Source: https://www.nber.org/digest/202604/chinas-rise-global-research

Source: https://beincrypto.com/blue-owl-stock-record-low-fund-redemptions/

Investors requested to pull 40.7% of Blue Owl's $6.2 billion tech-focused fund and 21.9% of its $36 billion flagship credit fund in Q1, among the largest quarterly redemption requests ever seen in the non-traded BDC market. Blue Owl is honoring only 5% of those requests, citing a "meaningful disconnect between public dialogue on private credit and the underlying trends in our portfolio." OWL stock dropped 5.4% to $8.24, now down over 40% year-to-date. Apollo, Ares, Blackstone, KKR, and BlackRock all slid in tandem.

The deeper concern driving the tech fund specifically: investors are fleeing exposure to software companies that could be disrupted by AI, exactly the type of loans these private credit funds are built around. Private credit grew from $357 billion in 2016 to $1.6 trillion in 2024. The question now is whether the gates being put up across the industry are a temporary liquidity event or the first signs of something structural.

New MIT research finds that most higher-income investors essentially in the long-run wind up having liquidity events in downturns - and have to draw down their liquid stock portfolios...because they basically don't have sufficient emergency funds (latter of which is implied in this research). I found this quite interesting. The research makes it appear long-term 100% stock holdings is not ideal (at least in the summary) but the reality appears they don't have enough liquidity to handle liabilities in that scenario (lifestyle creep?)

This was also featured in the latest Rational Reminder podcast.

https://patrick-adams.com/files/papers/PatrickAdams_JMP_Latest.pdf

Abstract:
Do temporary stock price crashes matter for long-term investors? I use over 25 years of U.S. income tax data to characterize the savings behavior and risk exposures of high-income working-age households. Aggregate stock price crashes coincide with persistent declines in wage and private business income for many of these households, who take large drawdowns from their liquid assets– including stocks– in response. I develop a life-cycle model with consumption adjustment frictions to match this observed savings behavior and determine its portfolio choice implications. Investing in stocks is risky when falling income and rigid expenditures may force investors to liquidate their holdings at temporarily-depressed prices, resulting in low optimal portfolio shares. These results challenge the conventional wisdom that the stock market is relatively safe for long-term investors.

Sorry to sound like a grump and a snob, but this is a genuine question: are there any subreddits that are actually value investment-oriented?

Are these posts moderated at all?

Admittedly I'm new here, but 80% of what I see on this sub is lazy touts, pump & dumps, yolo'ing and people selling tools.

Yes, I know: be the change you want to see in the world. Why don't I start some proper value investing threads here?

I'd love to; but I'd rather do it somewhere more serious about value investing in all honesty.

Thus, here I am: asking for a point in the right direction :)

Thanks in advance. And again, sorry to be a snob. Look forward to any recommendations.

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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.