Microsoft: great asset, fully discounted

The mechanism is duration. A multiple is a claim on a terminal growth rate, and at these levels the implied duration is longer than any enterprise software franchise has historically sustained without a re-rating. The comparison is the evidence. Peers with similar growth and margin profiles trade materially lower, and the gap has widened rather than narrowed over the last two quarters without a corresponding change in fundamentals. The position: no call. This is a name I want to own and not at this level, so there is nothing locked here and nothing for the record to grade. If the entry improves I will say so in a piece that does carry a call. The risk is that the build cycle extends. If capacity commitments rise again the crossover resets, and the argument is postponed rather than wrong, which is the harder outcome to hold through.