While Wall Street clung to AI narratives and macro speculation, one manager found returns the old-fashioned way-by paying less than things were worth.

NEWARK, NJ / ACCESS Newswire / July 8, 2025 / Judah Spinner doesn't try to predict the future. He doesn't traffic in economic forecasts or trend-chasing. He rarely mentions the Fed. Yet somehow, his fund, BlackBird Financial LP, has quietly outperformed the S&P 500 by a meaningful margin so far in 2025-despite avoiding the sectors that have led most major indexes.

"Most investors today are playing a very different game than we are," Spinner says. "They want to be on the right side of the next news cycle. We're trying to make sure we don't lose money and let time do the rest."

That dispassionate discipline has delivered: BlackBird is up over 35% year-to-date, far outpacing both the index and the average hedge fund. Spinner credits none of it to macro bets or sector tilts. Instead, he points to a handful of obscure, underfollowed companies-many of which were unloved and mispriced as a result of short-term pessimism.

"There are always good businesses whose share prices have become detached from reality," he says. "We look for those detachments-situations where the price understates what a business is worth, even if its results are temporarily underwhelming."

Looking Past the Headlines

In contrast to the narrative-driven nature of today's markets, Spinner and his team view volatility not as something to be avoided, but as something to be harnessed.

In recent quarters, BlackBird has built positions in businesses that, to others, may have seemed vulnerable to trade tensions or macro uncertainty. But Spinner's investment decisions weren't driven by policy speculation or geopolitical forecasting. "We don't react to headlines," he says. "We evaluate businesses based on fundamentals-balance sheet strength, cash generation, valuation-and act when the opportunity is obvious."

This approach stands in contrast to much of Wall Street, where macro narratives often dictate positioning. At BlackBird, the emphasis remains squarely on understanding what a business is worth and paying meaningfully less. If the broader market has overlooked that due to trade fears, so much the better.

This sort of investing, Spinner insists, doesn't require bold predictions. "Our goal isn't to be right about interest rates or geopolitics," he says. "Our goal is to be approximately right about a handful of businesses we understand deeply and bought cheaply."

Why Fewer Investments Can Be Safer

A defining trait of BlackBird is its unwillingness to chase opportunity for its own sake. "We don't swing often," Spinner says. "In most years, we make very few new investments. If something new isn't meaningfully better than what we already own, we'll pass."

Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time investing partner to Warren Buffett, once remarked: "The idea of excessive diversification is madness. It's a confession that you don't really understand the businesses you've bought." Judah Spinner agrees.

At BlackBird, capital is allocated to what Spinner believes are the most compelling opportunities available-often just a few at a time. "The world doesn't present you with dozens of truly exceptional investments," he explains. "Some opportunities are simply better than others. To broadly diversify is to knowingly allocate capital to your twentieth- or thirtieth-best ideas, which strikes me as irrational."

While conventional asset managers preach diversification to reduce risk, Spinner sees it differently. "Risk isn't owning too few stocks-it's not knowing what you own. If we have five ideas that are demonstrably superior, there's no virtue in watering them down with mediocrity."

To Spinner, true conservatism lies not in spreading bets, but in thinking clearly, acting decisively, and refusing to compromise on quality or price.

Always Look to the Facts

BlackBird doesn't invest with the crowd-or against it. "We're not contrarians for the sake of being contrarian," Spinner explains. "We just don't base our decisions on what others are doing. We look at the facts and let the numbers speak for themselves."

In that spirit, the fund steers clear of shorting, avoids chasing themes, and pays no attention to macroeconomic forecasts.

This independence has kept the firm on the sidelines of some of the market's more fashionable trades-from Bitcoin to meme stocks, and even high-flyers like Tesla, whose valuations Judah Spinner believes are built more on narrative than on fundamentals.

"In my view, much of what's being celebrated today will eventually prove costly for a lot of investors," he says. "There's a difference between something that's exciting and something that's actually worth owning."

It's not a judgment-just an observation, backed by history. As Spinner puts it, "We've seen this movie before, and we know how it ends."

Staying the Course

Asked about the market's direction, Spinner doesn't speculate. "We don't spend time trying to guess where the S&P is headed," he says. "We focus on owning businesses we understand, run by capable people, and priced well below what they're worth. If we've done that right, the broader market doesn't matter much. We'd be happy to own every company in our portfolio regardless of what the index does next."

He adds that elevated interest rates have actually helped. "High rates separate the wheat from the chaff. Companies that rely on free money to justify valuations can't survive. That helps us-because we don't rely on enthusiasm. We rely on arithmetic."

Indeed, Spinner's approach seems almost anachronistic in an era of AI-driven models and real-time sentiment monitoring. Yet his results-and growing interest from institutional allocators-suggest that the old principles may still have life in them.

"We're not trying to reinvent investing," he says. "We're just focused on the basics. Buy good businesses. Pay a low price. Wait."

In a world where patience is seldom practiced but often rewarded, it may be BlackBird's most enduring advantage.

To learn more visit: judahspinner.com

Contact:
Email: judahspinner@gmail.com

SOURCE: Judah Spinner