Situational Awareness Fund Held Heavy Positions in SanDisk and Micron Before Blowup, 13-F Filing Reveals
Nashnova编辑部
Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, loaded up on SanDisk and Micron in Q2 before its July blowup — the 13-F filing provides the first hard evidence of its concentrated memory-chip bet and sharpens the backstory behind Jane Street's roughly $15 billion single-month loss.
What exactly did the fund bet on?
The 13-F filing — a quarterly position disclosure required by the SEC — shows Situational Awareness heavily increased its stakes in SanDisk (SNDK) and Micron (MU) during Q2 2026.
This means → the fund concentrated its wager on a single thread — memory chips — rather than spreading across the broader AI supply chain.
These two stocks were later confirmed as the core holdings behind the "roughly 50% drawdown" referenced in Jane Street's internal memo.
How did big gains turn into a blowup?
In the first half of the year, AI stocks surged; the fund used high leverage — borrowed money amplifying its bets — and its assets ballooned.
When AI stocks sold off sharply in July, those leveraged positions deteriorated fast. The fund faced margin calls — demands from brokers to put up more cash — and was forced into large-scale liquidation.
In plain terms = the same leverage that multiplied gains on the way up multiplied losses on the way down, until the fund could no longer meet its margin requirements.
The liquidated portfolio was sold in bulk to Ken Griffin's Citadel.
What role did Jane Street play?
Jane Street had steadily increased its investment in the fund on the back of its strong first-half performance, effectively becoming a major capital source behind the concentrated bet.
In an internal memo cited by Reuters, Jane Street described the July losses as coming "largely from the same set of trades that had generated strong outperformance in Q2."
This reflects a classic hedge-fund trap: the strategy that produced last quarter's gains becomes the largest source of losses when the market regime flips.
How badly was Jane Street hurt?
The memo states the investment has "largely returned to where it started the year" and remains profitable over its full life cycle.
Losses extended beyond AI — Jane Street also took hits on long positions in Asian non-AI equities, indicating the July drawdown was a broad style reversal, not a single-name blowup.
Despite the hit, Jane Street's net trading revenue for the year still exceeds $40 billion, already surpassing the full-year 2025 record of $39.6 billion.
What is Jane Street doing next?
Partner Batty said in the memo that the firm has closed "a significant portion" of the specific risk exposures that caused July's losses and reduced risk-taking across other strategies — going forward, the firm will be "more selective."
Simultaneously, Jane Street is pursuing a roughly $14.6 billion debt restructuring led by JPMorgan, with PIMCO, Capital Group, and Fidelity participating in the new financing.
This means → Jane Street is pulling in risk on one side while rearranging its capital structure on the other. Per the Financial Times, the firm is even willing to pay higher borrowing costs in exchange for less public disclosure — the refinancing is expected to carry a one-time cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
What comes next for SanDisk and Micron?
The 13-F filing gives the market its first clear view of the central role these two stocks played in the blowup — before this, the only detail was a vague reference to "memory-chip and semiconductor stocks falling roughly 50%."
The key test ahead: has the forced-selling pressure from institutional deleveraging fully cleared? If it has, the window for a valuation recovery opens.
In plain terms = how much of the crash was fundamental deterioration, and how much was forced liquidation? The answer determines whether these two stocks can bounce back.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.