Shift4 Payments may look cheap, but payment processing is a margin race to the bottom and a tough business. Companies with much stronger moats are a better use of capital, since paying fair value for a great business beats buying an OK business cheaply. @PronkDaniel notes it is growing strongly at 6.5 times estimated free cash flow while conceding its moat is questionable. x.com 

Shift4 and its payment-processing rivals are driving each other's returns toward zero through aggressive merchant poaching. A former Shift4 VP, cited by @Speedwell_LLC, says it offers free hardware and pays merchants' termination fees to switch, but every competitor does the same. Each wrongly believes it has special sauce to win that fight, and the stocks are down around 80%. x.com  x.com 

Shift4 is too cheap at these levels, essentially a private-equity-style vehicle in public markets that is hard to appreciate but runs a good playbook; Jared Isaacman is not selling out down here. Its Global Blue acquisition was poorly timed as US-Iran tensions crush international travel, Fiserv's turmoil hit payments, and AI angst weighs on software. Public investors can also choose easier-to-model stories with cleaner KPIs and capital structures. x.com 

PayPal's cost cuts and reserve releases prop up short-term numbers, while investing for growth wastes time. Its slow bleed gives delusional bulls hope, making it the ultimate value trap; it should not be a public company. x.com 

Fintech's slide looks like a broad rotation out of the sector rather than isolated company weakness, as investors buy the largest beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure buildout. SoFi is down 43% year to date, with similar weakness at Klarna, Shift4 and Toast, as capital leaves fintech, software and emerging markets for semiconductors, networking, memory and AI infrastructure names such as Nvidia, Broadcom, Micron and Nebius. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said the decline bothers him. x.com 

Shift4 Payments' critics look mostly emotionally driven, while the market likely thinks the company has a balance sheet problem and tends to be ruthless when that's the case. Shift4 One, enabled by the Global Blue deal, launched recently and is already winning international customers, and Global Blue accelerated to 8% growth in Q2 despite a Middle East headwind. Management says organic growth with Global Blue would be mid-teens absent that headwind. High-single-digit growth is achievable. x.com  … Show more

Shopify's 34% growth and 15% FCF margin give it an elite Rule of 40 score of 49, so the market will forgive its GAAP loss. That loss came from a $1.1B write-down on its stakes in Affirm, Global-e and Klaviyo, market volatility rather than business failure. Merchant Solutions grew 39% versus 21% for subscriptions, showing Shopify is really a fintech company, and Bloomberg flows show smart money buying the dip at $108. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

PayPal is better off sold, because management has been unable to use the company's data while Stripe and Advent can. Even at Stripe's $60.50 acquisition price, most PayPal investors will still be in the red; only those all in at the bottom would make about 50%, while most AI names have risen much more. Selling losers is the better path. x.com  x.com  x.com 

Shift4 Payments looks mispriced. The founder-led payments platform is growing more than 30% yet trades at a single-digit forward P/E. It posted record 2025 results and made major acquisitions in a massive payments market, but the stock is still more than 50% below its highs. x.com 

Fiserv's culture problems look harder to fix after CEO Mike Lyons, seen as its savior, departed. Culture issues are difficult to solve, and buybacks are not enough to justify owning the stock. x.com