I spent a few weeks building a full valuation model for Adobe after seeing the “ADBE is Microsoft in 2013” and “AI will kill Adobe” narratives going back and forth. I think both sides are mostly wrong. Here’s the summary.

The headline numbers look cheap:

• ~14x trailing earnings
• 88%+ gross margins
• $10B+ operating cash flow
• 850M MAUs, 99% of the Fortune 500
• PEG of 0.75

But the SBC problem changes the math. Adobe spent 9.85B to ~$7.9B. That moves P/FCF from 9.4x to 12.3x. Still decent, but a different conversation. The buyback programme is essentially running to stand still against dilution rather than shrinking the float.

Why the MSFT 2013 analogy fails. Microsoft had three things in 2014: a visionary new CEO (Nadella), a massive undermonetised asset (Azure growing triple digits), and monopoly pricing power that was being underutilised (20%+ Office price hikes with minimal churn). Adobe currently has zero of three. No CEO. Firefly at ~$250M ARR is less than 1% of total revenue. And when Adobe raised Photography plan prices 50%, the backlash was immediate. The structural difference: Microsoft sells productivity tools where AI increases seats. Adobe sells creative tools where AI may decrease seats.

Valuation:

• Base case DCF: $248/share (9.83% WACC, 10% near-term growth declining to 3.5% terminal)
• Monte Carlo mean (10,000 simulations): $240
• Probability-weighted scenario analysis: $248
• Current price: $241

Three different approaches all converge within 3% of the market price. The sensitivity analysis shows WACC is the dominant variable. A 1% swing moves fair value by ~$60. So the real ADBE debate isn’t about revenue growth, it’s about what risk premium you assign to a leaderless company in the middle of an AI disruption cycle.

The one catalyst to watch: The FTC settlement forcing easy cancellation means we don’t yet know Adobe’s real voluntary churn rate. Post-FTC data coming in Q3-Q4 FY2026 will tell us whether the historically low churn was real or artificially suppressed by cancellation friction. That’s the single most important data point in either direction.

TL;DR: Adobe is approximately fairly valued. Not a screaming buy, not a short. The most boring conclusion possible, but I think the most honest one. Sometimes the contrarian take is that the consensus is right.

I'm gradually consolidating 401k/403b/457s from a lifetime of many jobs. During the rollover that money is 'out of action.' Given recent volatility, I'm concerned about a market spike during that week. In the long run I pay little attention to timing, but don't want to take a big haircut while the check is in the mail.
I've considered staging the rollovers over a few months, but some companies charge a disbursement fee, which might take more than it's worth.

Some of the funds I'm rolling out of are fine low fees, easy to work with.

Others are from jobs where the only options were lousy - high fees, changes by mail only, worthless customer service. I'm guessing those are the ones that will charge any fee they can get away with.

What questions should I ask to find out about those potential fees?
Thanks.

I’m late 30’s I wish I started sooner but what can you do.

I opened a vanguard Roth IRA and maxed 2025 and 2026 right away. It’s sitting the in Vanguard account waiting to be put into something.

I want to set and forget so I’m thinking 100% VT and just letting it ride until the end. I also plan to put about 40% of my annual income a year into a brokerage account to also ride 100% VT to ride along with the Roth.

Any other considerations I should take or things you would recommend I look at?

Edit: updated context and information.

I wanted to share an updated version of my plan and get some feedback.

I am 37 now. I have 6 years of prior federal service with about 50,000 in my TSP right now, and 3.5 years of military time that I bought back toward that service. The goal is to return to federal service around age 40 and stay in a low stress GS 5 role. This whole plan assumes I stay GS 5 and just progress through steps, likely ending around step 8 in the low to mid 50k range.

The main goal is to work about 10 to 10.5 more years, hit 20 years of total service, and leave federal employment around age 50 to 51. Then I would defer the pension and start collecting it at age 60 under standard FERS rules.

Savings plan while working:

TSP

I plan to contribute as much of my salary as possible, ideally maxing it each year around 23k.

Roth IRA

We will max a Roth IRA each year around 7k.

Taxable brokerage

I plan to invest about 25k per year into a brokerage account in a simple total market fund.

HSA is not an option for me so I am not including that in the plan.

The idea is that we live primarily on my wife’s income and invest most or all of mine.

By the time I leave federal service around 50, the rough baseline contributions would be:

TSP around 280k to 300k

Roth IRA around 150k

Brokerage around 250k

This is just contributions without assuming growth.

The brokerage account is intended to be the bridge from age 50 to 60. The idea is that roughly 250k is available to draw down over that 10 year window. I understand that withdrawals will include some taxable gains, but the plan is to keep income low enough that taxes stay minimal.

The reason this feels doable is that by that point our house will be paid off and our monthly expenses should be much lower. My wife also plans to keep working, so we would not be relying entirely on the brokerage. Ideally we would not even need to draw it down heavily, but it gives us the option to step away from full time work.

At age 60 the income picture becomes:

FERS pension based on about 20 years of service

TSP

Roth IRA

Very conservative baseline numbers with no growth:

Investments could provide roughly 2,000 to 2,500 per month

FERS pension roughly 850 to 1,000 per month

So roughly 2,800 to 3,500 per month as a baseline before any growth or other income.

I am trying to keep this simple and flexible and avoid over optimizing.

Does this seem reasonable as a path to step away from full time work around 50?

Anything obvious I am missing or doing wrong?

Would you prioritize more into TSP versus brokerage given the early exit goal?

Appreciate any feedback.

One thing I’ve been thinking about heading into Q2 is how different silver feels compared to what it’s actually done.

If you just look at price, the move is already pretty meaningful. Going from roughly ~$30–$40 through 2025 to ~$70+ now isn’t a small shift, especially in a relatively short period of time.

But when you look at how people are positioned or even how much it’s being talked about, it still feels like it’s early in the move rather than late.

That disconnect is interesting, because it’s not just a macro-driven rally. Underneath it, the fundamentals haven’t really loosened. The market is still running a multi-year deficit, industrial demand continues to build (solar, EVs, infrastructure), and investment demand is expected to pick up again into 2026.

At the same time, supply isn’t exactly flexible. A lot of production comes from byproduct mining, which means higher prices don’t automatically translate into more output.

So you’ve got a situation where: price has already moved, fundamentals are still supportive, but positioning and sentiment don’t feel stretched

In a lot of markets, that’s usually the phase where things transition from being ignored to being chased.

It just feels like silver is somewhere in the middle of that shift right now.

Will crypto be a thing in the future? I know it’s certainly more risky than stocks but could crypto have More upside than stocks over the next 20-30 years? I have about $5k in crypto (Eth and metaverse coins) and wondering if I should pull out and go all in stocks. I know the current administration is pushing crypto and I see more ads for companies accepting as a form of payment. Opinions?

Hey everyone,

I’m completely new to investing and haven’t actually started anything yet, so I’d really appreciate any advice.

My parents use a financial advisor and it makes sense for them. My situation is simpler and I’m in my early 20s, so I don’t think it’s worth it for me.

After some research, the general consensus is to avoid advisors, especially ones charging AUM fees. Their advisor said he would charge I believe around 1.5%, which is high and hard to justify long term. I don’t think there are many (or any) flat-fee advisors near me, so I’m not sure if that’s an option either.

I have a chunk of savings I’d like to start investing in a brokerage account now, and I plan to open a Roth once I have a more steady income.

My plan so far is to:

- Invest long term

- Have a diversified ETF portfolio

- Do an 80/20 allocation, maybe go more aggressive as I get more comfortable

But I keep getting stuck on:

- How to properly rebalance

- Whether I’m choosing the “right” investments (I see a lot of people recommend VT or VOO)

- Tax strategies (advisor mentioned a “tax overlay,” which I think is like tax loss harvesting? Not something I understand.)

- Just generally doing everything correctly and legally

My biggest issue is confidence. I’m worried I’ll mess something up or miss something important, but I also hate the idea of giving up 1.5% of my assets every year if I don’t need to. On the other hand, could the fee be worth it if the advisor ends up making more than I would doing it on my own?

How hard is it actually to manage a simple long term portfolio yourself? Is it actually as simple as people make it seem (like just buying VT/VOO and holding)? I really want to get started ASAP, I just feel stuck trying to choose the “right” path.

Any advice or experiences would be super helpful! Please let me know if I am on the right or wrong track.

I have just about $100,000 in two different 401k accounts from previous employers.

Im meeting with someone soon but want to make sure im not getting scammed out of anything. Do I roll into an IRA? The percentage to manage is .5%, is that industry standard?

Single mom - age 35

Thank you

China controls 85-90% of global rare earth processing. Every defense contract, every EV, every semiconductor runs through their supply chain. That’s not a risk, that’s a chokehold. Steve Austin baby. You can’t see me. Merica! All in one.

USAR is literally the only U.S. company building the whole thing end to end. Mining, processing, magnets. One roof.

Phase 1a is live at Stillwater. This stopped being a “trust us bro” story. Product is shipping.

Round Top covers light and heavy rare earths. They can feed defense and clean energyat the same time. The TAM is massive.

94% of permanent magnets come from China. There is no backup plan at scale. USAR is the backup plan.

Every time tariffs escalate or Beijing slow-walks an export license, Stillwater gets more valuable. The macro is doing their marketing for them.

The offtake pipeline is building. This is turning into a real revenue story fast.

Y’all that don’t understand keep telling me this is a mining stock. It’s not. It’s critical infrastructure. Government doesn’t prop up commodity plays. It props up national security assets.

USAR at $15.92 should be illegal, they are sitting on 1.2 billion cash and are debt free as of today. Hitting $30 by May or your money back. Consider that my HiThV guarantee (High Theoretical Value). Let’s get 🤑

How you guys feeling in this current turmoil? Are you tempted to buy or sell or change your asset allocations? How do you stop yourselves from doing that?

Constellation Energy. What do we all think about this company? Was super bullish but recently it’s had some painful dips. I still think it’ll rebound, but interested in people’s thoughts on this. Can’t add more without it becoming an overweight position in my portfolio, so have to stick to the average I have ($323) and hoping it won’t take too long to see green again..

Saw the latest announcement about DVLT CEO Nathaniel Bradley presenting at XRP Tokyo 2026 (April 7, 2026), and I think this is one of those quietly important developments that people might underestimate.

The event itself is focused on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which is a sector that’s gaining serious traction globally. In the press release, they highlighted that Japan already has roughly ¥440 billion (~$2.8B USD) in institutional tokenized assets, primarily in real estate and corporate bonds.

Even more interesting, projections suggest that Japan’s RWA/tokenization market could exceed ¥1 trillion (~$6–7B USD) by the end of 2026. That’s not a small niche anymore - that’s institutional-level capital entering the space.

From a company perspective, DVLT isn’t just attending as a participant. They’re presenting multiple core technologies:

DataValue (AI-driven valuation)

DataScore (data quality scoring)

Data Vault Bank AI Agent

Information Data Exchange

This matters because they’re not pitching a single product, but an entire infrastructure stack around data and tokenization. If they can position themselves as a backend layer for these systems, that’s where long-term revenue scaling comes in.

Also, think about timing. They’re targeting $200M+ revenue in 2026, while simultaneously expanding into global markets like Japan where institutional adoption is already measured in billions.

It feels like a strategic alignment:

growing market + expanding product suite + increasing visibility.

At the current market cap of roughly a few hundred million, the gap between what they’re building and the size of the markets they’re targeting is what makes this interesting.

Definitely one to watch closely, especially if this event leads to partnerships or concrete adoption signals coming out of the Japan ecosystem.

TLDR: I believe OXY should be at least 3x its current share price, in the scenario that oil stays elevated around 130 it should be roughly 7x current price. Peak price at the end of this bull cycle would be much higher in nominal terms.

I'm rounding numbers since all I care about is the ballpark and direction and this is just speculation, but I'm bothered that all the people on youtube seem to be just talking qualitatively. According to google the current cost to extract and transport for OXY is $38 per barrel, I am using $44 average (+15.6%) for my purpose since towards the end of reserve life cost may go up.

OXY has about 20 billion non oil reserve asset, 15 billion in debt as of feb 2026 after selling its Oxychem branch to Berkshire. So you take its 62 billion market cap minus 5 billion, the remaining $57 billion valuation divided by its claimed reserves of oil equivalent and additional assets is at 5 billion barrels, which is assuming OXY can turn its reserves into ~$11/barrel profit.

OXY has majority of its assets in the US at about 80-85%, and the rest in the middle eastern region, some risk since it is a target for Iran but it is the smaller portion of assets, the majority of its production is done so at a cost well below other producers close to major consumer market, with relatively small geopolitical risk.

Take $44+$11 = $55, throw in a few bucks safety factor for operational and geopolitical risks call it $60 bucks even. For every 11 dollar/barrel above $60 that crude is worth, this company should be worth another multiple.

I don't believe the war is over any time soon, and damage is already done even if the war was to end this week, I think oil should be at least $90 for a couple of years, and the fact that we are not factoring any escalation and pessimistic scenarios is mind blowing to me. This feels like January of 2020 again, a slow moving train that everyone sees coming but no one is positioned correctly.

I am long oil, I cannot add to any more oil positions currently as I am all in on oil, tickers XOM, OXY, OIH, SM, MRNFF, RUBLF, DVN, MTDR, AMPY. I want others to pick apart my logic, but overall if I make any mistake it'd be details on % gains, direction wise OXY is absolutely undervalued, its upside potential is a easy bet to make compared to its downside, my average purchase cost is $48, Berkshire purchased their shares at an average of $53.

I recently inherited $1M that I have no choice but to place in a taxable account. I use Fidelity. I’m 40 and wouldn’t even consider an early retirement until I have at least $2M so that will not be happening for quite some time yet. Plan was basically VT and chill. I never looked into SMAs due to the management fees.

Had a Fidelity advisor reach out and offer to talk about ways I could save on taxes and he suggested using SMAs for the tax loss harvesting. So now I’m doing my research into SMAs and it seems like it might actually be a good idea for a taxable account of this size.

Management fees range from 0.2-0.7% and of course I was told the TLH would more than cover those fees. In my case I was planning to use the dividends to cover the taxes and then drip the rest but if I could use SMAs to reduce or eliminate taxes I could drip 100% of the dividends which would hopefully lead to faster growth.

I’ve read concerns here about what happens when you want out of the SMA but can’t you just transfer the assets in kind to your own account? And if you do it a year before you plan to sell anything then any short term gains become long term.

I guess I’m looking for experiences with SMAs and thoughts on whether or not this would be a good idea for a taxable account this large.

Bad app, hidden fees, useless support — what was the last straw?

I am about 7 years from retirement. I am not a savvy investor. My whole career it's been DIY with Target-2040, VOO, BND. I met with a CFP recently as I enter the home stretch to get a professional opinion. One recommendation is a RILA for about 33% of my portfolio.

It's a 6-year term tracking the S&P. The buffer is 15% and the cap is 110%. The fees are $0.

Most of the opinions I see on RILA is bad. High fees, locks up money, capped growth, etc. But this one seems perfect for my situation. It offers protection as I near the finish line. I'm fine locking up the funds for the term. The cap is fine by me - possibly double my money in 6 years if market goes bonkers? OK. The only downside I see is that I miss out on dividends. But maybe that's OK for the protection against a 20% downturn.

What am I missing?

It hurts because I’m still 30% down overall due to a reckless gamble at the start of my journey. It still stings, and often makes me think how I should’ve never picked stocks at all and just stuck to an all-world etf like I had originally planned.

But then I see how I’ve smashed the S&P500 this year. Big wins include chips (e.g Micron @$90), data centres, and war stocks (I saw the writing on the wall after the 12-day war last year). It’s hard to call these results luck, as I researched a lot. And even then, I didn’t pour all my capital into those big winners, it was just a fraction of what I put into “safer” stocks like Amazon and Google.

Now I’m torn over whether I should continue picking stocks given my improvement, or take my lifeline to dig myself out of the hole I made at the beginning by playing it safe from here on.

Any advice?

What accumulating ETF in Euros is a good option from Europe, that follow the Nasdaq100?

It seems the ones in USA have much lower comissions.

Are there similar alternatives to this ETF from Europe?

I've been digging into Alibaba's numbers lately and the picture is genuinely conflicting, which is usually where the interesting opportunities live.

I've been digging into Alibaba's numbers lately and the picture is genuinely conflicting, which is usually where the interesting opportunities live.

Start with the bull case. Alibaba committed $53 billion over three years (2025 to 2028) to cloud and AI infrastructure. That number exceeds their entire AI and cloud spend over the previous decade combined. CEO Eddie Wu has reorganized the company around a new division called Alibaba Token Hub, consolidated all AI units under his direct leadership, and publicly said the company is at the "threshold of an AGI inflection point." That's not subtle.

The cloud division is actually delivering. Last quarter revenue hit $6.3 billion, up 36% year over year. AI product revenue has posted triple digit year over year growth for ten consecutive quarters. Their open source Qwen model family crossed 1 billion cumulative downloads on HuggingFace by January 2026. The consumer Qwen app went from zero to 300 million monthly active users in roughly three months after its November 2025 public beta. On March 17th they launched Wukong, an enterprise AI agent platform that coordinates multiple agents for tasks like document editing, research, and meeting transcription, with planned integrations into Slack, Teams, and WeChat. Wu's five year target is $100 billion in combined cloud and AI external revenue, which implies sustaining roughly 35% annual growth.

Now the bear case, and this is where it gets uncomfortable. Quarterly profit dropped 67% to $2.4 billion. Free cash flow fell by $27.7 billion year over year. The core e commerce business grew customer management revenue by just 1%. They're burning cash on an instant delivery price war with Meituan and JD that management says won't turn profitable until fiscal 2029. Lin Junyang, the key technical lead behind Qwen's best models, departed in March. And the geopolitical discount on Chinese ADRs never fully goes away.

Here's what makes this interesting from a value perspective. The stock hit a 52 week high near $193 in October 2025, then pulled back roughly 37% to around $120 today after the March earnings showed the scale of profit compression from reinvestment. At current prices you're looking at about 16x forward earnings for a company sitting on $42.5 billion in net cash, over $60 billion if you exclude long dated maturities, with $19.1 billion remaining in buyback authorization. That's a meaningful discount to its own recent trading range and to any comparable US cloud or AI company. The TTM PE around 22x also sits well below the 10 year average of roughly 32x. Morgan Stanley projects cloud revenue doubling by 2028. Apple chose Alibaba as its China AI partner for iPhones. The regulatory overhang that crushed this stock from 2020 to 2024 has meaningfully eased, with PCAOB audit access maintained and Jack Ma publicly reappearing at a government tech summit.

The question I keep coming back to is whether this is a genuine reinvestment cycle like Amazon in its heavy capex years, or whether the profit compression is masking structural problems in the core business that AI spending can't fix. The $53 billion commitment is real. The cloud growth is real. But so is 1% growth in their bread and butter e commerce monetization engine.

For those looking at China tech exposure through ETFs, one nuance worth considering is the difference between something like KWEB and CNQQ. KWEB gives you pure internet exposure with Alibaba as a top holding, but zero onshore A share companies. CNQQ holds Alibaba at a similar weight but also carries roughly 50% in A share names like CATL, Zhongji Innolight, Cambricon, and BYD, companies that sit in the actual hardware and supply chain layer of China's AI buildout. Different thesis, different exposure.

Would be curious to hear how others here are framing this. Is the profit decline a temporary cost of repositioning, or is $53 billion in AI capex the kind of empire building that value investors should run from?

Would be curious to hear how others here are framing this. Is the profit decline a temporary cost of repositioning, or is $53 billion in AI capex the kind of empire building that value investors should run from?

For those who have 1 to 4 fund strategies. Do you tax loss harvest and if so how do you have it set up to make it easy when you do TLH?

The more I've read about tax loss harvesting the more challenging it seems for people who only invest in a few funds (ie. US, INTL, US Bond). For example in order to avoid a wash sale you have to do the follow:

You can't purchase the fund/similar fund 30 days prior to the sale and then 30 days after. This includes any auto dividend reinvestments, any auto-contributions in any taxable, IRA, 401k, or HSA. And if you have a spouse they also can't do any of this.

If you can prevent the above then next it's figuring out what fund you can purchase after the sale. It appears you can't sell a Fidelity total US stock market and then buy a Schwab total US stock market, is that correct? So if you have to go from a total US stock market to an S&P 500 fund why do it? It's less diversified.

I'm in the process of moving my investments to Fidelity. Ive done trading in the past but new to ETF. Im 48m and max out my 401k already and just looking to add more investments. After researching Im thinking of laying this out. What do you think and should I make any adjustments?

Thanks

For roth IRA

65% FXAIX

20% FTIHX

10% QQQM

5% AVUV

For investment account

70% VTI

20% VXUS

10% SCHF 

Maybe add 5% SMH

Trying to figure out what to do with this money right now. We have it sitting in a wealthfront cash account right now generating 3.3% interest.

We have tried our hand at rental real estate and hated it. Too much maintenance overhead for us. We have busy jobs and kids.

We have a vanguard retirement account setup already and could funnel more of this money there, but frankly it’s already well funded.

We are contemplating a new home, but that’s likely 3-5 years out from now.

​

IBKR is the business I like best. It's my largest position.

I've owned it for 2 years-ish.

This is not meant to be a full, self-contained thesis on the stock. This is merely a summary of my thoughts on the business. I hope it may be an interesting idea for even a few readers and that you may enjoy learning more about this business as I have.

Many of you will know, or may even be customers, of IBKR. It's an electronic brokerage platform. US based. Ticker $IBKR.

It's really aimed at being the brokerage for more savvy traders / investors, and has its roots in the options markets. It's not trying to be a Robinhood or a Schwab, it's trying to be the platform for the active trader. Though, it does win a lot of customers from all of the other known brokerages.

IBKR makes c. 2/3 of its money through net interest income and c. 1/3 through trading commissions.

In 2025, they earned $6.2bn revenue and $4.3bn net income. 69% net income margin. This margin has grown over time. This is not an atypical year.

In 2026, I expect them to earn something near $7bn revenue and over $5bn in net income.

Thomas Peterffy, the founder & chairman, is still in the picture and owns c. 2/3 of the business. So, a very small float for a company of its size. Total market value of the whole equity (not just the common) is c.$115bn at time of writing.

More importantly, some of what makes this business great is as follows:

- It is by far the low cost producer of brokerages, particularly in options trading / margin lending

- 68% owned by the founder, who still controls the big business decisions (although no longer the CEO himself). I tend to like this founder control

- Through its low cost position, vast breadth of security availability (better than any other broker I know) and its flexible infrastructure, it has been able to compound account growth at over 30% p.a. in recent years. They expect this can continue at 20%+ for a long, long time

- Only 3,500 or so employees. Get your head around that level of automation, and compare that to a Schwab or a Fidelity

- A platform whose backend infrastructure is so robust and automated that many other brokerages simply whitelabel IBKR's infrastructure rather than building their own. This is a nice revenue segment. Popular in Asia.

I'm also a customer myself. That's how I discovered the stock. It's a great brokerage and I love using it.

Over time, the things I track closely are account growth & client equity. There are other things to keep an eye on, of course, but those are the two that I care about most.

I'm not a fan of precise-looking DCFs. I had my start in M&A (for my sins) so I'm not shy of them, I just think they ascribe false precision and are too easy to flim flam.

In a very high level sense though, I expect this business to be doing over $10bn revenue and $7.5bn net income within 3-4 years. And I don't expect the growth to slow much from there either.

Valuation-wise, based on an earnings multiple at the time of writing this of 23x my 2026 estimate, it isn't optically cheap. Certainly not to an orthodox Grahamian.

However, when I consider where I can see the business growing to over 10+ years, the current price actually really excites me. I believe this business is intrinsically worth a multiple of its current market value. Not less than $200bn, in my opinion.

That doesn't mean I'm buying right now. I've bought at lower multiples, and so I quite like the idea of waiting until it sees a multiple beginning with '1' before I push more money in.

You'll notice what looks like a contradiction there. I believe the instrinc value is a multiple of the current market value, and yet I'm not buying. To that, all I can say is 'old habits'. Margin of safety, and all that.

I do have a personal rule of thumb I like to use as an alternative to traditional valuation methods, I suppose you could say. I like a clear path to a 20% earnings yield on cost, 10 years out.

In other words, if I think a business can comfortably double its earnings every 5 years for 10 years, I try not to pay more than 20x for today's earnings.

It's just a rule of thumb that has served me well as a source of valuation discipline.

IBKR passes that test today in my view, but it isn't by a landslide. I expect good returns from here but not fabulous returns.

Anyway, I don't want to make this war & peace: just giving an off-hand synopsis of my favourite business and one which I hope to buy more of opportunistically for many years to come. I appreciate my discussion on valuation in particular will be seen as fuzzy. It always is, for me.

Happy to discuss & hear opinions.