The hottest Valuation Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

[2025–2026] Week 18: The Investment Checklist by Michael Shearn

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Favor businesses that are predictable and don’t change much over the long term, because stability makes forecasting and compounding easier.
  2. Prioritize honest, competent management and alignment with owners, since trustworthy leaders and CEOs who are engaged materially improve long-term outcomes.
  3. Use a structured, checklist-based research process and deliberate practice: customize the checklist to your approach, be realistic about the time needed to become proficient, and accelerate learning by discussing work with peers.

A little perspective...

A Havenstein Moment. • 963 implied HN points • 01 Feb 24
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Mass delusions are not rare, they have happened throughout history.
  2. Valuations have not mattered in technology investments, past history has shown this.
  3. Investment decisions based purely on valuation may not always lead to profits.

Inside The Savannah Bananas: $80M+ In Ticket Sales, $50M+ In Merch, And A $1B Valuation Debate

Huddle Up • 61 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🎾 Sports Valuation
  1. The Savannah Bananas sold about 2.2 million tickets across 113 games. That likely generated roughly $75–80 million in ticket revenue, putting them on par with many MLB teams.
  2. Merchandise became a massive revenue stream, with 787,000 buyers purchasing nearly 2 million items and driving over $50 million in sales. That likely exceeds retail revenue for many MLB clubs.
  3. Big revenues hide big costs: high player salaries, 700+ employees, and large travel and production budgets make the operation resemble a touring show more than a single-stadium team. Those expenses complicate profit margins and any claim of a $1 billion valuation.

10-Minute Investment Autopsy No. 2: Ferrari

Behavioral Value Investor • 37 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Ferrari was seen as a better-than-expected business with low capital needs, lots of unserved demand, and deserved a luxury-style valuation.
  2. The investor’s unit forecast came true (≈9,000 cars) but earnings missed big — EBIT was €825M and margins 24% versus a €1.4B / 35% forecast — yet the stock still outperformed the market.
  3. Exact numeric precision wasn’t necessary: a strong qualitative thesis about business quality and demand drove good returns even though the detailed forecasts were off.
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Why xAI's revenue could be a key indicator of the AI bubble

Alex's Personal Blog • 98 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Valuation
  1. xAI’s valuation is astronomically high compared to its current revenue, so whether it can rapidly grow sales will be a key signal of whether AI valuations are a bubble or justified. If xAI can’t scale into that price, investors may have overpaid heavily.
  2. AI labs are aggressively moving into healthcare and developer tooling, and firms are competing to lock customers into their platforms and standards to capture profitable enterprise use cases. These moves show the market is shifting from novelty to revenue-driven battles for control.
  3. A proposed California billionaire tax that treats voting control like ownership could push founders and capital out of the state and weaken Silicon Valley’s position. The policy risks being punitive and may incentivize relocation to lower-tax states.

Data Update 1 for 2024: The Data Speaks, but what is it saying?

Musings on Markets • 1099 implied HN points • 05 Jan 24
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. All companies are included in data analysis to get a full picture, not just big ones. This helps avoid bias and shows a more accurate view of industries.
  2. The data covers many financial variables that help understand company decisions about investment, financing, and dividends. It also uses unique ways to calculate statistics for more accurate insights.
  3. The statistics are updated regularly to reflect the latest available information. Users should utilize the data wisely and be aware of any changes in accounting standards or currency issues.

[2025–2026] Week 19: Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock

Behavioral Value Investor • 14 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Start building an investing checklist early and update it as your approach evolves so it becomes a reliable repository of your process and decision rules.
  2. Learn and practice forecasting skills by studying what makes superforecasters better than average and by making clear, probabilistic predictions to sharpen judgment.
  3. Share your answers in a single comment and engage with others' responses to learn through feedback and community discussion.

Silent Stan: How Stan Kroenke Built A $20 Billion Sports Empire Using Walmart’s Real Estate Playbook

Huddle Up • 68 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
💼 Business Valuation
  1. He turns sports teams into anchor tenants and controls the surrounding land so stadiums drive huge adjacent real estate value.
  2. By combining massive landholdings with ownership of top teams, he built a $20+ billion sports and real estate empire while operating privately.
  3. His anchor-tenant + land-control + long-timeline playbook is now being copied across sports, shifting negotiating power toward owners and changing how cities deal with teams.

The SaaS Bloodbath: Opportunities and Perils for Investors

East Wind • 19 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. The recent software sell-off is partly a market overreaction, not the death of mission-critical SaaS. Incumbent vendors that adopt AI can protect pricing power and improve free cash flow.
  2. Companies with "artificial limiters" — non-code moats like network effects, regulatory barriers, and physical infrastructure — are best positioned to re-accelerate growth and can become multi-baggers if bought at the right price.
  3. Venture investing is riskier now because public multiples are compressed and many startups are still effectively SaaS, so private-market entry prices may not be justified by exits, making public equities a clearer place to find mispricings.

Down 60%, One Stock I Still Love

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 24 implied HN points • 14 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. A big price drop doesn't automatically mean the investment idea is wrong.
  2. The core fundamental drivers supporting the long-term thesis remain intact, so the opportunity still exists despite the decline.
  3. The decline makes the risk profile clearer, and after reassessing, the long-duration opportunity can still justify holding or buying.

Clouded Judgement 2.27.26 - The Poison of Inertia

Clouded Judgement • 14 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
💼 Business Valuation
  1. AI is rapidly changing how work gets done, letting smaller, flatter teams and new tools replace old roles and prompting big reorganizations and layoffs to remove inefficiency.
  2. Large incumbents are crippled by organizational inertia and often need to rewrite playbooks or start fresh, untethered units to adapt to new platform shifts.
  3. AI will materially lower software production costs, so legacy players must proactively cut bloat and restructure their cost base or risk being undercut by cheaper, modern competitors.

The three businesses of hyperscalers

Metacritic Capital • 13 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
💼 Business Valuation
  1. Hyperscalers are three different businesses at once: Traditional IaaS (sticky, high‑margin cloud services), Token Factories (LLM inference APIs sold by token consumption), and AI mega‑deals (capex‑heavy long‑term GPU/data‑center contracts with labs).
  2. Token Factory work is commoditizing and price‑sensitive: customers can swap models or providers quickly, so serving costs and model access drive competitiveness more than platform lock‑in.
  3. AI mega‑deals change growth quality and valuation: hosting labs can boost revenue but often yields lower, fixed IRRs, so investors must model revenue, capex, and margins separately for each business and run a DCF.

Your 10 Favorite Stocks

Compounding Quality • 746 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. The Wisdom of Crowds can lead to remarkably accurate predictions.
  2. Learning from others and collaborating can result in more knowledge and insights.
  3. Choosing stocks based on sound investment rationale and data can lead to successful investments.

The Netflix Identity Crisis

Spilled Coffee • 44 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Netflix’s fundamentals look very strong: revenue has climbed from about $20B to $45B, operating income surged to roughly $13B, and free cash flow turned positive near $9B.
  2. Despite those gains the stock is about 36% below its 52-week high and trades near $85, which suggests a disconnect between price and business performance.
  3. Investors remain cautious and are holding off buying for now; many want a lower share price or a clearer catalyst before committing.

Invisible, yet Invaluable: Valuing Intangibles - The Birkenstock IPO

Musings on Markets • 1139 implied HN points • 06 Oct 23
💼 Business Valuation
  1. Intangible assets, like brand names and management quality, are really important for a company's value but are often overlooked in accounting. Companies today get much of their worth from things you can't physically see.
  2. The way we value companies has changed a lot, especially with tech firms now leading the market. Investors need to think about future potential instead of just past performance, especially for newer companies.
  3. Birkenstock's upcoming IPO highlights how a strong brand and a loyal celebrity customer base can boost a company's value. The success of its stocks may depend not just on numbers but also on how the market feels at the moment.

Warner Bros.: How 5 Mental Models Turned Lonely Conviction into a Big Win

Behavioral Value Investor • 104 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Use several mental models together instead of relying on intrinsic value alone. When ideas like "good business vs bad business," potential vs kinetic energy, and auction dynamics line up, they can reveal big opportunities.
  2. Focus on unique assets and how they can be better monetized or separated from weak parts of the business. Actions like spin-offs, stronger IP monetization, or strategic interest from acquirers can turn hidden value into real gains.
  3. Use long-dated options selectively and size positions to get asymmetric payoffs while managing time risk. Also keep in mind that competitive auctions or strategic bidders can push prices far above standalone intrinsic value, so lock in gains when it makes sense.

The Case For A 30% Market Crash

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 31 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Markets are extremely overvalued and both stocks and bonds are heavily over-owned, making prices fragile and prone to a large correction.
  2. Weak consumer demand, speculative AI capex, rising tariffs, and a Fed tolerant of higher inflation together threaten profit margins and could force P/E multiples significantly lower.
  3. If multiples revert to more normal levels (around 17x), the S&P could drop over 30% even without an earnings decline, and a falling 'E' would make the crash much worse.

Everyone’s Selling Software. Should You Be Buying?

Spilled Coffee • 24 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Software is going through a real-time business-model repricing: companies can beat estimates and still get heavily sold.
  2. The sell-off is broad and severe. Major names plunged and many stocks are down 20–40% or more, marking the worst week since 2008 for the group.
  3. The sector is at its most oversold level since 2018, with about 73% of software stocks classified as oversold—the highest level on record.

Downside at NVIDIA (and the Nasdaq at large)

Philoinvestor • 491 implied HN points • 26 Jan 24
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. NVIDIA's stock price increased significantly faster than its earnings, raising questions about its valuation.
  2. The launch of Chat GPT led to a surge in demand for GPUs and an uptick in NVIDIA's stock.
  3. Microsoft's $10 billion investment in Open AI and the AI hype train are contributing factors to the current market dynamics.

The VC Corner 📰 #10

The VC Corner • 479 implied HN points • 28 Jan 24
💼 Business Valuation
  1. Figma is lowering its company value, which shows that even well-known startups can face tough times. It's important for businesses to be realistic about their worth.
  2. Knowing how to value your startup is crucial for attracting investors. Different factors play a role in determining a startup's value.
  3. Generative AI is becoming a big topic and resource for many. Understanding it can help startups leverage technology for growth.

Eight Theories of How Agents Strangle SaaS

Pratik’s Pakodas 🍿 • 12 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
💼 Business Valuation
  1. AI agents are becoming the main interface, orchestrating actions across apps via APIs so users rarely open the original SaaS UIs, which makes those products interchangeable and squeezes their margins.
  2. AI collapses the cost and time to build, enabling many small competitors to unbundle and replicate core features, eroding incumbents' moats and turning premium bundles into commodity pieces.
  3. The business model is shifting: per-seat pricing and predictable valuations are under threat, outcome- and data-focused models gain value, and investor uncertainty about long-term economics is driving repricing.

The Difference Makers: Key Person(s) Value!

Musings on Markets • 579 implied HN points • 10 Dec 23
💼 Business Valuation
  1. Key people can significantly impact a business's value, whether it's a small practice like a doctor or a large company like Tesla. Even at bigger companies, certain individuals can make a big difference in how the business performs.
  2. Understanding who key people are in a company is crucial. These can include founders, top management, or even important employees at different levels who contribute unique skills.
  3. Companies can take steps to manage the risks that come with relying on key people, like using insurance or succession planning. These strategies can help ensure that the loss of an important individual does not as heavily affect the business.

Regulatory capture is real

Klement on Investing • 3 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Strong regulation tends to lower company valuations because it raises costs, limits growth, and shields stakeholders other than shareholders.
  2. When companies influence regulators or use the revolving door to place insiders in regulatory roles, they can turn regulation into a barrier to entry that boosts incumbents’ margins and valuations.
  3. Lack of regulation can spur rapid growth but also enables widespread fraud and abuse, highlighting the trade-off between fast innovation and consumer protection.

One Stock I'll Avoid Forever

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 23 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. A specific S&P 500 stock is identified as one to avoid forever, with a firm stance against ever owning it.
  2. Recent developments this week made the negative view even stronger.
  3. The detailed explanation and reasons are behind a paywall and require a paid subscription to read.

Portfolio Review - January 2024

The Wolf of Harcourt Street • 399 implied HN points • 01 Feb 24
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. The newsletter discusses investing in NU Holdings as a new position due to its growth potential in Latin America.
  2. The author shares insights on adding to their Auto Partner position, seizing an opportunity when the stock price dropped.
  3. The author presents a buy list, highlighting Evolution and NU as stocks to watch and potentially add to the portfolio.

Clouded Judgement 2.6.26 - Software Is Dead...Again...For Real this Time...Maybe?

Clouded Judgement • 18 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
💼 Business Valuation
  1. Public software valuations have collapsed — the median NTM revenue multiple is about 3.6x and roughly 39% of the index trades below 3x, as investors reprice the sector amid much higher uncertainty.
  2. AI agents are poised to capture much of the new incremental value on top of systems of record, effectively pushing legacy cloud software down the stack into lower-growth middleware; a small minority (maybe ~10%) of incumbents may successfully capture the agent-driven S-curve.
  3. The market reaction may be overdone in the short term because many companies still show solid results and enterprise cloud migrations continue, but real operational problems (heavy SBC, long CAC paybacks) plus greater terminal risk justify a lower, more cautious multiple environment.

Adyen N.V. Investment Thesis

The Wolf of Harcourt Street • 819 implied HN points • 14 Sep 23
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Adyen's success is attributed to its ability to simplify complex payment processing challenges for businesses, nurturing customer relationships and offering tailored solutions.
  2. Adyen competes in a crowded payment processing landscape, facing challenges such as intense competition, commoditization of payments, and the need to differentiate through value-added services.
  3. Adyen is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing digital payment market and expand its reach by supporting emerging technologies and offering versatile payment solutions.

Software Is Fine

Software Snack Bites • 21 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. AI-native startups will be able to build and maintain custom software more cheaply and could disrupt incumbents, but real-world issues like trust, ongoing maintenance, and company adoption still limit immediate wholesale replacement.
  2. The recent drop in many software stocks is driven largely by market flows, hedging, and correlated selling with semiconductors and datacenter names, not a fundamental ‘end of software’ story.
  3. Top-quality software companies are relatively resilient, but founders of legacy or pre-AI products need to add clear AI-driven growth hooks to earn premium multiples as markets reprice.

Dry Powder

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 25 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Keep significant dry powder—cash or short-term investments—so you can act quickly on big opportunities or cover emergencies; if possible aim for millions, but at minimum have enough (e.g., $100k+) to avoid forced selling.
  2. US equities look richly priced by several measures (market-cap-to-GDP, Shiller PE, and heavy tech concentration), which raises the odds of low or negative returns in the years ahead.
  3. Investor complacency and low volatility mean now is a time to be defensive and plan to buy optionality during market stress (and consider writing optionality when volatility spikes), using cash to take advantage of forced-selling opportunities.

[2025–2026] Week 13: You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. Human behavior keeps repeating, so psychological biases and recurring irrationality are central to how markets misprice securities.
  2. Come to the market with a clear, entrenched investment process and a strong sense of who you are, because learning by trading costs you dearly; identity and anxiety often drive choices more than cold arithmetic.
  3. Special situations like spin-offs, restructurings, rights offerings and takeovers create repeatable templates to find mispriced assets, so evaluating which categories are more efficient today and compiling candidate opportunities is a practical next step.

Clouded Judgement 2.13.26 - Build vs Buy

Clouded Judgement • 12 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
💰 Finance Valuation
  1. AI is lowering the cost and speed of building software, but the classic reasons to buy vendor products—total cost of ownership, speed to market, focus, ongoing maintenance, and compliance—still matter.
  2. With engineering velocity becoming less of a constraint, the market will likely be flooded with new software, driving commoditization; companies that don’t capture the next wave risk slower growth and lower valuations.
  3. Short-term earnings and retention can look healthy even as disruption looms, because markets often discount disruptive threats early; companies need a clear path to durable, predictable growth to avoid a slow decline.

AI Company List (1300 companies), Top 50 companies by valuation and my preferences - July 2023

Martin’s Newsletter • 569 implied HN points • 10 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Valuation
  1. The post includes a list of 1300 AI companies and 900 AI investors along with the top 50 companies by valuation.
  2. The author shares their personal 'Top 50' AI companies that reflect their personal interests and preferences.
  3. OpenAI is highlighted as a company with the potential to become a $1 trillion company due to talent, management, and the ability to put out better products faster than the competition.