Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Friday, October 30, 2026

Back to today

From X

@calvinblissett 4 clicks

Calvin Blissett on X

LendingTree ($TREE) Upside: ~120% to ~$54. Assumes 7x the midpoint of 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance ($148.5 million), less ~$280 million of net debt, across 14.0 million shares. The stock currently trades at about 4x. LendingTree is the largest U.S. online marketplace connecting consumers with lenders and insurers. The stock has fallen 65% from its high, first on a Q2 earnings miss and lowered guidance, then in September on a Wall Street Journal report about Meta’s “Muse” AI agent, which investors fear could let consumers shop for loans and insurance without visiting a marketplace. At $24.43, TREE trades at roughly 4x enterprise value to 2026 EBITDA guidance of $145–152 million. The AI fear overlooks two things. First, insurance is now about two-thirds of revenue ($209 million in Q2, up 42%), paid by carriers buying leads regardless of where the search starts. Second, loan brokering requires state licensing and fraud controls; management notes that ChatGPT and Gemini declined to process loan applications and referred users to marketplaces including LendingTree. Net leverage has fallen from 5.3x in 2023 to 1.9x, removing the balance-sheet risk that once hung over the stock. The disintermediation risk is real, but a 4x multiple prices in a lot of it.
@calvinblissett

Calvin Blissett on X

Farmer Mac ($AGM) Upside: ~28% to ~$265. Assumes 2027 core EPS of ~$22 (Q2 run-rate excluding a one-time $7.4 million interest recovery, growing ~12%) at 12x. Farmer Mac is the government-sponsored secondary market for agricultural and rural infrastructure loans, the “Fannie Mae of the farm.” The stock fell 12% in February after a Q4 earnings miss and has not fully recovered. At $206.92, AGM trades at about 10.5x normalized core EPS and roughly 1.8x book value, for a business with a 19% core ROE and record Q2 core earnings of $5.40 per share (+24%). The underappreciated shift is in mix. Rural infrastructure is now one of the fastest-growing parts of the business: broadband volume grew 58% and renewable energy 55% in Q2, at net effective spreads of 2.30% and 1.72%, versus 1.01% on traditional farm and ranch loans. As higher-spread infrastructure lending becomes a bigger share of $37.2 billion in total volume, Farmer Mac’s spread should expand. Its GSE status lets it fund at near-agency rates. Tier 1 capital is a healthy 13.2%.
@calvinblissett

Calvin Blissett on X

Enova International ($ENVA) Upside: ~30% to ~$215. Assumes 2027 adjusted EPS of ~$19.50 (Q2 run-rate of ~$17 growing ~15%) at 11x. Enova is an online lender to non-prime consumers and small businesses. Shares fell from $227 to $167 in September after Enova withdrew its $369 million bid to acquire Grasshopper Bank, following opposition from 20 state attorneys general and two senators who argued the deal was designed to escape state rate caps. At $167.11, ENVA trades at about 10x annualized Q2 adjusted EPS of $4.31. The sell-off treats the bank charter as if it were in the earnings base, but it was option value; the core business is performing. Q2 adjusted EPS grew 33%, originations rose 27% to a record $2.3 billion, and net charge-offs improved to 7.3% from 8.1%. CEO Steve Cunningham stated that Enova’s “future growth and success do not depend on becoming a bank.” The episode also matters for peers: it shows charter acquisitions by non-bank lenders face real political resistance, a read-across for OppFi’s pending BNC National Bank deal. Enova repurchased $19 million of stock in Q2.
@calvinblissett 1 click

Calvin Blissett on X

Blue Owl Capital Corporation ($OBDC) Upside: ~34% total return. Assumes the shares re-rate to 0.90x NAV ($12.83, +22%) plus a ~12% dividend yield. Blue Owl Capital Corporation is one of the largest business development companies (BDCs), with a $15 billion portfolio of loans to sponsor-backed middle-market companies. The stock has fallen on contagion from its manager, Blue Owl, which gated redemptions at a retail credit fund and sold assets amid fears that AI will disrupt the software companies private credit lends to. At $10.49, OBDC trades at 0.74x NAV of $14.26 and yields 11.8% on its $0.31 base dividend, which is covered by adjusted net investment income of $0.34. A detail in the credit disclosures suggests the marks are already conservative: non-accruals rose to 2.8% at cost but fell to 0.8% at fair value, meaning troubled loans have been written down hard. With 73% of the portfolio in first-lien debt and leverage at a two-year low of 1.11x, the market price implies losses far beyond what the marks show. Every share OBDC buys back at a 26% discount adds to NAV per share, and it repurchased $35 million in Q2. The risk to watch is a shrinking portfolio: repayments ($747 million) outran new commitments ($319 million) last quarter.

Investor Letters

All letters

Another Haircut with Avy the Barber

SoFi’s stock case hinges on interest rates, tangible book value and private-credit loan sales after its $1.5 billion equity offering.

SOFI $22B
WHAT ARE WE DOING? “Contrarians At The Gate” 3 clicks

Twilio CEO: ‘Buy the dip!’

Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler urged investors to “buy the dip” after earnings sent the software maker’s shares down 17% after hours.

TWLO $31B
The Technology Letter 2 clicks

CoStar: 3Q26 Business Recap

CoStar’s 3Q26 revenue growth slowed to 14% as bookings fell to $37 million, while cost cuts lifted EBIT margin to 8.8%.

CSGP $12B
Speedwell Memos 3 clicks
RYZ · long

Ryerson Holding CORP

Ryerson Holding (RYZ) is a long position following its all-stock merger with Olympic Steel, at 1.7105 RYZ shares per Olympic Steel share.

RYZ $1.7B
Value Investors Club

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

129 publications

Newsletters 109

YouTube 4

Blogs 15

Seeking Alpha 69 of 270

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

91 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

190 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.