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 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 is a bit undervalued, though not significantly, at 13x earnings with 13% revenue growth. Its falling profit margin is concerning, and AI threats are growing as image generation improves. x.com 

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 is completely cooked: its low P/E is low for a reason, and there are plenty of better companies to buy. @StockSavvyShay notes that Anthropic's new Claude Design lets users create prototypes, slides and one-pagers by talking to Claude, pushing into territory associated with Figma and Adobe without requiring much design experience. x.com 

Adobe has fallen back to its 2018 share price even though revenue is roughly 3x and EPS roughly 5x higher since then. It runs 89% gross margins and has a $25B buyback program, about 30% of its current market cap. x.com 

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's problem is no longer valuation but bad sentiment toward software companies. It fell after hours in sympathy with ServiceNow despite trading around 15x trailing and 10x forward earnings while still growing 10%, and none of that matters right now. To recover, Adobe needs more collaborative projects and joint events with leading AI companies so it is seen as definitively part of the future. x.com 

Adobe is priced like an AI casualty at 11x forward earnings, yet its AI business is working. Q2 revenue grew 13% to $6.62B, guidance rose to $26.5-$26.6B of revenue and $24.35-$24.45 of EPS, and AI-first ARR more than tripled to over $500M. Part of the ARR slowdown is deliberate, deferring Creative Cloud pricing changes to push freemium, a choice that can reverse. At 14-16x forward the stock would be $340-$390. Risks: a two-year multiple compression, a CFO exit and a CEO search. x.com 

Adobe's fair value is about 14x earnings, and nothing suggests the multiple should expand, so the stock's upside is capped at EPS growth. That is a good bet only if Adobe's EPS growth beats the Nasdaq 100's, and there is little confidence it will. x.com  x.com  x.com