, if you have experience in markets and
46:36
you, you have some level of risk tolerance, but then, then you're
46:41
OK with it, right? But, but also if you have
46:45
something that's just so large of your net worth and those
46:49
movements are, they give you mental anguish, like it's not
46:53
worth it. Like I, I, I truly believe like
46:56
you should carry risk that you're comfortable with where
46:59
it's not going to damage you mentally because your health is
47:02
more important than money. And so for those people who who
47:06
kind of go into that category where, you know, going again,
47:11
the company gave us updates on 4/20, they give us 419, they
47:15
give us an update on 4/22. And people are screaming for
47:18
more communications because the stock price is down, but nothing
47:22
else has changed. And, you know, we've got
47:24
earnings on May 11th and we've got, you know, batch shipment
47:28
coming up on approximately May 19th.
47:31
Like what? What more do you want?
47:34
And so, yeah, just just reflect on that because I think it's
47:37
important. Mental health is important, not
47:40
getting over your skis. Like I think, you know, if you
47:44
have an oversized investment in your margin, like that's the
47:47
quickest way to financial ruin, like don't do that to yourself.
47:52
And yeah, just just reflect on that because I think it go
47:56
again, coupling this together, like the fact that I think
48:00
people should follow the the space sector.
48:02
And so before lose it a little, get the rest of the sector, like
48:05
is it down as well or, or, or proxies that we are associated
48:09
with? Are they was down or are they
48:10
up? It all matters, right?
48:13
And so for people who need an explanation of why a stock is up
48:16
or down in a given day, I'll tell you as someone who's been
48:19
investing for well over 20 years and been finance for 30 years,
48:25
often times no one knows. No one knows why something is up
48:29
or down. And that's if if people knew
48:32
exactly why things were up and down, up or down and can predict
48:35
that, then they would be extremely rich, right?
48:38
And they'd be running or they wouldn't be running a hedge
48:41
fund. They would have their own family
48:43
office running multiple billions of dollars, right?
48:46
If they were that good, but, but no one's that good.
48:49
And, and look like it's the, the, I understand the, the grief
48:57
around losing the satellite. And then of course, like things
49:00
getting delayed and people like, well, I need to know why they're
49:03
delayed. Well, the company told us like
49:04
they're stacking issues. And, and then coming out of
49:07
that, like once you fix the stacking issues, which, you
49:09
know, we've talked about where they've strengthened the
49:13
existing rings that we have. And then we got a new design
49:15
that came on by the way, like the company acknowledges too,
49:18
like we, we had a, a delivery of additional satellite, you know,
49:25
composite rings on the Antonov. Like they're giving us as much,
49:30
you know, information as they can.
49:32
And so when you, you know, when, when you're getting that
49:37
information and yet you need more like what, what more can
49:40
you, what more can the company disclose to you?
49:42
And I think part of the other thing I wanted to point out is
49:45
like someone had asked, like they want more detail, they want
49:48
more into like intimate details of what's going on.
49:51
It's like, no company's going to do that.
49:53
Like there's, I think it's important to take a step back
49:56
and, and understand like who are the company's competitors?
49:59
Well, one we have a, an adversary called China and China
50:03
is they've pretty much created copies of Starlink, the fixed
50:09
wireless business. They've also created copies of
50:11
Bluebird satellites, right? And so they're going to stand up
50:13
their own service, which will, you know, perhaps provide
50:18
directed device service for, you know, company, these countries
50:23
that are not as open, but more closed, call it North Korea,
50:26
Russia, Iran, you know, all the wonderful places you'd like to
50:30
visit. And so we, you know, that there
50:34
was a point where some folks in space, space mob had put out
50:39
some pretty decent like designs or their ideas of what a block 2
50:43
design looks like. And then, you know, I think they
50:46
thought twice about it and pulled those off the Internet
50:48
because I think, you know, what's the advantage of telling
50:51
your adversaries like where you are in production, what issues
50:55
you've you've come across or, or ways that you fix them.
50:58
Additionally, you know, there there's also not just a country
51:02
which is, and, and also although Russia under there and Iran, who
51:08
are adversaries who would love to learn more about the Block 2
51:10
Bluebird program and Block 3 program.
51:13
But then you also have Starlink, right?
51:15
Who is your direct competitor? They don't have a competitive
51:20
product relative to what you're doing, but they eventually want
51:23
to get there. Like, why would you?
51:25
Why would any company give daily updates or all the minutia of
51:31
what's going on? No company does that, right?
51:33
And so I think I think folks need to, maybe some people
51:38
haven't invested, you know, or followed a company this closely,
51:43
but you know, there's, there's a, there is a, there's
51:47
parameters of reasonableness for a public company.
51:49
And, and there's things called trade secrets and, and things
51:52
like that where you don't want to show all your cards, right?
51:56
And so you're going to give the, the public as much disclosure as
51:59
possible to help them underwrite an investment, but then you're
52:02
also going to keep certain things close to the vest because
52:06
those are competitively sensitive, right?
52:09
And so I think that's important to understand.
52:13
I guess the last topic I'll I'll cover are the bears.
52:15
So with Panikins, they they have their favorite, you know, people
52:20
who they embrace dearly, which are the bears, right.
52:23
And so you have a number of bears who are wonderful, like
52:28
bottom signals where the stock underperforms.
52:31
And then they come out and do like victory laps and they talk
52:35
about, yeah, there. And this is where like they prey
52:37
on people, right? Where it's like, look, I told
52:39
you so this isn't going to work. The stock price is telling you
52:41
it's not going to work. And so for anybody who bought it
52:44
like 1:30 or 1:20 and they're, they're now looking at a stock
52:47
price of 72, there's going to be this like regret and, and
52:50
remorse and doubt, right? And so then you've got bears
52:54
like whether it's these industry consultants who in the face of
52:58
like being wrong, like they, they said like the FCC approval
53:01
would never come. Then then because the stock
53:04
price is down, they're like, well, but see, I told you like
53:05
all these other things, right, Which is the whole moving goal
53:09
post strategy, right? But yeah, it's interesting
53:12
because then we've seen, I mean, on on X, the X time language, by
53:16
the way, like this is when I say go out and touch grass because
53:19
when things get so toxic and not only are are panicans
53:23
complaining, but then that you've got the bear saying I
53:26
told you so and, and doing their touchdown dances then.
53:29
And for me, it's just like, this is just I don't want to read all
53:33
this stuff. It's I mean, on one hand, it's a
53:34
useful signal, which is why I added, you know, to my position
53:38
in the most recent days. But then the other part is like,
53:41
oh, I, I have, I have desire to preserve my mental health.
53:44
Like, why do I need to read all this negativity of like there
53:47
was this, there was a short report that was funny enough
53:51
published by this college student, which gathered like all
53:55
the old tired tropes around, you know, bear arguments of around
54:00
AST. And I read it and I was like,
54:02
really like, these guys are coming out and they're they're
54:05
essentially celebrating or saying, you know, you like there
54:08
was an account yesterday saying that they shorted more, I guess
54:11
at 6869. And and so, yeah, when you see
54:15
that type of stuff, it's actually pretty useful.
54:17
Like there was this one guy Pivotal Capital, which by the
54:19
way, even though he's gone quiet, he used to post like
54:22
negative stuff on AST until he got blown up.
54:25
And then he shifted towards posting more about hymns the the
54:32
online health company, which then he got blown up on that.
54:34
And then now he's just focused on posting.
54:36
And this is a guy who works at the hedge fund.
54:37
He's probably like some junior analyst, but now he's posting
54:40
more about college football. But from time to time he will
54:43
stick out his head and, and do a touchdown dance when the when
54:46
AST is down and he'll make some comments, which he did, I think
54:49
on the day the stock went down to like 67.
54:51
And of course, you know, the stock rebounded.
54:52
And so it's kind of funny because like these guys are
54:55
contraindicators at least of near term bottoms and sometimes
54:58
medium term in Pivotal's case, he's, he's been like the
55:01
ultimate signal, right? Which is why he blocked me.
55:05
I remember Kook told me that once he, this guy messaged Kook
55:09
directly and was like, Hey, what's the deal with this NPEN
55:11
guy? He's he's like, he's too mean,
55:14
which I I will say for those people who've met me in person,
55:18
I'm a pretty nice guy and I'm very easygoing and I have a very
55:21
positive disposition and outlook on life.
55:24
But when it comes to bears who who try to prey on retail
55:29
investors and really take advantage of them.
55:32
And, and that includes people like who use their their
55:35
position as AI don't know as a as a they use that in to to
55:42
create FUD. You know, whether it's like Tim
55:44
Farrar or this new guy Stuart Taylor, whatever his name is.
55:48
I hate those people because they, yeah, their whole, you
55:53
know, whether some of these folks are short and they're
55:56
looking to make a buck or, you know, short term trades or in,
56:02
in Tim Ferrar's case, like looking to get more consulting
56:04
engagement assignments from hedge funds or, or I guess other
56:07
people. Yeah, I, I just, I can't stand
56:11
them, right. And so that said, like there
56:13
there are people, there are bears out there that are right
56:15
about stocks, certain stocks. And, you know, there are helpful
56:20
industry consultants that are actually honest in what they're
56:23
doing. There are a few people out
56:25
there, by the way, who who industry wise who do consulting
56:29
work are positive ISD, but you'll never hear about them,
56:32
right? Like they're not the ones who
56:34
were quoted in articles like Tim Farr.
56:36
But but yeah, it's I think it's important.
56:38
Like these bears who when you see them coming out of the
56:42
woodwork, you know, they were quiet like when the stock was at
56:44
1:30 or 100 and then they got the woodwork and say, I told you
56:49
so. And you know, whether it's at 80
56:52
or 70 and they they tell like this this one Stuart Taylor guy
56:59
is like his his whole shtick, which by the way, like I I truly
57:02
believe this guy is, is a consultant for ViaSat because he
57:07
posts that nonstop positive things about ViaSat.
57:10
And when AST, when ViaSat had I guess sued Asti think it was in
57:16
New York last fall 'cause they, they clearly, you know, they
57:21
want to get Legato 'cause it's very valuable.
57:24
They wanted to get out of the agreement.
57:26
They wanted to go back on that deal.
57:27
Which by the way, when AST did enter into agreement to acquire
57:33
the 80 year spectrum rights from Legato and pay them $420
57:35
million, that went to vice sad 'cause Legato was on the hook
57:40
for paying vice at that money, which they did.
57:42
And that's what caused vice rate, by the way, like we were
57:45
not vice that management, they owe the fact that their stock
57:48
trades well to AST because L band became valuable all of a
57:52
sudden. And people are like, oh, direct
57:53
to device. It's it's like a, it's a real
57:56
market and it's a real use case for this spectrum.
57:58
And then Biosat turned around and was like, Oh yeah, actually
58:01
instead of fighting, instead of poopooing this market, we're
58:04
going to go try to tell the market that we are going to go
58:07
do this too. Which interestingly, and I've
58:10
talked about this before, the the most recent FCC rolling
58:12
around L&S band spectrum, that actually hurts ViaSat quite a
58:16
bit because ViaSat in the negotiations of the AST, it by
58:22
AST did not give other rights to go pursue L band globally.
58:26
And but they do have to coordinate interference with
58:29
ViaSat. And then interestingly, the FCC
58:32
came out the other day and said whoever owns the rights to use
58:37
S&L band spectrum in the US, that is who we view as holding
58:42
the rights globally. Now does the FCC have, does the
58:47
FCC Lord over the EU or some of these other jurisdictions?
58:50
No. But if you have a consolation
58:52
that's flagged in the US and operates here in the US, then
58:56
you have basically the first right of refusal to use that
58:59
spectrum globally, right, like you will get approval on the
59:02
FCC. And so that's important in the
59:04
sense that AST Pert's agreement with Biasat has the ability to
59:10
go pursue L band globally. They can't interfere with
59:13
Biasat. But then the FCC has said, well,
59:15
you AST will have the ability to from our perspective use that
59:20
spectrum globally. Now the way that Biasat can get
59:23
around that is they can create a new consolation that is not
59:27
flagged here in the US, but it's flagged in, I don't know in
59:31
Europe or Africa. And then they can then they can
59:35
pursue L band spectrum outside of the US or leverage the L band
59:38
spectrum 30 authorized to use. Obviously you know that they
59:42
will have to with ASD coordinate interface where I think that I
59:47
didn't mean to go down this whole, but what that means I
59:50
think over the long term is that at some point it just makes
59:53
economic sense for ASD and Biosat to work together because
59:58
we own the most important. And the most profitable part of
1:00:02
the L band market, which is the US and Canada.
1:00:05
And so it's going to be really hard for any consolation to
1:00:10
operate economically without the most profitable market.
1:00:12
And so Starling, for example, because it has a grip on the
1:00:18
specific portions of S band here in the US, like they're going to
1:00:21
be the natural home to to go light up that S band elsewhere
1:00:25
in the world, but they don't have the right to solve it,
1:00:27
right. There's there's 20 by 20
1:00:29
megahertz that are still up for grabs and that's what AST is
1:00:31
pursuing as well. And so I think taking a step
1:00:35
back, if you're a foreign regulator and Starlink who you
1:00:41
may either be friendly with or maybe not, you will say, OK, you
1:00:45
can use the 20 by 20 our country, but that other 20 by
1:00:48
20, we're going to give it to somebody else.
1:00:50
And so I think that's where AST gets by working with a local M&O
1:00:54
who knows regulators, who has subscribers and customers who
1:00:56
will benefit. I think that's where AST gets
1:00:59
their solid position for S band. But yeah, I think going back to
1:01:05
what I was saying before about bears, I think, yeah, when you
1:01:09
see these guys coming out and doing, you know, cartwheels and
1:01:12
and I told you so I was like, that's usually a good sign to
1:01:15
the bottom as well. And conversely, when when people
1:01:19
like me and you are are lated and we're jumping up and down
1:01:23
and stocks at 1:30, that's probably if you were ever
1:01:26
thinking about monetizing portion position or maybe you
1:01:30
trade around some, maybe that's time to lighten up a little bit.
1:01:34
Now is that the top? Could that be the near term top?
1:01:36
Yeah, or could it be 150 or could be 1716180200, who knows,
1:01:42
right. But I think when TUT talks about
1:01:46
nothing drives sentiment quite like price.
1:01:49
That's that is a truism like that.
1:01:51
If you're if you're looking for signals now, given the negative
1:01:56
sentiment and you know, the bears celebrating and and short
1:02:01
interest is at, you know, an all time high.
1:02:04
And we just look at implied volatility here and by
1:02:09
volatility, Oh, I will get this out.
1:02:11
And by volatility is close to an all time low.
1:02:15
Realized, realized volatility that is that's usually a very
1:02:19
good set up, right? Like you want to buy when
1:02:22
volatility is low, short interest is high, sentiment is
1:02:25
low. That's like the perfect
1:02:26
ingredients when you do have positive catalyst for the stock
1:02:28
to like explode higher. And so, so yeah, those are the
1:02:33
things to look out for. Anyway, I'm going to pause
1:02:37
there. Maybe I'll take a quick look and
1:02:39
see if people have questions or comments.
1:02:44
Yeah, that that was a good reminder.
1:02:45
I'm going to, I'm going to post implied and realized volatility
1:02:48
which has come down quite a bit. There's some pretty funny
1:02:55
comments here. Telus is another strategic
1:02:57
investor, but we don't have a public volume yet of their
1:02:59
holdings. That's right.
1:03:00
Yeah, Telus, they, my speculation is that they were
1:03:04
probably going to buy shares in the open market.
1:03:06
I don't know what entity they would do that under and how many
1:03:09
shares they're looking to buy, but but I would assume they
1:03:12
probably already are a shareholder.
1:03:13
And and yeah, I'm not sure. Let's see Abel mentioned in Q&A
1:03:19
last earnings call, the next batch is 6 satellites.
1:03:22
I assume this was hope that the next could be 6 bong launch.
1:03:26
Now that we know next few launches are F9, could we get a
1:03:29
double batch shipment back-to-back F9 launches with
1:03:32
these next 6? I think you're going to see 1st
1:03:37
batch 3 go out and another batch go out shortly after.
1:03:40
I don't think they're going to send all six at once because the
1:03:43
other thing to keep in like at the integration facilities down
1:03:46
there, SpaceX is like processing a ton of Halos, right?
1:03:51
And so you don't want to send stuff early before it's ready or
1:03:53
before they can take it. So I do think that you'll see
1:03:57
three and then you'll see three sometime shortly after.
1:04:02
I don't think you'll see like 6 cent and then put on two
1:04:04
different Falcon vines back-to-back, but I could be
1:04:07
wrong. We'll see.
1:04:09
OK, if New Glenn isn't clear until August, when do you think
1:04:13
we would be clear to use them? Hard to imagine anything before
1:04:16
late September. October I think.
1:04:19
I think realistically the earliest we could use them is
1:04:22
September. And then from that point, if
1:04:26
they are comfortable with refurbishing the New Glenn
1:04:29
booster, you could get a launch every month, right?
1:04:32
So September, October, November, December.
1:04:35
So that's 4 * 6. That's like 24, right?
1:04:39
And then we've got, well, let's do the math here.
1:04:43
And I don't, I, by the way, I like, I don't know when they
1:04:45
move, move from 6:00 to 8:00, but let's say August or
1:04:50
September, October, November, December.
1:04:52
So that's 4 * 6. That's 24.
1:04:55
We've got 9 on Falcon 9 coming up, so that's like 33 and then
1:05:01
we've got 6 already in orbit, so that's 39.
1:05:06
So I think maybe you sprinkle in another Falcon 9 or another Blue
1:05:10
Origin launch and that gets you to 4345 approximately.
1:05:16
So, so yeah, Blue Origin would have to and, and Falcon 9 either
1:05:21
we, we put in one or two more Falcon 9 launches or Blue Origin
1:05:25
doing 4. I mean, we get up to 5 in order
1:05:28
to get to the, the stretch goal of 45.
1:05:31
But that that's, that would be I think the key thing, as I, as I
1:05:34
mentioned before, like it's not 45 is a goal that we should
1:05:38
pursue, but the key, I guess running count is more important.
1:05:43
But it's like if we can get to 6 satellites production per month
1:05:48
and the satellites are able to launch within 30 to 40 days of
1:05:52
being shipped the key, right? Because then 40, this 45
1:05:56
arbitrary number, it really doesn't matter at that point.
1:05:58
Because then if you're able to do six a month and launch
1:06:02
shortly thereafter, then that's where the market's going to like
1:06:06
at one point, I think part of the rerating process will be
1:06:10
getting the first batch shipment 2nd and the 3rd.
1:06:12
And the people are like, OK, they're going to get getting up
1:06:14
to a point of six a month per month and then having those
1:06:17
launched, like that's going to be the key.
1:06:20
So if you get to 45 in December or January or February, but as
1:06:23
long as like that, that production cadence keeps going.
1:06:26
And then then the next thing people will look for is like,
1:06:29
are they going from 6:00 to 8:00 and then from 8 to 10 per month
1:06:33
and then 11:50? Like if you get to 12 a month,
1:06:38
then it's lights out, right? Because at that point you can
1:06:42
get the full commercial constellation up.
1:06:44
You can get mid band constellation up.
1:06:46
Let's just say, I don't know, like you 45 if you want to get
1:06:50
like 40, 45, you know, bid band Bluebirds up or let's say 60,
1:06:56
right, which is round #60 to get a wholesome mid band
1:06:59
constellation up and running. That's only five months of
1:07:02
production. And so that's where like, I
1:07:04
think this is initial pain of investment in Stania production
1:07:09
is, is, is tough and you have to have patience.
1:07:11
But then if they can get to 6 satellites a month and then
1:07:15
eventually 12, then 12 get you to a point where you can put up
1:07:19
a fully working comprehensive consolation of 60 satellites in
1:07:24
five months, which is kind of crazy if you think about it,
1:07:28
right? And that's why they're acquiring
1:07:29
additional 4 space and they move Micron production to another
1:07:33
facility. At that point, it's like they
1:07:36
might have to call their friend over at, I mean, this is a joke,
1:07:40
but call their friend over at Public Storage and get space to
1:07:44
to store the satellites if you're building that many that
1:07:46
quickly. But yeah, let me see, Let me
1:07:52
just look and see if there's any other questions.
1:07:57
Someone posted Omni American Aeronautica posted a picture of
1:08:01
touching grass, which I can appreciate.
1:08:05
Why is the ASIC still not ready? Are they shipping new Sats with
1:08:08
Fpgas? We have built Fpgas to up to
1:08:12
3030 bicrons. And I think beyond that, the
1:08:17
ASICS are being put into satellites, right?
1:08:19
And so why they're not ready, I, I don't know.
1:08:23
I, I can't tell you. I think the, my assumption is
1:08:26
that the, the ASICS are going to take a bit of time because
1:08:33
there's going to be a different integration in the microns.
1:08:36
Maybe the microns are all, it's not, I don't think it's like a,
1:08:40
this is my guess, by the way. Like I don't think it's like
1:08:42
AACPU, like your, your computer tower where you, you pop off a
1:08:46
chip and you put on a new chip. I think the requirements are
1:08:49
going to be a bit different when you're putting in ASICS, just
1:08:53
given that they're much higher performance and you know, lower
1:08:55
power requirements like in a, in a Micron or the satellite, if
1:09:01
you're running ASICS, then maybe you don't have to put as many
1:09:04
batteries, right. And so when it comes to weight
1:09:06
savings, there's a number of things that I think, for
1:09:09
example, that would take you from three Bluebirds to 4
1:09:13
Bluebirds on a Falcon 9 or you know, 6 Bluebirds to 8 Bluebirds
1:09:18
to on a New Glenn, where some of the weight savings by using the
1:09:22
ASIC is probably going to be less batteries, right?
1:09:25
And so there's going to be some architectural things that you're
1:09:26
going to do that's, that's going to be different.
1:09:28
But I can't, I, I don't know the answer.
1:09:31
I don't know why, I don't know when it will be ready, but I
1:09:35
believe, and that's another question like, hey, we've got an
1:09:38
opportunity to ask management in 10 days, like let's see where we
1:09:41
are on the ASIC. Like is that going to be
1:09:43
something that gets done in Q2? Because it seems like they
1:09:48
finished out tape, the tape out of validation and at this point
1:09:51
it's really about production. So anyway, I think that's it.
1:09:58
So I'll wrap it up there. But yeah, I think look, it's
1:10:01
tough time sentiments low and short interest is high, implied
1:10:07
volatility and realized volatility is low.
1:10:09
And so these are like the ingredients you want ahead of
1:10:13
what are going to be some pretty tremendous catalyst in May and
1:10:16
June. And so these are the times when
1:10:20
it's hard to deal with the chop and negative sentiment.
1:10:24
But for me, the way I deal with it is I, I see what's on the
1:10:28
come and I just really there's an opportunity to bolster my
1:10:33
investment because I know that, you know, it's going to pay off
1:10:37
handsomely in the next few weeks.
1:10:38
But anyway, I'll end it there. Thanks everyone for joining.
1:10:43
And we'll do another space perhaps like in in a few days,
1:10:49
few hours, few weeks. But thanks everyone for joining.
1:10:51
Take care. Listening to the AST Space
1:10:55
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Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
1:11:16
We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this
1:11:18
technology we can really affect billion lives.
1:11:21
AST Space Mobile is the only company that has proven
1:11:25
technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly
1:11:29
from space to the everyday smartphone.
1:11:32
People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless,
1:11:36
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
1:11:38
know that it's connected by satellite.
1:11:41
Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
1:11:45
with the MMO.