Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Apple’s Concession, Peloton’s Stumble, and Real Estate’s Future
Episode Date: August 27, 2021Apple loosens its rules for app developers. Peloton stumbles on slowing growth. Best Buy and Williams-Sonoma report big earnings. And Dick’s Sporting Goods hits a new high. Motley Fool analysts Emil...y Flippen and Jason Moser discuss those stories and weigh in on the latest from Autodesk, Bill.com, and Elastic. Plus, they share two stocks on their radar: Traeger and The Glimpse Group. Plus, Matt Argersinger, lead advisor of Millionacres, a Motley Fool investing service, discusses red-hot REITs, Amazon’s department stores, and the impacts of COVID-19 on commercial real estate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Chris Hill, joining me this week, Senior Analyst Emily Flippen and Jason Moser. Good to see
you both. We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We'll talk real estate investing
with Matt Argersinger. And as always, we've got a couple of stocks on our radar. But we begin this
week with Apple's App Store. Apple has struck a deal that will allow some app developers to
collect payments outside of its App Store. Some are seeing this as a major concession on Apple's
part related to antitrust concerns, while some in the app community are saying the move does not go
far enough. Jason, Apple makes a lot of money through that App Store. How do you see this?
They do make a lot of money through that App Store. We'll talk about that.
I'm not surprised by this move. I think I tend to fall into the latter camp there,
and then maybe it's not really, from a developer's perspective, it probably doesn't feel like
enough. I mean, to me, this really does feel like optics more than anything else. And I don't
actually blame Apple for that. It just is where this company is at this point. They have to be
very sensitive to the fact that they are under the microscope in regard to antitrust, and for
understandable reasons. Look at the numbers. We're talking about a company here that does $350
billion in sales and growing. Now, there are estimates out there that the App Store grossed
anywhere from $60 billion to $70 billion in revenue in 2020. It continues to grow at a
fairly modest rate. Those estimates were somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion in 2019.
You can see, obviously, that's gross revenue. That is not everything that goes down to Apple's
bottom line. They do get a chunk of that, which is really nice, but it is not the crux
of the business. Let's keep that in mind. I think it's very easy for them to make this
offer, it puts them maybe in a little bit of a better light. But I also understand from
the developer's perspective, they feel like it's not enough. I think ultimately, it's
about the terms here. This doesn't let developers tell users about the non-App Store purchase
options within the actual apps themselves. It gives these developers the opportunity
to communicate externally with customers using things like e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
But it's not something where developers can go in there and just explicitly alter consumer behavior.
And I think that's what we have to keep in mind, is while Apple is doing this,
it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to change consumer behavior.
I mean, we value, I think, our time today more than anything.
And if it doesn't really impact the consumer, are they going to go in there and alter the way they pay for things?
Some will, some may not.
that. It's probably a little bit more about how this sets the table for future developers.
All in all, certainly understand the move, not terribly surprised.
Peloton's loss in the fourth quarter was much bigger than Wall Street was expecting.
On top of that, the company warned it will be cutting the price of its original bike
machine by about 20%, and shares of Peloton fell nearly 10% on Friday after the report.
Emily, 2021, not going nearly as well for Peloton as 2020 did.
Well, it turns out recalling treadmills, being investigated by both the Department of Justice
and the Department of Homeland Security doesn't exactly lend investors to feel really positively
when you post a loss that's more than double than what's expected in the quarter.
But I feel like most of the movers thing is actually about fears about guidance.
Peloton changed their guidance from nearly $1 billion in revenue that was expected over the
next quarter to $800 million, in part because of a 20% decrease in the price of their bike,
which is a big move, unexpected by many investors. It says something about the need for competition
and how Peloton maybe doesn't have the pricing power that people expected. I do think that's
why we're seeing the move today, not necessarily just because of that loss, which again is largely
due to that treadmill recall. I will say there are some good numbers here. Subscription revenue
continues to outpace the connected fitness revenue, which is critical for the value proposition.
Connected fitness, which are their bike sales, up 35% year-over-year and were 70% of revenue,
but just the subscriptions to the Peloton app were the other 30% of revenue, and that was up
more than 130% year-over-year. Keep watching those numbers, keep watching churn, keep watching
engagement, but I wouldn't react too strongly due to this news. It was an unusual quarter for
Peloton. Unlike Peloton, Bill.com ended its fiscal year with a bang. Fourth quarter sales came in
higher than expected for the business software company, and shares of Bill.com rose more than
25% on Friday. Jason, was it that good? That's a heck of a move.
It's a nice way to wrap up the week, Chris. I mean, I think there are a lot of great parts
to this Bill.com story, I think the part that has the market so amped right now is the guidance.
The company management is guiding for revenue to double for this upcoming fiscal year,
and that's thanks in part to 45% organic Bill.com growth. Remember, Bill.com is a cloud-based
software provider that basically digitizes and automates back-office financial operations for
small and mid-sized businesses. The numbers were very impressive. We'll get to the valuation in a
second, but I mean, core revenue growth of 73% driven by 32% growth in subscription fees
and 137% growth in transaction fees. They added 5,600 customers, now serve 121,200 customers.
That is growth of 24% from a year ago. Total payment volume $41.7 billion, up 64%, processed
8.2 million transactions. That was up 46% just from a year ago. I mean, retention continues to
improve. They are seeing the network effects at play here. I mean, the members who receive or
make electronic payments through that platform, at the end of the quarter, they had 3.2 million
network members. That was up 28%. And then net dollar-based revenue retention rate continues
to impress 124% this quarter versus 121% a year ago. And they've made a couple of big acquisitions
along the way. The Divi acquisition for around $2.5 billion, they've closed that. They've made
another little acquisition here that's in the process, Invoice2Go, which is an accounts
receivable solution, a mobile solution. The stock is valued with this buying today at around 130
times gross profit. I can't tell you, Chris, that this is a great time to get into this company,
okay? But I can congratulate shareholders who did get in earlier and have had the patience to hang
on here. This is a high-quality business doing a lot of great things. Maybe now isn't the greatest
time to push that buy button, but if you do own shares, I certainly would hang on to them.
You've read my mind on the follow-up question I had prepared. We'll move on to Best Buy. Second
quarter revenue was up 20%. Same-store sales were three times higher than Wall Street was expecting.
Best Buy also raised guidance for the full fiscal year and shares up nicely this week, Emily.
Emily Flippen. I will say, I think there was a question mark for Best Buy heading into this
quarter. Unlike some of the businesses that we'll talk about, Peloton being a good example,
I think investors had low expectations or high expectations respectively. Best Buy,
on the other hand, you could make a case for a good and a bad quarter. We see still high demand,
consumer spending, at least in the United States, is still strong. Engagement with Best Buy has
consistently remained strong among its core customers and management has always been
innovating. But on the flip side, we're seeing things like chip shortages, supply constraints
in many of Best Buy's competitors, and lapsing a year where e-commerce was really strong.
Despite e-commerce being down nearly 30% year-over-year, revenue still rose for Best Buy,
and they proved we can continue to engage with the customers that we acquired in 2020
and increase their spending even into 2021. That's exactly what we saw, demand boosted by just demand
for their core products and stimulus, home theater, appliances, phones, all of these things
are in demand and they didn't have any supply constraints even with the chip shortage, which
I was surprised by personally. I will say they also increased guidance. It's scary looking at
the full-year guidance, which now is aiming for same-store sales of 9% to 11%. It feels really
strong, but I like this management team. They're innovating. They have a total tech solution for
subscriptions for highly engaged customers. They're testing out new store prototypes,
moving into new categories like outdoor living. Really interesting and strange innovations going
on here at Best Buy. I'm with you on the guidance, although I guess we should remember,
we got the holidays coming up in a few months, so maybe the guidance isn't that crazy.
I agree, but I will say that I think holiday demand can be great, but I'm worried
about Best Buy running into some of those supply constraints. Again, they haven't experienced it
right now, but their competitors have. I worry about them eventually needing to pull back
guidance if for some reason they aren't able to keep up with demand. But again, that's a problem
outside of their control. Even if they aren't able to keep up with demand, the demand is still there
for best buying their products. For long-term investors, I wouldn't worry too much about the
short-term guidance. After the break, we've got software,
sports, retail, and more. It pays to listen, so stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Jason Moser and Emily Flippen.
Radio at fool.com is our email address. David Whitmire writes, Chris, you do a good job,
good audio, good voice, good guests, but whoever does the music selection is doing a really great
job. The stock talk is good, but it's the music that makes Motley Fool Money a great show.
Thank you, David. I agree with you. The music is the cherry on top. And that is our man behind
the glass, Dan Boyd, who picks the bumper music every week. Let's get on to some more headlines
from Wall Street. Last week, the stock on Jason Moser's radar was elastic. This week, the SaaS
company posted strong profits in the first quarter. Their shares of elastic were flat for the week.
You tell me, Jason, it was your radar stock. What stood out to you?
I said last quarter that this is one that needs to be on your short list in regard to enterprise
data. I think this quarter just reiterated that. If you remember, Elastic developed software and
services that enables users to search through structured and unstructured data for all sorts
of consumer and enterprise applications. They're serving big businesses. This was the first quarter
of the new fiscal year, and the numbers absolutely did not disappoint. Total revenue for the quarter,
$193 million, up 50% from a year ago, blew past their internal guidance for 33% growth.
They also raised full-year guidance to $811 million in the midpoint. That was just
from $785 million just a quarter ago. If you look at the other numbers, the key performance
indicators, everything looks really encouraging. Total subscription customer count over 16,000 now
versus 15,000 from just a quarter ago and versus 12,100 from a year ago. The total customer account
with annual contract value greater than $100,000 is now at 780. That's up from 730 a quarter ago
and 630 a year ago. And even more encouraging, that growth is accelerating, which just means
they're bringing products and services to the market that their customers value, and they're
expanding those relationships. This is a really attractive business from a business model
perspective. I mean, subscription revenue represents essentially 92% to 93% of total
revenue. Net expansion rates steady at 130%. Billings, I think, perhaps could have created
a little trepidation there. 27% growth, not anything to shy away from. But you can see
sometimes where billings can be a little bit lumpy and create some sort of knee-jerk reactions.
But with a stock valued at 28X gross profit today, I think it looks like a reasonable
time to consider perhaps adding a few shares to your portfolio, Chris.
What a week for Dick's Sporting Goods. A strong second quarter report came with
raised guidance for the full fiscal year and shares of Dick's Sporting Goods up more than 20%
and hitting a new all-time high. Emily, this business is on fire.
Emily Flippen. I really should issue an apology statement for all the listeners
who listened to me complain last year about how Dick's success in 2020 was going to be a
one-off result of a rising tide lifting this boat in particular. Dick's, the thing I missed
was the really strong retention that they had for virtually all of the customers that they acquired
over the last year, and they continued millions of new customers that have come in through this
quarter. They're actually not dissimilar from Best Buy in innovating in their store concepts,
getting into more things that are higher margin, like footwear, what they call soccer shops,
they're making it more of a destination. Average tickets and transaction size all increased in the
quarter. In-store sales, as many expect, was up nearly 40% year-over-year, but that was still 36%
higher than it was in 2019. The decline in e-commerce sales, more than made up by the
in-store transactions. It's an interesting business. I still feel nervous about it when
I think about the next year. I still think some of these numbers are really challenging,
but the fear of making the same mistake twice, I will just say,
Dix is executing on a level that I did not expect. Software giant Autodesk, a little
less giant this week. Second quarter profits and revenue were higher than expected, but Autodesk
guidance for the third quarter sent shares falling as much as 10% on Thursday. Jason,
this is one of the stocks in your portfolio. What did you think of the guidance?
Jason Moser. It is, yeah. I think this is another example where billing's guidance might
create the illusion of a problem that isn't really there. Much like we were talking about with
Elastic. Management noted in the call that some restructuring of the billings guidance,
the way they're going from multi-year contract terms to annual billing terms, that changes a
little bit of that billings growth, which could create some uncertainty in the near term. But
I don't think that's a mark against the business at all. I think the numbers bear that out.
They grew the top line 16% non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.21 versus $0.98 a year ago.
So again, a lovely subscription business here. Subscription revenue, 96% of total revenue for
the quarter. And net revenue retention remains in that targeted 100% to 110% range. I think that
one thing to consider is the word infrastructure. We've heard a lot about infrastructure in this
ongoing debate at DC about how much is going to be spent. All of management's guidance here for
this coming year, there's nothing that really includes the potential of infrastructure. So
just worth keeping in mind. There is a potential tailwind forming there that's not being realized
in the numbers today. But all in all, this is a very strong business. We're going to learn a lot
more about this coming year on September 1st when they have their analyst day. This is actually
profitable. Chris, shares valued around 63X full-year earnings estimates. That's pretty
much in line with how it's been valued here recently. I think all things considered,
things are pretty good for Autodesk. Imagine that, a company that's
actually profitable. It's unheard of.
Williams-Sonoma's second quarter profits came in higher than expected. They raised their
quarterly dividend by a healthy amount and shares of Williams-Sonoma up more than 12% this week.
Emily is another specialty retailer showing everyone this is what winning looks like.
At the risk of making another Dick's Sporting Goods mistake,
I'm convinced this is a one-off experience for Williams-Sonoma. I can't fathom the demand
that is there for the home furnishing markets, in particular, such a fragmented market of which
Williams-Sonoma is fighting to become a more digitally native brand. That being said,
they did have a great quarter. They had earnings of over $3.20 a share versus the $2.60 expected,
and earnings were up 30% year-over-year. Raise the guidance, raise their dividends,
all of these things pointing in an interesting direction. But Williams-Sonoma is convinced the
housing market is going to stay really strong, which is going to support their business.
If their underlying thesis is all the housing market is going to be really successful,
so will be really successful, I don't like that because it takes the power away from the brand,
it takes the power away from the strategy of management and puts all the power and the
demands of the underlying market itself, of which Williams-Sonoma has no control.
If housing demand and housing market expansion is weaker than expected, they could be in a situation
where they have to pull back the guidance that they just increased. But isn't that somewhat
similar to a restoration hardware or even to some extent a business like Wayfair? Look, if people
are spending more on their homes, they're investing more in their living rooms, their bedrooms,
their kitchens, it doesn't seem that crazy. That's fair. I'll give credit where credit
is due. But Home Depot, if you look at their most recent quarter, they actually had a drop-off in
shoppers year-over-year, which says something about the demand for housing. Not that it's a
one-to-one comparison, but it is just to say that raising guidance in such an unpredictable time
like this is a risky move. I would prefer Williams-Sonoma have a more concrete strategy
for how they're going to turn their very retail-based stores into a digitally native
strategy with way more direct-to-consumer sales. While they have been doing that, it's still,
again, a very fragmented market and they're up against a lot of digitally native competitors.
I can see it being challenging, but then again, maybe this is the millennial in me talking who
just doesn't have the same heart for the Williams-Sonoma brand that many other homeowners do.
All right. We'll see you both later in the show. Up next, Matt Argersinger with the latest
on commercial real estate, REIT investing and more. Stay right here, this is Motley Fool Money.
Chris Hill Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris
Hill. Time to check in on the real estate market with Matt Argersinger. He is the lead
investor for Millionacres, The Motley Fool's real estate investing service. He joins me
now from his home. Matt, good to see you. Matt Argersinger
Hey, good to see you as always, Chris. Chris Hill
So there are a bunch of things I want to get to, but we should probably start with REITs
is real estate investment trusts have been on fire this year. What is driving that?
I think there are a few things. First thing is being 2020 was a bad year for REITs. And so
they're kind of bouncing back from what was a historically challenging year across the board,
whether it's retail, office, hotels, it just got crushed because of COVID. And so you had a lot of
REITs back in 2020. They cut their dividend. They were experiencing rent collection issues,
reporting lower results. And so, you had a bad year there. 2021, surprising to me, of course,
they bounced back, but bounced back even stronger than even I was thinking coming into 2021.
So, a lot of them have restored their dividend. Traffic has come back. Even on the retail front,
We've seen big increases in consumer spending this year.
And so, outside of really office and maybe hospitality, hotels, which are still kind
of struggling to get back on their feet, it's been a fantastic year for real estate.
If you look at the industrial REITs, data center REITs, they were already fairly strong
in 2020 anyway, and they've only gotten stronger in 2021.
And so, I was looking at the Vanguard Real Estate Index, which is kind of a good overall
gauge of the REIT market, and it's up 25% this year.
So, it's outperforming the stock market.
It's outperforming most other indexes. Bouncing off of 2020 a year, that was pretty bad. But
also, REITs coming into 2021 had underperformed four out of the last five years. That just
really hasn't happened in history. I feel like they're really overdue for a good year.
With the vaccine distribution and the economy bouncing back so sharply,
they're really benefiting more than other sectors. For people who don't own any REITs,
they're starting to look at that. Should they be looking at specific sector-oriented REITs
like data centers or something like that? I think it's always good to have a
good mix. I would say if you're looking to get some real estate exposure to your portfolio,
I'd say buy at least eight to 10 in that range of REITs. I think you want a nice diversification,
like you mentioned. I think you want maybe an industrial REIT, like a Stagg Industrial or
Prologis. You'd want a data center REIT, like you said, Digital Realty Trust is the biggest one out
there. Then you'll want maybe an office REIT, a retail REIT. The beautiful thing is you can really
find, there's hundreds of REITs out there to choose from. That's what we do in Real Estate
Winners. I had to throw the plug in there, Chris. Absolutely.
And so, having a nice diversified group of basket of REITs for the real estate side of
your stock portfolio, I think is a great place to start.
Where are we now in your eyes when it comes to office space commercial real estate? We're
basically 18 months into the pandemic. It was looking pretty promising earlier in the
summer. Some very large companies have pushed back from this fall to early 2022 in terms
of their return to office. What are you seeing when you look out there at just office space writ
large? Yeah, it is really unfortunate. You saw some traffic coming back to office in the earlier
part of the summer. I think with the Delta variant now out there, and there's a lot more uncertainty
now about what that's going to lead to. It is leading to another surge in a lot of states,
but what's that mean for the fall? I think a lot of offices, corporations are getting a little more
cautious. And you can see that. CoStar came out with some data the other day showing that the
office traffic was bouncing back, and now it's kind of fallen off in most major markets. And
as you mentioned, reopenings have been pushed back until either later this fall or even into 2022.
I'm still very concerned about office, short-term and long-term. Short-term, we just talked about.
But in the long-term, there's still so much uncertainty about what the office demand is
going to be for most companies? Does every company move to somewhat of a hybrid approach where
they only demand workers are there two to three days a week or even less? Do a lot of companies
go fully remote for at least certain parts of the business because they can and they find
their employees are just as productive? There's so many questions out there and so many smart
opinions. Right now, I'm just with office. You've got to be on the sideline. I think every company
is going to figure it out on their own. But of any part of the real estate market that I think
has changed forever by the pandemic, I think office is it. I just think it's created a paradigm
change in not only what we think about office, but just in general how we think about work
and employee space and relationships with other workers. It's really changing. I don't think we'll
know until probably late 2022, if not in 2023, how it all shakes out.
So one of the things you and I talked about back in May when you were on the show,
we were talking about residential housing because maybe the dominant story in the first half of the
year when it came to real estate was house prices were just through the roof, no pun intended.
And you reminded me and our listeners that part of what was at play was really the long-term
effect of the past decade coming out of the Great Recession in 2008, 2009. Even if you look at going
into those years, the residential housing market was probably overbuilt. We were just flat out
building too many houses, new houses as a country. They may have overcorrected. And so, from 2010,
through 2020, we basically had a decade of a much lower number in terms of new houses.
Is that a possibility at play when it comes to office real estate that we're just going to see
over the next decade because there's so much uncertainty right now? A lot of people who are
in that business might be saying, you know what, there's no real great incentive to throw up a
a bunch of new office buildings. I think that's exactly right. I think
if you look at development, so new construction of office, virtually non-existent in most cities.
And in fact, it's going the opposite way. You're seeing office buildings be converted
into multifamily apartment buildings or into other uses. And so I think the overall pie is
too big for office. And I think it's going to shrink just like we might have seen with the
residential market back in the last decade. Could it overcorrect? That's a good question.
I don't know. Given how sharp the change in employee-work relationship is going to be,
we still might end up with having too much office several years from now, even after we've
converted a bunch back or stopped using a lot of it. So much uncertainty. I wouldn't say that
It's a matter of, we could overcorrect in that market.
Because I would say, given what I expect, how this is all shaking out, I think we probably
end up in a situation where there's still too much office supply, even a year or two
from now.
Let me go to retail for a second, because one of the things we've seen over the past
year and a half is large general retailers like Walmart and Target really thrive by investing
in curbside pickup, e-commerce delivery, digital sales, all that sort of thing, but at the
same time maintaining that store presence. There are some Target locations that are almost
now like mini malls within themselves because they've got a Starbucks, they've got an Ulta
Beauty store in there, they've got a CVS pharmacy, they've got a Disney store. When you think
about malls themselves. Are malls going to have any kind of resurgence, or is that still
not a great way to invest? Yeah, it's a good question. I don't
think the traditional mall is going to have a resurgence. I think it'll be used differently.
The space itself will be reconfigured to be a place where data centers can be, warehouses
can be. We've seen those kind of conversions. But it could also become a place where there's
entertainment venues or the space is used to attract people for experiential activities.
There's going to be a use case for that real estate, and you're seeing it kind of play out
in a lot of spaces. Interestingly enough, though, CoStar had a report. I think the company was
Placer Labs, did some research about customer traffic trends. And actually, in July, so just
this past July, the foot traffic to malls was actually back to pre-pandemic levels,
back to 2019 levels. Now, most of that actually was on the outdoor mall side. So, it was a
measure of outdoor malls and indoor shopping malls. So, indoor shopping malls are still
lower, but the customer traffic is essentially back. We don't know how this new Delta variant
is going to play out, right? But the retail traffic is back. But I still think, to the
larger point, a lot of this space is going to be reconfigured. It's going to be turned
into mixed-use entertainment or other types of service-oriented retail real estate, because
we do have too much. I don't know about office, I don't know about other things, but I know
for a fact that the United States has way too much retail real estate. The comparisons
are out there. We have something like 10X the per capita retail real estate as your
average European country. It's far too much. Given the changes in the way people shop for
most things, it has to shrink. But that doesn't mean places like Target and really good shopping
centers and places like that won't thrive because there's a reason to go to those places and there's
a reason customers are obviously finding reasons to go because the traffic has certainly bounced
back. Well, one of the ways at least some amount of that space is going to get used this fall is
something we talked about on last week's show, and that is that Amazon, in what is truly
a through-the-looking-glass type of story, Amazon is going to be opening department stores
in, reportedly, California and Ohio. What did you think when you saw this story?
Yeah, what is old is new again with Amazon. It's interesting. My first thought was not
thinking so much about how Amazon plans to use the space and what kind of things they're
going to do with the business. It's just really about the deals they're probably getting on the
real estate. A lot of these really big department stores, anchor stores, and malls, the price per
square foot, the leasing value of that property has declined so much. No matter what Amazon decides
to do, I know they're getting a great deal on the real estate. They can experiment all they want.
I'm sure they'll probably try a bunch of different concepts, allowing people to come in and
sort of experiment window shop with apparel companies or other things of their third-party
seller networks. But at any rate, they can fail at this, and I wouldn't be surprised,
and it wouldn't ding Amazon whatsoever, because I'm sure they're getting a fantastic deal on the
real estate. And so, it's just another way of, I think, Amazon expanding its footprint in creative
ways. And in this respect, they could do it in a very large way, but probably in a very affordable
way just because of how that real estate has fallen in the last decade or so. But man, you
just cannot count out Amazon. Just when they think they're disrupting one area of the market and
changing it forever, well, they're going back to the drawing board and saying, no, this actually
could make sense in some interesting way for our business. It's amazing. Do you think we're going
to know pretty quickly whether or not it works? Because given the amount of available space,
it seems like at least one potential outcome is that they test these department stores,
and given what we know about Amazon and their love of data, the different ways they can use
the space, including for logistical purposes, it's entirely possible that in early 2022,
we see this expanding beyond California and Ohio. Oh, I think so. I mean, that's the beauty of
Amazon is that they have the balance sheet. And by the way, the investor market support
that they've always had to try things and fail at things. And they'll optimize that real estate
in a way that will be successful. Once they do, then they'll start rolling it out
in more places. We've seen that with other concepts they had, like the Amazon Go or
Amazon Fresh, and trying things out, finding out what's triggering customers to come to a
certain place and make the orders that they do. Once they do, they can roll that out pretty
quickly given their amazing footprint and reach. Another way that Amazon's eating the world.
Now they're eating the world. You can actually go and see them eat the world instead of see it
online. There you go, Chris. You mentioned the hospitality industry earlier. I wanted to get
your thoughts on Airbnb because you're someone who looks at Airbnb not just as an investor,
but as someone who has used it as renting out property. How bright is the future for Airbnb?
My wife and I have been hosts on Airbnb for, gosh, more than 10 years now.
I think the future is bright. Whether that means buying the stock today is going to work out,
I don't know. But the company itself has such a network effect. I'll give you just one example.
you know, it used to be when my wife and I were hosting and renting out our apartments in
Washington, D.C., generally with Airbnb, you know, you're looking at stays of two to three days,
someone's coming in for the weekend. But now we're using Airbnb actually to find long-term
renters because Airbnb is such a vast network of not only apartments, but also renters and
prospective tenants. And a lot of those tenants nowadays, especially in sort of your post-COVID
world are looking for longer-term stays. They're going to a city for not just a weekend, but maybe
three months or six months. We've actually had several bookings of longer than a month or two
at our apartments via Airbnb. Two or three years ago, I would have never thought of Airbnb as a
place to find long-term renters. Now, when you look at Airbnb, from the spectrum of short-term
rental and long-term renters, they also have their experience business, which I think is taking off.
And gosh, once we're sort of traveling again, and I'm thinking traveling abroad and people
come and travel to the United States, once that fully reopens and hopefully by the end
of this year or early next year that happens, I just see the traffic on the platform is
going to explode.
Whether or not the stock is going to follow suit and reward investors from today's price,
I don't know, but I think the business has tremendously bright prospects.
Last thing, and then I'll let you go.
we're just days away from the start of the NFL season. Las Vegas sportsbooks have put out their
projected win totals for every team, and they have our New England Patriots at 9.5 wins. Are you
taking the over, the under? How are you feeling? Chris, I am taking the over on that. Mac Jones
or Cam Newton, whoever is the quarterback, I don't know. But of course, I'm always optimistic
about my New England Patriots as I know you are. So, take the over.
If you want to read more from Matt Argersinger and his team, go to Millionacres.com. It's the
place to be if you're interested in real estate investing. Matty, thanks so much for being here.
Thank you, Chris. Up next, Emily Flippen and Jason
Moser return with a couple of stocks on their radar. Stay right here, you're listening to
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 stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back
to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here once again with Emily Flippen and Jason Moser.
Time to get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd, is going to
hit you with a question. Emily Flippen, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?
Emily Flippen I'm looking at Traeger. It's a relatively
recent IPO. Their ticker symbol is COOK, C-O-O-K, and they are a popular seller of wood pellet
grills. Over 60% of U.S. households own a grill, with more than 2 million replaced every single
year. Wood pellets are replaced at a higher rate. Those two things make Traeger a potentially
interesting addition to your portfolio. I will say, I'm keeping my eye on this one,
but not necessarily buying. It's a very competitive market.
Dan, question about Traeger? Yeah. Well, first thing, great ticker. Cook
is fantastic for Traeger. Love that. Here's the thing, Emily. When I bought a wood pellet smoker,
I didn't buy a Traeger. I bought a less renowned brand and saved a couple of hundred bucks,
and I'm very happy with it. And I think a lot of people are starting to do that too.
I will give you credit where there are cheaper options, but they think they're a better option.
They have a Wi-Fi service, Wi-Fire, that actually hooks up to your grill, tells you when your meat's
done. So, it is a premium product, and the brand and the price reflect that.
Jason Moser, what are you looking at this week?
Man, you had me at Wi-Fi-er. That's just great. Dan, I'm looking at the Glimpse Group this week.
Ticker is VRAR. Glimpse is a platform company made up of a diversified group of wholly owned
and operated VR and AR, that's virtual reality and augmented reality, Dan, companies. And so,
similar to a fund, this is less about one company and more about a collection of many small
companies, which I think is an interesting way to look at this immersive tech space. A couple of
examples, they have Immersive Health Group, which is working on VR, AR solutions for medical
professional training. And then there's also Early Adopter, which is developing VR and AR
solutions for K-12 education. This is a small company, Dan, market cap below $100 million.
This is not an idea we can consider today, but it is absolutely one I'm going to learn more about
and keep on my radar. Dan, question about the Glimpse Group?
Not really a question, more of a comment. I just love the idea of an aggregate company
for virtual reality and augmented reality stuff. And Jason, this seems to be exactly the type of
thing you've been looking into lately. It is. I run our augmented reality
beyond service here, and that's what fascinated me with this business, is its collective approach,
many businesses spreading that risk around, much like we espouse with a well-diversified portfolio,
right, Dan? What do you want to add to your watch list, Dan?
you know what i'm gonna go glimpse group i'm intrigued by the concept all right all right
all right we're out of time thanks everyone for listening we'll see you next week
