r/ValueInvesting

SpaceX filed for its long awaited IPO. And as corporate governance watchdogs page through the S-1 filing one thing’s for sure: They will find much to fret about. Indeed the governance apparatus stunningly favors the C-suite, the board, and especially founder Elon Musk, at the expense of shareholders.

In fact, Musk’s critics had already dialed up the outrage in the weeks before the S-1 was filed. In a letter to Musk and his two top lieutenants on May 13, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), and the Controllers of New York City and State, charged that the registration statement “would constitute the most management-favorable governance structure ever brought to the U.S. markets at this scale.”

Those interviewed by Fortune avow they’ve never witnessed anything this one-sided. “It’s crazy,” says Joseph Lucoski, founder and managing partner of securities law firm Lucoski, Brookman, LLP. “I practice every day with the exchanges and regulators, and they would never accept this onerous and one-sided a structure for an emerging growth company. Normally, you’d see a lot of pushback. But because it’s Musk, and the biggest IPO ever, and that everyone’s vying to get a part of it, the exchanges are going along with it. It would never happen in my world.”

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/05/22/space-x-stock-ipo-price-elon-musk-shareholders/?utm_source=reddit/

Rocket Lab - one of the most thrown around name on this website but at this valuation what are your guys thoughts here? Compared to the market leader (SpaceX) it's valuation seems very tame and it's a pure play unlike SpaceX.

They also diluted the fuck out of their shareholder last year and half but investors seem to not fear it and actually appreciate it. RKLB has been using the money for strategic aqquistations.

Their financials

• They reported a record-breaking $200.3 million in revenue for Q1 2026 whihc is 63.5% year-over-year increase. For the upcoming Q2 2026, the company expects to break that record again, issuing revenue guidance between $225 million and $240 million.

SOURCE - YAHOO FINANCE Gross Margin: Hit a record 38.2%. Adjusted EBITDA: Narrowed to a loss of $11.75 million, which represents a 60.8% improvement year-over-year.

Backlog: Surpassed a record $2.2 billion, buoyed by major Electron, HASTE, and Neutron launch contracts.

How do you value investors feel not buying into this and instead going in on NVO, UNH, ADBE, and CRM type "value investments" on biggest bull run?

With govt grants given a couple days ago, and quantum already being used by scientists worldwide. Are you in or getting in on quantum, yet?

I’ve been holding small positions in QBTS and IONQ for a few weeks. Missed RGTI. but with it already being used in the real world and with $ coming in from govt grants to excel growth…I have been buying more.

Will probably scale to 3% so not a large portion of my acct. But, worth a look, imo.

This stock has been on my watchlist for a while now and I could have bought in earlier but I didn't because I bought other businesses instead. I believe Intuit is a great businesses but the businesses I bought or added more of, I believe from a moat perspective, are in a better position. Nonetheless, at current price this stock becomes very attractive from a value investing perspective. It's down 51% YTD and it's even in negative 30% over the past 5 years. There is nothing wrong with the business, the stock was just overvalued and became attractive again. Looking at some metrics the story looks more compelling than when you only look to the stock price.

Revenue doubled from $9B in 2021 to $18B in 2025 and it's estimated to reach $24B in 2027. Pre tax income went from $2.5B to $4.8B and estimated to reach $5.8B in 2026. That is a close to a 15x EBIT multiple, a figure Warren Buffett would love to start buying. EPS keeps climbing, same with return of capital and currently ramping up their buybacks. The last couple of years have been flat for the company in buybacks. That's a positive sign, meaning, management believes the market is wrong about the skepticism around the business.

Is AI going to do the taxes for you? Are you going to throw your docs and files into those open source web applications? I believe you still need a middleman because all the data is already there. All your previous filings which makes it easier to do. AI still get a lot wrong. Still simple questions are sometimes though to do. I sometimes put docs into chatgpt and It messes up the numbers which are almost always incorrect. So I still have to do the manual proofreading to see if anything is incorrect/correct.

I do see some sort of a bear case for Intuit but I think it represent an opportunity not found elsewhere in the current market. It trades at a 13x 2026 PE and an 11.3x 2027 PE, which is not seen for over a decade. A current $100B market cap company generating sales of $20B is a generational buy. Price to free cash flow over 5%. ROA, ROE and ROIC climbing again. Same with gross, operating and net margin. Cash per share around the 25 dollars for a 300 dollar entry price is not seen since COVID 2020 for this company.

There was some negativity around the business and the growth concerns with some headwinds in turbo tax and cutting 17% in workforce segment. Management stated growth rates of 15% for the coming years. Even if it slows down to 10% or so, we still have major upside from current price.

I think it will take some time to unwind. I'm taking a small position in this one and see how it plays out. What are your takes on the business and did you initiated a position?

The reality is using AI for financial research is very important. I use it for analyzing earnings reports, acting as a stock screener, doing advanced earnings projections, finding qualitative issues with a company and more.

Prior to this week, based on many tests and experiments, Gemini was hands down the best (even better than Anthropic). But everything changed this week with the disastrous rollout of 3.5.

Before this week, the options were:

• Fast - This was in essence Flash 3.1 Regular, but it would silently upshift to 3.1 Pro on its own to answer complicated questions for paid customers. It worked extremely well.
• Pro - This was Flash 3.1 Pro and worked well, but typically you didn't need it over Fast, because again Fast would upshift automatically when it needed to do more research.
• Thinking - This Flash 3.1 Regular but with a advanced reasoning and logic depth.

After this week the options are now:

• 3.5 Flash - This is the new default and produces garbage results. Under the hood it's likely 3.5 Flash lite...it's very fast and efficient, but it often ignores your parameters and issues hallucinated answers.
• 3.1 Flash Lite - This is an inferior version of 3.1 Flash Regular and designed purely for speed and saving Google on compute. It's junk.
• 3.1 Pro - This is a good version. But NOW google has capped its used heavily. They don't show it, but every time you use 3.1 Pro, it secretly deducts against new weekly and 5 hour quotas. I did the math...to do one owners earnings analysis docked 15% of my five hour quote...so now Google is just give me one quality query per hour. After that the good options are greyed out, and I'm stock with the cheap versions that no longer work.
• There is an extended thinking level option, but it doesn't help much and it chews through your quota fast.

The errors with 3.5 are hideous. It frequently gets basic information like tickers wrong or earnings dates (which 3.1 used to be very good with). It's also getting very lazy in its analysis. What I liked to do with owners earnings projections was have the LLM compute their own figures and then debate each other to see what the others missed. 3.1 used to win these debates and be the most accurate (beating even Anthropic). But now the new 3.5 Flash is losing these debates...and now even Facebook AI is showing better results than Gemini 3.5 Flash. I also use Gemini for programming and web design and 3.5's regressions here are shockingly bad.

Gemini used to be the five star restaurant of LLM's...now it's the McDonalds. Remember Gemini 3 was so revolutionary, it caused OpenAI to literally issue a "Code Red" emergency to focus on their own engine improvements. Part of Gemini downshifting to save on compute/power is understandable...but maybe for free customers. For us paying customers who prepaid a year in advanced, this is very dishonest. Despite paying, I can essentially only use a decent version of Gemini about once an hour before all the good options grey out. And while the new Gemini filled their interface with new junk options...there no visible running tally showing how much compute your prompt used and what you have left. You have to go to a hidden settings menu to see how much hourly and weekly compute you have left.

So what are the options for serious stock researchers?

• Anthropic/Claude: It's very good and already and I suspect it's already the LLM of choice among big financial analysts like hedge funds. They focus mostly on B2B customers and not B2C...they also don't dabble with images/video...and they have the massive compute resources of Amazon behind them. Their strength is they have the strongest grounding (least hallucinations). I also don't think they will ever intentionally nerf their own algorithm like Google did to trade quantity for quality. On the downside, the free version is exceptionally slow and limited.
• Grok: This is surprisingly good, especially with financial news. They lack the complicated reasoning of Gemini 3.1, and the lack of hallucination control of Anthropic, so they can't be considered the leader, but they're on that next tier.
• Meta AI: This isn't a top-tier LLM for financial research but is getting better. They stole some of Google's top AI engineers and it shows...they've improved while Gemini has gotten worse. Unlike the other engines it's also not slammed with users so its performance and lack of throttling is pretty good (for now)
• Stick with Gemini: 3.5 now is almost unusable, but there is maybe some hope they make improvements to appease power users. Sundar Pichai though is very stubborn about admitting mistakes. eg Look at the disaster Google Analytics 4 was...I doubt we see huge changes if for now other reason Google is likely running out of compute power.
• DeepSeek: They recently revamped their engine and it's way better/faster with access to the most recent financial documents. The Chinese LLM's are investing a ton into AI technology and need to be treated seriously.
• OpenAI: OpenAI still makes too many mistakes. It's priority is speed and efficiency...not quality. It's the "dollar store" version of LLMs

Alphabet's stock has been in decline this week since 3.5 was rolled out. As it dawns on investors what a disaster 3.5 is, I suspect it continues to fall. For such a shoddy project to be released, means the brain drain at Google is more serious than realized or Google has a compute scarcity emergency on their hands.

Are there any stocks or etfs that specialise in adult content. I read in the warren buffet book that investors should only invest in things they understand within their circle of competency. In the past few years company's like only fans have made alot of money and I figure it would be wise to invest in what you already consume. Plus with the rise of AI i think the adult content sector will be far more profitable than ever hence extreme high shareholder value.

"Be fearfull when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearfull " -warren buffet

Looking forward to seeing your recommendations.

Looking at it after ER it actually looks cheaper than it has in awhile from a free cash flow basis. Which is a number that is starting to get insane. Every single quarter is beat and raise. The rate of growth actually increased from 2026 to 2027 which no one expected 6 months ago. What is really wild is it looks like the best buy of the sector right now. It was in my dca rotation in 160 170 range but it looks like a solid buy after the ER pullback.

A lot of people keep falling for value traps fall and a bias known as "price anchoring" without realizing it. They see a stock crash and think its automatically cheap just because it used to trade way higher.

PayPal is a perfect example. People kept buying it all the way down because they remembered when it traded above 300 dollars. At 200 they said it was undervalued. Then at 150. Then at 100. It just kept falling and falling and people just blindly kept buying thinking they're warren buffet.

The same thing just happened with NVO A lot of people though its safe just because the stock already dropped a lot from the highs. But a lower price doesnt automatically mean lower risk. Expectations were insanely high and when expectations change, stocks can keep falling way longer than people think.

And now some investors might be walking into the same trap with Intuit. People see a decent company and assume every dip is a buying opportunity. Thats exactly how value traps start. If growth slows or the market stops accepting premium valuations, the stock can reprice hard even if the business itself is still good.

The market doesnt care what a stock used to trade for. Sometimes the old price was the mistake. investing is not as simple as stock fall me buy stock me make money when it go back up.

I'm guessing a lot of you are going to say Berkshire recently increased their investments in Google by 200%, so buy Google, but it's at relatively high P/E (29.57) ratio compared to MSFT or META. This is very much unlike Berkshire.

Is it still a good buy? Someone please make it make sense to me.

INTU selloff - what’s the real AI disruption risk
I’m trying to understand Intuit after the recent drop.
At today’s price, is INTU a good long-term buy or a value trap? Would appreciate serious view on actual business.

Main questions:

1. Which part of Intuit is most vulnerable to AI: TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, or Mailchimp?

2. Does TurboTax’s moat come from the software interface, the filing/compliance infrastructure, the brand trust, the tax data, or the expert network?

3. Is QuickBooks a true system of record for SMBs, or can AI-native accounting tools realistically replace it over time, What percentage of QuickBooks value comes from workflow lock-in versus accounting intelligence?

4. Could AI agents bypass Intuit products, or will they still need Intuit’s tax/accounting/payroll/payment infrastructure?

5. Are the layoffs a sign of margin optimization, AI-driven efficiency, or underlying demand weakness?

6. Is the market mainly repricing INTU because of AI disruption risk, slower revenue growth, valuation compression, or all three?

7. What metrics should investors watch over the next few quarters?

Would appreciate thoughts from people who understand tax software, accounting software, SMB tools, or AI automation.

Folks, has the potential Iran-US peace deal already been priced in by the market, or are we about to witness a broader post-announcement bull run?

About 30 minutes ago, I posted about Futu and Tiger being fined by the Chinese government, which caused the stocks to plunge 40%.

However, after doing more research, I realized this isn't exactly new news. Both companies actually phased out their mainland China business a few years ago, and only a small number of legacy accounts still trade through them.

This fine is actually a good thing because it marks the end of the regulatory risk. Both companies have already transitioned out of China and built up a global user base. Aside from this one-time penalty, it shouldn't affect their core business.

Do your own research, but I just put in a small position in FUTU. I love the app because it is simply the best.

SoFi has been beaten up due to a few things - big tech client leaving in Chime setting fears the tech side revenue won't be as high as it was anticipated to be.

Macro fears around inflation, recession and credit/lending.

Dilution concerns (historically every bit of dilution has been accretive to the business itself and raised the fundamental floor - I believe SoFi is mostly done diluting at this point)

Some facts about SoFi:

It has met or beat expectations on guidance since their 2nd eps report. It has 10 GAAP quarters of profitability. They're currently guiding for 30% revenue CAGR and 38-42% EPS CAGR through 2028. They boast a rule of 40 score of 72 per their latest earnings call.

They've been labelled as the #1 bank.

Have a high membership acquisition growth rate.

SoFi plus membership is growing.

Their aim is to be a one stop shop for consumers and a financial ecosystem.

They've recently announced:

Crypto Wallets

Big business banking

Mastercard partnership

SOFIUSD stable coin

multiple minor acquisitions to strengthen the financial services platform.

→ PrimaryBid extends SoFi Invest (capital markets access)
→ Composer extends SoFi Plus (AI portfolio building)
→ Peach extends Big Business Banking (loan servicing)

Options trading improvements including 0 dte and basic guidelines.

Based on their growth rate I get a forward PEG of <0.6 currently showing possibility of being pretty undervalued. They've been given an incredibly steep risk discount despite having proven to sustain high growth through higher interest rates, student loan pauses, and a regulatory body that was less crypto friendly.

On a technical side it has now bounced just above the 200 weekly ema twice and looks to have stopped aggressively sliding. MACD is showing selling exhaustion, RSI is in nuetral territory which shows it should have room to run.

Further potential catalyst of S&P 500 inclusion upon sustain MC of $22.8B -> They've more than met the other requirements. I think the odds increase every quarter they aren't included with an almost guarantee for sometime 2027 upon sustaining growth.

Macro tailwinds could also bring back sentiment/volume

Historically IPO's perform poorly ~3-4 years. SOFI had its first breakout year last year right on time. It's really just hitting its growth acceleration in my opinion

To me a bank growing at a fast pace with a financial/tech flywheel bringing in >40% of it's revenue in high margin revenue is a steal at a TBV of just over 2x and a book multiple of <2x.

Disclosure: I am holding 4.5k shares with an average of $15.35 and multiple 2028 $15 strike leaps. My accumulation zone is sub $20 and I've been an investor/DCAer since 2022 - i trimmed after it double peaked last year and have been adding those profits back in since Q4 2025 EPS. I plan to hold these until post S&P inclusion at minimum but I truly consider this a stock to accumulate when deep value presents itself and hold for longterm growth / trim if the market becomes too euphoric again.

So let me get this straight, the largest e-commerce platform in South America, with the most prominent payment-processing system in the region, along with a logistics network that acts as a moat as well, WITH ADVERTISING REVENUE, is down 40% from its ATH in a widely unpenetrated market during a deliberate reinvestment cycle skewing earnings lower, and is aggressively expanding their credit card and loan book? Surely, I am missing something bigger than a short-term problem (currency risk, Argentina is a somewhat wild card geopolitically, policy changes). Considering a long-term timeline, it feels like a no brainer to me, and to be completely honest it seems like it will keep grinding down for a bit. Is this a generational DCA opportunity? Obviously, multiples are still high "Ben Graham-wise," but it feels like a wonderful company trading at a fair price.

When you buy SP500 tracking ETFs like VOO and SPY 6.7% of their holdings will now be comprised by Tesla and SpaceX, which will have a combined market cap of ~3.3-3.6 trillion... All the more reason to make your own diversified portfolio of individual stocks or find ETFs that, when combined, somewhat mimic the SP500 but without including ticking time bomb Musk meme stocks with pe ratios of 400 and horrendous financials with negligible (or negative) earnings

Ive been getting a lot more educated about fundamental analysis and how to evaluate a stock and being an engineer I can just now think of a couple of things that can be automated when doing research for a stock.

But then again, Im only just getting started... and I have a long way to go

So I wanted to ask you guys how do you use ChatGPT/ Claude / Any other LLM to help you analyze a company?

Listened to Steve Eisman’s interview with the sell side analyst covering fico.

It doesn’t sound too good for fico. Its moat was a regulation engineered moat.and they have lost that moat.

The company hiked prices from 20 cents a pull in 2022 to 10 dollars a pull now. And it’s now competing with its own customer and the competitor charges 1 dollar.

Fico is projected to lose 30% market share by 2027 and the market is pricing fico as if they won’t lose further market shares.

I don’t know if it’s a good idea to short at this price but that interview surely deterred me from buying fico.