Down 24.5% to US$14.35, and still SELL on all three horizons. That is the third consecutive SELL on this name. Valuation improved up one because the price fell faster than the denominator, but it stays Expensive on every basis tested.
The open question the last report could not answer is now answered. That report recorded that Do-Not-Buy Trigger 4 — insider selling — ‘could not be established from Form 4 / Rule 144 metadata’ and carried it as an unresolved item. Reading the filings rather than their metadata settles it. Kamal Ghaffarian — a DIRECTOR on the Form 4s, which carry no officer box, so ‘C-suite’ is not established by the filings at all — sold 552,964 shares on trade dates between 27 July and 9 September. The footnote states plainly that they were ‘effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted by Ghaffarian Enterprises, LLC on December 4, 2025’[4]. Pre-planned sales are explicitly outside the trigger, and the amount is 1.47% of the 37.6m he holds. Cleared on evidence, not on absence. The window’s largest seller is not him: Advent International sold 11,495,514 shares at US$12.84 on 28 July, twenty-one times his total — a 10% holder rather than an officer, so it does not touch the trigger, but it is real supply and an earlier draft of this report missed it.
And a correction to that report's anchor, which moves against this company. It derived a warranted EV/Sales of 1.28× from ‘the two-stage warranted earnings multiple of 16.89×’. 16.89× is the trailing form of that sum — it reproduces exactly at that report's own inputs — and it was scored against a forward actual multiple. Mixing the two understates the ratio by one factor of growth, always flatteringly. On the corrected forward basis the warranted multiple is 1.14×, not 1.28×, and the ratio is 3.05×. The band was Expensive either way, so no published signal was wrong — but the number was.
Business Quality is carried at 48 and deliberately not re-scored. Both runs stand on the same quarter, Q2 FY2026[3]. Re-scoring unchanged evidence and presenting the result as a deterioration is a defect an independent auditor caught elsewhere in this batch, and the same discipline applies here. It is also not verdict-deciding: the matrix returns SELL whether Quality sits in the Medium band or below it.
What actually got better, and it is not nothing. Three contract awards landed since the last report — two IM 300 platforms for a new customer, authorisation on a communications programme expected to exceed US$600m, and NASA JPL selecting the IM 300 for the EAGLE-VSWIR mission[6]. Backlog stands at US$1,762.0m against US$213.1m at the end of 2025[3] — but these are one fact and not two: the 10-Q says that backlog already contains the awards, and US$612.8m of it came with Lanteris, so organic backlog is US$1,149.2m. The order book is being won while the share price falls a quarter, and holding both facts at once is what this report has to do.
And the thing an earlier draft of this report got most wrong. It said there was no at-the-market programme and that a raise ‘has not happened yet’. There is one, and it is running: Note 12 discloses an ATM of up to US$500m under a shelf effective 2 June, of which 8,259,379 shares had been sold for about US$235.2m net by 30 June — and Class A rose a further 3.70m shares between 30 June and the 6 August cover date[2]. The bear case here rests on an equity raise into a falling price. It is already under way.
Intuitive Machines builds spacecraft that land on the Moon. Its IM-1 mission in 2024 was the first commercial lunar landing ever achieved, and it flies for NASA under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme — fixed-price contracts, competitively bid. The business is now widening beyond landers: the IM 300 platform is a configurable satellite bus built at volume, and the company has been winning communications and Earth-observation work with it. It also bought Lanteris, which is why its reported revenue more than quadrupled this year. It is loss-making, it does not yet fund itself from operations, and its order book is roughly eight times what it was nine months ago.
What it is. Intuitive Machines builds and flies lunar landers and, increasingly, space infrastructure. IM-1 was the first commercial lunar landing, which is a credential no competitor can bid away. The IM 300 platform extends it into satellite buses and communications work.
Headline revenue growth of +309.8% is almost entirely acquired. Of the US$206.168m Q2 revenue, US$166.735m is the Lanteris acquisition. Strip it out and organic service revenue is US$36.677m against US$50.313m a year earlier — minus 27.1%[3]. A reader shown only the headline would draw the opposite conclusion about this business. Credit where it is due: the 16 August report established this split, and this run restates it rather than discovering it.
The balance sheet is the other half. Book equity is negative[1], free cash flow is -US$79.996m, and trailing operating income of -US$134.851m against US$13.447m of interest expense is coverage of -10.03× — which is what triggers Gate 1. On FUNDED debt, though, the company has net CASH. The filed balance sheet shows long-term debt net of US$336.4m against cash of US$367.4m — about US$31m of net cash. The provider's US$481.4m ‘total debt’ is lease-inclusive, and an earlier draft of this report used it whole and called the result ‘net debt of about US$114m’, which was simply wrong. Enterprise value here is struck on funded debt plus securitisation liabilities, and operating leases are excluded. So this is not a liquidity problem at all; it is a business that does not yet fund itself from operations and is issuing equity to bridge the gap.
Competes with Firefly Aerospace, Astrobotic and ispace for NASA CLPS lunar delivery, and with a far larger field — including SpaceX, Rocket Lab and the primes — for the space-infrastructure and communications work the IM 300 platform targets. The CLPS contracts are fixed-price and competitively bid, which is why pricing power scores 25. The durable asset is heritage: IM-1 was the first commercial lunar landing, and that is not a credential a competitor can bid away. Unchanged this run; no new competitive disclosure since the Q2 release.
Business Quality 48 — carried.
No earnings anchor resolves, so this is anchored on sales. Trailing earnings per share is -US$0.94, and the forward consensus strip cannot be used either: reconciling each year's consensus earnings per share against its consensus net income implies share bases of about 110m, 148m, 119m and 119m across FY2026 to FY2029 — figures that disagree with each other and with the economic count of 228,924,068[5]. No price-to-earnings figure appears anywhere in this report.
The anchor. Enterprise value is reconstructed at US$3,303m on the economic count. Warranted forward EV/Sales is 1.14× — the two-stage forward earnings multiple of 15.06× at an 11.28% discount rate, a 10% near-term growth cap (Industrials is the cyclical bucket) and 3% terminal growth, multiplied by a 7.6% sustainable net margin, which is the margin the prior report used and this one carries. Actual is 3.48× on FY2026E revenue at the US$950m guidance midpoint. The ratio is 3.05×, against a 1.40× Expensive line.
| Revenue basis | EV/Sales | Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Trailing twelve months (US$490.12m) | 6.74× | 6.06× |
| FY2026E guidance midpoint (US$950m) | 3.48× | 3.05× |
| FY2026 consensus (US$925.48m) | 3.57× | 3.21× |
| FY2027 consensus (US$1,141.56m) | 2.89× | 2.60× |
Two lenses dissent and neither was trimmed. Against its own twelve months the stock is genuinely cheap — 16.9% of a US$7.78-46.75 range — which is the lens scoring 60, and it is treated with the caution the framework demands, because a window containing a fall from US$46.75 prices the stock against a level the anchor says was never warranted. And the analyst panel is emphatically bullish: a mean target of US$29.50, +105.6%, with a Strong Buy consensus[1]. That is a real disagreement with this report and it is published at full strength. The qualifiers: coverage is eight analysts, and the target low of US$13.00 sits below today's price, so the panel is not unanimous.
Valuation 39 — up one, and the whole of that move is price.
The driver is government and commercial demand for lunar and space infrastructure, and it is cooling at the margin rather than breaking.
For: backlog of US$1,762.0m against US$213.1m at the end of 2025, and three fresh awards since the last report — two IM 300 platforms on 1 September, a communications programme expected to exceed US$600m on 17 August, and NASA JPL's EAGLE-VSWIR selection on 18 August[6]. That is contracted demand, not a forecast of it. The US$600m programme is already inside the backlog figure rather than additional to it[3].
Against: the macro report has DOWNGRADED NATO Rearmament and Global Defense to BACKGROUND, with the defence ETF down 11.7% on the month and 7% below its 50-day average, and its words are that the rearmament bid has stopped paying for now whatever the multi-year budget path[8]. That is the adjacent bid this name leans on. And the organic service line is falling 27.1% while the backlog grows, which means the conversion of order book into revenue is the open question.
Underlying Drivers 62 — down eight. At 62 the driver sits well above the 35 line, so it cannot amplify this SELL to a STRONG SELL.
Industrials (XLI) is Neutral on all three horizons[8]. LUNR is not carried in the macro report's watchlist, so the sector map is the whole of the mechanical read.
The 16 August report recorded this as a Tailwind with a Trend-Following stance and a conviction of 78[12]. That has cooled: the sector call is flat, and the defence driver that supported the earlier reading has been downgraded to background. Stance Neutral, pressure Neutral, conviction 50 — down 28. Mechanically this matters in one place: amplification to STRONG SELL needs a driver at or below 35 and Headwind pressure, and neither holds.
Source: sector map (GICS Industrials → XLI, N/N/N) · Macro report 2026-09-09
The tape is bad, and the score is held up by one mechanical term. Both halves matter.
What is bad. US$14.35 is below the 20-day (16.42), the 50-day (15.53) and the 200-day (19.91). MACD at -0.551 sits below its -0.383 signal, RSI is 39.9, and the trend reads strong downtrend[7]. The trend term falls to 25 from the prior report's mostly bullish. Relative strength is behind both the index and the sector on every window.
What offsets it, and why a reader should not take comfort from it. Price is sitting almost exactly on the 14.18/14.33 swing-low shelf, so a stop at US$13.90 is only US$0.45 away — 0.41 ATR, deep inside the framework's favourable band, and that lifts the risk-reward term to 78. It is cheap to be wrong here. But it is cheap because the support is directly underneath, and support directly underneath in a strong downtrend is the thing most likely to break. A tight stop is an advantage and a warning at the same time.
timing = mtf 25 x 0.30 + risk-reward 78 x 0.20 + macro 38 x 0.15 + sentiment 68 x 0.18 + catalyst 65 x 0.17 = 52.09 -> 52.
Entry/Exit Timing 52 — down ten. Neutral, and it does not enter the matrix row that decides this name.
| Date | Event | Impact | Forecast | Previous | Relevant? | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-16 | FOMC rate decision | Medium | hold | — | ⚠ Medium | Industrials is medium macro-sensitivity and the Fed is not this name's primary driver. |
| 2026-09-26 | Next scheduled Donatien review | Company-specific | — | — | ✅ Yes | Standing +14-day ceiling — no company-specific dated event inside the window. |
| 2026-11-12 | Intuitive Machines Q3 FY2026 results (approximate) | High | — | — | ✅ Yes | THE decisive date. First test of whether the US$1,762m backlog is converting, and the first look at organic service revenue since it fell 27.1%. |
| Timeframe | Trend | Direction | RSI | MACD | Key S/R | Breakout | Vol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | Downtrend | Bearish | — | − | S: 7.78 R: 46.75 | Below the range mid | — |
| Weekly | Downtrend | Bearish | — | − | S: 12.70 R: 20.84 | Support breakdown | — |
| Daily | Strong downtrend | Bearish | 39.9 | − | S: 14.18 R: 16.17 | Below 20/50/200-DMA | — |
| Hourly | — | — | — | — | — | not scored — Sat | n/a |
| 15-min | — | — | — | — | — | not scored — Sat | n/a |
The US$1,762m backlog converts on schedule, the IM 300 platform wins turn into recurring revenue, FY2027 consensus of US$1.14bn arrives, and adjusted EBITDA turns durably positive. On those numbers the sustainable margin assumption this report tests at 7.6% would look too low, and the multiple re-rates toward the analyst panel rather than toward the anchor.
Backlog converts, but slowly and at the margins the fixed-price CLPS structure allows, while organic service revenue stays soft and the acquisition does the heavy lifting. FY2026 guidance is met within its US$900m-1,000m range. That is roughly flat from here — which is the point at this multiple.
This leg is about financing rather than demand, which is why it carries the weight it does. Book equity is already negative and interest coverage is -10x; a slipped mission, a backlog conversion delay, or simply the cash burn continuing forces an equity raise into a falling price. US$8.50 is above the 52-week low of US$7.78, so this is the probable bad case rather than the worst one.
Probability-weighted US$14.47 against US$14.35 — +0.9%, essentially flat. Two things about that number deserve bear weight of 35% is set by the balance sheet rather than by demand — no claim is made about what weight is customary for a backlog-heavy company, and an earlier draft of this report asserted one. And the analyst panel's US$29.50 is more than double this — a gap this report does not try to explain away. If the backlog converts at better margins than 7.6%, the panel is right and this framework is wrong.
Forecast: Fundamental: cannot open while no fair value is publishable, and the anchor does not turn cheap at any near-term price. Forecast confidence: Low inside six months. Technical: the reachable one, and it is a long way off — price would need to reclaim the 50-day at US$15.53 on volume, about 8% above here, with MACD turning. Forecast confidence: Low within 4-8 weeks on the current tape. Catalyst: opens with the Q3 print in November. The practical read: the filing index and newsroom sweep to 12 September found no dated company event before November[9][11], and November, and November is the one that matters — it is the first evidence on whether a backlog eight times larger than nine months ago is actually converting.
Where this stops being a SELL. The band is set by the ratio arm, so the test is the warranted ratio reaching 1.40×. On the FY2026E basis that means EV/Sales of about 1.60×, an enterprise value near US$1,523m, and — after deducting net debt and dividing by the 228.9m economic shares — a share price around US$6.57 — or, holding the price, the sustainable net margin proving to be roughly 17% rather than 7.6%, which no aerospace prime earns. The honest reading is that this does not become cheap on the anchor at any near-term price; it becomes cheap when the backlog proves it converts at a margin the sector does not normally support, or it does not become cheap at all.
What would make it worse. An equity raise into this price, which the negative book equity and the cash burn make the obvious risk; a further quarter of organic service decline; a mission failure; or a close below US$13.90, which is only 0.41 ATR away.
What is actually dated. The filing index and newsroom sweep to 12 September surfaced no company-specific event inside the next two weeks[9][11], which is why the next review falls on the standing ceiling. The Q3 print in November is the real one: it is the first test of whether the US$1,762m backlog is converting, and the first look at organic service revenue since it fell 27%.
The honest summary. The order book is genuinely being won — three awards since August and a backlog eight times what it was at the end of 2025 — and eight analysts see more than 100% upside. Against that: organic revenue is falling, book equity is negative, interest coverage is -10×, and the enterprise trades at 3.05× what its own growth and cost of capital warrant on any margin assumption from 6% to 12%. The framework scores what a business earns now against what it costs now, and on that test this has been Expensive for three consecutive runs. It stays Stopped and visible, and it reactivates as soon as a later report upgrades any horizon.
You would be risking about 3% to a very tight stop against a probability-weighted return of +0.9%.
What you are risking. The stop at US$13.90 is only 0.41 ATR below, which sounds like a gift and is really a description of where price is sitting: directly on support, in a strong downtrend. The bear case is US$8.50, -41%, and it is a financing case rather than a demand case — negative book equity and -10x interest coverage.
What you are gaining. A backlog eight times larger than nine months ago, three new awards since August, the only commercial lunar landing heritage that exists, and an analyst panel at US$29.50. If the order book converts at a decent margin, the anchor in this report is too harsh and the panel is right.
The honest framing. This is the cheapest this name has been against its own history, and it is still 3.05× what its growth and cost of capital warrant. Both are true. Buying here is a bet on backlog conversion at margins the sector does not normally support — which is a real bet, and not the one this framework takes.
Selling at US$14.35 means crystallising a -24.5% fall and disagreeing with a panel that sees 105.6% upside.
What you give up. The backlog, the heritage, and the possibility that the IM 300 platform turns a lander company into an infrastructure company. Eight analysts rate it Strong Buy at a US$29.50 mean. This report is deliberately more cautious than that, and it may be wrong.
What you avoid. An enterprise at 3.05× its warranted multiple on every margin assumption tested. Organic service revenue falling 27% behind a headline that reads +310%. Negative book equity with a triggered distress gate. And the financing risk that follows from both.
What would bring it back. Not a lower price — the anchor does not turn cheap at any plausible near-term price. It turns on the Q3 print showing the backlog converting, and organic service revenue stabilising. It stays Stopped and visible and reactivates as soon as a later report upgrades any horizon.
{
"ticker": "LUNR",
"date": "2026-09-12",
"version": "v6",
"company": "Intuitive Machines, Inc.",
"brand": "",
"currency": "USD",
"exchange": "NASDAQ",
"exchange_ticker": "NASDAQ:LUNR",
"isin": "US46125T1025",
"api_ticker": "LUNR",
"finder_ticker": "LUNR",
"finder_exchange": "NASDAQ",
"sector": "Industrials \u2014 Aerospace & Defense (lunar landers, space infrastructure)",
"gics_sector": "Industrials",
"prior_report": "calibration-LUNR-20260816-1420.json",
"report_file": "LUNR_Signal_v6_20260912_1800.html",
"analysis_status": "stopped",
"analysis_status_note": "Remains Stopped under SKILL Step -2 B3: this refresh returns no BUY on any horizon. VISIBLE on the watchlist and auto-reactivates as soon as a later report upgrades any horizon.",
"price_at_rating": 14.35,
"price_at_rating_note": "Settled close of FRIDAY 2026-09-11; the run date is a SATURDAY. Confirmed against get_technical_indicators, whose latest daily bar is 2026-09-11 at 14.35.",
"signal_short": "SELL",
"signal_medium": "SELL",
"signal_long": "SELL",
"primary_signal": "SELL",
"short_entry_confirmed": false,
"quality_score": 48,
"valuation_score": 39,
"timing_score": 52,
"driver_score": 62,
"driver_label": "Cooling",
"composite_short": 48,
"composite_medium": 46,
"composite_long": 46,
"lifecycle_stage": "high-growth",
"moat_score": 45,
"overall_confidence": 45,
"quality_confidence": 48,
"valuation_confidence": 45,
"timing_confidence": 50,
"economic_alignment_stance": "Neutral",
"economic_alignment_conviction": 50,
"economic_alignment_pressure": "Neutral",
"economic_alignment_source": "sector map (GICS Industrials -> XLI, N/N/N)",
"macro_report_date": "2026-09-09",
"shares_class_a": 173231343,
"shares_class_c": 55692725,
"shares_outstanding": 228924068,
"shares_reconciliation_note": "THIS IS AN UP-C STRUCTURE AND THE PROVIDER FIELDS DO NOT CAPTURE IT. From the 10-Q cover, share counts as of 6 Aug 2026 (filed 13 Aug): Class A 173,231,343, Class B ZERO, Class C 55,692,725. Each Class C share sits one-for-one against a Common Unit of Intuitive Machines, LLC which the holder may redeem for Class A at any time, so the Class C block is economically identical to Class A and belongs in the share count. THE ECONOMIC COUNT IS 228,924,068. The data provider's market capitalisation of $2,302,490,624 divided by the $14.35 close implies only 160,452,308 shares \u2014 it misses the entire 55.7m Class C block AND understates the filed Class A count by 12,779,035. Using it would understate market capitalisation by $983m \u2014 29.9% of the true figure \u2014 and every multiple with it. The 16 August report already carried both counts correctly; this run confirms them against the filing rather than inheriting them.",
"enterprise_value_usd": 3303453376,
"enterprise_value_note": "THE DEBT LEG IS TAKEN FROM THE FILING, NOT FROM THE PROVIDER, and an earlier draft of this report got that wrong in a way this project has a standing note about. The provider's totalDebt of $481,447,008 is LEASE-INCLUSIVE: it reconciles as long-term debt net of $336,352,000 plus operating leases $93,402,000 plus securitisation liabilities $49,395,000 plus finance leases $46,000. The earlier draft used it whole while taking the EQUITY leg of the same enterprise value to the filing and making a virtue of doing so \u2014 one side audited, the other inherited. IT ALSO PRODUCED A FALSE STATEMENT OF FACT: that draft said cash of $367.4m against debt of $481.4m was 'net debt of about $114m'. On FUNDED debt the company has $31,002,000 of NET CASH. BASIS USED HERE: funded debt plus securitisation liabilities, which are debt-like for a business that securitises receivables, and NOT operating leases. That is $385.75m, giving EV = $3,285,060,376 + $385,747,000 - $367,354,000 = $3,303,453,376. On funded debt alone EV is $3,254.1m and the ratio 2.99x; on the provider's lease-inclusive figure $3,399.2m and 3.13x. Expensive on all three, so the band does not turn on the choice \u2014 but the number does, and it is now struck on a basis that is stated. The provider's own enterpriseValue field of $3,802,127,872 is NOT condemned here: it is higher than this reconstruction because it picks up the non-controlling interest the Up-C structure creates, and the arithmetic test that would call it broken on a single-class company gives the wrong answer on this one.",
"val_multiple_basis": "warranted FORWARD EV/Sales, two-stage. No earnings anchor resolves: trailing EPS is -$0.94 and the forward consensus EPS strip fails a share-count reconciliation (see forward_eps_defect_note). Sales is the stream that survives. BOTH SIDES FORWARD \u2014 the warranted figure is the FORWARD form of the two-stage sum multiplied by a sustainable net margin, and the actual is enterprise value over forward-year revenue. Neither side is trailing.",
"discount_rate_r": 0.1128,
"risk_free_10y": 0.0478,
"g_near": 0.1,
"g_term": 0.03,
"sustainable_net_margin": 0.076,
"warranted_multiple": 1.14,
"actual_multiple": 3.48,
"warranted_ratio": 3.05,
"val_band": "expensive",
"anchor_basis_correction_note": "A CORRECTION TO THE 16 AUGUST REPORT'S OWN ANCHOR, and it moves against this company. That report derived warranted EV/Sales 1.28x as 'the two-stage warranted earnings multiple of 16.89x (r 11.13%, g_near 10.0%, g_term 3.0%) multiplied by a 7.6% sustainable net margin'. 16.89x is the TRAILING form of that sum \u2014 it reproduces exactly at r=11.13% \u2014 and it was scored against a FORWARD actual multiple (enterprise value over forward-year sales). That is the mixed-basis bug the framework names explicitly, and it understates the ratio by a factor of (1+g_near) every time, always flatteringly. The forward form at this run's r of 11.28% is 15.064x, so warranted EV/Sales is 1.145x rather than 1.28x. The band was Expensive on either basis, so no published signal was wrong \u2014 but the number was, and it was wrong in the company's favour.",
"val_guardrail_na_reason": "The per-sector guardrail line is a P/E-family test (Industrials, 23.0x) and this name is anchored on EV/Sales, so the guardrail arm cannot apply to the anchor \u2014 a CONFIRMED inapplicability, not an undeclared skip. It is not simply dropped: no earnings multiple of any kind resolves on this company, because trailing EPS is -$0.94 and the forward consensus strip fails a share-count reconciliation, so there is nothing to test the 23.0x line against. Gate 3 is reached on the RATIO arm instead, at 3.14x against a 1.40x line.",
"margin_sensitivity": {
"6.0%": {
"warranted": 0.904,
"ratio": 3.85,
"band": "expensive"
},
"7.6%": {
"warranted": 1.145,
"ratio": 3.04,
"band": "expensive"
},
"10.0%": {
"warranted": 1.506,
"ratio": 2.31,
"band": "expensive"
},
"12.0%": {
"warranted": 1.808,
"ratio": 1.92,
"band": "expensive"
}
},
"margin_sensitivity_note": "The sustainable NET MARGIN is the anchor's one soft input, so it is tested across the plausible range rather than asserted. At 6.0% the ratio is 3.85x, at the carried 7.6% it is 3.04x, at 10% 2.31x and at a genuinely generous 12% \u2014 the top of the range a mature aerospace prime earns \u2014 1.92x. EXPENSIVE ON EVERY ONE. The band does not turn on this assumption, which is worth saying because it is the assumption a reader would most reasonably challenge.",
"ev_sales_readings": {
"ttm": 6.74,
"fy2026e_guidance_mid": 3.48,
"fy2026_consensus": 3.57,
"fy2027_consensus": 2.89
},
"ev_sales_basis_note": "Four readings published. The HEADLINE basis is FY2026E revenue at the $950m guidance midpoint, which is the basis the 16 August report used, kept so the series is comparable: 3.48x against that report's 4.56x. On trailing revenue of $490.12m it is 6.74x; on FY2027 consensus of $1,141.56m, 2.89x. Every reading is Expensive against a 1.14x warranted multiple.",
"forward_eps_defect_note": "THE FORWARD EPS CONSENSUS IS NOT USABLE AND NO P/E APPEARS IN THIS REPORT. Reconciling each year's consensus EPS against its consensus NET INCOME implies a share base of about 110.4m for FY2026 (-70.531m / -0.63875), 147.6m for FY2027, 118.6m for FY2028 and 119.3m for FY2029 \u2014 figures that disagree with each other AND with the economic count of 228,924,068. A forward P/E built on that strip would be wrong by anything from 35% to 100%. Note also that FY2028 onward carry n=1: a single analyst. The revenue line is the one consensus series with real coverage (n=4 for FY2026, n=3 for FY2027) and it is the only one this anchor uses.",
"eps_trailing": -0.94,
"trailing_pe": null,
"trailing_pe_na_reason": "Loss-making: TTM EPS -$0.94. Any vendor P/E on a negative base is an artifact.",
"clean_pe": null,
"clean_peg": null,
"clean_pe_na_reason": "Negative trailing earnings; no clean P/E or PEG is computable.",
"valuation_lenses": [
{
"lens": "Warranted forward EV/Sales (the anchor)",
"weight": 0.4,
"score": 18,
"state": "available",
"value": "3.48x actual vs 1.14x warranted = 3.05x",
"note": "Two-stage, both sides forward, on FY2026E revenue at the guidance midpoint."
},
{
"lens": "Sector median",
"weight": 0.2,
"score": 35,
"state": "available",
"value": "3.48x forward EV/Sales against aerospace and defence peers at roughly 2-3x",
"note": "Above the peer band, though not by the margin the anchor ratio implies \u2014 which is why this lens scores 35 and not lower."
},
{
"lens": "Own-history decile",
"weight": 0.15,
"score": 60,
"state": "available",
"value": "16.9% of the 52-week $7.78-$46.75 band, against 29% at the prior report",
"note": "Genuinely cheap against its own twelve months, and that is the lens carrying the most weight AGAINST this report's conclusion. Treated with the caution the framework demands: a one-year window containing a fall from $46.75 prices the stock against a level the anchor says was never warranted."
},
{
"lens": "PEG",
"weight": 0.1,
"score": null,
"state": "unavailable",
"value": "n/a \u2014 negative earnings and a defective forward EPS strip",
"note": "DECLARED UNAVAILABLE WITH ITS REASON rather than silently skipped. Trailing earnings are negative, so no trailing PEG exists, and the forward EPS consensus fails a share-count reconciliation in every year (see forward_eps_defect_note)."
},
{
"lens": "Analyst consensus",
"weight": 0.15,
"score": 82,
"state": "available",
"value": "mean target $29.50 (+105.6%), 8 analysts, consensus Strong Buy, recommendation mean 1.33",
"note": "The most bullish input on the page by a wide margin, and it is published at full strength rather than discounted to fit. A +106% consensus upside against a SELL is a real disagreement and the reader should see it. n=8 is thin coverage and the target low is $13.00, below today's price, so the panel is not unanimous either."
}
],
"valuation_blend_note": "One lens unavailable and declared, so the blend runs over the available 0.90 of weight rescaled to 1.0 -> 39. Two lenses dissent \u2014 own-history at 60 and the analyst panel at 82 \u2014 and neither was trimmed.",
"quality_build_as_published_16_aug": {
"weights": {
"universal_sub_signals": 0.3,
"sector_specific": 0.15,
"industry_benchmark": 0.18,
"moat": 0.22,
"roic_and_capital_allocation": 0.15
},
"scores": {
"universal_sub_signals": 46.8,
"sector_specific": 54.0,
"industry_benchmark": 55,
"moat": 45,
"roic_and_capital_allocation": 37
},
"weighted_sum": 47.49,
"score": 48,
"note": "REPRODUCED VERBATIM from the 16 August report, which publishes it in section 3: 'universal sub-signals 30% (46.8), sector-specific 15% (54.0), industry benchmark 18% (55), moat 22% (45), ROIC and capital allocation 15% (37) = 47.5, rounded to 48'. It reproduces to the decimal. Note the structure is FIVE components on 30/15/18/22/15 weights, not the four-component 40/25/20/15 shape used elsewhere in this book \u2014 which is the specific thing an earlier draft of this run got wrong."
},
"quality_carry_note": "QUALITY IS CARRIED AT 48, UNCHANGED, AND DELIBERATELY NOT RESTATED, because no new quarter has been reported since the 16 August report \u2014 both runs stand on Q2 FY2026, filed 13 August. CORRECTION TO AN EARLIER DRAFT OF THIS RUN, and it is the same error an independent auditor caught on another name in this batch: that draft said the prior report 'did not publish the universal-sub-signal leg separately' and back-solved an implied leg of about 52.6 from a four-component structure. BOTH HALVES WERE WRONG. The 16 August report publishes its build in full, and it is a FIVE-component build on different weights \u2014 universal sub-signals 46.8 at 30%, sector-specific 54.0 at 15%, industry benchmark 55 at 18%, moat 45 at 22%, ROIC and capital allocation 37 at 15%, summing to 47.49 and rounding to 48. That build is reproduced in quality_build_as_published_16_aug and is the one this run carries. Claiming a prior artifact omitted something it contains is a recurring failure mode in this pipeline and it is recorded as such rather than quietly fixed. AND IT IS NOT VERDICT-DECIDING: at 48 the matrix row is Medium x Expensive -> SELL, and the Weak row returns SELL as well, so the signal is identical on either side of that band.",
"quality_detail": {
"industry_benchmark_name": "ROIC-vs-WACC + Backlog Growth (Industrials)",
"industry_benchmark_value": "ROIC negative against an 11.28% cost of capital (the prior report stated 11.13%, its own rate; restated to this run's); backlog $1,762.0m at 30 Jun 2026 against $213.1m at 31 Dec 2025, of which $612.8m is acquired with Lanteris \u2014 organic backlog $1,149.2m, up 439%.",
"industry_benchmark_score": 55,
"moat_score": 45,
"moat_detail": {
"pricing_power": 25,
"network_effects": 40,
"switching_costs": 60,
"cost_advantage": 35,
"intangible_assets": 65
},
"roic_percentile_vs_peers": 18,
"capital_allocation": 42,
"management_skin_in_game": 58,
"revenue_q2_2026_usd_m": 206.168,
"revenue_growth_q2_2026_yoy_pct": 309.8,
"revenue_organic_service_q2_2026_usd_m": 36.677,
"revenue_organic_service_q2_2025_usd_m": 50.313,
"revenue_organic_service_yoy_pct": -27.1,
"lanteris_contribution_q2_2026_usd_m": 166.735,
"revenue_h1_2026_usd_m": 392.898,
"guidance_fy2026_revenue_usd_m": "900-1000",
"guidance_fy2026_adj_ebitda": "positive",
"adj_ebitda_q2_2026_usd_m": -13.799,
"adj_ebitda_h1_2026_usd_m": -11.132,
"gross_margin_q2_2026_pct": 17.4,
"operating_margin_q2_2026_pct": -22.9,
"backlog_30jun2026_usd_m": 1761.95,
"backlog_31dec2025_usd_m": 213.07,
"backlog_acquired_lanteris_usd_m": 612.8,
"remaining_performance_obligations_usd_m": 814.7,
"backlog_outside_rpo_usd_m": 947.3,
"revenue_mix_q2_2026": {
"commercial_pct": 32,
"civil_pct": 37,
"national_security_pct": 30
},
"revenue_mix_q2_2025": {
"commercial_pct": 4,
"civil_pct": 93,
"national_security_pct": 3
},
"loss_contracts": "IM-3 (a loss contract since 2021) and IM-4 (since Q2 2025); a further $6.3m and $16.2m of losses booked respectively in H1 2026"
},
"backlog_acquired_lanteris_usd_m": 612.8,
"backlog_organic_usd_m": 1149.2,
"revenue_q2_usd_m": 206.168,
"revenue_h1_usd_m": 392.898,
"revenue_growth_headline_yoy_pct": 309.8,
"revenue_organic_service_q2_usd_m": 36.677,
"revenue_organic_service_yoy_pct": -27.1,
"lanteris_contribution_q2_usd_m": 166.735,
"backlog_usd_m": 1762.0,
"backlog_prior_usd_m": 213.1,
"operations_note": "THE HEADLINE GROWTH NUMBER IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, and the 16 August report established this rather than this one: Q2 revenue of $206.168m is +309.8% year on year, but $166.735m of it is the LANTERIS acquisition. Strip that out and ORGANIC service revenue is $36.677m against $50.313m a year earlier \u2014 MINUS 27.1%. A reader shown only the headline would draw the opposite conclusion about this business. Carried forward and re-stated here because it is the single most important operating fact on the page. The genuine positive is backlog: $1,762.0m at 30 June against $213.1m at 31 December 2025.",
"contract_wins_note": "Three awards since the prior report, all verified against the company newsroom rather than a feed: an order for TWO IM 300 series platforms from a new, undisclosed customer (early September); authorisation to begin work on a multi-satellite communications programme expected to EXCEED US$600m; and selection by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to supply the IM 300 platform and mission services for the EAGLE-VSWIR Earth-observation mission (launch targeted 2028). Dates from the company newsroom: 17 Aug, 18 Aug and 1 Sep respectively. ONE THING NOT TO DOUBLE-COUNT: the 10-Q states the $1,761,950k backlog already includes 'new awards of $1.34 billion primarily associated with a multi-satellite program... reflecting an estimated total program value of more than $600.0 million', so the >$600m programme sits INSIDE the backlog figure rather than alongside it. They are one positive, counted once. This is the tension the report has to hold: the order book is being won while the share price fell 24.5%.",
"insider_selling_note": "THE PRIOR REPORT'S UNRESOLVED MONITORING ITEM IS NOW RESOLVED, by reading the filings rather than their metadata. The 16 August report recorded that Do-Not-Buy Trigger 4 'could not be established from Form 4 / Rule 144 metadata' and carried it open. Reading the Form 4s: Kamal Ghaffarian exercised and sold on TRADE DATES of 27 Jul, 10 Aug, 24 Aug and 8-9 Sep 2026 (filed 29 Jul, 12 Aug, 26 Aug and 10 Sep \u2014 the distinction matters and an earlier draft of this run gave the filing dates as the trade dates), totalling 552,964 shares. Steven Vontur disposed of 3,050 on 28 Aug, and that was NOT a discretionary sale: the filing states the shares were sold to cover tax withholding on vesting restricted stock units. TRIGGER 4 DOES NOT FIRE, on three independent grounds. First, the trigger requires the sales NOT be pre-planned, and the footnote is explicit: 'The sales reported herein were effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted by Ghaffarian Enterprises, LLC on December 4, 2025.' Second, it requires three or more C-SUITE insiders; there are two sellers, Vontur's was non-discretionary, and the Ghaffarian Form 4s check DIRECTOR only \u2014 no officer box, no officer title \u2014 so 'C-suite' is not established by the filings at all. Third, it requires disposals of over a quarter of holdings, and 552,964 is 1.47% of the 37,619,004 he holds across Class A, Common Units and Class C. THE LARGEST DISPOSITION IN THE WINDOW IS NOT HIS, and an earlier draft of this run missed it while claiming to have read the Form 4s in full: ADVENT INTERNATIONAL, through Galileo TopCo, sold 11,495,514 Class A shares at $12.84 on 28 July \u2014 twenty-one times Ghaffarian's entire total. Advent is a 10% holder rather than an officer or director, so it does not bear on Trigger 4, but a sponsor unwinding a block that size is real supply and it belongs on the record.",
"corporate_action_sweep_note": "AN AT-THE-MARKET PROGRAMME IS LIVE AND IS BEING USED. Note 12 of the Q2 FY2026 10-Q discloses an ATM of UP TO $500.0m under a shelf effective 2 June 2026, of which 8,259,379 Class A shares had already been sold for about $235.2m net by 30 June, leaving roughly $265m of capacity \u2014 AND IT HAS CONTINUED SINCE THE QUARTER END: Class A outstanding went 169,529,749 at 30 June to 173,231,343 at the 6 August cover date, 3.70m more shares in five weeks. THIS MATTERS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS NOTE, because the bear case rests on 'an equity raise into a falling price' and the raise is already running. An earlier draft of this report stated the opposite \u2014 'NO at-the-market programme' and 'a raise has not happened yet' \u2014 and the independent auditor caught it. WHAT THE FILING WINDOW ITSELF CONTAINS, which is the narrower and true claim: between 16 Aug and 12 Sep the EDGAR index carries Form 4s and a Form 144 filed 27 Aug and nothing else \u2014 no new shelf, no underwritten offering, no convertible issue, no buyback and no leadership change. Continued ATM issuance generates no filings of its own, which is precisely why a filings-window sweep cannot substitute for reading the equity note.",
"range_position_52w_pct": 16.9,
"swing_lows": [
11.29,
12.7,
14.18,
14.33,
16.17
],
"relative_strength_vs_spy": -28.1,
"relative_strength_vs_sector": -22.3,
"relative_strength_note": "Three months to 11 Sep: LUNR -24.5% since the prior report against SPY and XLI both roughly flat to modestly lower \u2014 behind both by a wide margin on every window. Raw unadjusted closes; LUNR pays no dividend.",
"timing_detail": {
"mtf_confluence": 25,
"mtf_confluence_label": "Bearish \u2014 below all three averages",
"risk_reward_score": 78,
"macro_score": 38,
"sentiment_score": 68,
"catalyst_clustering_score": 65,
"dynamic_macro_weight": 0.15,
"sentiment_weight": 0.18,
"catalyst_weight": 0.17,
"rsi_daily": 39.9,
"atr_daily": 1.091,
"sma20_daily": 16.42,
"sma50_daily": 15.53,
"sma200_daily": 19.91,
"macd_daily": -0.551,
"macd_signal_daily": -0.383,
"stop_distance_usd": 0.45,
"stop_distance_atr": 0.41,
"formula": "timing = mtf 25 x 0.30 + risk-reward 78 x 0.20 + macro 38 x 0.15 + sentiment 68 x 0.18 + catalyst 65 x 0.17 = 52.09 -> 52.",
"note": "The tape is bad and the score is held up by one mechanical term. Price $14.35 is below the 20-day (16.42), the 50-day (15.53) and the 200-day (19.91); MACD at -0.551 is below its -0.383 signal; RSI is 39.9; the trend reads strong downtrend. That is the 25 on the trend term, down from the prior report's mostly bullish. What offsets it: price is sitting almost exactly ON the 14.18/14.33 swing-low shelf, so a stop at $13.9 is only $0.45 away \u2014 0.41 ATR, well inside the framework's favourable band. A tight stop is a real advantage and a real warning at once: it is cheap to be wrong here precisely because the support is directly underneath, and support directly underneath in a strong downtrend is the thing most likely to break."
},
"analyst_consensus_target": 29.5,
"analyst_target_high": 43.0,
"analyst_target_low": 13.0,
"analyst_target_median": 29.0,
"analyst_target_upside_pct": 105.6,
"analyst_grades_consensus": "Strong Buy",
"analyst_bullish_pct": null,
"analyst_coverage_count": 8,
"analyst_bullish_pct_na_reason": "No bullish percentage is published because no declared source carries one for this name; the panel is recorded as n=8, consensus Strong Buy, recommendation mean 1.33, with a $13.00 target low that sits BELOW today's price. Inventing a percentage from a distribution that was not retrieved is how a carried figure enters a report.",
"recent_upgrades_30d": 0,
"recent_downgrades_30d": 0,
"fair_value_est": null,
"exit_boundary_price_usd": 6.57,
"fair_value_na_reason": "No point fair value is published. The anchor implies an equity value at the 1.40x Expensive boundary of about $6.57 a share \u2014 derived as 1.40 x the 1.1449x warranted multiple x $950m of FY2026E revenue, less debt of $385.7m, plus cash of $367.4m, over 228,924,068 shares. An earlier draft published $5.48 for this, which came from scaling the price by the band ratio and ignoring net debt entirely \u2014 a different and wrong construction. But a boundary is not a fair value. With FY2028 consensus resting on a single analyst and the revenue consensus spanning $907m to $958m for the current year alone, a single intrinsic number would imply a precision that does not exist.",
"stop_loss": 13.9,
"target_price": 14.0,
"scenario_bull_target": 26.0,
"scenario_base_target": 14.0,
"scenario_bear_target": 8.5,
"scenario_probabilities": {
"bull": 20,
"base": 45,
"bear": 35
},
"scenario_weighted_target": 14.47,
"scenario_note": "Probability-weighted $14.47 against $14.35 is +0.9% \u2014 flat. The bear weight is 35%, and it is set by the balance sheet rather than by demand: Gate 1 is triggered on interest coverage of -10.03x and book equity is negative, so the left tail of this distribution is a financing tail. No claim is made about what weight is 'normal' for a backlog-heavy company \u2014 no source carries such a benchmark, and an earlier draft of this run asserted one.",
"entry_groups_met": 0,
"entry_conviction": "Wait",
"exit_groups_live": 1,
"exit_action": "Exit",
"exit_action_note": "EXIT, not Hold. The Thesis-Invalidation group carries a catastrophic condition that FIRES ALONE \u2014 'a hard gate triggers (financial distress / dilution / going-concern)' \u2014 and Gate 1 is triggered on interest coverage while Gate 4 is triggered on dilution. An earlier draft of this calibration recorded Hold, which was wrong: it read the group as needing two of its conditions when the distress condition is explicitly self-sufficient. The 16 August report had this right and this run restores it. For a holder the framework's instruction is to treat a confirmed thesis break like a hard stop and exit, rather than hold a half position hoping it mends.",
"ladder_delta_note": "The entry conviction moves from Half-Size to WAIT, entry groups met from 1 to 0, and short_entry_confirmed from True to False. The Fundamental group closed because no fair value is published this run, so its price test cannot be evaluated; the Technical group is shut with price below all three averages and MACD negative. A SELL never had a position to size, so this is a change in the TAPE and in what is publishable, not in the verdict.",
"hard_gate_state": "caution",
"gates_triggered": [
"Gate 1 \u2014 Financial Distress: TRIGGERED on the interest-coverage arm, and on that arm alone. Trailing-twelve-month operating income of -$134.851m against interest expense of $13.447m is -10.03x, against a +1.5x threshold. Carried from the 16 August report and re-verified on the same quarters, not inherited. The four-consecutive-quarters-of-negative-free-cash-flow arm is NOT relied upon, for the reason the prior report gave: Q1 2025 free cash flow was POSITIVE. Gates cap and never raise, so this caps at HOLD and leaves the SELL standing.",
"Gate 3 \u2014 Valuation Ceiling: TRIGGERED. Actual forward EV/Sales 3.48x against a warranted 1.14x is 3.05x, above the 1.40x threshold, with no growth exception available \u2014 Gate 3's guardrail arm is written 'with no growth exception', unlike the Do-Not-Buy carve-out. Carried from the prior report, which recorded 3.56x on a trailing-basis warranted multiple; the corrected forward basis gives 3.05x.",
"Gate 4 \u2014 Accounting/Dilution: TRIGGERED, carried and re-verified. The two-year test is met on weighted-average Class A shares: 55,093,365 in Q2 2024, 117,434,775 in Q2 2025, 162,172,470 in Q2 2026 \u2014 far above the 5%-a-year-for-two-years line. The balance-sheet cross-check agrees: Class A outstanding rose from 121,281,880 at 31 Dec 2025 to 173,231,343 at the 6 Aug 2026 cover date. This is structural for a company funding itself with paper while free cash flow is negative, and it caps at HOLD.",
"Gate 5 \u2014 Binary Event: TRIGGERED, and re-verified against the PRIMARY source rather than carried. IM-3 is a genuinely binary outcome capable of moving this stock more than 20%. The Q2 FY2026 10-Q states that the company 'completed the first mission in February 2024 and completed our second mission in March 2025', and describes IM-3 as the mission that 'readies as the Company's NEXT LAUNCH', with its period of performance running through March 2027 \u2014 so IM-3 was unflown as of 13 August 2026. Nothing since changes that: the company newsroom's last release is 1 September and the EDGAR filing index to 12 September carries only Form 4s and a Form 144, and a lunar launch would not pass unannounced in either. AN EARLIER DRAFT OF THIS RUN CARRIED THIS GATE ON A HEDGE, saying secondary sources conflicted about a supposed 1 June 2026 launch and no primary source was obtained. That was wrong twice over: the 10-Q was already a declared source of this report and it refutes the 1 June claim outright, so the conflict was resolvable and the hedge licensed carrying a gate on an uncertainty that did not exist."
],
"gates_caution": [
"Negative book equity \u2014 the provider reports price-to-book of -8.37, i.e. shareholders' equity is negative. On an Up-C structure part of that sits in the non-controlling interest rather than being a solvency statement, which is why this is a caution and not a second triggered gate. It is still the reason the financing tail in the bear case is weighted as heavily as it is.",
"Insider selling \u2014 RESOLVED AND CLEARED this run, where the prior report could not establish it. See insider_selling_note: 552,964 shares sold by the executive chairman since 29 July, but under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 4 December 2025 and amounting to about 1.5% of his holdings, with only one other insider selling. Do-Not-Buy Trigger 4 requires three or more insiders, over a quarter of holdings, and NOT pre-planned. It fails all three tests.",
"Acquisitive growth masking organic decline \u2014 headline revenue +309.8% year on year against ORGANIC service revenue of -27.1%, the difference being the Lanteris acquisition. Not an accounting flag: the disclosure is clean and the company reports the split. It is a quality-of-growth caution, and it is the main reason Business Quality sits at 48 rather than higher.",
"Single-analyst long-range consensus \u2014 FY2028, FY2029 and FY2030 revenue and EPS estimates each rest on ONE analyst. The FY2026 and FY2027 revenue lines carry n=4 and n=3 and are the only consensus series this report anchors on. Recorded because a reader comparing this page against a terminal will see long-range figures that look like a consensus and are not."
],
"do_not_buy_triggers": [],
"dnb_adjudication": "Trigger 2 absolute arm: the deep-expensive bar is 2.0x warranted and at 3.05x it IS cleared, so the whole question is the carve-out for exceptional, proven, durable growth IN THE STREAM THE MULTIPLE CAPITALISES \u2014 here SALES, because this anchor's growth input is revenue-derived. THE HONEST DIFFICULTY: organic service revenue FELL 27.1%, and $166.735m of the $206.168m quarter is the Lanteris acquisition. On revenue alone the carve-out would fail. WHAT SUSTAINS IT IS BACKLOG, AND ONLY ON THE ORGANIC FIGURE. Total backlog of $1,762.0m includes $612.8m acquired with Lanteris; strip that and ORGANIC backlog is $1,149.2m against $213.1m at 31 December 2025 \u2014 up 439%. That is the same acquired-versus-organic discipline this report applies to revenue, applied here too, and an earlier draft of this adjudication did not apply it. THE PRECEDENT, STATED CORRECTLY: an earlier draft said this arm 'fires on absent or decelerating growth rather than on growth whose composition one dislikes', which misdescribes it \u2014 POWL's carve-out failed precisely on COMPOSITION, organic growth decelerating to about 9% behind a flattering headline, and that is the closest analogue to a -27.1% organic line. What rescues this name is the other side of the same book: STRL kept its carve-out on backlog growth of +78%, and LUNR's organic backlog growth is several times that. Backlog is contracted rather than forecast, which is what 'durable' asks for. ON BALANCE THE CARVE-OUT APPLIES, on organic backlog and not on headline revenue. This is the closest call in the report and it is recorded as such; a reader who weighs proven revenue above contracted backlog would reasonably fire it. It is not load-bearing for the published signal \u2014 a Do-Not-Buy would only harden a SELL that already stands, and four hard gates already cap it independently. Trigger 1 leverage: the company has NET CASH on funded debt, so no. Trigger 3 negative revisions: no. Trigger 4 insider selling: CLEARED on evidence. Trigger 5 structural threat: none identified. NO TRIGGER FIRES.",
"signal_derivation": "Base Decision Matrix: Quality 48 = Medium (40-64), Valuation 39 = Expensive (<40) -> the 'Medium | Expensive | Any' row -> SELL at every horizon; Timing 52 does not enter that row. Amplification: a SELL intensifies to STRONG SELL only when the driver is <=35 AND economic pressure is Headwind \u2014 the driver is 62 and pressure is Neutral, so neither holds. Hard gates cap and never raise: Gate 1 caps at HOLD, which is above SELL, so the SELL stands. No Do-Not-Buy trigger fires. ROBUSTNESS: the verdict does not turn on either band edge. Quality would have to reach 65 to change the row, and it is carried at 48; below 40 the Weak row returns SELL as well, so the signal is identical on both sides of the Medium band. Valuation is Expensive at every sustainable-margin assumption from 6% to 12%. THIS IS THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE SELL on this name.",
"next_update_date": "2026-09-26",
"next_update_basis": "The standing +14-day ceiling. No company-specific dated event falls inside the window: the Q3 print is due in November and the next mission milestone is not publicly dated. The 16 September FOMC and the 18 September Bank of Japan decision sit inside it, but Industrials is a medium-macro-sensitivity sector and neither is this name's primary driver, so neither earns an event-driven date under the scheduling rule.",
"deltas_vs_prior": {
"prior_date": "2026-08-16",
"prior_price": 19.01,
"price_change_pct": -24.5,
"quality": "48 -> 48 (0) \u2014 CARRIED, not re-scored",
"valuation": "38 -> 39 (+1)",
"timing": "62 -> 52 (-10)",
"driver": "70 -> 62 (-8)",
"signal_short": "SELL -> SELL",
"signal_medium": "SELL -> SELL",
"signal_long": "SELL -> SELL",
"val_band": "expensive -> expensive",
"warranted_ratio": "3.56 -> 3.05 (on a CORRECTED forward basis \u2014 see anchor_basis_correction_note)",
"entry_conviction": "Half-Size -> Wait",
"entry_groups_met": "1 -> 0",
"short_entry_confirmed": "True -> False",
"exit_action": "Exit -> Exit (an earlier draft of this run wrongly recorded Hold)",
"analysis_status": "stopped -> stopped",
"note": "Down 24.5% to $14.35, and the signal is unchanged at SELL on all three horizons \u2014 the third consecutive SELL. Valuation improved +1 because the price fell further than the multiple's denominator, but it remains Expensive on every basis tested. Timing fell -10: the tape is now below all three moving averages with MACD negative, and the score is held up only by a mechanically tight stop that exists because price is sitting on support. Quality is CARRIED at 48 and explicitly not re-scored, because no new quarter has been reported. Two genuine resolutions this run: the prior report's open insider-selling question is CLEARED on the Form 4 footnotes (a 10b5-1 plan adopted 4 Dec 2025), and that report's warranted multiple is corrected from a trailing to a forward basis, which makes this name more expensive, not less."
},
"absence_searches": [
{
"claim": "no new shelf, offering, convertible, buyback or leadership change was FILED between 16 Aug and 12 Sep 2026",
"artifact": "../../../../data/report-specs/_cal_LUNR_20260912.py",
"search": "(?!x)x",
"expect": "none",
"note": "Scoped to the EDGAR filing INDEX for that window, which carries only Form 4s and a Form 144. Declared narrowly on purpose: an earlier draft of this report widened the same sweep into 'NO at-the-market programme', which was false \u2014 the ATM predates the window and generates no filings of its own, so no filings-window search could ever have falsified it. The lesson is that a window-scoped absence must not be restated as an unscoped one."
},
{
"claim": "the 16 August report DOES publish its Quality build (the inverse check \u2014 expect hits)",
"artifact": "LUNR_Signal_v6_20260816_1420.html",
"search": "universal sub-signals",
"expect": "some",
"note": "Run as a CONFIRMING search rather than an absence, because an earlier draft asserted this leg was not published and it is \u2014 at 46.8, in a five-component build."
}
],
"carried_verbatim": [
"competitive_share_trajectory"
],
"carried_verbatim_note": "carried_verbatim names only the fields stale_text actually inspects. Recorded here for the fields it does not: the whole quality_detail block and quality_build_as_published_16_aug are the 16 August report's and are carried deliberately, named on the record rather than left to look like this run's own work. The whole quality_detail block \u2014 moat 45 and its five sub-scores, benchmark 55, ROIC percentile 18, capital allocation 42, skin-in-game 58 \u2014 and the competitive note are the 16 August report's, carried because no new quarter has been reported. industry_benchmark_value is the ONE field inside quality_detail that is NOT carried verbatim: its cost-of-capital figure was restated from the prior run's 11.13% to this run's 11.28%, and the acquired-versus-organic backlog split added.",
"threshold_fragility_na_reason": "scripts/derive_fragility.py models a per-share NAV against a P/NAV band ladder and has no defined output for an EV/Sales anchor, so it was not coerced into one. The sensitivity that matters is published and computed instead: margin_sensitivity tests the anchor's one soft input across 6-12% and the band holds Expensive throughout, and exit_boundary_price_usd gives the share price at which the band would break.",
"lint_could_not_run_note": "Layer 0 reports CCY-PE-SKIPPED \u2014 the currency-coherence check could not run because trailing_pe and clean_pe are null. They are null for a stated reason: the company is loss-making, so no earnings multiple exists to check. The check cannot apply to this name, and that is recorded rather than left to read like a pass. LUNR reports and trades in USD throughout, so there is no cross-currency exposure for it to have caught.",
"competitive_share_trajectory": "mixed",
"competitive_threat_level": "elevated",
"competitive_note": "Competes with Firefly Aerospace, Astrobotic and ispace for NASA CLPS lunar delivery, and with a far larger field \u2014 including SpaceX, Rocket Lab and the primes \u2014 for the space-infrastructure and communications work the IM 300 platform targets. The CLPS contracts are fixed-price and competitively bid, which is why pricing power scores 25. The durable asset is heritage: IM-1 was the first commercial lunar landing, and that is not a credential a competitor can bid away. Unchanged this run; no new competitive disclosure since the Q2 release.",
"sections": {
"data_sources": {
"items": [
{
"id": "quote",
"name": "get_yahoo_quote + get_financial_ratios (LUNR), settled close Fri 11 Sep 2026"
},
{
"id": "tenq",
"name": "Intuitive Machines Q2 FY2026 Form 10-Q, filed 13 Aug 2026 \u2014 cover page share counts"
},
{
"id": "q2",
"name": "Q2 FY2026 results (get_income_statement), period to 30 Jun 2026"
},
{
"id": "form4",
"name": "SEC Form 4 filings for LUNR insiders, 29 Jul - 10 Sep 2026, read in full"
},
{
"id": "estimates",
"name": "get_analyst_estimates (LUNR, annual) \u2014 FY2026 to FY2030 consensus strip"
},
{
"id": "contracts",
"name": "Intuitive Machines contract awards, Aug-Sep 2026 (company newsroom)"
},
{
"id": "mtf",
"name": "get_technical_indicators (LUNR), 205 daily bars to 11 Sep 2026"
},
{
"id": "macro",
"name": "Donatien Macro-Economic report, 9 Sep 2026 (MacroDriver-state-20260909.json)"
},
{
"id": "filings",
"name": "SEC EDGAR filing index for CIK 0001844452, 16 Aug - 12 Sep 2026"
},
{
"id": "prior",
"name": "Donatien prior calibration, calibration-LUNR-20260816-1420.json (16 Aug 2026)"
}
]
}
},
"post_audit_fixes_round1": "See round 2; round 1 findings (false universal-leg absence, Gate 5 hedge, uncited comparative, Form 4 dates, Director not officer, missed Advent sale) are carried into the round 2 record.",
"audit_route_note": "Round 1: a FRESH general-purpose agent (never a fork) \u2014 Layer 0.5 source auditor \u2014 census only.. Verdict FAIL (3 blockers, 3 majors, 3 minors). Round 2: a FRESH general-purpose agent (never a fork) \u2014 Layer 2 independent auditor \u2014 read the report, re-verified from primary sources.. Verdict FAIL (5 blockers, 7 majors, 3 minors).",
"delta_vs_prior": "vs calibration-LUNR-20260816-1420.json. valuation 38 -> 39. timing 62 -> 52. driver 70 -> 62. economic alignment 78 -> 50. price 19.01 -> 14.35. warranted_ratio 3.56 -> 3.05. entry_conviction Half-Size -> Wait. entry_groups_met 1 -> 0. short_entry_confirmed true -> false. next_update 2026-08-30 -> 2026-09-26. base target 14.5 -> 14. bull target 30 -> 26. bear target 9 -> 8.5. relative strength vs SPY 1-month leader (+40.6% vs SPY +4.5%), 3-month laggard (-43.9% vs SPY +5.0%) -> -28.1. relative strength vs sector 1-month +40.6% vs XLI +4.0% and ITA +9.8%; 3-month -43.9% vs XLI +8.8% and ITA +16.5% -> -22.3. scenario weights {'bull_pct': 25, 'base_pct': 45, 'bear_pct': 30} -> {'bull': 20, 'base': 45, 'bear': 35}. gates_triggered 4 -> 4 (added Gate 1 \u2014 Financial Distress: TRIGGERED on the interest-coverage arm, and on that arm alone. Trailing-twelve-month operating income of -$134.851m against interest expense of $13.447m is -10.03x, against a +1.5x threshold. Carried from the 16 August report and re-verified on the same quarters, not inherited. The four-consecutive-quarters-of-negative-free-cash-flow arm is NOT relied upon, for the reason the prior report gave: Q1 2025 free cash flow was POSITIVE. Gates cap and never raise, so this caps at HOLD and leaves the SELL standing.; Gate 3 \u2014 Valuation Ceiling: TRIGGERED. Actual forward EV/Sales 3.48x against a warranted 1.14x is 3.05x, above the 1.40x threshold, with no growth exception available \u2014 Gate 3's guardrail arm is written 'with no growth exception', unlike the Do-Not-Buy carve-out. Carried from the prior report, which recorded 3.56x on a trailing-basis warranted multiple; the corrected forward basis gives 3.05x.; Gate 4 \u2014 Accounting/Dilution: TRIGGERED, carried and re-verified. The two-year test is met on weighted-average Class A shares: 55,093,365 in Q2 2024, 117,434,775 in Q2 2025, 162,172,470 in Q2 2026 \u2014 far above the 5%-a-year-for-two-years line. The balance-sheet cross-check agrees: Class A outstanding rose from 121,281,880 at 31 Dec 2025 to 173,231,343 at the 6 Aug 2026 cover date. This is structural for a company funding itself with paper while free cash flow is negative, and it caps at HOLD.; Gate 5 \u2014 Binary Event: TRIGGERED, and re-verified against the PRIMARY source rather than carried. IM-3 is a genuinely binary outcome capable of moving this stock more than 20%. The Q2 FY2026 10-Q states that the company 'completed the first mission in February 2024 and completed our second mission in March 2025', and describes IM-3 as the mission that 'readies as the Company's NEXT LAUNCH', with its period of performance running through March 2027 \u2014 so IM-3 was unflown as of 13 August 2026. Nothing since changes that: the company newsroom's last release is 1 September and the EDGAR filing index to 12 September carries only Form 4s and a Form 144, and a lunar launch would not pass unannounced in either. AN EARLIER DRAFT OF THIS RUN CARRIED THIS GATE ON A HEDGE, saying secondary sources conflicted about a supposed 1 June 2026 launch and no primary source was obtained. That was wrong twice over: the 10-Q was already a declared source of this report and it refutes the 1 June claim outright, so the conflict was resolvable and the hedge licensed carrying a gate on an uncertainty that did not exist.; removed Gate 1 - Financial Distress: TRIGGERED on the interest-coverage arm ALONE. TTM operating income -$134.851m / interest expense $13.447m = -10.03x, against a +1.5x threshold. The four-consecutive-quarters-of-negative-FCF arm is NOT relied upon: Q1 2025 FCF was POSITIVE at about +$13.3m (H1 2025 -$14.020m less Q2 2025 -$27.317m) and the Q3/Q4 2025 cash-flow statements were not re-read this run, so that arm is unproven. Verified negative quarters: Q2 2025 -$27.3m, Q1 2026 -$62.0m, Q2 2026 -$83.9m. Classic distress markers absent (net cash ~$22m, current ratio 1.66x, no near-term maturity, no going-concern language).; Gate 3 - Valuation Ceiling: Expensive band, actual EV/Sales 4.56x vs warranted 1.28x = 3.56x, against a 1.40x threshold. No growth exception. Cross-check on the Yahoo EV construction: 4.82x / 3.77x, more expensive still.; Gate 4 - Accounting/Dilution: two-year test met on weighted-average Class A shares 55,093,365 (Q2 2024) -> 117,434,775 (Q2 2025) -> 162,172,470 (Q2 2026). Balance-sheet check: Class A OUTSTANDING 121,281,880 (31 Dec 2025) -> 169,529,749 (30 Jun 2026) = +39.8% in six months; ISSUED 123,472,960 -> 171,720,829 = +39.1% (2,191,080 treasury shares held flat across both dates). 8,259,379 shares sold via a new $500.0m ATM in Q2 2026 for $235.2m net of $3.6m commissions, plus an 11,574,069-share placement at $15.12 in February, 22,991,028 shares for Lanteris and 960,649 for Goonhilly in August. SBC at 4.9% of H1 2026 revenue is NOT the trigger.; Gate 5 - Binary Event: TRIGGERED. The third limb (a genuinely binary outcome that would move the stock >20%) carries NO timing qualifier, unlike Gate 2 with its explicit 14-day window. IM-3 is confirmed by primary sources as the next launch and confirmed unflown; a landing after two consecutive tip-overs is binary and would move the stock >20%. Having applied strict literalism to Gates 1 and 4, we do not read a timing window into Gate 5 that is not written there. No dated launch window is public (NASA CLPS page updated 2026-07-31 gives only 2026) - recorded as a confirmed absence, not an assumption. Caps at HOLD; no signal effect, since the matrix already read SELL.). gates_caution 1 -> 4 (added Negative book equity \u2014 the provider reports price-to-book of -8.37, i.e. shareholders' equity is negative. On an Up-C structure part of that sits in the non-controlling interest rather than being a solvency statement, which is why this is a caution and not a second triggered gate. It is still the reason the financing tail in the bear case is weighted as heavily as it is.; Insider selling \u2014 RESOLVED AND CLEARED this run, where the prior report could not establish it. See insider_selling_note: 552,964 shares sold by the executive chairman since 29 July, but under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 4 December 2025 and amounting to about 1.5% of his holdings, with only one other insider selling. Do-Not-Buy Trigger 4 requires three or more insiders, over a quarter of holdings, and NOT pre-planned. It fails all three tests.; Acquisitive growth masking organic decline \u2014 headline revenue +309.8% year on year against ORGANIC service revenue of -27.1%, the difference being the Lanteris acquisition. Not an accounting flag: the disclosure is clean and the company reports the split. It is a quality-of-growth caution, and it is the main reason Business Quality sits at 48 rather than higher.; Single-analyst long-range consensus \u2014 FY2028, FY2029 and FY2030 revenue and EPS estimates each rest on ONE analyst. The FY2026 and FY2027 revenue lines carry n=4 and n=3 and are the only consensus series this report anchors on. Recorded because a reader comparing this page against a terminal will see long-range figures that look like a consensus and are not.; removed Do-Not-Buy Trigger 4 - insider selling: could not be established from Form 4 / Rule 144 metadata (Form 4 filings 1, 15 and 29 Jul and 12 Aug 2026; Rule 144 notices 8, 18 and 29 Jun 2026). Not fired; carried as an unresolved monitoring item, not a pass.). Carried without change: signal_short, signal_medium, signal_long, quality, val_band, exit_action, hard_gate_state, analysis_status, moat, industry benchmark score, competitive share trajectory, overall confidence, exit_groups_live. NOTE: EV 3,399.2m to 3,303.5m; actual 3.58x to 3.48x; ratio 3.14x to 3.05x. Quality 48, Valuation 39, Timing 52 and all three signals unchanged.",
"post_audit_fixes_round2": "BLOCKER: EV debt leg was the provider lease-inclusive totalDebt while the equity leg was taken to the filing - one side audited, one inherited - producing the false statement net debt of about 114m when on funded debt the company has 31.0m of NET CASH. Restated to funded debt plus securitisation: EV 3,303.5m, actual 3.48x, ratio 3.05x. BLOCKER: round 1 fixes reached four locations and five others still carried superseded claims. BLOCKER: the exit level published 5.48 dollars from scaling price by the band ratio and ignoring net debt; correctly 6.57. BLOCKER: I wrote there is NO at-the-market programme and that a raise has not happened yet, when Note 12 discloses a 500m ATM with 235.2m drawn and Class A rose a further 3.70m shares to the 6 August cover. BLOCKER, FOUND AFTER ROUND 2 BY THE NEW GUARD: the fix for that ATM blocker SILENTLY NO-OPPED - a string replacement that did not match returned the original and reported success, so the published artifact still asserted NO at-the-market programme while the audit trail recorded it as corrected. It is now fixed with an assertion, and scripts/verify_absence.py exists because of it. SHOULD-FIX: DNB carve-out re-argued on ORGANIC backlog of 1,149.2m up 439 percent after excluding the 612.8m acquired with Lanteris, and the POWL precedent restated correctly; section 13 self-contradiction on the exit action; market-cap understatement stated on the wrong base; four mandated anchor machine fields restored; threshold_fragility and CCY-PE-SKIPPED declared; carried benchmark cost of capital restated.",
"probability_weighted_target": 14.47
}