Welcome to Issue #17 of The Obligated. Every week I monitor USASpending.gov, congressional stock disclosures, and SEC insider filings to find the 3 signals hiding in plain sight. The government publishes billions of dollars of market-moving information every day. Almost nobody reads it.
🟢 SIGNAL #1 — FREE THIS WEEK
$KRMN
Karman Holdings Inc. · NYSE · ~$4.7 billion market cap
WHAT HAPPENED
On September 14, 2026, the Navy's Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division awarded a $31.3 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to Seemann Composites LLC of Gulfport, Mississippi — a wholly owned subsidiary of Karman Holdings ($KRMN) — for composite manufacturing supporting Virginia-class submarine propulsors. The award appeared in that day's War.gov daily contract announcement, filed under the Navy section. Two days later, on September 16, Karman director David Stinnett bought 27,000 shares of company stock for just over $1 million, according to a Form 4 he filed with the SEC on September 18. As of this writing, neither the contract nor the insider purchase has shown up in mainstream financial coverage of Karman.
WHY IT MATTERS
The award is a five-year ordering-period IDIQ with a $31.3 million ceiling — equal to roughly 0.7% of Karman's approximately $4.7 billion market cap, and about 5% of the company's trailing-twelve-month revenue if fully ordered. It's an early, real-dollar data point from Karman's newly closed acquisition of Seemann Composites, the company's bet on expanding into submarine and unmanned-vessel manufacturing. The insider purchase adds context: Karman shares have fallen more than 65% from their 52-week high of $118.38 amid a broader defense-stock slide tied to midterm-election uncertainty, and several Wall Street analysts — Truist, Citi, Needham, and Evercore among them — have cut price targets on the stock since summer. A sitting director buying into that weakness, two days after a new government contract posts, is the kind of data point that doesn't show up on most retail screens.
WHAT TO WATCH
Karman reports third-quarter earnings on November 5, 2026 — watch for management commentary on Seemann's order pipeline and Navy submarine-supply-chain demand. Also watch SEC EDGAR for additional insider filings, and whether sell-side analysts revise estimates to reflect the Seemann contract activity.
🟡 SIGNAL #2 — PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
$LMT
Lockheed Martin Corporation · NYSE · ~$124 billion market cap
WHAT HAPPENED
On September 14, 2026, U.S. Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.21 billion contract tied to early operational capability for a next-generation missile program — a single award equal to nearly 1% of the company's entire market capitalization, the largest contract-to-market-cap ratio of any public company in this week's War.gov data. It was a sole-source award, one bid solicited and one received, which is itself unusual for a program at this stage. What makes it worth a second look is...
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🔴 SIGNAL #3 — PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
$BA
The Boeing Company · NYSE · ~$164 billion market cap
WHAT HAPPENED
Buried in the Navy's September 14, 2026 contract announcement is a $552 million modification funding three low-rate initial production aircraft for Boeing's long-delayed carrier-based drone program, plus advance acquisition of long-lead parts for three more. The program has spent years as a target for defense reporters covering schedule slips and cost growth. This award suggests...
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📋 WEEKLY RECOMPETE WATCHLIST — PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
5 contracts expiring in the next 90 days. These companies are about to win or lose revenue — before any press release.
Data note: this section couldn't be populated to our usual standard this week. Confirming which contracts held by publicly traded companies have base- or option-period end dates inside the next 90 days requires a date-range query directly against SAM.gov / USASpending.gov's structured award data — not the daily War.gov contract-announcement postings used for Signals #1–3, which cover new awards and modifications, not upcoming expirations. We didn't have reliable access to that structured query this cycle, and we'd rather run a short issue than publish guesses. We're working on direct SAM.gov API access so this section runs at full strength next week.
⚠️ Disclaimer
The Obligated is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, or financial planner. Nothing in this newsletter constitutes personalized financial, legal, or tax advice. All data is sourced from publicly available government records including USASpending.gov, War.gov, SEC EDGAR, Capitol Trades STOCK Act disclosures, and the Senate Lobbying Disclosure database. We do not recommend buying or selling any security. All investment strategies involve risk of loss. You are solely responsible for your own investment decisions. Consult a licensed financial professional before acting on any information provided.
The Obligated · theobligated.com · Issue #17 · September 21, 2026