~20 years L/S hedge fund career, emphasis on the S. All things stocks, themes and macro. Hoping the pod and passive bubble keeps creating inefficiencies
Joined February 2019
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Back in buying XBT (Bitcoin) for the first time since I exited almost all of it in the 100k range.
It is starting to trade counter to tech and the market for the first time in a while. It has been heavily derisked. As the market becomes increasingly worried about treasury supply, it is a great tail hedge.
It held the $60k line well at peak negativity. Feels like it is setting up for a strong run as dollar worries re-emerge.
The opposite of love isn't hate, it is apathy...feels like we've reached that point with bitcoin which sets up a great entry point
$RGP
Cash of ~$61M and no debt against an ~$85M market cap, so the market is valuing the entire operating business at roughly $25M. Net-net value is $2.82 per share; the stock trades at about a 10% discount to that.
I believe the company is worth $5+ per share, 100%+ upside, in a sale of all or part of the business. The math is simple: $61M of cash plus a sale of Countsy (below) gets you to roughly $3 to $3.75 per share before assigning any value to a $350M+ revenue consulting and staffing business.
Downside is cushioned by the balance sheet (~$1.85/share of net cash, no debt) and by management and board alignment. The risk here is time and continued cash burn, not solvency.
Revenue is tracking to roughly $400M for the fiscal year with about $150M of gross profit (37% to 38% gross margin). Several activist-oriented investors are on the board (and may be restricted from buying if a process is underway), and the CEO who came in roughly a year ago is spearheading the turnaround.
The most recent quarter was messy, and revenue is still declining year over year. But the company is guiding to no cash burn next quarter, has cut run-rate SG&A ahead of its own outlook, and the next few quarters should show whether the cost actions stabilize margins.
I believe the company is focused on divesting non-core assets. Countsy, its outsourced accounting and back-office business for startups, generates roughly $10M of EBITDA and could sell for 7x to 10x, or $70M to $100M. That is 2.8x to 4x the enterprise value of the whole company today. After a sale you would still own a consulting and staffing business doing $350M+ of annual revenue that has historically earned 7% to 9% EBITDA margins, even though it is running near breakeven today.
All said, this is my highest conviction event-driven idea in the current tape. Tax-loss selling into fiscal year-ends and capitulation from frustrated long-term holders look like they are creating the opportunity.
Long $RGP. May trade without notice. Not investment advice.
Strong sign something is going on corporate action-wise in $RGP is that company hasn't bought back any stock despite having $62M of cash on hand with no debt. No insiders (management or board members who are big shareholders) have bought stock or sold stock recently either. Strong sign that something is brewing
For those value investors who like classic net-net situation: $RGP trades at a 5%ish discount to net-net (current assets less all liabilities) here and is very likely in the process of selling part or whole business currently and doing a quiet strategic review. Reminds me a bit of Smartrent $SMRT when i bought it on the big puke last year below net-net, and then it more than doubled fairly quickly. Difference is here we pretty much know that $RGP is eager to monetize some of its key assets and create value, so catalyst is clearer in the near term.
$snap math is compelling
I'm seeing unfounded rumors of a potential $SNAP acquisition for $20/share by OpenAI. Regardless of whether or not it's true (hint: it's not) this is a good thought experiment: would $SNAP cost more or less than $20/share to acquire? The answer is significantly more
Here's the reasoning:
The last social media company to be acquired was Twitter at a $44B valuation in 2022. It's reasonable to assume Snap as a pure social media play could fetch an equivalent valuation, which would place it at $26/share but this also assumes both companies are roughly equivalent businesses with similar outlooks.
TLDR: 2026 Snap is a better business than 2022 Twitter by miles.
Let's compare Twitter pre-acquisition numbers to Snap's current numbers.
(Data Source: Grok)
USERS:
Snap 971M / 493M (Monthly / Daily)
Twitter 401M / 237M (Monthly / Daily)
TTM Revenue:
Snap $6.35B
Twitter $5.23B
Adjusted EBITA:
Snap $689M (FY 2025)
Twitter $682M (FY 2021)
Last Reported Quarterly revenue:
Snap $1.599B Q2 2026 (+19% YoY)
Twitter $1.18B Q2 2022 (-1% YoY)
FCF:
Snap mid-2026: Positive free cash flow (TTM roughly +$706M)
Twitter mid-2022: Negative free cash flow (TTM roughly –$850M).
SUMMARY: Snap has more than double the users Twitter had (142% more monthly and 108% more daily) generates substantially more quarterly revenue, is growing revenue more consistently (19% gain for Snap vs 1% decline for Twitter) and FCF is tremendously positive vs Twitter's tremendously negative FCF (+$706M vs -$850M). The only metric Twitter beat Snap on consistently was Price to Sales (8X for Twitter at acquisition va <2X for Snap) but this gap should start to close soon assuming Snap continues their revenue and user growth.
We haven't yet considered the intrinsic value of Snap's hardware and patent portfolio, it's AR tech, Snap OS, growing premium subscription and data storage models, and the true goldmine: exabytes of user photos, videos, and message data for training models which far surpass Twitter's mostly text-only data. In an age where frontier labs are spending unfathomably large sums to win the AI arms race, Snap's dataset alone is arguably worth Twitter's entire sale price. Some would argue Elon paid $44B primarily for exclusive access to Twitter's massive text dataset which he is using to train Grok and build XAI. If this is true, then a more robust dataset than Twitter's would fetch a higher acquisition price.
Lastly, if there is a serious acquisition attempt there will likely be many big bidders especially among the tech giants. OpenAI, XAI, Anthropic, GOOGL, MSFT would all be clamoring for the valuable AI training data while AAPL, META, Bytedance etc. could be interested in the social media/hardware business. I can't envision a world where SNAP would sell for less than Twitter if the above scenario plays out and I believe $50B-60B ($29.50 to $35.50/share) would be realistic starting point for selling for the reasons stated above.
Thoughts?
PassiveBubble retweeted
Humans are amazing.
A little over a month ago OpenAI launched Astra and I remember feeling a little emotional realizing how profoundly humanity was about to change.
The last 48hrs I haven’t moved from this chair as my thumbs have incessantly argued across five different buyside group chats re what lab ARR is likely to be and what the bogey is and how are boomer PMs going to react while they wait for spec sales to tell them if the interpolated ARR ex five different adjustments is actually bearish or bullish SOXX and if every neocloud deserves to die a fiery death.
Humans are infinitely adaptable and literally could wake up with aliens on the White House lawn tomorrow and the next day would just argue over what kind of waffles they should make.
We’re a fucked up species man ❤️
So sad to see Berkshire go full roaring kitty with this $BSP. Munger rolling around in his grave to see them invest in the Valeant of software industry
$SNAP sellside raising estimates for quarter because of higher Snap+ subscription revenue and ebitda
$SNAP WF RAISING ESTIMATES IN PREVIEW, DRIVEN BY SNAP+
Estimate revisions, price target, and valuation. 3Q revenue / EBITDA unchanged, but 4Q:26 / 2027 revenue moves 1% / 2% higher on +HSD Snap+ revenue revision, partially offset by F/X. As a function of higher revenue and lower 4Q specs marketing expense expectation, our 4Q / 2027 EBITDA moves 13% / 11% higher, respectively. We maintain our Equal Weight rating and $6 price target, implying 6.0x (unch) our $1.78B ($1.60B prior) 2027 EBITDA estimate
Good analysis. Company with essentially no revenues and insignificant user base and lots of competition doing the same thing worth more than a company with 500m DAUs and $7B revs $SNAP
Real bubble is in VC land with private companies like Instinct… $10B valuations off 100k users while $SNAP is worth less with close to 1 Billion MAU.
Supply chain stocks aren’t a bubble though, if anything names like $AAOI and others are very undervalued relative to forward growth.
And you have demand visibility from hyperscalers extending multiple years…
$RGP stock price reaction today on earnings presents an excellent buying opportunity. Quarter was ugly, as expected, but was in-line with sellside expectations. The current overreaction and event path for the stock over the next 3 months looks very good.
Thesis summary:
1) Guidance and commentary on the earnings call points to an inflection in results next quarter. The CEO said he expects to see revenues grow sequentually on the the earnings call.
2) I believe the company could be in the process of exitting its Countsy business which I believe should net the company $60m+ in aftertax proceeds. I think this could happen before the end of the year. At the current enterprise value of just $30M, we're getting the entire staffing and consulting business, which does $350M+ of annualized revenues for negative value.
3) There are at least 2 activists involved with board representation, and significant ownership. The CEO who came in several quarters ago has sold his last company and and significant ownership.
4) The stock pays a 9% dividend and the company shows no signs of cutting it, most likely because they don't expect to be a public company, at least in the current form, for much longer.
All in, the share price reaction today presents a great buying opportunity with a likely catalyst in the next 3 months.
PassiveBubble retweeted
The Blue Duck Capital letter to $SNAP is another green shoot.
This is now the second hedge fund to openly criticize the way Snap has been run, and the letter touches almost every issue shareholders have been talking about for years: stock-based compensation, spending, capital allocation, accountability and the need to finally put shareholders first.
I’m not going to repeat the obvious. We all know the numbers.
What Snap needs now is for @evanspiegel to start acting responsibly as CEO.
And there are some signs that things may finally be changing.
Spiegel is now actively engaging with investors on X. Snap has started cutting jobs. Revenue is improving. Pressure from shareholders is increasing.
Then there are Specs.
I believe Specs are very unlikely to become a commercially successful product in their current form. Ironically, that failure may be exactly what finally forces Evan Spiegel to accept that Snap needs an outside partner or investor with the capital, technology and expertise to help build the AR opportunity properly.
Spiegel may remain hard-headed. I can’t tell you whether he will ultimately make the changes required.
But the green shoots are there.
The interesting thing about $SNAP is that very little needs to go right for the stock to rise 50% from here. That can happen with minimal improvement.
For 100% upside, real changes need to be made.
Will Evan Spiegel make them?
I don’t know.
But for the first time in a while, the pressure is building in the right direction.
The Blue Duck Capital letter attached below is excellent and worth reading.
morningstar.com/news/pr-news…
Young up and coming stock market hot-shots. If you ever find yourself becoming very bearish, remember these two pictures. Both of these guys are billionaires and were born 3 years apart and are now in the latter half of their 60's. One of them made spent decades going 100% long largely cyclical businesses, and the other decades betting against it. Think hard about which one you want to be.
I applaud @BlueDuckCap for its excellent letter to the @evanspiegel and the $SNAP board this morning. Very well thought out proposal and presented well. And for the record, I don't know and have never spoken to anyone at this firm. I just happen to really like the letter and agree with the proposal. I hope the Board takes these thoughts very seriously, in addition to the @IrenicCap proposal earlier this year.
For those that want to read the letter directly, it is linked here:
mmx.prnewswire.com/media/MS2…
Great demo of $SNAP specs
$SNAP SPECS some praise from @Heaney555 of @UploadVR as the really only true AR glasses on the market today @specs
$SNAP specs are probably the coolest piece of tech hardware I've seen in the last year
“SPECS leave the new Meta glasses in the dust.”
Those are the words of Steven Sullivan a leading reviewer in the smart-glasses space who just tried the new specs hands on in Santa Monica.
One thing is becoming abundantly clear as it relates to specs: Snap is the leader in the AR space, and there isn’t a close second…
Now it’s just about waiting for the market to catch up. 👻👀🫡
The capabilities with these glasses seem so endless. I might just buy a pair to have them read putts for me on the golf course. ⛳️⛳️⛳️
Bullish $SNAP.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the leading company in augmented reality, which shouldn’t be compared with $META ’s virtual reality business, and one of the top social platforms is valued at just $9 billion.
$SNAP is 34.5% of my portfolio, and I don’t plan to sell anytime soon. A major AR partner could completely change the story, and lower SBC would help too.
Since $WGS and $ZIM, I haven’t felt this strongly that a valuation just doesn’t make sense. Specs are fantastic, but making them usable and affordable will take a lot more cash. Snap will need a big partner to get there.
I am very short $KRE for this and for other reasons. SIVB was just the beginning of people realizing how fragile the deposit system is, and how much it basically capitalizes on lazyness.
Easy to see how as consumers optimize their finances with agentic tools, this cuts off both fee streams and increases deposit costs for the banking system.
AI agents could trigger a quiet bank run.
Apollo’s chief economist warns that tools like Muse will automatically sweep household cash out of 0.1% checking accounts into 3–5% high-yield options. Banks lose the cheap deposits they rely on to make loans.
The optimization is coming.
The question is whether the banking system can handle it.
