Judging by the market's immediate response to Adobe's (NASDAQ: ADBE) third-quarter, fiscal-2023 results, one might surmise that the Photoshop maker's best days are in the rearview mirror. Indeed, the 16% share-price haircut brought loyal stakeholders to the brink after Adobe's investors had already sustained a 34% year-to-date decline.

Interestingly, however, much of the financial press's focus wasn't on Adobe's sales or profits but on the company's just-disclosed plan to purchase an online design start-up. It's a pricey purchase, but another red flag resides in Adobe's fiscal forecast. Both traders and press pundits may have buried the lede as Adobe just closed the book on a fairly decent quarter.

From Reuters to The Wall Street Journal, seemingly every major financial-reporting outlet blared a big-font headline about Adobe's in-progress buyout of collaboration-software firm Figma. Time and again, the primary focus was the $20 billion cash-and-stock price tag, while the benefits that Adobe should accrue were little more than an afterthought.

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Source Fool.com