Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - 2023 in Review: Nvidia, Interest Rates, Taylor Swift

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

We look back on 2023, crown a few winners, and revisit some stories you may have forgotten about! (00:21) Bill Mann and Jason Moser discuss: - The data points that capture how 2023 has felt for investors, companies, and homeowners. - Why 2023 was rosy for NVIDIA and the cruise lines, and not so great for Dollar General. - The IPO and product launch that were totally forgotten this year. (19:11) Dave Meyer – the VP of Growth and Analytics and the host of the On The Market Podcast at Bigger Pockets – talks through insights from Bigger Pockets State of Real Estate Investing Report, and some interesting areas to watch in 2024. You can get Bigger Pockets full State of Real Estate Investing Report here: biggerpockets.com/REALESTATE24 (33:42) Jason and Bill break down two stocks on their radar: Okta and Crispr. Stocks discussed: NVDA, CCL, RCL, DG, CAVA, META, CRSP, OKTA Host: Dylan Lewis Guests: Bill Mann, Jason Moser, Dave Meyer, Deidre Woollard Engineers: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've got to try breakfast at A&W. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. And what better way than with the delicious Pret Organic Coffee? Starting with just one dollar, all day, every day, now until December 31st. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. We're looking back at the year that was and reminding you of a few things you might have forgotten about. Motley Fool Money starts now.

Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me over the airwaves, Motley Fool Senior Analysts Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Gentlemen, great to have you both here. Hey, nice to see you. We've got a look back at 2023, some of the winners, losers, and things that you might have even forgotten happened this year.

And we're going to kick off looking at how the market has done this year and some of the stats that paint a picture of 2023. As we tape in mid-December, the S&P 500 is up 20% year-to-date. The NASDAQ is up almost 40% year-to-date. And Bill, if I told you nothing else and that was all I'd given you, you'd say, wow, pretty good year for stocks. Economically, things must be going really well. People must be thrilled. The 100% chance of recession in 2023 seems to have been a little high. Yeah, I think so. I thought he was introducing us with a weather report. Back to you, Dylan. Back to me. Yeah, I think it's just surprising to me, you know, based on all the headlines that we've seen this year, to see those market numbers be as strong

as they are, especially because it seems like there's been so much uncertainty and so many working against strong market returns. Jason, what do you think? Well, 7.95%, Dylan. That is my statistic. That's my number. That is what I want you to remember for this year. I just Googled current 30-year fixed mortgage rates, and that's the number I got. Now, let's not hem and haw over this. I know that we can all get, or most of us at least, get a mortgage rate a little bit lower than that. But I think that really does sort of tell the tale for what 2023 has been all about. I mean, when you look at the impact that interest rates have on virtually everything else that we do in our life, it starts to make a lot more sense. But taking a look at the housing market

and really how this interest rate environment has ground the housing market to a halt, it's just, it's been, I mean, I'm sure we all probably could have predicted it to an extent, given that we knew the Fed was going to push rates up like this. But when you look at the data out there, right, I mean, sales now sit at their lowest level since 2010, according to the latest monthly data from the National Association of Realtors. I mean, you've got median existing home sale price, $391,800. That's a 3.4% increase from the previous year and a new record for October. and understanding that that housing kind of underpins so much of what goes in goes on in our economy it just starts to to make a lot more sense that that this this year of of interest rate

increases has just had an impact in virtually everything that we do and it's not something that's going to correct itself quickly right i think for folks looking for maybe three four percent interest rates listen i don't know those days are ever coming back maybe they will one day but it's not going to be anytime soon, right? I think 2024, we'll be very lucky to get back to something like 6.5% or something like that if things go well. But to me, the mortgage rate story really has been front and center for 2023. Bill, you took a different angle on this one for your stat of the year. What do you got? Interestingly enough, the average profit margin for an S&P 500 company this year has been 11.9%, which is higher other than 2017

since 1992. So it has actually, from a corporate standpoint, been a very, very good year, despite higher interest rates, despite all of the headwinds that we thought that we were going to be facing. But there is actually another stat that I think is interesting. There is a cliche on Wall Street where analysts come on to the quarterly conference calls. They say, great quarter. And there's some sociopath out there who tracks this. And in this last quarter, analyst praises were down 29 to the lowest level since the first quarter of the pandemic so great news on one hand and nobody's given anybody any credit i love that the technical term there is analyst praises that is the metric that we are tracking we will add it to the dashboard that is

an absolutely fantastic one i was just going to say i think that may be the first time in Motley Fool Money history that the word sociopath has ever been used on a show. I could be wrong, but I think it's at least a possibility. Who is the person who said, hey, I think I'm going to find some alpha out of this? Bill, when you see that, though, is that in some way what you're seeing with the profits, an expression of the inflationary environment we've been in and companies being able to benefit from it? Or what do you think has been driving that? I think that's at least partially true. And there are some accounting conventions that allow companies to value the cost of goods sold

based on stuff that they've held in inventory for a long time. But I think a lot of it really has to do with the fact that when we think about inflationary environments, we forget about the fact that a lot of times companies are the ones who are benefiting from, or at least they are the ones who are increasing the prices. And so, it tends to work out more okay for them, at least in the short run. All right, let's talk about some of the winners and losers of 2023. We're going to dig into some of the best and worst performers so far this year. Jason, let's start out, Rosie. I mentioned the S&P 500 returns to kick off the show. A couple companies in the S&P 500, a very large part of why the index has done so well this year. Yeah. Well, I mean, we've seen,

I mean, obviously, we talk about the Magnificent Seven a lot, and that's something we'll get into a little bit later on here in the show. But I think the one that really stands out, NVIDIA shares up better than 220% for the year so far. I mean, really, it all boils down to, I mean, we know the AI theme, right? I mean, 2023 has been a year of artificial intelligence. We've talked a lot about sort of where AI can take us. I mean, it is obviously still very early innings, but when you look at the numbers that NVIDIA continues to chug up, I mean, revenue up 34. There's most recent earnings report, revenue up 34% from the previous quarter, about up 206% from a year ago. Looking at data center revenue, which, I mean, data center,

I don't know if you've heard, Dylan, but data center is a big trend. A lot of tailwinds there, I think so, yeah. That revenue up 279% from a year ago. So, I understand the enthusiasm, I understand the optimism, and I understand why the market is buying this stock hand over fist. I think one thing to keep in mind, obviously, we talk about a lot, the market is very forward-looking, of course. You have to at least ask yourself, at what point does the enthusiasm start to wane? At what point do we get to where that's enough enthusiasm now. Let's see what kind of results this company can bring. Because next year, I'd be willing to bet those growth rates probably aren't going to be quite as strong as this year.

But again, I mean, it's a great company doing a lot of great things. It's no surprise it's performed so well. Given how tech dominated the year and thematically AI really dominated the year, looking at the S&P 500 components, I think two companies that kind of jumped out to me as surprises as winners were Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean. I just was amazed to see that those two companies were up 100% year to date. They are off highs from before the pandemic and even some of the highs they hit early in the pandemic. But Bill was just a little amazed to see that they had risen as much as they had. And I don't know if that's a return to normal type narrative that we're seeing there or what that might be. Well, that's definitely true. One thing

that we talk about from time to time is that you can find really good investing ideas with companies that simply forget to die. And those were very much two companies that had, during the pandemic, the crosshairs were on them. They had massive assets that weren't being used at all. So, I mean, good for them. None of it is any laughing matter, but that's where that level of how performance came from. We talked about 2023 as being the year of artificial intelligence. It was also the year of human-caused stupidity. And at the bottom of the S&P 500 in terms of performance is a company called Dollar General. And Dollar General is America's largest retailer by outlets. Bloomberg very helpfully says that it has 19,000 locations, the same amount as Walmart

and Wendy's combined, which seemed like an odd set of companies to combine, but there you go. One of the biggest problems at Dollar General this year has been self-checkout, which I don't know if I could have predicted any more that self-checkout was going to be an area where companies that have tiny profit margins, it's probably not going to work out very well. So, Dollar General almost cut in half this year, had some terrible, terrible storylines about the quality and the safety in the stores. It has not been a very good year for Dollar General. Long term, this has been a very good retailer.

But I think when you get to the edge of a growth rate for any company, decisions have to be made. And a lot of the decisions that Dollar General seems to be making have not worked out at all. All right, coming up after the break, we've got some stories from 2023 you may have forgotten about and the themes that dominated the year. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. You just found out that your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic. Just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount plan, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you'll see exactly what's

behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed. Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. When you have critical business questions that need answers, don't just file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Rippling AI build it instantly from your live people and business data. Whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business?

Head to rippling.ai slash fool to get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G dot A-I slash F-O-O-L. Sign up for exclusive access today, rippling.ai slash fool. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined over the airwaves by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Earlier, we talked about the things that jumped out to us in 2023.

Now we're going to talk about some of the things that people may need to get a little reminder of that happened during the year. Jason, what jumps out to you as something that maybe flew under the radar in 2023? Well, Dylan, you know I like food. I like to cook food. I like to eat food. I love to invest in food, Chipotle has been one of my greatest investments. And I just, I mean, listen, back in June, June 14th, we saw an IPO, it had been a very IPO thin year, but Kava, right? Kava IPO on June 14th and leading up to that IPO. And then really in the subsequent months after we keep on asking, is this the next Chipotle? And I think that's a fair question to Noodle, right? I mean, when you look at the numbers that the company has chalked up, I mean, you look at

revenue from 2016 up to fiscal 2022. They grew at a 49% compound annual growth rate, right? They're talking about average unit volumes in 2022, each store pushing around $2.4 million annually in Chipotle, around $3 million. I mean, they acquired Zoe's before they went public, of course, but they gave them this rich portfolio of real estate to basically open additional Cavas, right? They're converting those Zoe's into Kava's. They see a market where they can get beyond 1,000 stores, and they're going to crack through 300 at the end of this year. They continue to raise guidance, talking around 15% to 16% same-store sales growth for the full year here. And then you add to that, they're rebooting this loyalty program, 3.7 million loyalty members going into this next

quarter here. But they're going to revamp this program to try to make it a little bit more in-depth, a little bit more rewarding, right? I think they're going to probably take some lessons learned from other reward programs out there. You start to wonder, is this something that could be the next Chipotle? It's possible. They definitely have, I think, a very quality product. The stock has not performed so well since going public, down 13% or so year to date. But this is one to keep an eye on. I mean, I think a lot of us out there, we do like the product and it feels like they have room to open up a number of stores to go. So in a very IPO light year, this was just an IPO that, uh, that stood out as one that, uh, you know, could be, could be, uh, want to keep an eye

on. I like that one, Jason, because I feel like there's a lot of fanfare on IPO day and then everything just kind of fades away. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves, Oh, company's still there doing its thing. You know, Bill, what's jumping out to you for 2023? I don't know if you guys remember COVID-19. Do you guys remember this? Does that ring a bell? Yeah. Yeah. It took It took up about two and a half years of our lives in which every conversation it seemed we had with people outside of our homes or inside of our homes, it was at the center. Well, in May of this year, Tedros Ghebreyesus, who is the head of the World Health Organization, declared that it was no longer a public health emergency due to COVID-19. So, in a time in which I seem to go weeks without thinking about it anymore, I just wanted to remind people that it has not been that long since this virus upended our lives around the world, but 2023 should be remembered as the year in which things started to get back to normal. I think that's a great reminder there, Bill.

For my money, I'm going in a different direction on things that we have forgotten about or may need a reminder of for 2023. Do you guys remember the launch of Threads? I do, vaguely. I didn't participate, but I do recall. It was the fastest growing app of all time, logged 100 million signups in the first five days.

And I have to be honest, I don't know anybody that uses it. Does it still exist? It does. It has clubhouse energy. You remember clubhouse from two years before? Meerkat, right? That was a Meerkat. So I am fascinated to see where this one goes, because according to Meta's management team, it has 100 million monthly active users. I know none of them. And they are planning on expanding into Europe shortly to continue expanding that offering.

And I think it's just amazing because it was something that was really coronated as this great app launch and so successful in the moment, but immediately faded from relevance. It shows the power of network effects because it's not like the artist formerly known as Twitter has done itself any favors in the process. Yeah, that's a really good point. Like Twitter has given them this market

on a silver platter. Here, take it. And yet. Take it. And yet. Go ahead. Can't be done. Listeners, if you're using threads out there,

we want to hear about it. Podcasts at fool.com is where you can send your mail. Hit us up on Twitter at... That's right. That's too funny. Writes itself. All right, let's get over to the unavoidable. I'm going to ask each of you to crown the winner of 2023. Jason, complete the sentence for me here. 2023 was the year of blank. I mean, I mentioned it earlier. I think it was the year of the Magnificent Seven. I mean, when you look at Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Nvidia, they all just had tremendous years. Nvidia, obviously, leading the way.

but if you held a basket of all seven of these stocks, you did tremendously well for obvious reasons, right? And I know there's a lot of talk about this great rotation. I wouldn't, I'd kind of pull back on that maybe a little bit. There's no reason to not own really any of these seven businesses, I don't think. Bill, what about you? 2023 was the year of? Taylor Swift. Has to be. Has to be. I mean, okay, so Jason's coming with companies that added $650 billion in market gap in a single year, which I understand to be pretty good. But Taylor Swift's tour, her heiress tour, was so big that it was described by economists as one of the most successful wealth

redistribution devices in the last decade, with wealth moving from the upper middle class to other parts of the wealth distribution curve. It's the first tour to earn over a billion dollars, And it is far from done. And when tours earn that much money, that's just talking about what the tour itself is doing. The amount of economic activity that has happened because of Taylor Swift, I think is going to be calculated for a long time. And that number will be massive. Bill, so many of the things that Swift has done over the last couple of years seem unprecedented in a lot of ways. The massive concert tour followed by the movie release, which people in my household saw and absolutely loved. It is on our viewing list as a group at

some point soon. But also re-recording all of her songs so that she owns them outright. It seems like there is a little bit of a new playbook in the music industry that she's establishing. Yeah. I mean, she's obviously a very talented businesswoman. And it's to the point that when FTX collapsed, people were giving Taylor Swift credit that maybe not entirely deserved for not having gotten into NFTs because she was worried about contingent liabilities. But yes, obviously a very, very savvy businesswoman and a talented artist. Great foresight by Swift there. All right, Bill, Jason, we're going to see you guys a little bit later in the show. Up next, we're going to switch from stocks to real estate and talk

about the state of housing in 2023. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. People say, mm-mm, that's what people say, mm-mm. I go on too many dates, but I can't make them stay. At least that's what people say, mm-mm, that's what people say, mm-mm. But I keep cruising, can't stop, won't stop moving. It's like I got this music in my mind saying, It's gonna be all right, cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the

haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, baby. I'm just gonna shake. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. Few sectors caught quite as many headlines in 2023 as the real estate market. High rates and high prices made for a tough environment for buyers, and housing supply continued to lag demand. To get a sense of where the market is now, Motley Fool Money's Deidre Woollard caught up with Dave

Meyer, the VP of Growth and Analytics and the host of the On the Market podcast at BiggerPockets. Dave and Deidre talked through the insights from BiggerPockets' State of the Real Estate Investing Report and some interesting areas to watch in 2024. I'm excited to talk about this report and wanted to sort of figure out, what do you think the big story was in 2023? The big story in 2023 to me is all about inventory in the housing market. And, you know, I know the predominant media narrative about the housing market is about interest rates, and those are certainly important because that's really impacted demand. But I think that really was sort of predictable, right? You know, interest rates went up, that's going to make it less affordable for

people to buy homes and therefore we have fewer people interested. But what was less obvious is to the extent that which supply in the market, which in real estate we call inventory, really declined. And that has surprisingly held prices relatively steady in the housing market. And so if there's one thing that surprised me and I think dictated the market this year, it was inventory levels. Yeah. And the impact of that, the housing affordability has just, you know, risen. It's now, you know, it's the lowest opportunity to, you know, the housing affordability is now at the lowest rate since the 1980s. It's a terrible situation for a lot of people trying to get in the market. Is there any way that can shift? We know that interest rates are

probably going to stabilize next year. What about the inventory rates? Yeah, so I think that's the big question. And I agree. I do think interest rates will probably peak sometime soon if they haven't already and will start to decline a little bit. I'm not one at this point in December of 2023 thinking that the Fed is going to cut rates as much as certain people are forecasting. But I do think we'll see some mortgage rate relief. But to me, the thing in 2024 is like, where does supply come from? Because I'm having a hard time figuring out where it is. The big thing that's impacted supply so far is the quote unquote lock-in effect. If you haven't heard of this term, it's basically that so many people, about 95% of

people have mortgage rates that are under today's current rates. And so when you think about that, it is not attractive for people to sell because most people who sell a home go on to buy a home as well. And so when buying conditions deteriorate, that means that people don't necessarily want to sell. And there's been some studies into this by Zillow and another firm called John Burns Research and Consulting. And they have found that mortgage rates would have to get to somewhere around five to five and a half percent before we started to sort of break this log jam and people start to sell again. And personally, I don't see that happening in 2024. So I don't really see supply getting that much better. The other places it could come from are potentially foreclosures,

which are rising from pre-pandemic lows, but are still way below where they were before the pandemic. Construction has been up or down, but it would take a lot of years of accelerated construction to alleviate the housing shortage. So I don't personally see any huge increases in supply next year. It'll probably go up a bit, but to pre-pandemic levels, I don't really see that happening anytime soon. Well, and it's really been this way since the great financial crisis. Zillow, they had a report a few years out that predicted the silver tsunami of all the retirees that were going to sell. Didn't happen yet. May happen at some point. But in the report, you did note that new listings, which usually fall in the

second half of the year, they weren't following the usual pattern. So they're up a little bit, not a lot. I think the latest NAR report was like 3.6 months, which is still way below what we need. But it brings up another question for me, which I've noticed over the last few years is that the traditional real estate cycles of April through October being the time when everything's on the market, we seem to be getting away from that. Is the seasonal dynamic shifting in real estate? It does seem to be that way. And I think it will be interesting to see what happens this year. But for the last two or three years, it has really bucked a lot of trends. And as you said, normally what we see is housing prices for the year bottom out around January, February,

and then they steadily rise through the end of the second quarter, usually peaking somewhere in May or June. And then they gradually decline a little bit through the end of the year. And now we're just seeing all sorts of different things happen. And so it's hard to nail that down. And I do think we'll probably still see some deviation from normal seasonal patterns until interest rates come back down a little bit and probably until we have a little more economic certainty. There's just been so many anomalous economic events over the last three years. I think they're still rippling through the housing market and it's going to be a little while until they settle back into the normal patterns. I think that makes it challenging for buyers

who've been taught that. The thing has always been like, oh, maybe you'll get a better deal in January or October after everybody else has stopped looking because school's back in session. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore, which I think makes it tougher for people trying to get in the market. Yeah, definitely. I think normally it's somewhere around 2% or 3%. So if you're buying a medium price home, which in the US is $400,000, that's save you $8,000 or $12,000 by waiting to the winter, which is great. And on top of just the financial gain, I think a lot of people like the decreased competition where you don't have to make these offers sight unseen or you're not bidding against a lot of people, that is the benefit of typically buying this time of year,

even though there's sometimes less options for you to see. Right now, I think most behavior is really rate driven. You just see, even when there's slight deviations in mortgage rates right now, the demand for mortgages, which is sort of how we measure demand in the housing market, you look at how many people apply for a mortgage in a given week. And it's really sensitive right now. Like if you go back to 2018, 2019, if mortgage rates changed by 20 basis points, nothing happened. You know, it really just wasn't that big of a deal. Now people who want to buy are sort of waiting and say, okay, it dropped from seven and a half to 7.3. Like now we're going to jump in. It's not like a huge, you know, rush of people, but you do see that those slight

deviations sort of dictating demand in the market. Yeah. The home builders have been talking a lot about that is they've seen that massive fluctuation in terms of people coming in and then not, you know, changing their mind as soon as rates shift. I wanted to talk about a phrase I heard recently. I can't get this out of my head. And that was that the single family rental is the new starter home for many Americans. So if you're a real estate investor, that should be good news, right? So what does that mean that the single family rental? So most people are buying a single family rental instead of their starter home? No, most people can't get into the starter home. So they're getting the single family rental. So they're going from like,

you get your first apartment as a young person, then you move up to the single family rental and you may or may not be able to eventually afford because of the housing affordability problem. Okay. Yeah. So I do think that, listen, you know, I think that housing affordability is a huge issue. And, you know, I am an investor, but I don't think it's great that people can't afford homes. I would rather more people be able to afford a starter home. That said, I do think a lot of this narrative that like everyone is turning to a renter is a little bit overblown. If you look at the data for the home ownership rate, going back like 50 or 60 years, it is very, very stable in the United States. It's like always between 63 and 68%. And right now it's like 66. So

it's like right where it normally is. Now I do think there is danger that that gets worse, but just like right now, it's not, you know, you hear that phrase like renter nation, but I think honestly it makes sense. And I know like culturally in the United States, we've created this narrative that, you know, to be successful, you need to own a home and it is a good way to build some wealth. But if you actually do the math right now, it is better to rent than to buy in almost any city. I am a real estate investor. I rent my home because I think I'm better off putting the would-be down payment into investments like rental properties rather than into my own property right now. So I do think there is a little bit of truth to that. And I think that's just generally true.

But I also think this goes to the home building situation as well, which is that we just don't build starter home size properties in the United States anymore. The average home built, uh, I don't know the exact number. So correct me if I'm wrong here, excuse me if I'm a little off, but I think it used to be like in the nineties, it was like 1400 square feet. And now it's like 2,400 square feet. And so the average home, what, what makes money for builders is bigger homes. And unfortunately that's not things that first time home buyers can afford. And so there is this sort of a mismatch between the product that is being built and what people in our country actually want and need. And that's probably creating more demand for the single family rentals.

Let's talk a little bit about next year and what might happen. Personally, I'm hoping that 2024 is the year we kind of break our obsession with the Fed, that maybe we get limited moves in either direction. What do you think of that? Will that create a better investing environment? I would love to go a week without talking about the Fed. You and I talk on podcasts a lot. It's a very common topic these days. Yeah, I do think it's going to be a more quiet year. You know, I think a lot of what's going to happen next year in the housing market is going to be determined by the Fed pausing, not necessarily what happens with the federal funds rate, because mortgage rates obviously are impacted by the federal funds rate, but it really has a lot

more to do with bond yields and what's going on with the mortgage-backed securities markets. And so those things are obviously impacted by the Fed, but are also highly influenced by what's going on in the stock market and what is going on in the broader economy and recession risk. And so I think as the economy hopefully gets a little bit more clear, we will get some stability in the mortgage market. And my hope is that housing volume starts to pick up and we can no longer be talking about the Fed every six weeks. I would like that as well. It's kind of interesting because one of the things the report mentions and one of the things that I've seen over the years is not all types of real estate investing works in all markets. So as we think

about 2024, I've noticed an uptick in lending and private credit, but what do you think about as strategies that are more attractive next year? Yeah, lending is great. I mean, obviously in a high interest rate environment, the people who benefit are people who lend. And so that is always good. It's not necessarily the easiest way to get into real estate investing unless you are an accredited investor where you can do funds, which is a good way to do it. I think there's a couple strategies. One is a term called house hacking. If you haven't heard that, it's basically an owner-occupied strategy. And this is great because as we were talking about rentals, it is expensive to buy your first home. And basically, if you buy a duplex or a triplex

or a quadplex, live in one unit and rent out the other ones, it can either help you cash flow or greatly reduce your cost of living, your housing costs, and you get the benefit of residential financing. So you can actually buy three or four units, putting 5%, 10% down and getting those better rates. And actually, just this year, there are some rules now that allow you, that have made that a little bit easier. So I just said that you can buy four units and put 5% or 10% down. Last year, that wasn't possible. That is a new thing that is coming out and is making it easier for people to do this house hacking strategy. There's also a new rule that allows investors to count revenue from an ADU, which is an accessory dwelling unit. It's kind of like an apartment over

your garage or a mother-in-law suite towards your mortgage qualification. Previously, if you had an extra unit on your property and you rented it out, that didn't count towards your debt to income ratio. Now it will. So that will make it easier for people to qualify for those types of loans. So I think house hacking in general really works in almost any market in the country and really in sort of any type of economic conditions because its aim is really to just reduce your housing costs, which you can use to invest in more real estate or in equities or something else. Listeners, if you want to dive into the insights from Dave and his team at BiggerPockets, there's a link in the show description. Coming up after the break, Phil Mann and Jason Moser

return with a couple of stocks on their radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, And The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. 2023 was not just a year of technical innovation with AI. It was also a year of menu innovation, gentlemen. We saw food chains continue to bring new and different things for us to taste.

McDonald's had the Grimace birthday meal, complete with a purple shake. Burger King brought out the Fiery Nuggets, an Italian royal crispy sandwich. And Wendy's brought back their Strawberry Frosty due to popular demand. Jason, of those four that I just threw out there, which one is going in your takeout order? Holy cow, man. They're all really good choices. You know what? I'm already looking forward to spring and summer and golf.

Strawberry Frosty just has me feeling the vibe. Let's go Strawberry Frosty. All right. Jason's going Strawberry Frosty. Bill, what about you? How are you not going Fiery Nuggets? I like Fiery Nuggets. No, you know, if I can play mediator here, I think those two would go pretty well together.

Put your hands together. Do you dunk your nuggets into the frosty? Absolutely. I wouldn't be scared to try. You have to. I wouldn't be scared to try. All right, let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd, is going to hit you with a question.

Bill, you're up first. What are you looking at? I am looking at a company called CRISPR Therapeutics. The ticker is CRSP. They accomplished something phenomenal this last week in which their treatment for sickle cell anemia was passed. It's them along with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. This is one of the few companies that has a Nobel Prize winning technology attached to it. It is gene editing. I don't really expect there to be a huge amount of revenues to CRISPR from this, but it's a little bit like the Tesla

Roadster, something that has come out that maybe is not economically going to be beneficial, but it is an incredible proof of concept. So, CRISPR Therapeutics, very little revenue, highly speculative company, but a company that I think should take a bow for what they have achieved in the area of scientific discovery. Dan, a question about CRISPR. Yeah, Bill, so this stock, if you held it for a long time, has been basically flat if you go back four years. And is this the kind of stock that you're more of like an invest in how you want the world to be kind of stock or the kind of stock that you actually expect to make returns? It's a little bit of both. Obviously, gene editing is a holy grail technology, and there are so many different implications that we will be able to have personalized medical treatment for so many different therapies.

If you can literally go in and, you know, almost like a Word document, go in and edit someone's DNA in order to fix a number of genetic problems, it's going to take a while. But I think that this company will be a stock success before it is a commercial success because people will see it coming. All right, Jason, what is on your radar this week? Yeah, well, we all know the Internet is full of bad actors looking to steal identity, data, information. Identity security represents an $80 billion total addressable market opportunity today, globally speaking. And Okta is a company that sells its software and services to businesses of all sizes in order to help companies stay secure, making sure that access to their systems and services are available to the right people at the right time in the right place. So as you may guess, Dylan, Dan, I'm going with Okta.

That ticker is O-K-T-A. You know, Okta's business, it's supported at the top by the Okta Identity Platform. That ultimately helps empower the Workforce Identity Cloud and their Customer Identity Cloud. They claim over 18,800 organizations as customers today. Revenues continue to grow at very impressive rates, even in this day and age, Dylan, of elongated sales cycles, right? We've talked about that a few times on this show. There's a little bit of a glass-hat-empty vibe, a recent security breach. But, you know, honestly, I think with companies like these, you have to assume breaches are a matter of when, not if.

It's a matter of how they respond to these breaches. And I think Okta's done a very good job. But I do think the pullback in shares here represents an opportunity for investors. Dan, a question about Okta? Not a question, more of a comment. There's nothing worse, Dylan, when you send me a Word document with the description for this podcast, and then I have to hit that two-factor authentication to read it. It really boils my blood.

Can I just say I love Dan's comments more than his questions. I've got a feeling I know the answer to this one, but Dan, which one's going on your watch list this week? You guys mentioned chicken nuggets, so I'm going to go crisper. I love the logic. He's connecting the dots, people. He's connecting the dots. Happy 2024. That's going to do it for this week's Smiley Fool Money Radio Show.

We'll see you next time. We'll be right back.