Laughing Water Capital, an investment management company, released its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter. In the quarter, Laughing Water Capital returned ~6.8%, bringing the full-year returns to ~3.9% net of fees and expenses. In comparison, the SP500TR and R2000 returned approximately 2.7% and 2.2%, respectively, in the quarter, and finished the year up by 17.9% and 12.8%, respectively. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Fund outperformed the indexes last year, but it has lagged behind them in the current year. However, what really matters is the cumulative returns over the long run, as volatility tends to smooth out over time. The Portfolio is well-positioned in this regard, delivering strong results on a cumulative basis since inception and returned about 400%, vs ~332% for the SP500TR and ~175% for our most relevant benchmark, the R2000. In addition, you can check the Strategy’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its fourth-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. On January 15, 2026, NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) stock closed at $14.93 per share. One-month return of NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) was -11.08%, and its shares gained 14.93% of their value over the last 52 weeks. NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) has a market capitalization of $2.01 billion.
Laughing Water Capital stated the following regarding NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
“NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN): NextNav is our wireless spectrum / terrestrial backup to GPS investment. Shares were more or less flat for the year, which of course did not help our performance. The factors here are completely unattractive, and completely irrelevant. The only things that will matter for the success of the investment are getting FCC approval for NextNav’s plan, and what the re-purposed spectrum would be worth.
On the approval front, the relevant background is that in 2017 Senator Ted Cruz, now Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation that oversees the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), first called for a terrestrial backup to GPS. Next Congress passed the National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018, which explicitly calls for a terrestrial, wireless, wide-area backup system to GPS. In 2020 President Trump issued an Executive Order calling for a non-satellite-based alternative to the positioning, timing, and navigation that is provided by GPS. However, none of these initiatives have advanced, largely due to a lack of funding and political will. In fact, no real progress was made toward this goal until April of 2024 when NextNav submitted a proposal for rulemaking to the FCC that would enable a terrestrial GPS-complement and backup system to be stood up on the back of 5G mobile spectrum. Notably, NextNav’s plan requires zero government funding. The FCC next published a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in March of 2025 that focuses on identifying a backup to GPS, while mentioning NextNav by name.…” (Click here to reach the full text)
NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. According to our database, 29 hedge fund portfolios held NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) at the end of the third quarter, compared to 33 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 small-cap tech stocks on Wall Street’s radar. In its Q3 2025, Laughing Water Capital noted that NextNav Inc. (NASDAQ:NN) fell 20% due to fears of a government shutdown and, concerns of selling shares from the estate that received them in the spectrum license transaction. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.
