Latest news with #ASTSpaceMobile
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS) Skyrocketed Today
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) stands against other Wednesday's best-performing stocks. AST SpaceMobile grew its share prices for a third straight day, jumping 13.94 percent to end at $28.69 apiece on renewed speculations that the company is joining forces with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. The rally was bolstered by an Instagram post by a board member, Adriana Cisneros, showing herself, AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) CEO Abel Avellan, and Bezos, in a photo. An aerial view of a communications satellite in orbit, beaming its signal down to Earth. 'Amazing things are happening at AST & Science + Blue Origin,' Cisneros captioned. Prior to the Instagram post, Blue Origin executives visited the AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) headquarters in Texas, with speculations that discussions may have gone beyond launch logistics to cover broader strategic and financial matters. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) already holds a major commercial agreement with Blue Origin for the launch of up to 45 BlueBird Block 2 satellites, with the option to add 15 more. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Institutional investors may overlook AST SpaceMobile, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ASTS) recent US$245m market cap drop as long-term gains remain positive
Institutions' substantial holdings in AST SpaceMobile implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price A total of 11 investors have a majority stake in the company with 51% ownership Insiders have sold recently AI is about to change healthcare. These 20 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part - they are all under $10bn in marketcap - there is still time to get in early. If you want to know who really controls AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 49% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company. Losing money on investments is something no shareholder enjoys, least of all institutional investors who saw their holdings value drop by 4.3% last week. However, the 175% one-year return to shareholders may have helped lessen their pain. But they would probably be wary of future losses. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of AST SpaceMobile, beginning with the chart below. See our latest analysis for AST SpaceMobile Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in AST SpaceMobile. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at AST SpaceMobile's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. Hedge funds don't have many shares in AST SpaceMobile. Rakuten Investment Management, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 13% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.1% by the third-largest shareholder. Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 11 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership. Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future. While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of AST SpaceMobile, Inc. in their own names. Keep in mind that it's a big company, and the insiders own US$28m worth of shares. The absolute value might be more important than the proportional share. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling. With a 31% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over AST SpaceMobile. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders. We can see that public companies hold 19% of the AST SpaceMobile shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further. I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 4 warning signs for AST SpaceMobile you should know about. But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Was Jim Cramer Right About AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS)?
We recently published a list of In this article, we are going to take a look at where AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. A caller asked about AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS), wondering about its potential despite having no earnings yet. Cramer shut it down: 'No. I want you to stay away. We've got so many great companies — so many terrific companies — and we don't need to be in that one.' Cramer was completely wrong on ASTS, which exploded 405.94% after he said avoid it. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) is building the world's first space-based cellular broadband network to deliver direct-to-device connectivity across the globe. An aerial view of a communications satellite in orbit, beaming its signal down to Earth. Jim Cramer still doesn't rate the stock and gave a negative opinion on it when asked about it recently. Here's what he said on March 28: 'The biggest problem is that they've got a hideous balance sheet, and I don't like hideous balance sheets. What has to happen is I think they should take on a partner. I do think that they've got a very interesting way to- look it's a good telecom company partner, but what really matters to me is they've got to either start making money or get someone to give them some money. Right now, I think you're too up in the air in this particular stock market.' Overall, ASTS ranks 3rd on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of ASTS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ASTS and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
NDTV
26-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Abel Avellan: The Elon Musk Rival Who Is Helping Connect Phones From Space
Washington: AST SpaceMobile, a key rival of Elon Musk's Starlink, aims to establish a network to allow satellite internet to beam directly to smartphones even in the most remote areas. It will keep the devices connected even when they are not in the range of a tower. For now, this is possible only via special hardware on expensive satellite phones. AST SpaceMobile CEO and founder Abel Avellan told Forbes that the company's vision was to "provide connectivity without disadvantage to wherever people are located". The company took an early step in this direction when it launched five satellites onboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral in September last year. Each of them is equipped with a 700-square-foot antenna, which will unfold in orbit. The antenna sizes hold the key to Avellan's goal of major success in an all-new market. This will help beam satellite internet directly to smartphones. On the other hand, SpaceX utilises thousands of satellites that connect one and all to the internet. These 700-square-foot antennas will be succeeded by way larger 2,400-square-foot versions in the future, the report said. Through these large-sized antennas, AST SpaceMobile is eying global coverage with only 90 satellites. Out of these, the company looks forward to launching 60 into orbit by 2026 end. The Falcon 9 rocket, which took flight for the 373rd time last September, carried Starlink satellites to join over 7,100 others that Musk already has encircling the planet. In a regulatory filing, SpaceX earlier derided AST SpaceMobile satellites as a "meme stock". Starlink's $12.3 billion in revenue is driven by internet access to the fixed-base stations that remain attached to households and businesses but not smartphones. Similarly, Jeff Bezos' Project Kuiper does not have its eye set on this. In April, it launched the first set of 27 satellites that are part of the planned 3,200-plus project. Starlink is currently doing beta testing with T-Mobile. This allows its users to send text using the Starlink network when they don't have a signal on their devices. Compared to the $350 billion valuation of Starlink, the Texas-based AST SpaceMobile only holds a market cap of $8.7 billion as of now. A major opportunity for AST SpaceMobile is to provide internet to over 2.6 billion people, majorly in developing nations, rather than providing off-grid connectivity in Europe and North America. This is because not all of them can afford Starlink, Forbes reported. The basic base station facility of Starlink begins at $350, while people need to pay roughly $80 per month for Wi-Fi at home. For broadband, Avellan said the "cheapest and most efficient way" is via phone.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alphabet Just Made a Moonshot Stock One of Its Biggest Investments and Dumped 83% of Its Stake in a High-Flying Artificial Intelligence (AI) Giant
Quarterly Form 13F filings provide a way for investors to see which stocks institutional investors -- and investing businesses -- have been buying and selling. An early-stage company with a revolutionary operating model just became Alphabet's third-largest investment. Meanwhile, Google's parent has nearly exited its stake in a high-growth artificial intelligence (AI) stock that was once its No. 2 holding. 10 stocks we like better than AST SpaceMobile › It's been a busy seven weeks for Wall Street. President Donald Trump unveiled his tariff policy, paused higher "reciprocal tariffs" for 90 days a week later, and recently worked out a reciprocal tariff rate reduction with China. All the while, earnings season has been ongoing and U.S. economic data has been streaming in on a near-daily basis. Amid this flurry of data, you might have missed what can be described as the most important of all data releases: Form 13F filings. A 13F provides a snapshot of which stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) institutional investors with at least $100 million in assets under management purchased and sold in the most recent quarter. May 15 was the filing deadline to report trading activity for the first quarter of 2025. Although 13Fs aren't perfect -- since they're filed up to 45 days after the end to a quarter, they can present stale data for an active hedge fund -- they can clue investors into which stocks and game-changing trends have the attention of top asset managers. While most investors are familiar with investing greats like Warren Buffett, they might not realize that some of America's biggest companies are investors, too. For example, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL)(NASDAQ: GOOG) is probably best-known as being the parent of internet search engine Google. In April, Google accounted for a monopoly like 89.66% share of worldwide internet search. Maintaining an 89% to 93% share of internet search, dating back more than a decade, affords Alphabet's foundational operating segment quite a bit of ad-pricing power. Investors are probably also familiar with Alphabet's cloud infrastructure service platform, Google Cloud, which is the No. 3 cloud infrastructure service platform in the world, in terms of customer spend, based on estimates from Canalys. Cloud service margins are typically much higher than advertising margins, and the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions into Google Cloud has the potential to accelerate growth for this segment. But you might not realize that Alphabet is also an active investor. The company's investment arm ended the March quarter with $1.58 billion invested across 40 holdings. Many of these holdings are businesses Alphabet has partnered with or is jointly working with on one or more products. During the first quarter of 2025, Alphabet absolutely piled into a moonshot stock that's gained 562% over the trailing-12-month period, and continued selling a powerful AI stock that once upon a time was one of its largest holdings. Alphabet's 13F shows that no existing positions, as of Dec. 31, 2024, were added to in the March-ended quarter. However, three new stocks were introduced to its portfolio -- none of which stands out more than AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS). Alphabet purchased 8,943,486 shares of AST SpaceMobile, which made this new portfolio entrant its third-largest holding (roughly 12.9% of Alphabet's invested assets). AST SpaceMobile's purpose is simple: It wants to launch high-powered satellites into space to ensure cellular connectivity anywhere on the planet. What makes its plan so ambitious is that its satellites will work with existing smartphone technology. In other words, it's nothing like what Iridium Communications attempted to introduce decades ago, which required special phones. AST SpaceMobile's goal is to have 155 of its next-generation satellites providing global connectivity by 2030. Another reason for the excitement surrounding AST SpaceMobile is that it already has a laundry list of partnerships, working contracts, and investments locked in (with Alphabet being one of its financial backers). It's hashed out agreements and understandings with north of 40 mobile network operators (MNOs), including domestic giants AT&T and Verizon Communications. Collectively, the more than three dozen MNOs it has agreements with service more than 2.5 billion cellular customers, which means AST SpaceMobile won't have to fight for users, thanks to its partnerships. The company's growth ramp is also eye-popping. After testing its service last year and generating just $4.42 million in sales, Wall Street's consensus has AST SpaceMobile ramping up to north of $1.3 billion in sales in 2027, and tipping the scales at $3 billion in revenue by 2028. Earnings estimates, while incredibly fluid for early stage companies, predict a push to recurring profitability at some point in 2027. But there are also risks to this strategy. Building and launching satellites is exceptionally costly, and it's difficult to predict the expense variables of the components used to make AST SpaceMobile's satellites. While initial projections suggested each Block 2 BlueBird satellite would run around $20 million, higher material costs tied to President Trump's tariffs have pushed this estimate to a range of $21 million to $23 million per satellite, according to SpaceNews. It's also incredibly difficult to accurately forecast growth ramps for early stage businesses with potentially game-changing technologies. Though it's being priced as a future success, with a nearly $8.8 billion market cap, sizable near-term losses and potentially dilutive share offerings could weigh on investors. On the other end of the spectrum, Alphabet was a seller of a handful of stocks during the first quarter. Arguably none of these is more prominent than AI-driven cybersecurity specialist CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ: CRWD). When 2023 came to a close, Alphabet held 1,283,683 shares of CrowdStrike stock, which made it the second-largest holding by market value in its portfolio. During the first quarter of 2025, Alphabet slashed its stake in CrowdStrike by 353,665 shares (83% from the sequential quarter) to just 74,230 shares. In just five quarters (15 months), 94% of this once-mighty position has been sold off. There look to be three possible reasons behind this persistent selling activity. First, Alphabet could simply be locking in profits. When Google's parent initially built up this position in late 2022 and early 2023, CrowdStrike stock was valued in the low $100s. Much of Alphabet's selling has occurred with CrowdStrike stock solidly in the $300 to $400 range. Valuation is a secondary concern. If CrowdStrike was to meet Wall Street's consensus of $4.79 billion in the current fiscal year, representing 21% year-over-year growth, it would have a price-to-sales ratio of almost 23. Further, it's trading at 127 times forecast earnings per share this year. This type of premium leaves no room for error. The third catalyst behind this selling might be related to CrowdStrike's faulty update to its Falcon security platform in July 2024, which caused update errors for computers worldwide using the Windows operating system. Though CrowdStrike resolved the mess it created, there's always the potential for short-term customer retention issues. On the bright side, cybersecurity has evolved into something of a basic necessity. With businesses shifting their data and that of their customers online and into the cloud, the onus of protecting this information is frequently falling to third-party providers like CrowdStrike. Additionally, CrowdStrike's customers have been rapidly expanding their usage of multiple services. When CrowdStrike's fiscal 2025 came to a close on Jan. 31, 2025, nearly half of its customers had adopted at least six cloud subscription modules. The company's subscription-based model has led to an adjusted subscription margin of 80%! Though it could take some time for CrowdStrike to grow into its current valuation, the company's long-term future remains bright. Before you buy stock in AST SpaceMobile, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and AST SpaceMobile wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $642,582!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $829,879!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 975% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Sean Williams has positions in AT&T and Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and CrowdStrike. The Motley Fool recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Alphabet Just Made a Moonshot Stock One of Its Biggest Investments and Dumped 83% of Its Stake in a High-Flying Artificial Intelligence (AI) Giant was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
