Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Big Retail, Big Deals, and 1 Big IPO
Episode Date: May 21, 2021Target and Walmart rise on strong sales growth. Home Depot and Lowe’s slide. Bitcoin tumbles during a volatile week. AT&T’s WarnerMedia merges with Discovery to make a new entertainment juggernaut.... Twilio and Snap rise after each makes a big acquisition. Oatly surges in its Wall Street debut. And Pringles and Wendy’s team up to create a spicy chicken sandwich-flavored chip. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser discuss those stories and share two stocks on their radar: Autodesk and Qualcomm. Plus, Motley Fool analyst Maria Gallagher talks with Beyond Capital Co-Founder and CEO Eva Yazhar, author of The Good Your Money Can Do: Becoming a Conscious Investor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Chris Hill, joining me this week, senior analysts Jason Moser and Andy Cross. Good to see you,
as always, gentlemen, we've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We'll talk impact
investing with CEO Eva Yazhari. And as always, we've got a couple of stocks on our radar.
But we begin with a big week for retail. Shares of Target hit a new all-time high this week
after first quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected. Same-store sales
rose 23%, Andy. This was a fantastic quarter. Yeah, it really was, Chris. I mean, that comp
growth, you mentioned, comparable sales of 23% versus about a 12% estimate versus 11%
for the prior year. So, it was the fourth consecutive quarter of 20% or more on the
comparable growth. That's looking at stores that were open a year ago and how those stores
performed. They saw 17% growth in traffic and 5% growth in the average ticket size.
In-store comps, so just forgetting about digital, Chris, which is also doing great, but just
in-store was up 18%. Almost all of that was from foot traffic. We had more and more people
coming into the Target stores, as you expected. But digital comp growth was up 50%, which
is an impressive number, but that's off of growth of last year of 141%. Their earnings
per share just exploded up 500% to $3.69 versus a $2.25 estimate. All around, Target continues
to deliver. The vaccine rollouts, the stores opening continue to drive more and more growth.
The apparel business is really a bright spot. That was up in the quarter 60%. The comparable
store sales were up 60% in apparel alone. Same-day services is now half of the digital
sales. All the innovations that they've made over the last couple of years is really starting
to show up for Target, and they had some nice comp growth of mid-to-high in the single digits.
Now, again, we're not going to see what we've seen this quarter going forward, but I don't
think Wall Street expected that. The stock reacted very positively. And yeah, Target
looking really good. It really only sells at less than 20X earnings for a market cap
of $100 billion. That's a pretty good deal, I think.
Walmart shares didn't hit an all-time high, but shares were up after first quarter profits
came in higher than expected. Walmart also raised guidance for the full fiscal year.
Jason, interesting to see Walmart driving comps growth with higher ticket items.
Yeah. You look at Walmart, it will clearly remain very relevant in the years
to come as an omnichannel retailer. They've made that pivot very, very well. But I think
it's really going to come down to the investments the company is making in its digital presence
and whether or not they pay off. I'm referring to a couple of acquisitions
here recently. They're acquiring a company called Z-Kit, which is virtual fitting room technology.
They continue to focus on big investments in apparel. They see that as a big market
opportunity that they want to own. Then another interesting acquisition recently,
a little startup called MeMD, that's to gain a foothold in telemedicine, which I don't
know if you've heard, Chris, but telemedicine is having a moment.
I think I've heard that before. It was really interesting in the call
to hear how the excitement over those two little acquisitions countered what was maybe a bit more
of a subdued attitude with Walmart Plus. They're going to continue to focus on building out the
value proposition there, but the language on the call shows that it's just clearly one of many
things the company has going on. All things said, it's resulting in a business that's performing
very well given its size and its age. Top line up over 2%, excluding currency effects. U.S. comps up
6%. U.S. e-commerce sales grew 37%. Now, that's half the growth rate from a year ago,
but global e-commerce is up 43%. Now, that global e-commerce penetration represents over 12% of the
company's total sales. Again, I think they're making a lot of smart investments in digital.
it's going to be worth keeping an eye on those new little acquisitions to see if they create
that engagement that they're looking to create there. Is it a stock worth owning? Listen,
the longer you stretch it out, the more sense it makes. Five-year return, it's almost 130%,
including dividends, and that's outpacing the market, so not too bad.
Don't you think Walmart is going to do what Amazon did? Amazon kept that number of
people who were in the Prime service really close to the vest until it got big enough where they
they said, yeah, we're going to put this out there. It seems like that's probably the move
for Walmart with Walmart Plus. I totally agree. And it makes perfect
sense. You don't want to divulge any more than you really have to with such a major strategic
initiative so early on in the game. Home Depot's revenue grew 33% in the
first quarter. Profits were higher than expected. Global same-store sales up 31%. And despite all
that, Andy. Shares of Home Depot down a little bit this week.
Called the curse of the well-e-well performing over the past year, because I think, just
looking forward, you're not going to see that growth coming from Home Depot as a $340 billion
company. But still, a very impressive performance for the quarter. Average comparable ticket
size was up more than 10%. Comparable transactions, Chris, was up 19%. Here's what I found very
interesting. They said that the inflation from the core commodity categories, like lumber,
drove 375 basis points during the quarter of that comparable growth. That's about a third
of the overall growth coming from inflation that they're being able to pass off to the do-it-yourself
and to their pro customers. You are seeing that inflation impact. Obviously, lots of conversations
around inflation. Is it transitory? Is it long-lasting? I think some investors may be
looking at Home Depot and saying, maybe over the next year or so, they're not going to be able to
get that growth, which I expect that to be the case. Continued performance, they're paying
their dividend. That's 137 consecutive quarters. That's more than 34 years of performance from
dividends from Home Depot. A $20 billion share repurchase. Digital sales was up 27%. It's
now fulfilling 55% of all those digital sales are fulfilled in the store. Their top 40 markets
had comp growth of greater than 10%. Overall, really nice quarter from Home Depot. Growth
in their do-it-yourself, growth in their pro market. You've got a $340 billion company
earning $15 billion. That's a price earnings of about 23X the yield of 2%. I think you're
going to do OK with Home Depot making money over the next couple of years.
As is often the case, Lowe's results were similar to Home Depot's. First quarter
profits and revenue came in higher than expected. They had double-digit comp growth. And Jason,
shares of Lowe's down 3% this week. Well, the market's always very
rational, right? Personally, I think the days of Lowe's playing second fiddle to Home Depot
are done. And I think Marvin Ellison and his focus on the pro customer are a big reason why.
If you look at the fact he took over in July of 2018, so he's coming up on three years,
Interestingly, the three-year chart shows Lowe's outperforming Home Depot, 134% to 81%.
So, take that as you will.
But again, making big investments in the pro-customer, investing in new customer relationship management program to better serve those pro-customers,
focus on a more holistic relationship.
And the pro-comps outpaced the do-it-yourselfer comps with over 30% in the corner.
And the new Pro Loyalty Program, I think, will help keep those pro customers coming back for more.
They've revamped the store layouts, even to accommodate for more parking of those pro customers.
So, really big focus there, resulting in strong numbers.
Top line up 24%, comps up 26%, U.S. comps up 24.4%, and earnings per share growth of 81%.
Operating margin improving.
They're definitely, much like Walmart, much like Home Depot,
they have made a wonderful pivot to serving as an omnichannel retailer. Speaking of lumber,
like Andy was saying, they are seeing some pressure from that lumber inflation,
calling for a little margin compression in the coming quarters based on the performance from
last year, but still on track for expansion from pre-pandemic levels. I think that Lowe's has
really set itself up in a good position here for the coming years to perform much more on
par with Home Depot than perhaps we've seen historically. After the break, we've got a
hot IPO and a big change in the media landscape. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool
Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Jason Moser and Andy Cross.
I know we focus on stocks on this show, Andy, but it was a crazy week for Bitcoin investors.
Bitcoin fell 30% on Wednesday. It bounced back from that. But what do you make of Bitcoin these
days? Well, I think, Chris, if you're going to be a Bitcoin investor, you really have to take
that long-term perspective. We say it again and again because it is one of the more volatile
assets out there. We saw Elon Musk starting things off with a tweet about Tesla no longer
accepting Bitcoin payments, then put a tweet out saying that they're going to continue to hold
their Bitcoin holdings that Tesla has on their balance sheet. But then, we saw the People's
Bank of China warned two Chinese institutions not to accept cryptocurrencies as payment.
That really put the pressure. You saw this massive volatility. You saw a lot of exchanges,
like Coinbase, Gemini, and some others, having trouble with their clients accessing their
portfolios to make those trades. You have a lot of leverage in this system. I think
we just want to emphasize, if you are investing in Bitcoin, please don't use leverage and really
think about that as a long-term holding, because in between, you'll see lots and lots of things
that will move that asset over a very short amount of time, and you cannot think about
trading. You really have to think about holding that. Netflix and Disney Plus are going to be
facing a new competitor, and it won't be a small one. On Monday, AT&T announced it will be combining
its entertainment assets with those of Discovery. The combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery will
include HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Food Network, HGTV. I could keep going, Jason,
but we don't have that amount of time. It was just three years ago that AT&T was touting the
synergies of having all this media content, and now they're getting it off their balance sheet.
Yes, they are. And it seems like it's better late than never, I guess. But I do think this
really boils down to just one word, if I can be so blunt, and that is connectivity.
It's really about AT&T needing to focus on what they do best, and that is connecting people and
businesses using that wireless infrastructure that they have as we see this 5G rollout continue.
probably a little bit of trying to have its cake and eat it, too, over the last few years here.
But I think the writing was on the wall. They recognize that. So, again, better late than never.
It's astounding to think about, with a company like AT&T that's so important to our communications
infrastructure, over the last five years, while the market has essentially doubled,
AT&T's total return, including dividends, it's around 5%. Just insane underperformance there.
If you look at this market opportunity, again, GSMA is forecasting a total of $337 billion
in North American operator capital expenditures from the time period of 2019 to 2025. That's
investments in this infrastructure, the 5G rollout. $337 billion. To put that in context,
AT&T spent around $35 billion total for 2019 and 2020. They've got some big bills coming up,
some big investments they need to make. And that's why I think they went ahead and finally
just ripped the Band-Aid off, so to speak. In regards to the combined entity with Discovery,
I think this is really what you need to compete in this space. A lot of great media brands in
very deep pockets and a singular focus on just making that content. Now, they just have to
figure out exactly how they're going to distribute it. But all in all, I think this is the right move
at the end of the day. They also have to figure out what the name is going to be, but I'm assuming
it's going to have a plus symbol at the end of it. It's probably spot on there.
A couple of tech acquisitions in the news this week. We'll start with Twilio.
The cloud computing platform bought Zipwhip, a business text messaging company,
for $850 million in cash and stock, and shares of Twilio up more than 5% this weekend. It seems like
Wall Street likes this deal. It's a little smaller than some of
Twilio's recently bigger ones with SendGrid and Segment, which they bought for more than $3 billion.
Interesting, they're going to pay stock for this because they have the cash on the balance sheet
to be able to pay for this pretty easily, but they're going to think their stock is worth more
for those kind of acquisitions. ZipWhip is an interesting business.
It serves more than 30,000 business clients to help them turn their phone numbers, land-based lines,
toll-free lines into text-based, enabling them to communicate versus text. Of course,
I think so many of us understand that text is the preferred method of communication for
so many. This allows their clients to turn those phone numbers into text-enabled. That's
going to plug right into Twilio's ecosystem. From that perspective, Twilio has a lot of
success of integrating these applications they buy into their platform and getting more growth
on that. They expect a little bit of growth from this acquisition on the revenue side,
eventually, once they make the acquisition and complete the acquisition later this year.
Overall, pretty nice acquisition for Twilio and Twilio shareholders. I do have to note, Chris,
that the CEO, John Lauer of Zipwhip, is a graduate of the University of Michigan,
as is the CEO and founder, Jeff Lawson of Twilio, as am I.
Well, then it's got to bode well. It's got to work well.
Snap is buying Wave Optics, a company that creates lenses and other parts used in augmented
reality glasses. Snap is paying $500 million in cash and stock. And Jason, just like Twilio,
shares of Snap are down from their high for the year, but up more than 7% this week.
Yeah. I mean, it's not really a surprise that we've seen for a while now that Snap,
the company is placing its bets on an immersive tech-driven future. I think really one of the
bigger questions just remains, what consumers can do with it all and will it result in Snap
making meaningfully more money? That remains to be seen. There's no question, though,
that investments like these can result in more engagement and improved sales for retailers.
Look at companies like Wayfair, Home Depot, another one. It goes on and on. These companies
are making investments and bringing immersive technology, augmented reality, into their universe.
Walmart, another one with that acquisition.
And so, Snap, I think there's a bit of a retail angle here, trying to diversify its revenue stream,
also serve as a more valuable marketing partner in that regard.
You've got a lot of companies out there doing the same thing, though.
I mean, companies out there like a little tiny one like Vuzix that builds these lenses
that have historically focused primarily on industrial applications, to giants like Qualcomm,
which is collaborating with 15 of the world's leading operators to deliver extended reality
viewers to consumers and enterprises all over the world within the next year.
It's a big market with a lot of folks out there trying to crack that nut. It's really just trying
to figure out, I think, the bigger question. We know the industrial applications. It's really a
matter of trying to figure out how the consumers are going to use this en masse. We haven't quite
come up with that answer yet. But Snap seems to be making these investments to try to come
up with a good answer. And hey, listen, a lot of good talented young minds there. I
bet you they come up with something good. This week, Oatly made its debut as
a public company. The maker of oat milk went public at $17 a share. The stock quickly rose
more than 30%. Andy, Oatly is now a $13 billion company. And again, they make oat milk.
Well, a lot of people like that oat milk. I just served some to my daughter for
her cereal here, for a snack. Really interesting, because the IPO market, Chris, hasn't really
been all that great. They came out to the market, a traditional IPO, which was nice
to see, the Swedish-based company issuing those shares, about 84 million shares into the market.
Saw some growth. The business has been doing very well. A lot of interest in oat milk around
the world. By some estimates, it's a $7 billion business in plant alternative beverages just
in the U.S. alone. They do about 420 million in sales. That's doubled over the past year.
They raised about $1.4 billion that they're going to use to invest into their business.
Interesting, Howard Schultz, Oprah Winfrey, and actress Natalie Portman have been investors.
They reportedly invested last year into Oatly at a $2 billion valuation.
That's looking good so far.
They're offered in 60,000 retail shops, 32,000 coffee shops around the world.
Looking at alternatives to cow milk, Oatly's seeing the growth.
Investors are liking what they're seeing.
It's a very interesting company.
But yes, it is a very high valuation.
Compare that against Beyond Meat, Chris, which has about a $7 billion valuation right now
and does about the same amount of sales as Oatly does.
All right. Jason Moser, Andy Cross, guys, we'll see you a little bit later in the show.
Up next, a closer look at Beyond Capital, one of the most innovative impact funds out there.
Don't go anywhere. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
Chris Hill. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. After working in the hedge
fund industry, Eva Yazhari left to become the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Capital,
an impact fund that invests in early-stage companies in India and East Africa. She's
also written a brand new book, The Good Your Money Can Do, Becoming a Conscious Investor.
Motley Fool analyst Maria Gallagher caught up with Eva to talk about her approach to investing
and how Beyond Capital operates. Maria Gallagher
I didn't have the biases that a lot of investors do around looking at Africa and what I would call
emerging markets. My family moved there in the 50s and 60s. They took a ship from New York to
Cape town and then drove up to Tanzania with five children and, um, and, and came back with,
with nine kids in total. So, I mean, that was an adventure. And I think that, you know, that the,
the, the lack of kind of thinking that Africa is impoverished, there's no opportunity there
allowed me to see an opportunity. Um, but I also looked around my kind of networks after
leaving wall street. Um, even though I did enjoy my time there, um, and, and said,
uh, my, it may not be money, but my networks are rich. And I like to think about money
wealth is more than money. And so I had skills, I had networks, I had relationships, I had a voice,
I had a now social media presence. You know, I had all these tools that could really build up to,
invest in something that was sustainable and produced a strong impact. So, you're right.
Every investment that we make impacts 20 individuals. Our first fund was built around
14 portfolio companies, all in need to have healthcare, energy access, financial inclusion,
waste and sanitation, and agriculture. And we saw a big market opportunity for what we call
the next $4 billion. So, consumers that are relatively low income, we are now defining that
as less than $15 a day. You've seen kind of language around impoverished communities on our
First Fund website where we did focus on bottom of the pyramid. But as the innovations have grown,
we've actually noticed that there are larger markets and actually kind of two markets for
different companies that maybe are providing loans to small businesses or women's health
products to women on the ground. Um, so the other thing just to mention that you've highlighted is
gender and, um, you know, we're making money while doing good. We have a, um, 2.2 times multiple
uninvested capital on two equity exits. We have a debt exit fully repaid with, with warrants and
the company, um, in venture debt. Um, but gender distribution and livelihoods are also impact
themes. And you, in the statistics that you mentioned from our website around our impact,
we know that females are disproportionately impacted by our work because they are increasingly
the consumers, particularly in our markets that require access to the basic goods and services.
They can also be the workforces, which are completely untapped. So all I see is opportunity.
It's not easy, but I don't think investing anywhere is easy. And if I were to be as bold as to say,
I'm not sure I want to compete in, in the U S VC world. I think that has its own kind of dynamics
and challenges. Um, whereas we get to see kind of really fascinating value propositions that
are somewhat undervalued. And to me, that just means there is an opportunity there to invest.
Do you have any reasoning behind the countries or the areas you've chosen in that,
in that, um, the choices to look in these specific regions?
Yes. I mean, we were looking for favorable market dynamics like any investor. So we were
looking for mobile prevalence, which really helps enable the businesses that we invest in.
Technology, of course, is a part of that. Although it's more challenging to make,
particularly in Africa, end-to-end tech solutions actually work, there needs to be some sort of
human component. And I'm very skeptical of fully end-to-end tech solutions on the continent of
Africa as an investor. Um, we also looked for a basis on the British legal system. Um, some of
our founding team members were British lawyers, um, and having kind of a little bit more of a
deeper understanding of the structures, um, and the rules and regulations around, uh, the investment
landscape. Um, and, and finally we were looking for complimentary markets. And so we have reviewed
thousands of businesses. We have over a hundred sourcing partners for our portfolio pipeline and
What we have definitively concluded through being a fund manager for over a decade is that
our markets do have similarities. That's why we've created this blended portfolio for our
investors. It's no different than some mutual funds or maybe there's a mutual fund out there
that focuses on the BRIC countries like Brazil, Russia, and China, which I know was really popular
when I was working on Wall Street. This is very similar in that it's a turnkey solution
for our investors to have emerging markets exposure. And so we wanted there to be similarities
of business models of even target populations and innovations where portfolio companies could
learn from each other across the portfolio. And we could also learn from the business models as
well as we inform our due diligence for later stage investing. That's really incredible the
way you're describing it as such a partnership with so many different things in that combination
of the heart and the head. I think that's, that's such a great model for people to think about
businesses moving forward as, as opposed to this very strict kind of idea that we've had.
So changing gears a little bit, you talk in your book about how money has more potential than we
think is possible. You've talked about, you know, being values driven. Can you elaborate on that
idea, um, being what it means to be wealth conscious and how, how you think we can use it
in our, in our lives as public investors, as well as, um, as you know, just citizens.
Well, consciousness is just knowing what you own. And I think we, we, I think finance has become
somewhat of a black box at times. Um, it's changing and we see the proliferation of
public and Robin hood and other micro investing websites and apps that allow for more transparency
and ownership at different levels. But I think overarchingly finance has not been accessible.
I mean, to have to have learned the Greeks, alpha, beta, gamma, and what's an IRR and,
and, and all of these, um, you know, a whole new language to just know where your money
is invested and what the return is, um, doesn't allow for your average person to feel, I think,
empowered.
And so, um, wealth consciousness is really just knowing what you own.
And it is one of the first steps to becoming a conscious investor and thinking about all
your resources as tools to express your values.
And sometimes it's not that nice to know what you own, because especially if you're just starting out, your investments might not really line up with your values.
Maybe they are not oriented towards, you know, climate action, if that's an area that you're focused, or gender equality, or maybe they're actually working against goals like racial equity, if that's a focus of yours.
And so, um, it is a really important component, but once you know what you own, you start to
realize that no investment is neutral. It's either pod, there's either positive or a negative impact,
and there's really nothing in between. And then you can extend that out to other areas of your
life, which is why I use money as the primary kind of starting point and tool for investors
to start thinking about wealth consciousness, because it is actually, I think it's more
accessible because of some of the constraints of knowing what you own. But when you dive in,
you're like, wow, you know, I own Philip Morris. And that was one of my examples in the book.
It was actually the opener story in the book was telling my advisor, I don't want to own
Philip Morris and him also not listening and seeing that paradigm and wanting it to change so
bad that I had the aha moment to think very differently about my money. But then you can
start to think about your consumer choices. I'm actually wearing Myette today, which is one of
the first sustainable brands started by a human rights, South African human rights lawyer. But,
you know, this is one of the first sustainable choices, sustainable consumer choices that I
made outside of organic food like a decade ago. But you can really start to think about the other
parts of your life, even, you know, going as far as not just your food or your fashion,
but you know, where your active citizenry is, or like, I don't like to call it activism. Cause I
think that, um, you know, racial and gender equality should not be called activism. It's
actually just human rights, but, um, you know, your, your active citizenry and you're just
assuming discerning consumer choices. Um, you can really line them up with your wealth
consciousness and your values. And we can talk about it more, but I think defining your values
is also an area that is really critical. You can't go, you cannot start to become a conscious
investor without knowing what you care about. Yeah. And it's so fascinating because I think
that that's, uh, what's very difficult. I think sometimes as an ESG investor for people who
aren't familiar, ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance. So you're looking for
companies that are not only doing well, but doing good on all these different areas and how they
treat their communities, their employees, um, and the environment. And so I think what's hard
is, you know, there's no perfect company. And so a lot of times you have to say, well, this company
does really well in this one area, but I think it has, it has room to grow in these other areas. So
defining your specific values, because there is no generally accepted accounting principles to
look at when you're looking at companies in this way. So I'd love to hear some of, some of the way
you think about your values and how that's reflected in your portfolio. Um, I know I've
had a lot of problems with some of my companies where I think they do really well on the
environmental action, but then, you know, there are very few people of color or female leaders
at the company. And so, uh, or their median pay is super low. And so trying to kind of
think about both of those and figuring out if, if it should be in my portfolio or not is definitely
a challenge I face. It is a challenge, but there are some, some ways that it can, it can be easier
and they will get easier over time. So when I think about defining my values, I have, I actually
did a values game that I describe in my book with an advisor and excuse me. And I, I, I really just
kind of broke up weightings in different, in different areas. And for me and my spouse,
what emerged was gender equality, racial equity, and then climate, the climate emergency. And we
wanted to have our portfolio kind of oriented towards those three areas. Now our whole portfolio
is public because we're young and we're not locking things up for 10 years. We're both
fund managers and we're locking up our careers for that long. So just thinking about regular
asset allocation, we're looking for public debt and public equities primarily. And if we can,
we'll make a small venture investment into a fund if we can kind of get in the friends and family
level of investing. Um, so we did have to toe dip into ESG screen, negative, negative screen funds,
where it really was just screening out tobacco, firearms, and alcohol. Luckily the Lamar's
wouldn't have been in that portfolio. So that checked one box for me. But, um, I like to say,
don't let perfect be the enemy of good doing some good is better than doing no good at all.
And that's, you know, that's actually one of the pieces of feedback that's come up from the book
is, Oh, okay, good. I took it. I took a deep breath. And I, I really liked how you said that
we shouldn't just try to find the perfect solution. We should toe dip a little bit and,
you know, get involved. So we started there. Um, but actually very recently, I I'd say end of last
year, 2020, I think woke a lot of people up and it made me have the space to go deeper. Um, as a
working mother, it allowed me to actually have more thinking space. Cause I also wasn't traveling
as much. And, um, I asked a couple of questions and I think impact investing is all about asking
questions. I asked my bank how many women and people of color were running the funds. Cause
most of my investments are mutual funds running those funds. And I got the answer. It was about
14%, um, of, of just women. And then I think 30 for 3%, uh, female and BIPOC,
not necessarily good enough for me, if I'm honest, but you know, it was a good answer, um, to start.
And then I also evaluated some of my passive ESG and I just really sat there and looked at the
tear sheets of what was in the portfolios. And I, I concluded that the whole, that, that the ESG
equals technology only is not for me. And I've decided to make some changes and they're great
funds out there. Um, for anybody who kind of wants to look deeper, um, I think there are some
some great resources. I shy away from giving investment advice, but, um, if you look there,
there are active impact investment strategies out there that provide, you know, maybe a bond fund
that is lending to more local communities or lending to people of color, um, or, and have
long, long track records, or, you know, even equity funds that are focused on, you know,
female management team members. Um, so I think it's just a matter of looking and asking those
deep questions. And last point that the one certification where you can let the certification
do the work for you is the B corporation. There aren't many public B corporations. It's just kind
of the thing that we need to wait for to happen. As you rightly pointed out, Maria, like there's
a life cycle of a company before it goes public, but B corporations are businesses that are
certified to have a focus on people, planet, and profit. We're probably, you're probably eating a
lot of B corporations or, you know, putting a lot of B corporations on your skin, but eventually
they will end up in your portfolio. And they're a great, easy way to make sure that you are walking
the talk in many different areas.
Eva Yassari's book is The Good Your Money Can Do, Becoming a Conscious Investor.
Up next, Andy Cross and Chase and Moser return with a couple of stocks on their radar.
Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about,
and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks
based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here once
again with Jason Moser and Andy Cross. Guys, the innovations in the food industry
will not stop. This week, Pringles announced it is teaming up with Wendy's to create their
newest limited edition chip flavor, Spicy Chicken Sandwich. If you enjoy Wendy's Spicy
Chicken Sandwich, and from time to time I do, starting next month, you'll be able to
get that taste in a Pringles chip. I'm irrationally excited about this, Andy.
Hey, they may need some oat milk to go with those flames that you're going to eat
into your Pringles sandwich. It is just another case of two large companies trying to innovate
and bring their brands, expand those brand names to other parts of the market. It is
a limited time only. I think you can actually get a can of Pringles, and you can get a code
from that can of the spicy chips and get a code to be able to get a sandwich from Wendy's
to try it out. I think it is interesting. I love the connection of the two well-known
brands. We'll see how it sells. But spicy chicken has been a very successful formula
for many, many players recently. A reminder that if you're looking for
even more stock ideas and recommendations, you can check out our flagship service, StockAdvisor.
you get stock recommendations every month, you get Best Buys Now, and a lot more. Just
go to RadarStocks.Fool.com. That's RadarStocks.Fool.com. 50% discount for being one of our dozens
of listeners. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass this week
is Rick Engdahl, stepping in for Dan Boyd. Jason Moser, you're up first. What are you
looking at? Yes, sir. Taking a look at Qualcomm,
ticker QCOM. Actually, next week, I have the good fortune, I'm going to be interviewing
a principal engineer with the company, Mr. Rajat Prakash. He's with the Wireless R&D
Group there at Qualcomm. Currently, his work focuses on 5G-enabled industrial IoT, Internet
of Things applications, and other radio access network technology. For me, it's just going
to be really interesting to speak with him and learn a little bit more about how 5G is
impacting their business, the investments they're making. You've heard a lot of talk
here recently about how Apple going more vertical, bringing their chips in-house. I'd love to
get his perspective on that as well. Excited about the interview. It's a stock I've recommended.
It is one that I'm going to be excited to share this interview once we have it available.
Rick, question about Qualcomm? Jason, I have to admit, when
I hear Qualcomm, I think Nokia, or I think BlackBerry. It's one of those darlings from
the early 2000s. Somehow, Qualcomm has done a lot better. How did I miss it?
Well, it is a name that elicits a lot of snores. It is just a snoozer. I think it's a very boring
idea. But when you look under the hood and you see that they have this massive portfolio of
patent technology, and you realize their leadership in the market, it has been a good one to keep
on the top of the radar, I think, for a lot of folks.
Andy Cross, what are you looking at this week?
Autodesk, A-D-S-K, $62 billion company that creates 3D design, engineering,
and entertainment software. Rick, I look at this business, very profitable, very steady.
They're the leader in the space. That AutoCAD business, when you think about engineering,
you think about home building, you think about business building, 5 million subscribers,
very high recurring revenues. I really like Autodesk. Looking at the marketplace,
thinking about the growth opportunity, the revenue retention rates, they're moving to the cloud. So,
Autodesk, I think, has a lot going for it. I actually own shares myself. And they report
earnings next week. Rick, question about Autodesk?
Andy, I don't remember how old your kids are, but they're probably old enough. What's the best
Tinkercad creation you've seen come out of Autodesk?
Rick, they haven't gone that route yet. They're still tied to more to roadblocks
than that kind of stuff. But I'll be excited to go there eventually.
It's good stuff. Look forward to it.
Rick, two stocks. Which one do you want to add to your watch list?
Qualcomm's still boring to me. I'm going to go with TinkerCAD.
It's boring to a lot of people. It's OK.
Jason Moser, Andy Cross, guys, thanks for being here.
Thank you.
Thanks, Chris.
That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl.
Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
