SMB
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$INTU is a steal right now. Quickbooks and TurboTax aren't going anywhere, because their customers are SMB's with 3-300 employees, and those businesses have tax firms or CPA's doing the books/taxes. They are NOT going to use AI (although you and I might) to do financial paperwork. The SMB tax professionals love Quickbooks, it's familiar for them to work with, and that's not going to change quickly.
Yes, it's getting expensive, but so is everything else, and you generally don't want the new, cheap, untested version of good software when your business is on the line.
CreditKarma is used by an enormous amount of people, and it's basically a loan factory that doesn't write loans. They just make money on connecting lenders. It's a great model.
Mailchimp is the worst of the major parts of Intuit, but it's so deeply embedded in so many businesses that if it does erode, it'll be slowly. They've got time to improve.
Things may change eventually in this space, but it'll take years. In the meantime, I feel they're incredibly undervalued right now.

That's what most people I know who actually make a living doing this do.
That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be a lightning fast headline trader. It just means you can put the odds more in your favor by trading technical patterns on stocks in play with a news catalyst.
Look up "Lance Breitstein broken slot machine", "Qullamaggie Episodic Pivot" "SMB Capital stocks in play"

I spent the last couple weeks digging into Intuit ($INTU), a $76B software company that currently trades at its lowest valuation multiple in over a decade. Most people know them through TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp. The market has hammered the stock down over concerns about near-term guidance and artificial intelligence disruption, but when you look closely at the underlying business and cash flows, I think Mr. Market is misinterpreting a temporary seasonal lull for permanent impairment. Wanted to share my notes and numbers.
## What They Do
Intuit provides the core operating plumbing and compliance infrastructure for over 10 million small businesses and tens of millions of consumers. If you run a local business--whether a dental practice, a contractor, or a bakery--QuickBooks is the central nervous system tracking your invoices, bank feeds, inventory, and employee payroll.
On the consumer side, TurboTax handles federal and state tax filings, increasingly paired with licensed human CPAs through TurboTax Live. Over 80% of their total revenue is recurring software subscriptions or predictable annual compliance volume.
The switching costs here are extraordinarily painful. Once a business owner wires five to ten years of customer records, tax histories, and payroll automation into QuickBooks, migrating to another software platform is like ripping the electrical wiring out of a building while the power is running. Furthermore, over 1 million professional accountants use and actively recommend Intuit products to their clients, serving as a massive, unpaid distribution network that no startup can easily replicate.
## Why The Stock Is Cheap
The market is currently anxious about three main issues. First, artificial intelligence fear. The bear narrative claims that autonomous AI agents, open-source LLMs, and the IRS Direct File program will automate bookkeeping and tax returns for free, disintermediating Intuit's software entirely.
Second, the company is digesting a multi-billion dollar acquisition of Mailchimp, where growth has slowed as email marketing faces commoditization and platform transition friction.
Third, Wall Street reacted poorly to conservative near-term guidance, compounded by unit churn among low-income tax filers earning under $50,000. Inexperienced investors also routinely misunderstand Intuit's seasonal clock: because tax filings occur in the spring, the company always experiences a seasonal operating lull in the autumn, which the market treats as a surprise year after year.
## Why I Think The Market Is Wrong
The AI disintermediation bear case makes for a scary headline, but it misunderstands how financial and legal compliance works in the real world: the regulatory liability barrier.
When an AI text generator hallucinates, you edit a sentence. When an AI hallucinates a tax deduction or miscalculates employee payroll withholdings, you get hit with IRS penalties, state audits, or legal liabilities. Small business owners and taxpayers do not pay Intuit simply to run math; they pay for guaranteed regulatory compliance, software accuracy, and certified audit defense.
This is why customers are actually upgrading rather than leaving. TurboTax Live revenue--which pairs AI automation with human CPAs who sign off on the return--grew 36% this past year. Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online accounting revenue grew 22% year-over-year, and their mid-market Intuit Enterprise Suite contracts expanded over 35%.
Intuit is an asset-light toll bridge that requires virtually zero physical capital to expand. Maintenance CapEx historically runs at just 1.3% of revenue. When you have gross margins of nearly 78% and operating margins expanding to 27.5%, the business is demonstrating clear pricing power, not structural erosion.
## Adjusted Free Cash Flow
| Line Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $8931M |
| Less: Stock-Based Comp | -$2056M |
| Less: Maintenance CapEx (5yr avg) | -$278M |
| Less: Working Capital Adj. | -$140M |
| **Adjusted Free Cash Flow (FCF)** | **$6457M** |
| Diluted Shares | 277.0M |
| **FCF Per Share** | **$23.31** |
- Return on Invested Capital (ROIC): 17.4%
- 7-year FCF Per Share CAGR: 21.0%
- Core SMB customer retention: 99%+
- Gross margin: 77.6%
## The Balance Sheet
| Line Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash & Liquid Assets | $7200M |
| Total Debt | $8336M |
| Net Debt | $1136M |
| Market Cap | $76394M |
| **Enterprise Value** | **$77530M** |
| **EV / Adjusted FCF** | **12.0x** |
Intuit carries $1.14B in net debt, which is remarkably conservative for a company producing over $6.4B in annual adjusted free cash flow. Operating income covers annual interest expense 24 times over, meaning the entire debt load could be erased in under 16 months of cash flow if management chose to do so.
At 12.0x EV / Adjusted FCF, Intuit is trading at the 0th percentile of its 10-year historical valuation range (the 10-year median multiple sits around 47x). The market is pricing a premier compounder as if it were a struggling, low-growth legacy hardware business.
## Capital Allocation
Management has taken decisive action to maintain capital discipline. They recently eliminated 17% of corporate overhead to flatten organizational layers, cut operational bloat, and reallocate engineering resources directly toward AI product development.
At the same time, they are repurchasing shares at these depressed levels. Intuit deployed $3.18B into net buybacks over the past year and authorized a fresh $8 billion repurchase facility. They also raised the dividend by 15%, returning the vast majority of their annual cash flow directly to shareholders.
## What Would Make Me Sell
A few operational risks keep me cautious here:
1. Growth stall: Management guided fiscal 2027 revenue growth to 9-10% as they invest in volume pricing for TurboTax and integrate AI tools. If this deceleration turns out to be structural rather than temporary, and top-line growth fails to reaccelerate back toward 12-14% by fiscal 2028, the multiple will stay compressed.
2. Churn acceleration: If low-cost cloud competitors like Xero or Wave start taking meaningful market share from QuickBooks among established small businesses (rather than just entry-level solopreneurs), or if their 99% retention rate begins to drop, my thesis is invalidated.
3. Mailchimp capital destruction: If Mailchimp continues to lose active subscribers and requires further write-downs without generating incremental cash flow, it confirms the acquisition was a permanent capital drag.
## Valuation & Verdict
So what is the business actually worth today? I calculated the Adjusted Free Cash Flow and ran the conservative multiples to find a ~52% Margin of Safety. Rather than dumping more numbers here, I prefer to walk through the valuation math and final intrinsic value target verbally. You can see my complete Intrinsic Value calculation and final verdict in this short video: https://youtu.be/sWfc2CasjLg
*Disclosure: I hold a position in $INTU. Hard data from filings, AI-assisted writing, personal review and position. This is not financial advice.*

SMB Capital is probably one of the better places I’d start. Lots of free stuff on risk, setups, psychology, and actually reviewing your trades instead of just showing winners. Brian Shannon is good for price action/market structure too. I’d stay away from anyone whose whole pitch is basically “watch me make money and copy me”

$INTU is a steal right now. Quickbooks and TurboTax aren't going anywhere, because their customers are SMB's with 3-300 employees, and those businesses have tax firms or CPA's doing the books/taxes. They are NOT going to use AI (although you and I might) to do financial paperwork. The SMB tax professionals love Quickbooks, it's familiar for them to work with, and that's not going to change quickly.
Yes, it's getting expensive, but so is everything else, and you generally don't want the new, cheap, untested version of good software when your business is on the line.
CreditKarma is used by an enormous amount of people, and it's basically a loan factory that doesn't write loans. They just make money on connecting lenders. It's a great model.
Mailchimp is the worst of the major parts of Intuit, but it's so deeply embedded in so many businesses that if it does erode, it'll be slowly. They've got time to improve.
Things may change eventually in this space, but it'll take years. In the meantime, I feel they're incredibly undervalued right now.

That's what most people I know who actually make a living doing this do.
That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be a lightning fast headline trader. It just means you can put the odds more in your favor by trading technical patterns on stocks in play with a news catalyst.
Look up "Lance Breitstein broken slot machine", "Qullamaggie Episodic Pivot" "SMB Capital stocks in play"

I spent the last couple weeks digging into Intuit ($INTU), a $76B software company that currently trades at its lowest valuation multiple in over a decade. Most people know them through TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp. The market has hammered the stock down over concerns about near-term guidance and artificial intelligence disruption, but when you look closely at the underlying business and cash flows, I think Mr. Market is misinterpreting a temporary seasonal lull for permanent impairment. Wanted to share my notes and numbers.
## What They Do
Intuit provides the core operating plumbing and compliance infrastructure for over 10 million small businesses and tens of millions of consumers. If you run a local business--whether a dental practice, a contractor, or a bakery--QuickBooks is the central nervous system tracking your invoices, bank feeds, inventory, and employee payroll.
On the consumer side, TurboTax handles federal and state tax filings, increasingly paired with licensed human CPAs through TurboTax Live. Over 80% of their total revenue is recurring software subscriptions or predictable annual compliance volume.
The switching costs here are extraordinarily painful. Once a business owner wires five to ten years of customer records, tax histories, and payroll automation into QuickBooks, migrating to another software platform is like ripping the electrical wiring out of a building while the power is running. Furthermore, over 1 million professional accountants use and actively recommend Intuit products to their clients, serving as a massive, unpaid distribution network that no startup can easily replicate.
## Why The Stock Is Cheap
The market is currently anxious about three main issues. First, artificial intelligence fear. The bear narrative claims that autonomous AI agents, open-source LLMs, and the IRS Direct File program will automate bookkeeping and tax returns for free, disintermediating Intuit's software entirely.
Second, the company is digesting a multi-billion dollar acquisition of Mailchimp, where growth has slowed as email marketing faces commoditization and platform transition friction.
Third, Wall Street reacted poorly to conservative near-term guidance, compounded by unit churn among low-income tax filers earning under $50,000. Inexperienced investors also routinely misunderstand Intuit's seasonal clock: because tax filings occur in the spring, the company always experiences a seasonal operating lull in the autumn, which the market treats as a surprise year after year.
## Why I Think The Market Is Wrong
The AI disintermediation bear case makes for a scary headline, but it misunderstands how financial and legal compliance works in the real world: the regulatory liability barrier.
When an AI text generator hallucinates, you edit a sentence. When an AI hallucinates a tax deduction or miscalculates employee payroll withholdings, you get hit with IRS penalties, state audits, or legal liabilities. Small business owners and taxpayers do not pay Intuit simply to run math; they pay for guaranteed regulatory compliance, software accuracy, and certified audit defense.
This is why customers are actually upgrading rather than leaving. TurboTax Live revenue--which pairs AI automation with human CPAs who sign off on the return--grew 36% this past year. Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online accounting revenue grew 22% year-over-year, and their mid-market Intuit Enterprise Suite contracts expanded over 35%.
Intuit is an asset-light toll bridge that requires virtually zero physical capital to expand. Maintenance CapEx historically runs at just 1.3% of revenue. When you have gross margins of nearly 78% and operating margins expanding to 27.5%, the business is demonstrating clear pricing power, not structural erosion.
## Adjusted Free Cash Flow
| Line Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $8931M |
| Less: Stock-Based Comp | -$2056M |
| Less: Maintenance CapEx (5yr avg) | -$278M |
| Less: Working Capital Adj. | -$140M |
| **Adjusted Free Cash Flow (FCF)** | **$6457M** |
| Diluted Shares | 277.0M |
| **FCF Per Share** | **$23.31** |
- Return on Invested Capital (ROIC): 17.4%
- 7-year FCF Per Share CAGR: 21.0%
- Core SMB customer retention: 99%+
- Gross margin: 77.6%
## The Balance Sheet
| Line Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash & Liquid Assets | $7200M |
| Total Debt | $8336M |
| Net Debt | $1136M |
| Market Cap | $76394M |
| **Enterprise Value** | **$77530M** |
| **EV / Adjusted FCF** | **12.0x** |
Intuit carries $1.14B in net debt, which is remarkably conservative for a company producing over $6.4B in annual adjusted free cash flow. Operating income covers annual interest expense 24 times over, meaning the entire debt load could be erased in under 16 months of cash flow if management chose to do so.
At 12.0x EV / Adjusted FCF, Intuit is trading at the 0th percentile of its 10-year historical valuation range (the 10-year median multiple sits around 47x). The market is pricing a premier compounder as if it were a struggling, low-growth legacy hardware business.
## Capital Allocation
Management has taken decisive action to maintain capital discipline. They recently eliminated 17% of corporate overhead to flatten organizational layers, cut operational bloat, and reallocate engineering resources directly toward AI product development.
At the same time, they are repurchasing shares at these depressed levels. Intuit deployed $3.18B into net buybacks over the past year and authorized a fresh $8 billion repurchase facility. They also raised the dividend by 15%, returning the vast majority of their annual cash flow directly to shareholders.
## What Would Make Me Sell
A few operational risks keep me cautious here:
1. Growth stall: Management guided fiscal 2027 revenue growth to 9-10% as they invest in volume pricing for TurboTax and integrate AI tools. If this deceleration turns out to be structural rather than temporary, and top-line growth fails to reaccelerate back toward 12-14% by fiscal 2028, the multiple will stay compressed.
2. Churn acceleration: If low-cost cloud competitors like Xero or Wave start taking meaningful market share from QuickBooks among established small businesses (rather than just entry-level solopreneurs), or if their 99% retention rate begins to drop, my thesis is invalidated.
3. Mailchimp capital destruction: If Mailchimp continues to lose active subscribers and requires further write-downs without generating incremental cash flow, it confirms the acquisition was a permanent capital drag.
## Valuation & Verdict
So what is the business actually worth today? I calculated the Adjusted Free Cash Flow and ran the conservative multiples to find a ~52% Margin of Safety. Rather than dumping more numbers here, I prefer to walk through the valuation math and final intrinsic value target verbally. You can see my complete Intrinsic Value calculation and final verdict in this short video: https://youtu.be/sWfc2CasjLg
*Disclosure: I hold a position in $INTU. Hard data from filings, AI-assisted writing, personal review and position. This is not financial advice.*

SMB Capital is probably one of the better places I’d start. Lots of free stuff on risk, setups, psychology, and actually reviewing your trades instead of just showing winners. Brian Shannon is good for price action/market structure too. I’d stay away from anyone whose whole pitch is basically “watch me make money and copy me”