Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Big Deals, Snap Judgments, and Oscar Predictions

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

General Mills loads up on pet food. Walmart stumbles. Texas Roadhouse sizzles. Boston Beer fizzles. And Kylie Jenner breaks up with Snap. Plus, corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow talks Chipotle, Black Panther, and Academy Awards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Chris Hill, and joining me in studio this week, from Million Dollar Portfolio, Jason Moser. From Hidden Gems Canada, David Kretzmann. And from Motley Fool Pro and Options, Jeff Fischer. Good to see you, as always, gentlemen. Hey, Chris. We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street.

We've got Academy Award predictions from Nell Minow. and as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with a surprising acquisition from Friday morning. General Mills is buying pet food maker Blue Buffalo for $8 billion. Jason, tell me what to think about this, because one of my thoughts is, General Mills got a little bit of a steal here. I'm a little surprised that there's only a 17% premium that General Mills is paying for this pet food company. Yeah, it seemed like the deal was not something that was expected. I think General Mills is badly in need of a win. If you look at the stock over the past few years, it's

just not really been a great story. Buying a presence in the pet food market, I think, is a pretty smart way to get a win. Blue Buffalo, top-line growth is there, 19.5% annualized over the last five years. Earnings growth, 24% annualized over the last five years. I mean, listen, they're playing on that better for you movement in pet food. And as odd as that may sound, it is actually a thing. And you remember, in San Francisco, I pitched that company Idex Laboratories, which is in the pet diagnostics market. We love our pets, we'll do anything for them. And I think that better for you movement is actually something that's playing out, particularly on the younger generation. So, I think this is actually a

really smart play by General Mills. Yeah, the pet industry is also very recession-proof, because as Jason said, we love our pets, we're going to take care of them, whether the economy is doing well or not doing so well. And in this case, General Mills is really going up against Nestle, which owns Purina, which is probably the closest pure competitor that Blue Buffalo has. But all in all, this whole pet space is very attractive. I think it makes sense for some of these bigger players to acquire these smaller brands. So, General Mills, well-known for breakfast cereal and Yoplait yogurt. Any concern that they're going to botch this acquisition? Oh, I can't imagine. I mean, this isn't

anything new, right? I mean, David mentioned Purina and Nestle. I mean, Procter & Gamble sold Iams to Mars not terribly long ago. So, I think this is really in their wheelhouse, so to speak. And historically, pet-related spending growth has outpaced even personal consumption growth. So, David mentioned it. I mean, pets are just, that's a resilient market. I think this is going to work out. I feel like I have to mention that we are short shares of General Mills in Tom Gardner's never-lasting portfolio. And that's a new short we put on a few weeks ago, just on the concern that breakfast habits are changing and cereal, boxed cereal, is on the wane, especially with younger customers. So, you

know, just have to put that out there. We're glad to see the stock fall. Does this change? And yeah, shares of General Mills down about 3%, 4%, because they're cutting a big check here. Does this change your thesis at all? We haven't talked about it yet. The news just broke today. I think it supports the thesis in some ways, in that it shows how General Mills is stretching to find new avenues of growth as their cereal struggles. Yeah, I wasn't even really aware of that, the never-lasting short there. But it makes sense. If you look at General Mills' top line, it's clearly been going through some trouble. Facing a lot of headwinds, the

Blue Buffalo, that's going to contribute somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion to that top line right off the bat. So, I don't know if it's a thesis changer, but it's certainly something that General Mills needed to do. Blue Buffalo breakfast cereal for dogs. Think about it. Well, that's the beauty of dogs, right? You just feed them the same thing every day. They're just not so picky. Alright, let's move on to retail. Shares of Walmart fell more than 10% this week after fourth quarter profits came in lower than expected. Jeff, Walmart's online sales, they're still growing, but they're just not growing quite as much in this latest quarter.

Yeah, they only grew 23% in the latest quarter. That was down from 50% the previous quarter. That said, the company was lapping. It has owned Jet.com for a year now, so it had to lap that growth. And when it hit that one-year mark, the growth tapered off. Walmart still expects e-commerce sales to grow more than 40% this year, more or less. That said, it's a tiny number. Of their $500 billion in revenue, e-commerce is about $11 billion, so right around 2%. And even if it grows 40% this year, it's going to be around 3% of total sales at Walmart, if that. Meanwhile, part of what hit the stock is gross margins are down because they are promoting prices more and spending more on building out their e-commerce. And

they had some glitches. Even at a mere $11 billion in sales last year online, they had glitches in fulfillment. So, they're working through some kinks. Well, and also, when you look at shares of Walmart, which had such a great year in 2017, I mean, this was, for years, Walmart was a very cheap stock. Not so cheap going into this week. Yeah, Chris, Walmart was up 30% the past year, and it's up 32% the past five years. So, all those gains the past five years happened last year. And shares now trade at about 19 times earnings, where historically, the past 10-year average is 14.7 times. So, it's at a premium in price right now. Fourth quarter sales for MercadoLibre rose more than 70%. And somehow,

David, that just wasn't enough. Shares selling off a little bit this week. Yeah, I mean, you have to take a step back. MercadoLibre has been an incredible performer, really, over any time frame that you look at. And the company right now is just feeding the e-commerce flywheel. They're investing a lot into rolling out free shipping, which attracts buyers. The more buyers on their platform, the more sellers are attracted to it. Free shipping now accounts for about 70% of the gross merchandise values sold on their platform. But that's taken a toll on margins. The gross margin has dropped from 75% in 2015 to 51% over the past year. But at the same time, items sold in the fourth quarter grew 58%, which is the fastest growth

the company has seen over the past five years. So given the scope of the market opportunity in Latin America, those investments make sense. It's just a matter of essentially sacrificing short-term profit for that long-term market potential. One thing we were talking about right before we started taping was, and it was news to me, was that MercadoLibre apparently announced that they were suspending their annual dividend. I never for one second thought that this growth stock was paying a dividend in the first place. Yeah, and I think that kind of highlights the evolution you've seen with MercadoLibre. Normally, we don't like to see companies cut or eliminate their dividends. But in this case, I think it's coming from a place

of strength. MercadoLibre has transitioned from just being a marketplace platform like eBay to taking more control of payments and shipping. And they have such a huge market opportunity that they want to use the cash on their balance sheet to further that expansion rather than shipping it out to investors in the form of dividends. So, in this case, I think it makes sense, but it will be something to watch. I think so, too, David. It's still such a small company. As you said, market cap is about $16 billion, whereas eBay is $44 billion, Amazon is $720 billion. So, not that I'm equating the two, but its market opportunity is much larger. Tough week for Wayfair. Fourth quarter revenue for the online home furnishings

company looked good, but Wayfair's loss was bigger than Wall Street could stomach, and shares fell more than 25%. Jason, what do you think? Because for a long time, putting up losses was not a problem for Wayfair. No, and I don't think it will be, this sell-off notwithstanding. I mean, it really was a good quarter for the company. It was right in line with what they've been telling as they're going to do all along the way. Now, with that said, what they're going to do is continue to spend a lot of capital investing in the business. And investors are going to have to kind of just buy into that. And I think for the most part, the market has given

them a pass to this point. But it's a stock that's not supported by any real fundamentals. And so, whenever you have any concerns whatsoever on the growth side or the spending side, the market sells it off. It makes sense. It doesn't mean it's a bad company or a bad investment. You just have to know what you're getting into here. And I think the key points to take away from the quarter. Top-line growth is still coming along nicely. Percentage of orders from repeat customers continues to grow. And they're keeping that operating expense line in check as well. So, this is going to be the same story, I think, for some time to come. And it will behoove them to get profitable sooner rather than later. But all in all,

I think it was a productive quarter. You know, the repeat customer stat is a good one, because this is one of those situations where, as long as they can keep people coming back, obviously, it's a lot more expensive for them to acquire new customers than it is to just keep the ones they have. It is. It really matters, too. You're going to see that ad spend continue on par with these quarters as they go along. But you look at customers who've used Wayfair once or twice, or more times in my case, you start to recognize it is an optimal shopping experience for the home. I think they've done a very good job of creating a good experience. After a year, they see people coming back

and they know they don't have to ramp up that spend to keep those customers there. They're there for a reason. In the case of Wayfair, you have seen some short sellers over the past couple of years try to write off the business model, but you're seeing Amazon, Walmart, Target, a lot of heavy hitters entering this online furniture space. So I think there is something to the business model. And something I do like with Wafer is the two co-founders still own about 30% of the company. They're very much incentivized to think over three and five-year periods because they're paid largely in the form of restricted stock units that vest over a five-year period. So these are leaders that have a long-term outlook

in mind. And given the fact that you have these other competitors entering the space, I think in some way that kind of validates what Wayfair is doing. And I think they do have a first mover advantage. And it's kind of a double-edged sword though, right? It's like, hey, good news. Our business plan has been validated. And the bad news is it's validated by e-commerce giant Amazon and Walmart, which is just a bricks and mortar retail giant. A giant target on their back. So you two know Wayfair much better than I do. Shares about doubled in the past year. Now they've fallen 25% or so. Do you view this as a buying opportunity? Would you buy now? I would personally just stick with a small position. As Jason mentioned, the company's

not profitable, probably won't be profitable for a while, so it will be volatile. But I could see this being a bigger company down the road, but keep the position size small. Texas Roadhouse put up solid numbers in the fourth quarter, but shares falling slightly this week. David, you look at same-store sales up 4.5%. A lot of restaurant stocks would be popping on results like that. Yeah, I mean, same-store sales were up 4.5% in 2017. In the fourth quarter, they're up 5.8%. Earnings grew 37%. There's no doubt that Texas Roadhouse, they're cooking up numbers that are the envy of almost every other restaurant out there. I think the reason the stock was flat or

dropped a little bit after this report is expectations were high. The market recognizes that this is an elite performer in the restaurant space, especially in a time when so many restaurants are struggling to put up good numbers. But so far in 2018, management mentioned that comps are up 4.7%. So that growth is continuing. They've had eight straight years of comps growth. So really incredible numbers, especially for casual diners like them. And founder and CEO Kent Taylor said, quote, that he's feeling some very cool vibe for 2018. So probably some more to come. Coming up, we've got pizza and beer. What more could you possibly want? This is Motley Fool Money. Hey, if you're looking to get a mortgage, here are a couple of tips. First, boost your

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Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Jason Moser, Jeff Fischer, and David Kretzmann. Fourth quarter results for Domino's Pizza weren't great, but they were good enough for Domino's to claim the title of world's largest pizza chain that is based on global retail sales for 2017. A little bit higher than Pizza Hut. What'd you think of the quarter, Jeff? Well, I mean, how high a bar is Pizza Hut? Come on. Hey, they were number one. That's how high the bar was. They were for a long time. So, congratulations to Domino's. Earnings per share grew more than 41% this past quarter, which was great. Same-store sales were a little bit light. U.S.-owned stores around 3.8% growth, same-store sales growth there. But that's

on top of about 11% to 12% last year, depending on how you measure. So, a huge, difficult comparison that they had to overcome, and they still grew. Overall, it's just an expensive stock, up 400% the past five years, trading at 40 times earnings. And so, it just took a little breather on the results. But they're strong, and the company's in a great position to keep growing around the world. Last week, shares of Boston Beer Company hit a new high on word of new CEO Dave Berwick coming in. This week, however, Boston Beer shares falling after disappointing fourth quarter results. Jason, I know that there was one less week in this quarter compared

to a year ago, but they're still having trouble with their core brand, Sam Adams. Yeah, and that's a big problem. Now, with that said, they do have a New England IPA out now, which I'm fascinated by. I really want to try that. So, if you've seen the stores, let me know, Chris. Sure, I'll pick some up for you. So, Boston Beer, I think, has done a reasonable job in navigating a very competitive landscape. They wrapped up a tough year with decent enough results. But I think investors should prepare themselves to remain extremely patient. I think that Dave Burrow definitely has his work cut out for him. And I think the initial guidance for 2018 is at least encouraging in that they showed

depletions getting back to a range between flat and plus 6%. But it's also worth remembering that They continued to guide those depletions down throughout the year last year. So, just because it's what they're saying now doesn't mean that's what is actually going to happen throughout the year. So, it's just one where, if you're a shareholder today, you need to probably just prepare yourself to remain very patient, because this is just a very competitive market. When we talk about retailers needing to have a good holiday quarter, is it fair for beverage companies to expect that going into the summer?

Shouldn't this be a really good six months for any beer company? It should be. And for Boston Beer, it does pin a lot of its hopes every summer on their Summer Ale. It's a very popular offering. And that's going to be a key indicator to tell us how the company's doing once they get through these summer months. Shares of Stamps.com up big on Thursday after fourth quarter revenue came in 25% higher than a year ago. So, David, I guess we can add them to the list of companies that had a good holiday season. Absolutely.

This is a company that's often overlooked because of the somewhat repulsive name, Stamps.com. Wow, repulsive? I mean, slightly. It harkens back to the dot-com era. But they are undoubtedly a beneficiary of the shift to e-commerce over the past few years. They've acquired a few brands like Shipping Easy and Shipworks and ShipStation, which essentially aggregates all your orders if you're an e-commerce merchant into one place and then will find the best shipping carrier for each order.

So, as more stuff is bought online, more packages are shipped out, Stamps.com is benefiting. Those guys should buy ShipStix. I mean, that's legitimately a company. They ship your golf clubs wherever you need them to go. Way better than the airline. A niche offering. Yeah, maybe it'll all happen. Although, ShipStix, isn't that a name that's at least a little tougher to say?

It's even worse than Stamps. Dangerous, yeah. Maybe that's a poll we should put up on Twitter. Guys, it's not unusual for stock to fall after getting downgraded by a powerful Wall Street analyst. Shares of Snap fell more than 7% this week after getting a downgrade from someone apparently much more powerful than a Wall Street analyst, and that's Kylie Jenner. On Wednesday, the millennial model and reality TV star tweeted her disappointment with the latest update of the Snapchat app. And I think it's worth pointing out, Jason, that she's got

more than 24 million followers on Twitter. And apparently, she has deleted the app from her phone. And that wiped more than $1.5 billion off of Snap's market cap. That's a shame. I mean, it is kind of funny. I mean, honestly, I think the one-two punch here was the Maybelline tweet that came out shortly after that. They're questioning whether there's any real return from their presence on Snapchat. And they asked in a poll on Twitter, should we stay on Snapchat, or would you rather us be on Instagram Stories? Overwhelmingly, I think 80% said, hey, we would rather you be on Instagram Stories. Now, that tweet has since been deleted, which I think was very telling for a number of reasons. Regardless

of the relationship between Snap and Maybelline, the poll results are what you really need to be concerned with. A lot of people out there would just rather them be on Instagram Stories. That's quite telling. I just don't understand why the market has this thing valued so highly today. 26 times sales versus Facebook at around 13 and Twitter at 10. It's just not a proven platform, and it's got a mile to go until profitability. Well, as one of the millennials who uses both Instagram and Snapchat, I can personally say I've used Snapchat a lot less since the update they rolled out, I guess, a week or two ago. It's just a clunkier platform to use. It's not very intuitive. And I think my friends

even aren't using it much more. So, you can just go to other messaging or social media apps to get a better experience. And with that news on Monday, Snap opens 5% lower. The Cressman effect. It's the danger for all these companies. Even if you're Facebook, it's 60% to 90% of apps end up being abandoned within a short amount of time. So it's very easy to leave and not go back. I found the Maybelline tweet fascinating and maybe a sign of things to come where companies are going directly to their social media base and saying, hey, do you prefer us to do this or that?

And that has real effect. Well, the customer-centric companies are the ones that really do win out in the end. and that's why you see companies like Amazon and Wayfair, even to an extent, continue to do so well, because they're so customer-centric. But doesn't it say something about your business model that a single tweet from Kylie Jenner can just whack your stock like that? Don't underestimate Kylie, Chris, I mean, come on now. Snap still has a massive market cap, as Jason said, and they lost $3.5 billion nearly last year. They're far from profits. They're in the hot seats.

And their CEO gets paid like a king, man. I can't figure that one out either. Let's go to our man behind the glass. Steve Broido, what did you make of the update from Snap? I don't even know what Snapchat is. I think it's the thing with animals, right? Where you put little animal faces on you. And I'm not trying to be glib.

I just don't use it. I've seen it. It looks kind of cute, but I don't know what to do with it. We'll leave it there. Coming up, we'll talk boardrooms and gold statues with Nell Minow. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. We are just days away from the Academy

Awards, and there's always something going on in the corporate boardrooms of America. So we turn to the only guest that we can turn to, and that's Nell Minow, corporate governance expert and film critic known as the movie mom. Nell, always good to talk to you. Well, thank you. Before we get to the Academy Awards, let's start with Wells Fargo. In her last official Act as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen went out with a mic drop. She slapped new sanctions on Wells Fargo. They're not allowed to grow beyond $1.95 trillion in assets until Wells Fargo improves governance. When you saw that news, did you cheer or did you think,

that's good, but I would have been even tougher on them? Oh, I did a happy dance. I would have done that sooner, but I've said to you before that the SEC has authority to debar board members from serving on the boards of public companies, and it drives me nuts that they don't use it. And what I did not expect coming from the Fed is that they would insist on replacing board members. They can't debar anybody, but they can say you've got to put four new directors on. And that, of course, is what I always want to happen at a company that is in trouble. And this one cannot seem to get it right. It's like the HP of the 20 teens, just one disaster after another. And so even though they have had new board members come on since the first big setback that they had when they created all those fake accounts, they still can't seem to get it right.

So I was absolutely delighted, and I hope we get more of these kinds of regulatory responses going forward. Yeah, Wells Fargo said, we've got four new directors on our board. We're giving our board a refresh. It sounds like you think that's not enough of a refresh. It's not enough of a refresh because if you're, what's the definition of insanity? If you do the same thing and expect a different result, they're still going through the same process of finding directors, and that's not going to be good enough. And I think what this says is that you can keep going through the same old processes,

you can keep having your same nominating committee, essentially replace one cookie cutter with another cookie cutter, but we're going to be watching who is on the quality of these boards. these financial institutions. And until you get it right, we are going to keep coming back and telling you to reboot. One of the things you've written about throughout your career is excessive executive compensation. And a company that you've been critical of in the past is Chipotle. Chipotle now has a new CEO. Ironically, they hired the guy who was running Taco Bell. I'm not sure how that went over with Steve Ells, the former CEO and the founder of Chipotle. Ells is staying on as executive chairman. What did you think of that shakeup? Well, again, Chipotle has had a couple

of, you know, it's not just one bad moment. They've had a couple of bad moments, and they really needed to do something very different. I'm not sure that this is the right direction, because the one thing everybody likes about Chipotle is that it isn't Taco Bell. So, you know, if they start serving Taco Bell-type food, you can see a lot of the customers leaving. So I'm a little concerned about it, but I'm hopeful. I would like to have seen the old CEO leave entirely. Regardless of the company, company X hires new CEO. What would send a signal to you as someone who cares a great deal about shareholder rights and companies aligning their interests with shareholder interests? What would be, in Nell Minow's opinion,

the single best move in terms of compensation? Is it a new CEO coming into a company and saying, don't pay me a dime. I want it all in stock. Is there a cap to what you would want? What would send a strong signal to you that, oh, this person is serious and this is someone I think I'm going to like? I got a really simple answer to that. And that is indexed stock options or indexed stock grants. You may have noticed we've had quite a run-up in the stock market over the last few years. And what that has meant is a lot of windfall profits for CEOs. And unless you're outperforming the market or outperforming your peer group, you should not be getting crazy pay. You should not be getting that upper echelon of pay. So what I want to see is somebody who comes

in and says, I am setting the bar high. I am not digging a hole in the ground to jump over the bar. I am going to set it high and I'm going to take a running jump and get on top. And the way to do that is options or stock grants that are tied to beating the market. All right, let's move into the entertainment industry. Since the last time we talked, we've learned more about the Walt Disney Company's streaming plans. They're going to include an ESPN streaming service for $5 a month. When you think about streaming services, with all due respect to Hulu, which has some very nice offerings, do you think Walt Disney and Netflix are on a collision course, or do you think they are offering complementary services? I do think they're

on a collision course. You know, what did we think about Netflix and Hulu when they started? We thought, oh, they're going to show us content that has been produced by other people. And I think it's surprised everybody that they have been so aggressive in pursuing original content. And that goes for Amazon, too. So I think they are really putting a target on the content creators like Disney and the networks, CBS, ESPN. So yeah, I do think it's going to benefit consumers in the short run, because there'll be some very intense competition, but I expect a reconsolidation eventually. Speaking of the Walt Disney Company, Black Panther has already taken in nearly half a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. What did you think of the movie, and what, if anything,

does the success of Black Panther mean for the movie industry? Well, it could not be more important for the industry for a couple of reasons. Reason number one is, of course, we knew it was going to do spectacularly well in the U.S. I thought their estimates were a little low, and I was right. It just has been phenomenal. But what's really interesting to me about the numbers is that nobody was expecting the international audience to do so much for it. And the reason is that the conventional wisdom has always been that people outside the United States do not really want to see a lot of movies with people of color in the main role.

Well, I think one reason for that is that, you know, if we send something like Fences or 12 Years a Slave, that's something that they find hard to relate to. But when you're talking about a Marvel movie, when you're talking about a superhero, when you're talking about a superhero who's from another country, I think they should not have been surprised at this kind of a response. It has been tremendous, and I think this is going to open up international markets. You know, right now, even Hollywood movies make more internationally than they do in the U.S., and so this is going to be hugely important. This cast is extraordinary. Everybody in it just hits a home run and then some. And so this is going to open up opportunities for all of these wonderful, talented people. And Ryan Coogler, who's only 31 years old, this is his third movie, the world is open to him.

He is going to be a major figure for a long, long time. Yeah, you got the chance to sit down and talk with him recently. Is he publicly traded? Because I think I'd like to buy shares of Ryan Coogler. You go long on him big time. He is the most thoughtful, quiet, sincere person. He wanted to know more about me so that, you know, he would understand my questions. He wrote down when I said to him, you know, who I was writing for and all that.

You can see the interview at RogerEbert.com. And if the question got too complicated, he would write down the question so that he could make sure he would answer every part of it. And what he said that really touched me to tears was that he had always wondered all his life. He said, since I was five years old and first really understood what it meant to be black, I always wondered what part of me was African and what part was American. And I always felt that the African part of the people who came to live in America had been taken away from them. And the more I did research in Africa, I realized that that's very much a part of us and that African-American culture is deeply rooted in Africa.

And you see that that's a very important theme of the movie. Let's get to the Academy Awards and we'll get to the big awards in a second. But I want to start with Best Documentary because we had Steve James on, the director of Abacus, Small Enough to Jail. For those who haven't seen it, it's about a small family-run bank in New York City that is the only bank indicted in the wake of the 2008 mortgage crisis. It's a great documentary. It is surprisingly funny. And it has one of the best families you're going to see in any movie in any category. So the official position of this show is we're rooting for Abacus.

We're in the tank for Abacus. But it's best documentary. The race appears to be wide open. Do you think this is a film that has a shot? I would love to see it get the award. And it's a fabulous movie. I'm thrilled that it has already been shown on PBS. And I hope that they will show it again.

But I think probably Faces, Places has got the lead at this point. All right, let's move on to three of the biggest awards. And as we do every year, give us who should win and who you think will win. And we'll start with Best Actor, which with Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill, this kind of seems like it's his to lose. There is no way anybody's going to take it away from Gary Oldman. And I absolutely loved that movie, and I loved his performance. He was incredible in it. And importantly, he has won the preliminary awards, not just the Critics Awards, which I vote in and therefore are most important,

but also the Screen Actors Guild, which is the same exact people. So if that's how they voted on one day, they're going to vote the same way I think another day. Nothing's going to change their mind. So Gary Oldman should win, will win. In terms of best actress, once again, it is such a strong group this year. Who do you think should win and who do you think will win? Well, I'd love to see it go to Sally Hawkins from Shape of Water. I would kind of in my head give it to her for two things that she did last year for that

and for Maudie, a wonderful performance from earlier in the year. But I can't complain if it goes to the person I think will win, and that's Frances McDormand, who will be getting her second Oscar. She gives a performance of incredible ferocity in three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. And more than that, she's incredibly fierce, unbelievably intense in much of it. And yet, in a nanosecond, she switches to deep compassion. It's just a beautiful, beautiful performance. And so I will stand up and cheer when she wins.

Is it possible that even though she has gotten an astonishing 21 Academy Award nominations, is it possible that Meryl Streep is still somehow underrated as an actress? I think she is. In fact, when RogerEbert.com asked all of the contributors to pick one performance to write about at the end of last year, I picked her performance in The Post. I thought it was, even by the high standards that we expect from Meryl Streep, I thought it was absolutely extraordinary. You know, the post is really about Catherine Graham and her going from being a shy socialite who had greatness thrust upon her in a way she never wanted, never anticipated, when her husband committed suicide and she had to take over the paper and everything, just as she's doing an IPO, and the bankers had the opportunity to opt out if anything went wrong.

They get hit with the Pentagon Papers, and she had a lot of decisions to make. And Meryl Streep just gives so much delicacy, sensitivity, so many layers to that performance. It completely blew me away. So, yeah, I'm still long on Meryl Streep. It's a big field for Best Picture. There are nine films nominated, but it really does seem like a two-horse race between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards. What do you think? You know, this is a tough one because the movies that normally would win,

the movies that you think of as Oscar movies, The Post would be number one, maybe The Greatest Showman. You know, you think of these big studio, all-audience type films that exemplify American values. That's what you generally see in a best picture. And you can't really say that about either one of these. I have about three billboards, which is written by an Irish guy, And The Shape of Water, which is a spy story, a monster story, a disability story, a little bit of everything all in one.

I think it's probably going to go to three billboards, but I would love to see it go to The Post or to Darkest Hour. So I went to FiveThirtyEight. I was looking on the FiveThirtyEight website, and they're in the business of predictions. And one of the things that struck me when they were going through the Academy Awards was it really seemed like there are going to be very few, if any, surprises on Oscar night. Look in your crystal ball and, if you would, complete this sentence for me. On Academy Award night, don't be surprised if. Okay, the one thing that might be an upset is everybody thinks that the best supporting actress, which is always one of the toughest categories, is going to go to Allison Janney for I, Tonya. She got all the preliminary awards.

But there might be a possibility that Laurie Metcalf, who would be my pick, could just take that away from her for Lady Bird. I'd love to see Lady Bird get recognized in some way, and I think that might be the way to go. Also, Coco, the song from Coco has been the frontrunner all along, but I think This Is Me just might sneak up and overtake it from Greatest Showman. Is there something when you think about, because of course the Academy Awards are about the previous year,

when you think back on 2017, is there a movie that you think, it didn't really get as much attention as it should have, and this is one that isn't going to bring home a gold statue, but it's one that people should seek out? Well, I would have said abacus probably, but I would say just in the crazy category, just a movie that was made on a budget of about a dollar and a half, but has got so much creativity. Forget the story, just look at the trailer. Dave Made a Maze is a lot of fun. And Get Out, if you haven't seen that, I know it got a lot of praise and it has been nominated. That is an extraordinary film. Let me make sure I have the title of that film right. Dave Made a Maze?

Dave Made a Maze. It's about a guy who makes a maze, or more like a labyrinth, in his apartment, and it gets away from him. If you just watch the trailer, you'll get the whole idea of the movie, and you'll see how incredibly creative it is. I say it every time, and it's true. One of the best reasons to be on Twitter is so that you can follow Nell Minow and get her thoughts on corporate governance and movies and so much more. Nell, enjoy Oscar night. Up next, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is 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 in studio once again

with Jeff Fischer, Jason Moser, and David Kretzmann. You can check out past episodes of Motley Fool money and all of our podcasts, just go to podcasts.fool.com. And if you listen to the show on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher, leave us a review, if you wouldn't mind. We'd appreciate it. Let's get to the stocks on our radar this week. And our man behind the glass, Steve Broido, is going to hit you with a question. David Kretzmann, you're up first. What are you looking at this week? David Kretzmann I'm looking at MyTech Systems, ticker MITK. If you've ever deposited a check using your smartphone, you can thank MyTech for developing that technology. And they have over 90% share of that mobile deposit technology space.

They serve about 6,100 financial services companies, mainly in North America. And in addition to that mobile deposit business, which they've developed over the past 10 years, they're developing identity verification solutions. So you can take a picture of your face, your passport, your driver's license, whatever form of ID it might be to verify your own identity. So a little bit more secure than using a social security number, which, thanks to the Equifax breach, isn't quite so secure anymore. This is a tiny company, about $250 million market cap.

They have a strong balance sheet, experienced leadership, and I think a big market opportunity. So, worth a closer look. Steve, question about MyTech check systems? It sounds very cool. Checks seem like they're probably going away as opposed to moving forward. What's the biggest single opportunity, do you think, for this company? Yeah, there's no doubt that the check market, I think, will inevitably shrink. But amazingly, only 3% of checks are deposited through mobile phone today.

So, I think that number will get bigger. But in the meantime, that identity verification business, I think, has a bigger market opportunity long-term. Jason Moser, what are you looking at this week? Chris, I know you love it when I say war on cash. Next week, Square, ticker SQ. Earnings come out on Tuesday. Jack Dorsey is looking to go two for two here, given the positive results Twitter has already presented. Listeners will know that Square is a part of our war on cash basket. The stock has done very well over the past year, up about 160% thus far. This is a company built to be very nimble and to use data

wisely. Square Capital, I think, is a good example of that. I'm going to be very interested to see how those results are. Steve, question about Square? So, I think of Square as being those little small Square card readers that allow me to buy something through a local vendor. Is there something more to this company that I should know about? Yeah, and I think really the important part is the software, which produces the purchase data that all of these vendors and merchants continue to get from customers. So, I think

Square has done a very good job of taking this sort of total ecosystem and really using data wisely to make better decisions. Jeff Fischer, what are you looking at? So, we all know Intel, but many of us do not know that Intel has a more and more data-centric business now, which represents 45% of revenue, whereas microprocessors for computers, its traditional market is shrinking, almost less than half of revenue now. The company's growing sharply again, has strong free cash flow, 2.5% dividend yield, trades at 12.8 times expected earnings for this year. I think it's one worth taking another look at.

Steve, question about Intel? What do you think the future of AMD's relationship with Intel will be? Obviously, they're fierce competitors. Is there any chance they will merge? I don't think so, Steve. I think Intel will overall continue to win at that game, largely because it has such economies of scale. Steve, you got one you want to add to your watch list?

I think I'm going with Mr. Kratzman's pick. Okay, my tech. My tech. I like it. All right, guys, thanks for being here. That's going to do it for this week's show. Our engineer, Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer.

I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. you