September 7, 2026
Bonus Content: AST SpaceMobile Is Building a Phone Network in Space. Thirteen Satellites Say It’s Working.
Editor’s Note: Larry Benedict – the hedge fund legend who beat the S&P 500 by 18 times in 2025 and made his clients $95 million during the 2008 crisis – says Trump’s installation of a new Federal Reserve chair is triggering the most significant shift in U.S. markets in nearly 20 years. He has already identified the one ticker he believes will be at the center of the money flows – and he’s revealing it completely free. Read more below…
Dear Reader,
The market is about to fall.
Click here to hear what Larry is saying now.
Two years later, Larry told a reporter that another massive collapse was coming.
Again, few believed him.
The S&P fell 20%. The Nasdaq lost a third of its value.
But Larry went 11 for 11 that year, including recommending one trade that returned 117% in under a month.
Now Larry Benedict is speaking out again.
He says a historic shift is coming to the Federal Reserve, and what follows will likely create the biggest divide between market winners and losers in nearly 20 years.
He’s urging everyone he knows to get positioned in one specific ticker before it arrives.
Click here to hear exactly what Larry is warning about right now.
Best wishes,
Lauren Wingfield
Managing Editor, The Opportunistic Trader
P.S. The last time the Fed made a shift this significant – 2022 – Larry’s readers had the chance to double their money in under a month.
AST SpaceMobile Is Building a Phone Network in Space. Thirteen Satellites Say It’s Working.
Most satellite companies promise to change how the world communicates. AST SpaceMobile is actually doing it. The company launched BlueBird satellites 11, 12, and 13 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral on August 5, 2026. The new satellites feature phased-array antennas of nearly 2,400 square feet, more than three times larger than the initial Block 1 units at 693 square feet, and the company says its Block 2 satellites are expected to support peak data rates approaching 200 Mbps directly to standard smartphones.
No modified hardware. No special SIM. An ordinary phone.
AST SpaceMobile has expanded its collaboration with Vodafone, Orange, Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, and Vodafone Ukraine to advance space-based cellular broadband across Europe. Network integration testing, subject to regulatory approvals, is underway and advancing in the UK, Ireland, Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, and Ukraine. That list covers some of the most densely populated wireless markets on the planet.
The Business
AST SpaceMobile’s model is structurally different from conventional satellite broadband. Rather than requiring a dish or proprietary terminal, the network connects directly to standard LTE and 5G handsets. Revenue flows through mobile network operator partners, not direct consumer billing. In its second-quarter 2026 update, the company said 2026 revenue is expected to be supported by additional U.S. government contract awards, and it also disclosed the preliminary selection of a Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile joint venture entity as an indirect subsidy recipient for Japan’s J-LEO initiative, with a total expected value up to about $1 billion in non-dilutive government capital, while noting there is no assurance the joint venture will be finalized or that government financing will be secured.
The company has key assets including intellectual property, partnerships, a substantial balance sheet, access to shared MNO and MSS spectrum, and over 500,000 square feet of manufacturing and operations space globally, targeting the capability to build and launch over 100 BlueBird satellites for global coverage.
Why Wall Street Is Paying Attention
Berenberg initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $92 price target, which sent shares up about 12.4% on September 2. Cantor Fitzgerald also lifted its price target to $90 and kept an Overweight rating, pointing to a potential 2027 revenue floor around $500 million despite heavy free cash flow burn.
Insider activity confirmed management conviction. Director Adriana Cisneros bought 10,822 shares for about $619,235 on August 31, boosting her indirect stake to 797,023 shares. Board members buying near a 52-week trough is not nothing.
What Could Go Wrong
The financials are unambiguously difficult. Q2 2026 results showed revenue of $31.52 million and a net loss of $230.91 million. The company’s cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaled about $2.7 billion as of June 30. In July 2026, the company completed a $1.15 billion convertible senior notes offering, and in its Q2 2026 update it reported over $3.7 billion in pro forma cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of June 30. That runway matters, but burn at this pace compresses it quickly.
Key risks include launch reliability, schedule delays, commercial activation risk tied to milestones, and increased capital expenditures required for scaling. The company has also disclosed it received insurance proceeds related to a BlueBird 7 launch. Each failure is expensive and delays the commercial service clock.
The Bottom Line
The company has reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million. The target of about 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by early 2027 is the operational milestone that makes or breaks the commercial ramp. At roughly $62 per share, ASTS is well below its prior peak, yet the constellation is larger and the carrier partnerships are more advanced than at that high. The risk is real and the cash burn is substantial. But for investors who believe direct-to-device satellite broadband is not a question of if but when, AST SpaceMobile is the clearest publicly traded way to own that bet.
