Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - 3 Stocks We’re Pitching

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Just because it's earnings season doesn't mean we don't still have stock pitches for your consideration! (0:22) Maria Gallagher discusses: - Meta Platforms latest results in the midst of its transition - CEO Mark Zuckerberg's blunt comments on guidance - Etsy's positive results (and stock reaction) (11:55) TMF's investing interns wrap up their summer by pitching Jason Moser on the bull case for three different stocks. Stocks mentioned: META, MSFT, ETSY, COST, PENN, TSCO Host: Chris Hill Guests: Maria Gallagher, Jason Moser, Disha Chanana, Mason Tyndall, Kaitlyn Killeen Producer: Ricky Mulvey Engineers: Dan Boyd, Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Because we have your number. Chris Hill. We've got retail, the social network, and three stock pitches you're going to want to hear. Get something to take notes with. Motley Fool Money starts now. I'm Chris Hill, joining me from the financial capital of the United States of America, Motley Fool Senior analyst Maria Gallagher. Thanks for being here. Maria Gallagher. Thanks for having me. Let's start with the Facebook. Meta Platforms, second quarter profits and revenue came in lower than expected, the stock is getting hit. This seems a little odd to say about a company this big, but Meta Platforms seems like a company in transition right now. It seems like a rough patch

because they are investing in the metaverse while trying to fight off TikTok, while also continuing to deal with Apple's increased privacy, which is affecting their ad targeting. Where do you want to start with meta platforms? I think that that's a pretty good overview. I'll start with just a direct quote from the conference call from Mark Zuckerberg that says, it's always hard to predict how deep or how long these cycles would be, but I'd say the situation seems worse than it did a quarter ago. So he really didn't come out with a lot of reassurance right off the bat. I feel like you see a lot of CEOs saying, here are all of the things we're doing. It's going to get better. But Mark Zuckerberg really just was not mincing words. So

revenue was down about 1%. They lowered their guidance a bit. They still have the monthly active users of 2.9 billion, up 1%. They're still the most dominant social media platform. And like you said, he talks about two kind of strategic areas for them as they're shifting, is the AI and the metaverse. So with the metaverse investments, Reality Labs revenue decreased from $695 million to $452 million with an operating loss of $2.8 billion. So they lost $2.8 billion on an operating segment that brought in $452 million. So what we're seeing is their ability to acquire these more companies within this segment. I also think it's going to be slower in the future. They're guiding for revenue to be slower in that segment as well. So the FTC

is suing them to block the purchase of Within, which is the developer behind Supernatural, which is a fitness app. So that is really, they're in that investing phase with the metaverse and they're not seeing the benefit yet, but they're saying this is the long game. This is what we're seeing. We're really trying to be strategic with our view of the metaverse. And then the other strategic priority is increasing AI. And I think that one's also pretty interesting. So it's kind of shifting Instagram from less friends and family to recommending content. Like you said, they're trying to more directly compete with TikTok, with their reels. People are complaining the platform is becoming less friendly to creators. People are spending less time on it. So

from a strategy position, I think you're right in that it's kind of in a transition period. I personally don't love the strategic plans in either of these segments. So I think that they're really important to keep watching and see how those shift in the next couple of quarters, especially that AI spending on Instagram, because I feel like the past couple of weeks, couple of months have seen more creators and more users at the platform kind of step up and say, this is, stop trying to be TikTok. This is a different platform. We utilize it differently. We can use multiple things. People can have different places they go for different things. And right now they're trying to directly compete. And I don't think that it is getting

the positive attention maybe that they want it to. All things considered, and I don't own shares of Meta Platforms, but all things considered, I would prefer that the CEO of my company doesn't whistle past a graveyard and tells it like it is. So hopefully people at least appreciate Zuckerberg's bluntness in terms of the current state of things. And unfortunately for him And for shareholders, this stands in contrast to another big tech company, which is Microsoft, which came out earlier this week and reiterated their guidance for the next 12 months saying, yeah, no, our view from three months ago to now has not changed at all. And I think, you know, when Zuckerberg comes out and says, yeah, no, things have gotten

worse. Unfortunately for him, it stands in contrast to Nadella's comments. Was there any color on the headsets, the VR headsets, which reportedly are going to cost north of $1,000? Because it seems like, among other things, for years of saying, no, we don't want to get in the hardware business, it's like, well, but now if we can start selling hardware for $1,000 a pop, maybe we do want to be in the hardware business. I'm curious if there's any sense of how quickly that's going to be coming. So I think it's interesting. They're raising the price of the Oculus now a hundred dollars. So that's what they're doing now from $299 to $399. And just kind of a history of the Oculus is they started selling that, I think at

about $800 and now it's been heavily discounted. They're selling them at a loss to just get more people interested in them. So what they're saying, I think maybe by end of 2022 for this new $1,500 dollar headset but based on that history of they come out with something really expensive and then there's not an interest again just kind of going off of anecdotal data or anecdata I haven't heard anybody talk about wanting to buy that right it's not like the next iPhone that everyone seems they want to have that's not I think garnering maybe the excitement they want it to but I am not really in that world so maybe it is in different circles than I'm currently in but so I I'm going to be interested to see what the actual price point is and how well it sells when it finally premieres.

For the first time in a long time, there was good news for Etsy shareholders. Second quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected. Shares of Etsy are up 10% today. What stood out to you? A bunch of things stood out to me. So for some quick highlights, their gross merchandise sales were down about 0.4% to $3 billion. They acquired 6 million new buyers, but their revenue was up 10.6% to $585 million. That's with a higher take rate of 19.3%. And I think we're really seeing the continued impact of that transaction fee that happened in April, which increased the transaction fee from 5% to 6.5%. And I don't know if you remember, but there was the whole pushback from the Etsy sellers. They tried to do a strike.

It seems that that wasn't necessarily successful, even though I do think that they made some compelling points about the fee structure of Etsy and how it's changing. But Etsy has been talking about some of their investments, including they increased their employee headcount. They're working on improving search. They're working on an Etsy purchase protection for items up to $250, so getting refunds. They're trying to enforce more of the handmade policy, so they removed 50% more listings last quarter than they did in all of 2021. So, trying to maintain the integrity of the platform and seeing more handmade items as opposed to kind of the more manufactured things you might see on other platforms. They did see some hit to their top

categories. So, home and living, which is about 30% of sales, was down double digits. Craft supplies, which is about 10% of sales, was down again double digits. So, I would say it was kind of an okay quarter. They're maintaining their most profitable users. They seem to retain a lot of the buyers they got through COVID. But I am still pretty concerned about this friction between the platform and the sellers. And I hope that Josh Silverman takes more steps to kind of reconcile that. Yeah. Silverman is a CEO who seems like he's keenly aware of the challenge that he's facing here. Sometimes a company will come out with results and they're a Rorschach test. If you're bullish on the company, you can find something in there that supports your

bullishness. If you're bearish, you can find that as well. As an Etsy shareholder, I'm not saying this was a great quarter and I share the concerns that you mentioned. There were a couple of things that I saw that I thought, all right, this is the kind of thing that hopefully they can build on in the second half of the year. Adding six million buyers in the quarter, that's at a time when so much of the national economic conversation is around inflation. To me, that's a meaningful data point. Now, if it just stops there and for the rest of the year they flatline, well, then that's a problem. But hopefully, as we sort of think about the next half of the year, they can sort of build on that. But where do you, and this is an unfair question,

but I'm going to ask it anyway, where do you think this goes next, the tension you mentioned with the sellers? Because Etsy is a business that over the last few years has made improvements. They have made investments to really appeal to sellers to make the platform work, not just for the people who go to Etsy to buy stuff, but for the people who are there to set up shop to sell things. Where do you think it goes over the next six to 12 months? I think it's a really good question. And I think it's kind of the most important question for Etsy. And I think for a long time, it was kind of a symbiotic relationship. There was some friction when Silverman joined as CEO, but he, I think, really spent a lot of time working to improve the

relationships with the sellers. I think the problem is now it's not just the transaction fee of 6.5%, right? It's that there's a listing fee, a transaction fee, a payment processing fee, an ad fee. So by the time a lot of these sellers are done, Etsy's taking north of 30% to 40% of their profits. That's not including how much the sellers pay to get their supplies, right? So it ends up being not worth it for a lot of sellers the way it was for a really long time. And for Etsy, which is a platform that boasts that a lot of these sellers are women, a lot of representation within underrepresented communities, a lot of people, this is their

loan source of income. I do think that that discrepancy has gotten larger in the past year or so. And so I think that it would be important to see Josh Silverman take some steps to kind of reconcile that. And I think, unfortunately, Etsy tries to say, we're different than Amazon. We're really helping our sellers. And that hasn't been the reality. So I think that there's kind of two pathways. If it can get more like Amazon and kind of lose some of those sellers, lose some of that ESG element that I think makes Etsy a really compelling company, or it can kind of try and

work more with the sellers. So I think, honestly, I think there's kind of a 50-50 chance. I don't know which direction he's going to go in. I really admire him as a CEO and I've admired him, but the past years have made me personally as both a shareholder and an analyst kind of rethinking the way he's structuring it. We'll keep an eye on it. Maria Gallagher, always great talking to you. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me. This summer, we've had three interns working with the Motley Fool investing team. their internships wrap up this week, and they've each got a stock to pitch. Jason Moser joined them to discuss the companies they've been researching and why they could make for good

investments. Okay, today we have three interns and three stock pitches for you. First up, it's Kaitlin Killeen. Kaitlin, you are bringing Tractor Supply to the table today for us. Tell us a little bit about Tractor Supply. What does this company do? Hi, Jason. Yes, thank you so much for having me. Tractor Supply. I see a lot of Tractor Supply stores where I come from, but I come from more of a more rural area. So if you're from an urban area, I understand if you're not familiar with a Tractor Supply store. So really what Tractor Supply does, they sell to people engaged in the more rural lifestyle or out here lifestyle, as Tractor Supply likes to call it. And that really includes your farmers and your ranchers. So if you're a farmer or rancher

walking into a Tractor Supply store, you can really expect to find anything you need to upkeep your ranch or farm. However, ironically enough, they don't have tractors. So if you are a farmer or rancher looking for a tractor, don't go to Tractor Supply. We'll get into risks in a minute, but boy, I hope that's not a false advertising risk that we have to deal with. Let's worry about that in a minute. Let's not talk about risk. Let's talk about why you think this is a good investment. That's really what we're trying to do, is figure out why these can be good investments. What makes Tractor Supply a good investment in your eyes? Yeah. Tractor Supply has been around for a long time. They were founded in 1938.

With that, they've developed a really large and extensive product line. Within that product line, And, you know, there's a lot of products that are applicable to the rural lifestyle. And this is a huge differentiator for tractor supply because, you know, you can walk into a tractor supply to maintain your farm. You know, say you need some chickens or some dog food for your dog. You can get both of those at tractor supply. And it's hard to find this kind of variety of products at their closest competitors. because if you're looking at who their closest competitors are, that's your Home Depot or your Lowe's or your Petco.

And if you walk into a Home Depot, you can't get a box of live chickens and a bag of dog food at the same time. So their extensive product line may seem random to us, but to a farmer or a rancher, it really is really relevant, and it's good at attracting that kind of customer that they want. Something else that's really interesting about Tracture Supply is they've really attracted this new customer during COVID. During COVID, everyone was stuck at home and doing home things. And that includes home renovations or gardening or raising chickens.

And this really attracted people to what Tracture Supply provides and is selling. And increasingly during COVID, that kind of person was the millennial. And that's typically not who you see as a farmer or rancher. Now, Tractor Supply has been introduced to this entirely new demographic, and it really provides a really interesting opportunity for Tractor Supply. Yeah, I guess, what, 10, 15 years ago, it must have been virtual chickens via Facebook and FarmVille, graduating up to real chickens. I don't know, that sounds like a pretty fun lifestyle, actually. As I get a little bit older, I think I'm going to have to consider getting some chickens in the mix as well. I like that. A very differentiated offering, separating themselves from their competition.

That's always a great thing. Of course, no investment comes without risk. What do you feel like is the standout risk for a business like this that investors need to be aware of? Yeah, I think the biggest risk with Tractor Supply is just to watch out for their acquisitions. In the past, they haven't made many. In 2016, they made the acquisition of PetSense. And since that acquisition, in my opinion, I haven't been seeing the most favorable performance from PetSense, especially compared to their tractor supply stores. And in 2021, they recently announced an acquisition of Worshland Farms, which hasn't yet settled. So, I would just keep an eye out for those acquisitions, because this isn't something they're experienced with, and they typically grow organically. So, as for risks, I would say that's the biggest one. I think that's great to point out. Acquisitions can be very beneficial, but

they can be a very risky strategy, particularly for management teams that just don't have that experience so so yeah you definitely learn from doing but uh but a big risk and i'm glad you called that one out caitlin thanks so much great great idea there thank you okay next up we've got mr mason tindall and mason i mean we got the football season's just around the corner i mean i don't know about you have a big football fan i like what you're pitching today pen gaming tell us a little bit about what pen gaming does yeah thanks jason i'll try not to go on a segue about how my Cowboys are going to win the Super Bowl this year. I'll save that for another time.

Penn Gaming, they're a casino operator with a market cap of about $5.5 billion. They operate 44 casinos and racetracks across 20 different states. They've really actually transitioned over the past couple of years to being an omni-channel provider of gaming, entertainment, and news with their acquisitions of a 36% stake in Barstool Sports in 2020, as well as the acquisition of the Canadian company, The Score Media and Gaming. So, they really provide, through Barstool, some of the top sports podcasts in the world, such as Party My Tape, and then the Score Media app has millions of users, and both

are very attractive options. And I really enjoyed getting to learn about the business. This is a little bit of a more difficult one to fully explain and understand in some ways, but you've done a good job of breaking down the business. And so, talk a little bit about why you think Penn Gaming is a good investment. So, with the kind of legalization of online sports betting, or just sports betting in general the past couple of years. Companies management. With their acquisition of Barstool, they gained the Barstool Sportsbook. Then, Discord Media just actually launched their

betting app in Canada as well over the past couple of months. With that being said, I'm very bullish on the business of sports betting. I guess you could say, being a younger adult who follows sports. That mindset, combined with the CEO, Jay Snowden's vision for discipline growth really kind of hits home. So they're making acquisitions that really drive value to the business and kind of diversify from the traditional bricks and mortar gaming that they had to offer. And whereas a lot of like the sports only like online sports betting companies, such as DraftKings that operate only online and DraftKings is losing money. PIM's able to use their cash cow profitable bricks and mortar business to really fund their online sports

betting offering. And I guess the second reason why I really like them is I think the market is actually kind of misvaluing them compared to what management sees as their growth heading forward. So, you kind of compare price-to-sales ratio with DraftKings or even MGM, for that matter, pin trades at a price-to-sales of less than one, which is DraftKings' price-to-sales of over four. So, I really think there's a potential misvaluing by the market moving forward. Yeah, that's what strikes me with an investment like this. I generally like to believe the market gets it right in any given day, but it does feel like a business in a space that could be very easily misunderstood in such a nascent stage. This is a space that

really is just developing, and so that does seem like a potential opportunity there. Now, with that said, this is probably a little bit of a riskier idea than some, But what stands out to you as the risk that investors should be aware of with an investment like this? Yeah, especially since PIN right now, at least their online sportsbook, it's more like, in some markets, it's near the top, but in most markets, it's that third, fourth, or fifth-ranked provider. The legalization does not necessarily mean access in a lot of states. In some states, like Oregon, for example, with the legalization, you have to go through through their state lottery system. In states like New York, where PIN isn't authorized to

actually operate, their barriers of entry are higher. So, it doesn't always mean just because it's legal in a state, it means access. So, that's a potential investment thesis breaker for some states moving forward. Like, I'm in Texas right now, where it's not legal. So, if it were to get legal, but then what if PIN can't get access to it? So, that's something you definitely have to watch moving forward, because it's hard to control the politics of that kind of stuff. Thanks, Mason. Last up, wrapping up the show for us this week, it's Disha Chalala. Disha, you have, I think, what probably could be considered a favorite among certainly many investors here at Fool HQ, but I think a lot of investors in our Foolish universe really do.

They're familiar with the business that you're pitching today. They like this business. It's Costco. Tell us a little bit about what Costco does. So, Costco is a multinational chain of membership-only warehouses, and they offer their members low prices on a limited selection of products within a wide range of categories. Are you a Costco member, Disha? I am a Costco member, an executive member. Oh, so you speak from experience. You're one of the loyals. 100%, yeah. That's very good to hear. So, clearly, you have an affinity for Costco, as many do from

the consumer side, but what do you think makes this a good investment? So one of the main reasons that I think Costco is a good investment is their business model of selling items in bulk out of warehouses. Because not only does it allow Costco to sell things at a lower price point than their competitors, it also gives them the ability to reduce overhead costs and keep their shrinkage rates down. They have an average warehouse space of 146,000 square feet. So they're able to stack their merchandise on the racks above their sales floor. So it allows them to reduce costs associated with extra storage facilities. And then they also have people checking your cards as soon as you walk in and your receipts as you walk out. So they have

shrinkage costs in about 1% of sales in comparison to major retailers like Walmart at 3%. And then also just their consistency. They have nearly 62.5 million households as members and an average renewal rate of 91%. And with membership fees making up 77% of their net income, they have a very consistent source of income. And they've also just been consistent with their earnings growth, paying dividends to consumers. Even their management, with their CEO being part of the company since 1984, they're very focused on long-term goals and just consistent with the way they treat their employees, their business model, all of it. I feel like I should hang my head in shame because I'm not a Costco member. We've

got a house full of kids and dogs and a cat. I've got every reason in the world to be going to a Costco, and yet I don't. I think part of that is because every time I drive by our local Costco. The parking lot is so full, it makes airports jealous. It's always so busy. But hey, I guess that's a nice problem to have. I think one of the nice things about a business like this, and you mentioned it, it's stable, it's consistent, it's reliable. But again, as with any investment, there is always some level of risk involved. What would you consider the standout risk for a business like Costco today that investors should keep in mind? Just the retail business is highly competitive, especially with the current economic conditions.

But Costco will have to continue to have the ability to adapt quickly to changes in the market, as well as changes in customer expectations. And so, spending habits for consumers are changing currently. And I think that's something they have to be aware of and take into account and make sure that they can keep those prices as low as possible, even in the current economic environment. That's great stuff, Disha. Thanks so much. Thank you. 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 stocks based

solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill, thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.