zeroxkyle

$RKLB

Earnings Update Q2 - Posted this in Subs first; Update for those who don't have color from my AI agent.

Headline: record revenue, big strategic bombshell, but EPS miss and softer margin guide.

Revenue
• Q2 2026: $234.1M
• vs Consensus: Beat +$2.4M
• YoY: +62%

EPS (GAAP)
• Q2 2026: -$0.08
• vs Consensus: Missed -$0.02
• YoY: -

GAAP Gross Margin
• Q2 2026: 36.1%
• vs Consensus: -
• YoY: vs 32.1%

Non-GAAP Gross Margin
• Q2 2026: 41.5%
• vs Consensus: -
• YoY: vs 36.9%

Adj. EBITDA
• Q2 2026: -$8.8M
• vs Consensus: Better than guided
• YoY: vs -$27.6M

Backlog
• Q2 2026: $2.36B
• vs Consensus: Record
• YoY: +137%

Q3 guide:
Revenue $250M–$265M (another record)
But GAAP gross margin dropping to 29–31% (Mynaric/Motiv acquisitions weighing)
Adj. EBITDA loss widening to -$17M to -$23M

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Why the stock sold off

Three things hit sentiment:

- EPS missed (-$0.08 vs -$0.06 expected) - GAAP opex ballooned to $142M (+34% QoQ) on acquisition integration and Neutron ramp

- Gross margin guide down - Q3 GAAP gross margin guided to 29-31% vs Q2's 36%, driven by acquired lower-margin businesses

- Cash burn accelerating - Q2 FCF was -$110M; management said cash-flow positivity is 18–24 months after Neutron's first successful flight (Neutron to pad Q4 2026, so mid-2028 at earliest)

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The bigger story - this was a transformational quarter. Beck is going all-in on vertical integration:

- Acquiring Iridium (~$870M annual revenue, 66-satellite constellation, 2.5M subscribers). Creates a self-launching tier-1 space company - builds, launches, AND operates its own constellation. Closes mid-2027 pending approvals.

- Closed Mynaric (laser comms) and Motiv acquisitions
Signed $1B+ in new contracts in Q2 + post-quarter, including: $397M Space Force Flatellite contract (SB-AMTI - airborne threat tracking from space)

(CONT BELOW)

Gold continues to rip higher.

Will be speaking tomorrow!

GM. AM Market Thoughts

- RKLB Earnings dumped last night. Like labubu says below, never bet onto ER seems like a lesson that I too have to learn because I didn't take enough profit 😂 still have 1/2 my position

- Gold is absolutely running away - blasted some here.

- Again, this PA confirms what I said last night:

" We continue to be in the phase of "slowing of musical chairs" and you can feel it in the markets - rotations are much quicker, profit being taken. It's a tough environment right now. In times like this I like to have more cash, and just be patient. Remember, cash is a position. That, and zooming out and holding to your core longs."

Frankly, I think the right move is to consolidate into few positions and just long them. RKLB was a trade that made money. Now I'm going to focus on Gold.

Most importantly though is also knowing what NOT to touch. I feel like semis just don't offer any interesting risk/reward here - memory pumped, then dumped. photonics pumped, then dumped. There are no trending assets here - they're good for trades, but goddamn the PA is absolutely brutal and I have no interest in holding anything

I think the market ultimately has no choice but to go sell memory, long optical in the "short term." Actually, some hedge funds already seem to have this position on.

There are three main reasons.

1. With Korean leveraged ETFs effectively dead, LPs are in a redemption rush, which could bring out additional sell on flow.

2. Nvidia is nerfing Rubin Ultra's HBM and responding with optics, tying multiple racks together, so that even if Rubin Ultra's per rack performance is not superior to Rubin, at the cluster level optics let the Rubin Ultra cluster hold an edge over the Rubin cluster. This holds even if Rubin Ultra's HBM nerf is a supply problem rather than a demand problem.

3. Consensus is forming that memory prices will peak within the next two quarters.

For people that want the thesis:

$GOLD.US

Looks good.

10 Lessons I've learnt from 18 months of trading equities

1. Valuations are a function of two things - EPS or Fwd P/E; you can boil any idea into one of these two - make sure which one you're betting on, and have clear invalidations for it

2. Execution makes 80% of the trade work. An idea is nothing without good execution. And the best way to execute is always using limit scale orders through certain levels. Also, NEVER cancel your limit orders, especially your stink bids

3. Selling to sidestep a dip for whatever reasons just introduces more ways to be wrong. 1 - whether the decline occurs, 2 - when to get back in, 3 - what to do with the cash when you're waiting

4. Losing money is the worst thing not because you lose money, but because you miss the next opportunity.

5. If it goes down on non-stock related reasons (i.e macro), it's usually a great buy - macro is unknowable and impossible to predict for most people, and should be treated as noise

6. Value traps are real. Time invalidations are important - if something isn't going up after a certain amount of time, you have to re-evaluate. The market is always right.

7. You should check your accounts at the frequency you trade. If you have a month long timeframe for your investment, don't check it every day.

8. Selling to remove the red P&L, and then evaluating whether to get back in, is a great way to "psychologically reset"

9. Act fast to defend your money, slow to grow your money. Most people do the opposite - slow to protect, fast to make money

10. As Jesse Livermore says, "The point is not so much to buy as cheap as possible or go short at top price, but to buy or sell at the right time.

When some of my stock trading operations are given, you will notice I made my first trade… when the force of movement was so strong that it simply had to carry through.”

Wanted to give you guys clarity on my performance thus far;

Right now, my portfolio is segmented into two accounts - one for full active management, the other for cash. The reason for this is purely mental - I find it much easier to size when I know I'm not playing with "my full account".

Here are the statistics:
- Performance of both accounts, combined, 1Y: +96.85% (peaked at ~120.4%)
- Performance of both accounts, combined, 3M: +30.34% (peaked at ~117%)

And most importantly, right now, I'm actively trading 27% of my total. I find this strategy to work *really* well for me. It allows me to size without feeling emotional about it.

As for what I'm long, in order of size, it's:
RKLB > TE > CBRS > NBIS > DOCN > http://3696.HK

Trying to find more names to long. I quite like DELL and ALAB today - set some bids.

Wanted to give you guys clarity on my performance thus far;

Right now, my portfolio is segmented into two accounts - one for full active management, the other for cash. The reason for this is purely mental - I find it much easier to size when I know I'm not playing with "my full account".

Here are the statistics:
- Performance of both accounts, combined, 1Y: +96.85% (peaked at ~120.4%)
- Performance of both accounts, combined, 3M: +30.34% (peaked at ~117%)

And most importantly, right now, I'm actively trading 27% of my total. I find this strategy to work *really* well for me. It allows me to size without feeling emotional about it.

As for what I'm long, in order of size, it's:
RKLB > TE > CBRS > NBIS > DOCN > http://3696.HK

Trying to find more names to long. I quite like DELL and ALAB today - set some bids.

Thank you Binance for allowing me to post on the feed. I’m here to teach you guys how to trade - narratives & technicals.

Follow me for more updates on technical trading and narrative trading - I’ll launch my first article soon!