Stock price when the opinion was issued
It lowered its revenue guidance for the year by 1 1/2% but the stock fell by over 20% which was an over-reaction. We should see more progress with opportunities in the enterprise market and Adobe rolling out an express product. The CEO bought $1 million in stock recently.
Buy 33 Hold 12 Sell 2
He will continue to hold -it is at an attractive valuation and growing its top line by 10% and trades at 20X earnings. It is the industry Goliath in creative space. Analysts wonder about upstarts taking away business and are questioning why they aren't monetizing AI more substantially. However it isn't communicating this and can't separate it out in the features that are included in its products for which it could charge higher prices.
The stock has been an absolute disaster due to one reason: Adobe products face serious competition. They beat quarter after quarter (expectations are not lowered ahead of time, either). The competition is not as bad as people expect. Adobe is ridiculously cheap and unfairly sold given its growth rate, EBITDA and free cash flow. Hold and wait it out as they buy back shares.
Yesterday they reported and shares fell 8.5% today. Results were terrific, but guidance for the quarter was a tad light. There were many price hikes and hope heading into the quarter. The bulls got way ahead of themselves. He would pounce on this current weakness. The quarter was strong across every major business line with no areas of weakness. They beat top and bottom line. The key cloud metrics were strong; net new digital media annualized recurring revenue strongly beat. Q4 guidance wasn't "that" soft, but he would shake off fears, because of currency fluctuations and a few major deals closed early, intended to happen the next quarter. Also, they are spending more on marketing because they have new express software for teams, students and enterprise. More important is their guidance, which we'll have to wait until December. Adobe has done so well for so long and their AI products remain compelling and their complete AI suite is amazing (he uses them). Past post-earnings slumps have been great times to buy.