Adobe remains the best example of what not to buy because AI has had minimal impact and its backlog is slowing rapidly. Management chose user acquisition over monetization, as Duolingo did, leaving open whether users stay when prices rise; for now, waiting to monetize looks the same as being unable to. Free or cheaper tools that match its specialist subscriptions could cut usage, RPO and cash generation. When acceleration and margin expansion are everywhere, owning neither makes little sense. … Show more

Adobe could easily go the way of PayPal, its best analog: a mature consumer-facing large-cap tech company that attempted a poorly received large acquisition as growth stalled, then changed executives. Growth is likely to decelerate further amid pricing pressure, buybacks won't matter much in the short term, and more talent will leave once a CEO is picked. The stock is only optically cheap. x.com  x.com 

Adobe's results are solid enough that panic selling looks insane. It delivered a double beat, raised full-year guidance and has some stability with a new CEO, yet many investors are again calling it trash. x.com 

Adobe is not re-accelerating: management guides growth down to 9-10% with operating margins falling, and more pressure lies ahead. That makes buying every dip at about 16x earnings a mistake, even as @qualtrim points to 12% revenue growth and a 47.4% operating margin. x.com  x.com 

Adobe's Semrush acquisition was its biggest red flag: it bought low-quality growth just to patch a hole in revenue. @SteadyCompound notes Adobe's organic growth has decelerated for ten straight quarters while both its CEO and CFO are leaving. x.com 

Adobe is a strong company hit harder than it should be, as the market treats a temporary slowdown as permanent decline. It fits the undervalued setup of a real moat, temporary rather than structural problems and extremely negative sentiment, where the price has fallen more than the fundamentals, lowering risk and raising upside. Great companies adapt and recover. x.com 

Adobe's 8x P/E signals that its outlook numbers are unreliable, its capital allocation is poor and it is likely a casualty of AI. It spent all its free cash flow buying back shares at $400 and is on a direct collision course with AI; no one can say its products will be as crucial as in the last two decades. Unlike Meta in 2022, whose ads business was never impaired, there are too many unknowns. It could work or stagnate for years, so it sits in the too-hard bucket even if multiples scream buy. … Show more

Adobe is hard to want to own after an open-source project reimplemented its full software suite, as @math_fournity reports. x.com 

Adobe is too cheap and likely to be hit by an activist soon, which would bring the credible third party needed to prove the market wrong. Running without a future CEO and now a CFO amid incredible disruption is the board's failure to fix. Goldman Sachs raised estimates yet cut the multiple by a third; the Street is wrong. This isn't Microsoft in 2013 or Apple in 2011: Adobe needs a roadmap, advocacy and wholesale change, not buybacks, and proving the market wrong will take a long time. x.com  … Show more

Adobe is best avoided because a very low valuation comes with a highly uncertain future, making the situation amazingly complex. x.com