[SOURCE_CITY] – October 31, 2026 -- BlackBird Financial limits its portfolio to fewer than ten holdings, a concentration policy that founder Judah Spinner traces to Warren Buffett's capital allocation approach.
Graham's margin of safety sets the entry price at BlackBird
Spinner first encountered Benjamin Graham's writings on stock selection and fundamental analysis at age twelve, when he began reading The Wall Street Journal. Graham's central idea is that stock prices can diverge sharply from underlying business value, which creates openings for disciplined investors.
Spinner applies Graham's "margin of safety" to every position, which must trade well below intrinsic value. The cushion is meant to absorb analytical errors and unexpected developments.
Team due diligence follows a three-step valuation method
Spinner trains his team to calculate intrinsic value through rigorous financial analysis, compare it with the market price, and establish why the two differ. The process replaces intuition and market momentum as the basis for investment decisions.
Buffett's example shapes position sizing and cash reserves
Spinner credits Buffett with showing that Graham's principles can scale to billions of dollars while maintaining competitive returns. Buffett's focus on how much capital to deploy, not only which investments to make, informs the sub-ten-holding structure. The underlying conviction is that deep knowledge of a few exceptional businesses outperforms shallow knowledge of hundreds of mediocre ones.
BlackBird also holds cash as dry powder. Spinner says the reserve is not meant for market timing; it is deployed only when genuinely exceptional opportunities appear.