Ionel Van den Berg @Lazacoin: "$RKLB | Down ~10%..."

Netherlands

$RKLB (Rocket Lab Corp) | Down ~10% after earnings. Has the thesis changed? The initial reaction was brutal. But the picture is more nuanced. Q2 delivered another record quarter: Revenue: $234M, +62% YoY Backlog: $2.36B, +137% YoY Q3 revenue guidance: $250–265M Q2 adjusted EBITDA loss: $8.8M, better than previous guidance So why is the market selling it? The biggest concerns appear to be around Q3 margins and Neutron timing. Q3 gross margin guidance came in lower than the market expected, while management now targets delivery of the Neutron vehicle to the launch pad in Q4 2026. A first launch before year-end is becoming less certain. And that's important. Neutron remains the biggest execution risk in my 5+ year thesis. But the rest of the business continues to move in the right direction: record revenue, a rapidly expanding backlog, strong defense demand and more than $1B in new contracts already signed in Q3. So has the thesis changed? Not for me. The valuation still demands excellent execution, and Neutron needs to deliver. But I don't see a broken thesis. I see a company executing strongly in its existing businesses while the biggest future growth opportunity still has to prove itself. Long term thesis intact. Now it's about execution. Next: $ASTS (AST SpaceMobile Inc) | Q2 earnings: the numbers aren't the whole story. At first glance, this wasn't a perfect quarter. Q2 revenue came in at $31.5M, below expectations, and the company reported a significant net loss. But for a 5+ year thesis, I'm looking at a different set of numbers. Revenue backlog: ~$1.30B U.S. government awards: >$125M Pro forma cash: >$3.7B 2026 revenue guidance: $150–200M, reiterated And then there's the number I find most important: 10 launches secured with two launch providers, targeting the deployment of roughly 45 satellites in early 2027. That's what starts to change ASTS from an ambitious technology story into a potential operating network. The risks are still very real. Launch execution, satellite deployment, funding and the transition from development to commercial service all have to go right. But the core thesis hasn't changed for me. The infrastructure is being built. The backlog is growing. Government demand is materializing. And the path toward commercial scale is becoming clearer. The next phase is no longer about proving that the technology is interesting. It's about execution at scale. Long term thesis intact. Let's go! -Ionel $SPX500 $NSDQ100

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.