Laughing Water Capital, an investment management company, released its third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the third quarter of 2025, Laughing Water Capital declined approximately -1% net of all expenses, bringing year-to-date returns to approximately -2.7%. The SP500TR and R2000 returned 12.4% and 8.1% respectively, in the quarter, and 14.8% and 10.4%, respectively, for YTD. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2025.
In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Laughing Water Capital highlighted stocks such as NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN). NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) provides next-generation positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) solutions. The one-month return of NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) was -6.29%, and its shares gained 15.32% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 29, 2025, NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) stock closed at $13.40 per share, with a market capitalization of $1.804 billion.
Laughing Water Capital stated the following regarding NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) – NextNav is our wireless spectrum and alternative GPS investment. The thesis is that since the United States desperately needs a terrestrial backup to the GPS system, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will allow NextNav to repurpose its existing spectrum for 5G wireless communications that will also bring a terrestrial backup GPS system to the masses. When greenlit for 5G, NextNav’s spectrum should be worth multiples of where NN stock currently trades.
During the quarter there were several positive developments for NextNav. First, Brendan Carr, Chairman of the FCC, again made a speech highlighting that the U.S. needs a backup to the current GPS system.ii Second, NextNav filed papers with the FCC documenting certain ex parte meetings that had taken place between NextNav management and the very members of the FCC that would be responsible for drafting a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which would be the next step in the process to greenlight the spectrum for 5G.iii This is important because the risk with the FCC is that NextNav’s proposal just winds up lost in a drawer somewhere. That is clearly not the case. Third, NextNav moved long-term CFO Chris Gates out of the CFO role and into a corporate development role. Gates is not just a numbers guy. He is listed on Nextnav’s patents and has deep knowledge of spectrum, which will be important when it comes to monetization. I believe the signal value of this move is high; why move the CFO into a business development role unless you thought you would imminently have approval from the FCC? Last, it was announced that AT&T (T) would be buying spectrum from EchoStar (DISH). The deal includes low-band (similar to NextNav’s spectrum) and mid-band spectrum so it is not possible to know how much was paid for the low-band spectrum with 100% accuracy, but my best guess is that the price was ~$2.50 per MHz/pop. This is not necessarily apples to apples with NextNav’s spectrum and there is still considerable uncertainty around what monetization of this spectrum will look like, but at $2.50 per MHz/pop that would imply a price for NN’s stock that approaches $60 per share…” (Click here to read the full text)
NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. According to our database, 33 hedge fund portfolios held NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) at the end of the second quarter, up from 32 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) and shared the list of best growth stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
