It's not easy for investors to know which foot to stand on. Adobe, for a start, is in the crosshairs of the US competition authorities: after blocking the Figma takeover, the FTC is now taking the group to court for illegal business practices.

Secondly, the attempt to acquire Figma betrayed the intense sense of vulnerability that had gripped Adobe's management team. Based on a valuation of over fifty times revenues - unprecedented - this defensive transaction, before being repudiated by the regulator, had aroused the ire of shareholders.

The rapid emergence of new artificial intelligence technologies and more democratic competition - from Figma to Canva and a myriad of new specialized platforms - is threatening what was once the company's core business. threaten what was once described as a monopoly, with Adobe's creative franchises becoming a standard comparable to Microsoft Office in the office world.

Incidentally, this is not the market's first mood swing in the face of the uncertainties surrounding the San Jose-based group. MarketScreener capitalized remarkably well on the previous one, just before the FTC opposed the Figma takeover.

It's true that Adobe had long been a "star" among our quantitative selections, given the company's impressive growth performance and stratospheric profitability. the kind of combination MarketScreener actively tracks when it comes to filling its stock portfolios or its Europa One fund.

On the other hand, while the risks are real and should not be underestimated, rather than suffered, it should also be remembered that the San José-based group has taken full advantage of all previous technological pivots. It has, of course, quickly got to grips with AI, with the recent launch of Firefly.

Its results for 2024 are excellent in this respect. Sales are up again by $2 billion, as - to put it simply - they have been every year since almost 2016. This, while the group has quadrupled in scale in the meantime, is an astounding achievement in the face of the implacable law of large numbers.

The small dent in profits is attributable to the $1 billion penalty paid to Figma as compensation for the aborted acquisition attempt. But cash generation remains prodigious: in 2024, it should reach an all-time high after three years of stagnation.

This free cash flow, as is customary at Adobe, will be entirely redirected to share buy-backs. MarketScreener has always questioned the relevance of these share buy-backs, carried out at average valuations of forty times earnings; however, we must admit that the formula has worked rather well for the Group and its shareholders.