Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium article was “Problems at StepStone (STEP)” and our next special investigation for paid readers comes out Thursday, July 16.
The Bear Cave is now owned by Hunterbrook Media. Readers will continue to receive two original deep-dive paywalled investigations in The Bear Cave each month, along with select Hunterbrook stories featuring additional content and analysis in The Bear Cave.
The Bear Cave published an investigation in collaboration with Hunterbrook Media on StepStone Group (NASDAQ: STEP — $4.91 billion), a global private equity and private markets company. The investigation alleged StepStone’s growth has come, in part, from charging fees on unrealized private-asset gains and highlighted:
“Due to an ill-timed contract, StepStone must buy out the profits interests tied to that retail arm held by CH Equity Partners LLC, an entity controlled by SPW executives. Since April 1, CH Equity Partners LLC has the right to lock in a giant personal payday, using a formula tied to the private wealth arm’s paper marks. StepStone’s liability is now estimated at about $2.3 billion.”
Culper Research published on Tarsus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TARS — $2.82 billion), a biopharmaceutical company focused on eye care. Culper alleged that Tarsus donates millions of dollars “to a nominally independent blepharitis fund” that primarily subsidizes the copays of its expensive XDEMVY eyedrop medication, potentially in violation of anti-kickback laws. Culper wrote:
“The blepharitis fund claims to offer grants for over a dozen treatments, but mathematically, [Tarsus’s] XDEMVY is the only drug capable of meeting the fund’s disclosed $680 to $750 average grant size - the vast majority, if not entirety of the fund is going to XDEMVY patients.”
Culper concluded:
“We are short [Tarsus] and think shares are headed lower as the company draws AKS/DoJ scrutiny, XDEMVY revenues peak well below $2B, and 2026 results continue to disappoint.”
Fugazi Research published on Redwire (NYSE: RDW — $2.70 billion), a space equipment manufacturing company. Fugazi wrote:
“Since late 2025, Redwire has relied heavily on the equity markets to fund its operations, authorizing more than $1.1 billion of at-the-market equity issuance while common shares outstanding have nearly tripled in roughly fifteen months. Operating cash flow remains negative, and recent increases in cash have been driven by equity issuance rather than internally generated cash flow.”
Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:
CFO of Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID — $2.37 billion) “will leave the company after a transition period” after one and a half years. Last week, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, who previously served as interim CEO, “departed following the elimination of the Chief Operating Officer position” after two and a half years. The electric vehicle company has had three CEOs and three CFO departures in the last five years and has fallen ~95% since its July 2021 SPAC merger.
CFO of Papa John’s (NASDAQ: PZZA — $1.18 billion) resigned after nearly three years to become CFO of American Eagle (NYSE: AEO — $2.76 billion) and “is not entitled to any severance benefits as a result of his departure.” Papa John’s has had five CEOs and six CFOs in the last ten years.
CFO of Freedom Holding Corp (NASDAQ: FRHC — $9.94 billion) resigned with immediate effect after 17 years and was replaced by the 37-year-old incoming CFO, Mr. Valeriy Kim.
Chief Revenue Officer of Five9 (NASDAQ: FIVN — $1.79 billion) departed with immediate effect eleven months after being promoted into that role. The company’s Vice President of Product Engineering and Chief Technology Officer both resigned in June as well. In September 2024, The Bear Cave called the company “a major AI loser” and it has since fallen ~20%.
Mr. Sean McNealy, board member of Abacus Global Management (NYSE: ABX — $1.14 billion), resigned with immediate effect after three years. In June 2025, Morpheus Research alleged Abacus engaged in “a scheme to systematically overvalue its assets, reminiscent of past life settlements blowups.” The stock has since doubled.
Data for this section is provided by VerityData from VerityPlatform.com
“Short-seller Carson Block: a fugitive CEO, Libyan spies, and $50B fraud” (Summation with Auren Hoffman)
“SEC Investigation Updates: June 29, 2026” (Disclosure Insight)
“AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP — $177 billion) management and board failed investors here. The Bloomberg story was the perfect opportunity to disclose this investigation. Instead, we now must call out the company over an undisclosed SEC probe and add it to our Watch List where you will see regular updates until resolved.”
Gergely Orosz@GergelyOrosz
Just heard that after 12+ years of being a customer, Uber is finally dumping PagerDuty. PagerDuty used to be the leading paging + incident management tool, went public, then fell asleep at the wheel when Slack came around, then AI. Now everyone tech company I know is moving off.
9:36 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 610K Views
103 Replies · 41 Reposts · 2.15K Likes
@levelsio@levelsio
They probably literally just vibe coded a replacement and it took a day
Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz
Just heard that after 12+ years of being a customer, Uber is finally dumping PagerDuty. PagerDuty used to be the leading paging + incident management tool, went public, then fell asleep at the wheel when Slack came around, then AI. Now everyone tech company I know is moving off.
11:41 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 229K Views
40 Replies · 8 Reposts · 786 Likes
Alan@bitforth
@GergelyOrosz I honestly can’t name a single thing I like about PagerDuty anymore. Their moat got eaten by every adjacent tool adding incident workflows, alerts, uptime checks, and routing. For smaller teams, it’s hard to justify paying PagerDuty prices when Sentry gives you most of the
10:08 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 101K Views
2 Replies · 3 Reposts · 93 Likes
Ashton Hudson@ashtonshudson
@GergelyOrosz we recently moved off it (moved to datadog) and don’t miss it one bit 🤷♀️.
10:01 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 4.07K Views
7 Likes
Hunter SPX Thompson ❎@CoorsLightCEO
"VantageScore adoption has accelerated meaningfully in June, based on Fannie/Freddie’s MBS securitization data. For early adopters like UWMC, VantageScore adoption has grown from 3% of its total loans in the first week of June to 10% in the fourth week of June." $FICO
1:58 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 26.6K Views
4 Replies · 1 Repost · 43 Likes
Myles@finphysnerd
I'm shorting a bit of $FG as their book seems to be very heavily levered to this junky PE stuff. Small write downs could wipe out their equity very quickly.
Negligible Capital @negligible_cap
Lee Robinson and his firm Altana (which turned $20M into $200M during the GFC) is launching a new fund to short life insurance companies due to their private credit exposure. “Robinson is ramping up bearish wagers on firms from Lincoln National Corp. to MetLife Inc. and even
1:52 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 5.34K Views
1 Reply · 2 Reposts · 15 Likes
Myles@finphysnerd
I'm short $OPTU here. This writeup does a great job of laying the thesis out. TLDR the co has taken on expensive debt (through preferreds) to do a tender. Their huge debt stack is priced for a haircut, it's hard to see the equity survive with declining EBITDA. Stock price is
Max Francoeur @0xMaxFrancoeur
Optimum Communications - $OPTU : SHORT thesis This is not a takeover bid (Tender Offer) it’s new debt at +13%, which overpays the shares at $2.50, while Drahi sits in the protected bracket (Preferred) + MOIC (1.50x)
2:50 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 7.24K Views
4 Replies · 1 Repost · 20 Likes
David Orr@orrdavid
I've already backed a few people this way, and am still looking for any and all PA track records people can show me today. Please see militiacapital.com We are choosy, but out of the ~1k records I've seen, I have tried backing 5 of them thus far, and intend on backing
Ethan Kho @ethanrkho
There's a fantasy in trading: build a track record on your own account, get noticed, get hired by a fund. Someone who's actually been inside those funds says it almost never happens: Rob Carver — ex-Man AHL, ran the fixed income desk before going solo — explains: "A lot of https://t.co/SIChTYqfxb
11:25 PM · Jun 29, 2026 · 30.5K Views
5 Replies · 6 Reposts · 87 Likes
Hunterbrook@hntrbrkmedia
IMPACT: DOJ settles with egg manufacturers. DOJ allegations confirm Hunterbrook’s reporting: The egg industry coordinated on pricing through March 2025 — which just so happens to be the same month we published our investigation.
Hunterbrook @hntrbrkmedia
NEW: Cracking Big Egg — Why The Industry’s Narrative Around Price Hikes Doesn’t Add Up Months long investigation reveals the “bird flu” explanation, alone, can’t explain soaring egg prices.
7:19 PM · Jul 3, 2026 · 7.35K Views
1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 26 Likes
Laurel@BalanceCrafting
Next time the defense bar dares you to name an acceptable merger, just one...
Hunterbrook @hntrbrkmedia
Big news: Hunterbrook Media is acquiring The Bear Cave, one of the most influential investigative newsletters in finance. Over the last six years, @StockJabber has produced a remarkable amount of truth-to-power reporting — and he's done it as a one-man shop. But in the golden
2:42 PM · Jun 28, 2026 · 1.6K Views
1 Repost · 7 Likes
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