VARA Hedge Fund Rumor: What Its 13F Shows It Owns

Quick answer

No credible outlet has reported that Value Aligned Research Advisors (VARA), the Princeton, New Jersey hedge fund behind the VAR AI Fund, is in trouble. As of 2:16pm ET on Oct 16, 2026, the claim rests on posts circulating on social media since Oct 15, and we found no statement from VARA and no report from Bloomberg, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Business Insider, Institutional Investor or Hedge Fund Alert. The holdings list being shared with the posts is built from VARA's March 31 13F. Its newer June 30 13F, filed Aug 17, tells a different story: $16.73 billion of common stock in 59 positions, none larger than 2.86% of a company and none needing more than 1.3 days of average volume to sell. At 2:16pm those positions were worth $11.48 billion at current prices, if unchanged since June. Bloom Energy (BE), the largest, traded at $224.05, down 5.2%.

Our view: Bullish through November 16, 2026, the date by which VARA's September 30 13F is due, on the stocks most exposed to the fund, led by Bloom Energy. Three facts carry the most weight. First, the overhang is small: even a full sale of any one position equals less than one day of normal trading. Second, VARA's holdings fell in the same range as AI infrastructure stocks it did not report owning, and on Oct 15 they rose after the posts began. Third, Bloom reports on Oct 22 after raising its 2026 revenue guidance to $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion in July. The case against is real: the CoreWeave credit scare that drove this week's selloff is not resolved, Bloom trades at 44 times forward earnings, and VARA's own reported 44% loss in July shows how fast this book can move. We would move off Bullish if a credible outlet or VARA confirms forced selling of the book, if Bloom cuts its 2026 guidance on Oct 22, or if another AI cloud company has to borrow at more than 10%, which would show CoreWeave's funding problem spreading. This is a view on direction over that window, not a recommendation to trade any stock.

Key takeaways

No credible outlet has reported that Value Aligned Research Advisors (VARA) has suffered losses since July or is selling its book; as of 2:16pm ET on Oct 16 the claim rests on posts circulating on social media, and VARA has made no public statement.
The holdings list being shared uses VARA's March 31 13F; its June 30 13F reports $40.1 billion, but only $16.73 billion is common stock, while $20.47 billion of calls and $2.91 billion of puts are reported at the value of the underlying shares.
Every common-stock position in the June 30 filing could be sold in less than 1.3 days of average volume, and the largest stake in any company was 2.86% of shares outstanding, so a forced sale would be absorbed quickly.
VARA's holdings fell in the same range as AI infrastructure stocks it did not report owning: Super Micro and Galaxy Digital dropped almost 10% on Oct 16, like Iren, Cipher and Applied Digital.
Our view is Bullish through November 16, 2026, the date by which the September 30 13F is due: the overhang from a possible seller is small, and Bloom Energy, the largest stock position, reports on Oct 22 with guidance already raised.

Table of contents

Oct 16, 2026: the rumor spreads as AI infrastructure stocks fall again
What a 13F does and does not show
What VARA owned at June 30
How the book changed from March 31 to June 30
The most exposed names
The case against
What would confirm or refute the rumor

Oct 16, 2026: the rumor spreads as AI infrastructure stocks fall again

The posts began around midday on Oct 15. investingLive's Adam Button noted the rumors that day and said he was weighing them against a broader de-risking move in markets. One widely shared post, relayed by ChainCatcher, listed VARA's holdings using the March 31 13F at current prices and put the book at $13.1 billion across 60 names, led by Nebius at $1.28 billion and Bloom at $1.27 billion. A further post on X attributed to Godel Terminal said a person familiar described the fund as "doing fine"; we could not open the original and treat it as unconfirmed.

The background is real. Bloomberg reported in August, per Hedgeweek, that the flagship fund lost 44% in July after a selloff in AI stocks, cutting its gain for the year to about 65% from almost 200% through June, and that the firm managed about $26.4 billion at the end of June. VARA declined to comment on its performance then. The firm was founded by Ben Hoskin and David Field, per the same report.

Bloom Energy opened at $231.28 after trading at $237.89 at 4am, reached $233.59 at 9:45am, and fell to $223.35 shortly after 1:15pm. At 2:16pm it was $224.05, down 5.2%, on 7.8 million shares, about half its average day. After the drop, RSI(14) stood at 37, the shares sat 10% below their 50-day average and 4% above their 200-day average, and they were 36% below the 52-week high of $351.28.

What the trading shows, at 2:16pm:

Stock or fund	In VARA's June 30 13F?	Oct 16 change
CoreWeave (CRWV)	Yes, 1.98% of shares	-12.3%
Nebius (NBIS)	Yes, 2.54%	-11.6%
Applied Digital (APLD)	Yes, 1.83%	-10.4%
Iren (IREN)	Yes, 2.15%	-10.1%
Cipher Digital (CIFR)	Yes, 2.68%	-10.0%
Super Micro (SMCI)	No	-9.8%
Galaxy Digital (GLXY)	No	-9.7%
Oklo (OKLO)	No	-7.2%
Bloom Energy (BE)	Yes, 1.90%	-5.2%
VanEck semiconductor ETF (SMH)	No	-2.7%
Invesco QQQ (QQQ)	No	-2.3%

Stocks VARA did not report owning fell almost as much as the ones it did: CoreWeave and Nebius fell about 2 points more than Super Micro and Galaxy Digital, while Bloom fell less. That fits the sector selloff we covered for CoreWeave, Nebius, Iren, Super Micro and TeraWulf, driven by CoreWeave's borrowing costs, better than it fits one holder selling. For other stocks that moved this week, see today's biggest stock moves. The Oct 15 tape points the same way: from 12:20pm, around when the first posts we found appeared, to the close, Bloom rose from $230.02 to $236.30, Nebius from $176.15 to $188.41 and CoreWeave from $63.89 to $69.69.

What a 13F does and does not show

A 13F is the quarterly list of US-listed stocks and listed options that a manager with more than $100 million must file within 45 days of quarter end, per the SEC. It shows long positions only. It leaves out short sales (puts are the one bearish position it shows), swaps, holdings listed outside the US, cash and borrowing. It is a snapshot of one day, so by the time it is public the fund may have traded the whole book.

Options are the biggest trap. In VARA's June 30 filing, each option row equals the shares covered times that day's stock price; the Alphabet call row, for example, is 13.0 million shares at $357.37. That is the value of the underlying shares, not the premium paid, so the $40.1 billion headline is not a measure of the fund's size.

Bar chart of VARA's 13F reported value by type: shares $8.44 billion, calls $11.26 billion and puts $1.01 billion at Mar 31, 2026; shares $16.73 billion, calls $20.47 billion and puts $2.91 billion at Jun 30, 2026

The Form ADV amendment VARA filed on Sep 22 lists 9 employees and $9.14 billion of regulatory assets: $5.19 billion in two pooled funds and $3.95 billion for two charitable-organization clients. Advisers update those figures in their annual filing, so they may predate this year's growth and should not be read as a current count.

What VARA owned at June 30

The 15 largest common-stock positions, with prices at 2:16pm ET on Oct 16:

Stock	Shares held	Value at Jun 30	Value at Oct 16 price	Avg daily volume	Days to sell	% of shares out
Bloom Energy (BE)	5.59M	$1,691M	$1,251M	15.7M	0.36	1.90%
Nebius (NBIS)	6.10M	$1,686M	$1,017M	20.7M	0.30	2.54%
CoreWeave (CRWV)	10.89M	$1,084M	$665M	31.3M	0.35	1.98%
Intel (INTC)	6.35M	$886M	$575M	106.7M	0.06	0.12%
Micron (MU)	0.73M	$846M	$655M	31.2M	0.02	0.06%
Sandisk (SNDK)	0.31M	$709M	$414M	12.3M	0.03	0.22%
Seagate (STX)	0.71M	$685M	$463M	4.6M	0.15	0.31%
Western Digital (WDC)	0.99M	$631M	$336M	7.8M	0.13	0.26%
Lumentum (LITE)	0.73M	$630M	$615M	4.8M	0.15	0.81%
Celestica (CLS)	1.58M	$575M	$478M	2.6M	0.61	1.25%
Comfort Systems (FIX)	0.24M	$483M	$354M	0.4M	0.61	0.69%
Vertiv (VRT)	1.44M	$481M	$300M	5.4M	0.27	0.37%
TSMC ADR (TSM)	1.01M	$481M	$415M	10.9M	0.09	0.02%
Amazon (AMZN)	1.63M	$387M	$405M	38.6M	0.04	0.02%
Iren (IREN)	8.47M	$387M	$231M	45.0M	0.19	2.15%

Average volume covers the 63 sessions from Jul 20 to Oct 15. Across all 59 positions, the longest exit is TransAlta at 1.21 days, and the largest ownership stake is Core Scientific at 2.86%.

Bar chart of the days of average volume needed to sell VARA's 15 largest June 30 stock positions, from 0.61 days for Celestica and Comfort Systems to 0.02 days for Micron

The call book is larger and concentrated in three megacaps. At Oct 16 prices the June 30 calls cover $4.55 billion of Amazon, $4.44 billion of Alphabet and $4.34 billion of Nvidia stock, and less than $1 billion each of TSMC, Micron, Intel, ASML and CoreWeave. Those stocks trade billions of dollars a day, so even an unwind of those calls would be small against the market. For why quarter-end stakes can mislead, see our explainer on open interest.

How the book changed from March 31 to June 30

The viral list is out of date in ways that matter. Between the two filings VARA:

Doubled the stock book to $16.73 billion from $8.44 billion, and grew calls to $20.47 billion from $11.26 billion.
Added to AI cloud names: CoreWeave up 31% to 10.9 million shares, Bloom up 22%, Iren up 78%, TeraWulf up 56%, Core Scientific up 19%.
Built new memory and chip stakes: Intel to 6.35 million shares from 0.50 million, Micron and Sandisk roughly tripled, and new positions in Cerebras, EchoStar, Forgent Power, SpaceX and Credo.
Cut others: Lumentum down 31%, Vertiv 26%, Western Digital 24%, Seagate 22%, Coherent 75%, Lam Research 89% and Applied Materials 90%, and it sold out of KLA and Freeport-McMoRan stock.
Added hedges: Nvidia puts rose to 4.46 million shares from 1.00 million and Broadcom puts to 1.45 million from 0.29 million, with new puts on AMD, Microsoft and Meta.

So the list built on March 31 overstates Lumentum, Coherent and Vertiv and understates CoreWeave, Iren, Intel and Micron. Neither filing shows the July losses or anything since.

The most exposed names

Exposure here means how much of a company VARA owned and how long a sale would take. Options data are as of about 2:18pm; implied volatility is for the Nov 20 at-the-money strike, and open interest is from the prior session.

Stock	% of shares	Days to sell	Value at Oct 16	Oct 16 change	Nov 20 implied vol	Put/call open interest
Core Scientific (CORZ)	2.86%	0.72	$125M	-6.1%	81%	0.33
Cipher Digital (CIFR)	2.68%	0.30	$101M	-10.0%	115%	0.29
Nebius (NBIS)	2.54%	0.30	$1,017M	-11.6%	94%	0.90
TeraWulf (WULF)	2.46%	0.39	$144M	-6.7%	101%	0.37
Iren (IREN)	2.15%	0.19	$231M	-10.1%	108%	0.75
CoreWeave (CRWV)	1.98%	0.35	$665M	-12.3%	99%	0.94
Bloom Energy (BE)	1.90%	0.36	$1,251M	-5.2%	87%	1.13
Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI)	1.88%	0.16	$122M	-8.4%	105%	0.82

We put Bloom in the header because it is the largest position and has the longest exit of the three positions above $1 billion. Core Scientific ranks first on both measures but is a tenth of the size. Bloom is also the only name here with more open puts than calls. Our guide to implied volatility explains why readings near 100% mean option buyers expect large moves either way.

The businesses are another matter from the fund flows. On Bloom's Jul 28 call, chief executive KR Sridhar said customers "are now placing longer-term orders, leading to our backlog growing at a faster pace than revenue," and second-quarter revenue rose 165.5% to $1.07 billion. On Aug 11, CoreWeave chief executive Michael Intrator said "demand continues to exceed supply." Nebius chief executive Arkady Volozh cited "$40 billion in contracted backlog" on Aug 12, and Iren co-chief executive Daniel Roberts said on Aug 27 that "2026 is largely sold out."

The case against

The credit scare is the bigger force. CoreWeave's borrowing costs, not VARA, drove this week's slide, and we hold a Bearish view on CoreWeave through its report.
Crowding cuts both ways. Hedgeweek's report on VARA's July loss described crowded AI trades unwinding. Other funds own the same names, and their selling would not show up in VARA's filings.
Bloom is priced for growth. It trades at 44 times forward earnings and 21 times sales, and is up 156% this year, so a soft Oct 22 report could hurt more than any fund flow.
We cannot see October. If VARA did sell, no public filing would show it before mid-November. Our explainer on forced selling covers how such sales can push prices below value for a time.

Dombey's published research has covered several of these holdings before; see the research archive.

What would confirm or refute the rumor

Date	Event	What to check
Any day	Bloomberg, Reuters, WSJ, FT or a VARA statement	A sourced report of losses, redemptions or a wind-down, or a denial on the record
Any day	Prime broker client notes, as reported by those outlets	Reports of heavy selling in AI infrastructure stocks by hedge funds
Oct 22	Bloom Energy third-quarter results, 5pm ET call	2026 revenue guidance of $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion held or raised
Nov 2 to Nov 10	Results: Cipher Nov 2; Iren, Core Scientific and Applied Optoelectronics Nov 5; TeraWulf Nov 6; CoreWeave Nov 9; Nebius Nov 10	Backlog, financing costs and any large holder named in the 10-Q
By Nov 16	VARA's 13F for September 30	Whether the stock book, calls and puts shrank between June 30 and September 30

Two filings people expect will not help. A Schedule 13D or 13G is required only above 5% of a company, and Form 4 only above 10%; VARA's largest June 30 stake was 2.86%, and its EDGAR record shows no 13D or 13G. Investor letters are private, so their contents reach the public only through press reports. For how stake filings work, see what a 13D filing is.

Frequently asked questions

Did the VARA hedge fund blow up?

We found no report from Bloomberg, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times or other credible outlets saying so as of 2:16pm ET on Oct 16, 2026, and VARA has not made a public statement. The claim comes from posts circulating on social media that began on Oct 15. The last credible report, from Bloomberg in August, said the flagship fund lost 44% in July and was still up about 65% for the year.

What stocks does VARA own?

Its June 30, 2026 13F lists 59 common-stock positions worth $16.73 billion at that date, led by Bloom Energy, Nebius and CoreWeave, plus large call options on Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia. The filing is a snapshot of June 30 and does not show what the fund has bought or sold since.

How much does VARA manage?

Bloomberg reported about $26.4 billion at the end of June, as relayed by Hedgeweek. The Form ADV amendment VARA filed on Sep 22, 2026 lists $9.14 billion of regulatory assets, but advisers update those figures once a year, so they may predate this year's growth. The $40.1 billion 13F total is not an asset figure, because option rows count the full value of the underlying shares.

Which stocks would be hit hardest if VARA had to sell?

By share of the company owned, Core Scientific (2.86%), Cipher Digital (2.68%), Nebius (2.54%), TeraWulf (2.46%) and Iren (2.15%) rank highest. By dollar size, Bloom Energy ($1.25 billion at Oct 16 prices) and Nebius ($1.02 billion) are the largest. Even so, each position equals less than one day of average trading volume.

When will we know what VARA sold?

The next 13F, for September 30, is due 45 days after quarter end; Nov 14 falls on a Saturday, so it can arrive as late as Monday, Nov 16, 2026. It will show the book at September 30, not trades made in October. A Schedule 13D or 13G would only appear for a stake above 5%, and VARA held no stake that large at June 30.

Why do 13F totals overstate a fund's size?

A 13F reports option positions at the value of the shares the options cover, not the premium paid. VARA's June 30 filing lists $20.47 billion of calls, which may have cost far less, and it leaves out short sales other than puts, swaps, cash and holdings listed outside the US.

Sources

Article details

By James Whitfield, Head of Equity Research, Dombey Capital

Published October 16, 2026 · 10 min read · Special Situations