Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Blizzard 2016: Winners and Losers
Episode Date: January 22, 2016Which companies will be the big winners and losers from the East Coast blizzard? Our analysts discuss that story and delve into earnings news from American Express, Netflix, and Southwest Airlines. Pl...us, Motley Fool columnist Morgan Housel talks market volatility. For a free preview of our Supernova service, go to www.SupernovaRadio.Fool.com . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Discussion (0)
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From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money.
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 and Matt Argersinger, and from Motley Fool Pro and
options. Jeff Fischer, good to see you, as always, gentlemen.
Jeff Fischer. Hey, hey.
We have got the latest earnings from healthcare, airlines, restaurants, and more. We will dip
into the Fool mailbag, and as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our
radar. But we begin this week with Blizzard 2016.
Oh!
Yes, with the storm poised to cause problems from Washington, D.C. to New York City, and
all points in between. Let's look at this storm through the lens of investing. And,
Matty, I'll just start with you. As a Massachusetts native, you've got no problem dealing with
the snow. But let's face it, there are businesses out there that are going to have problems.
And I'm curious, when you look at this and you think, OK, who's going to benefit? Who's
going to be hurt by this?
Well, my Sunday's set, because I'm watching the game, of course. No, there is.
If you're a restaurant business and you have a substantial amount of restaurant real estate
on the East Coast, you're hurting this weekend, because those are big revenue days that you're
going to lose. So, any kind of establishment where it's a service establishment or a retail
establishment where you're used to having customer traffic, particularly on the weekends,
you're especially hurt. O'Reilly.
Some that benefited included, of course, grocery retailers, hardware stores. My
wife was at one this morning and said they were sold out of sleds. People were lined
up at 6 in the morning to get the sled delivery, believe it or not.
One company I know will benefit is O'Reilly Automotive. They benefit whenever there's
extreme weather one way or another. A snowstorm, more parts on your car will break, and then
you end up at the auto parts store.
Yeah, we saw this last year with companies like AutoZone and Advanced Auto Parts,
that sort of thing. What do you think, Jason?
Yeah, I think what Matty said there in regard to restaurants, that makes a lot
of sense. Those are sales that are not going to recoup. I'm not going to go to Starbucks
and buy five more coffees on Monday, because I missed my chance on Saturday and Sunday.
No, why not?
I guess it's probably a bad example, because I've got five bags of Starbucks
beans in the house already. But, I mean, Jeff mentioned hardware stores. I like the Home
Depots and the Lowe's when it comes to these types of events, because these are stores
that really benefit in warm and cold weather, right? I mean, hey, if you need salt for your
driveway or a shovel, you can get it there. And, man, you know what? If spring's here
and you need flowers to plant in the flowerbed, well, you can get them there, too. So, those
are stores that I think really benefit regardless of the weather. And I think the stores that
have been having a lot of trouble going into this season here, it's not going to be as
viable an excuse, because they've already been having trouble.
And let's face it, some companies, I mean, we're going to talk about this earnings
season in a second, but next earnings season, you know, Matty, there are companies that
are going to use this as an excuse, and it won't be legit.
It always is. I mean, you'll have semiconductor companies come out and say,
oh, well, the weather was really bad, we missed revenue. It just drives us crazy, but it happens
all the time. Of course, we'd be remiss, we're going to talk about this company later, but
I have to say, there's going to be a lot of binge TV watching this weekend. So, of course,
Netflix is going to be a big beneficiary. And I'd say, another one, Activision Blizzard,
a lot of video gaming online as well this weekend.
Even Google, maybe, on some small scale. You're bored, you Google something.
You too.
Alright, let's get to this earnings season. Fourth quarter profits for American
Express fell 38%, and that, plus some dismal guidance for 2016, sent shares of Amex down
more than 10% on Friday. Jason, that is a big move for a company like this.
It's a very big move for a company like this. I'd like to say there's some silver
lining to all of this, but maybe there really isn't.
But you're not going to.
I'm not going that far, Chris. I think it was just maybe a few MarketFoolery episodes
ago where I came out a little bit down on American Express and what they've got to look
forward to. As a cardholder, I love American Express, but as an investor, I don't think
I really would. It's a fundamentally different story now going forward, because the
business was founded on the idea that wealthier cardholders are going to spend more money
and they can therefore charge merchants more for those transactions. That's just not the
case now. There are more cards out there than ever before, offering more deals, better rates,
better incentives there. American Express certainly has to compete with them. Further,
this has become a political issue there in the interchange fees and what these card companies
can charge. I think as time goes on and we see more and more people using these cards,
become more and more like a utility. I think that really caps the profitability side of
card processors like American Express, like Visa, like MasterCard. At least Visa and MasterCard
were already founded on the notion of catering to the masses. But I think it definitely raises
questions to the card companies in general, what their future may look like.
Yeah, I will say, there used to be some cachet to pulling out your American Express
card, and with mobile payments or digital payments occurring, that no longer matters
at all. So, the only avenue they can really win at right now, since brand is not as important,
are services, cash rebates, those such things. But, as Jason said, all the others are offering
that as well. So, competition has really heated up.
Yeah, and I'd say, you can tell from the release, they are in full-blown cost-cutting
mode now. So, identifying growth on the horizon is really difficult to do. And for investors
out there who are thinking, hey, maybe this is a value right now for a really quality
business ... It's at a three-year low.
It is. And I would just encourage you to try to identify the catalyst that actually
turns this story around. Because management couldn't seem to identify it, and I can't
really seem to identify it either. And I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but before you
invest in this thing thinking it's a great value, just be careful you're not getting
into a value trap. That's a good point, Jason. Management
doesn't seem to have a view into how they grow again. But that said, I still own shares.
I'm keeping them for now. The company still generates a huge amount of free cash flow
and income and revenue, even. And it wasn't all darkness. Some areas of the business are
still growing. That said, will Warren Buffett trim his stake? Will he sell his shares?
Yeah, this is one of Buffett's favorite stocks.
This is one of Buffett's favorite stocks.
Well, you know who else just sold shares? I mean, we were talking about this
before taping. Our man behind the glass.
Steve Broido selling out of Amex? We'll ask him about that later in the show.
He can't say anything about that.
Starbucks' first quarter profits came in higher than expected, but sales in China were a little
light, and that was enough to spook at least a few investors to have shares of Starbucks
falling on Friday, Jeff.
A little bit, Chris. And yet, Howard Schultz is still very bullish on China. It was actually
really encouraging to read his statements. He claims he may be the CEO who has traveled
to China more than any other American CEO over the last 10 years. That was just conjecture
on his part.
What does he get, like a championship belt for that?
He got a pin, he got a lapel. So he says he has a unique perspective to share, and he
really believes that China can increase double per capita income by 2020 from 2010's level.
so in about 11 years, double per capita income, and have 600 million Chinese people that are
middle-income consumers. So, he is a strong believer in China, and overall, Starbucks
did really well. 8%, 9% same-store sales growth, record traffic internationally and in the
U.S., digital payments, food sales taking off. As we've talked about here, Chris, the
last couple of years. If they can get food right, that's really going to drive increased
ticket sales, and it's happening. So, they're doing very well overall. That said, the stock
is priced that way, too, at 30 times earnings.
You know, I poke a little fun at Howard Schultz. It was eight years ago this month
that he returned as CEO to Starbucks, and shares up nearly 500% since he came back as
CEO. You know what? He earned that championship belt.
Did you see the pictures of the Starbucks they just opened in Kazakhstan? It was in
Almaty, I believe. Just pictures in the opening day, the place was a madhouse. I mean, that
is a brand that I think really is just translating globally far better than so many people anticipated.
Yeah, really. They really understand brand and product, both in their stores and
outside their stores. They're consumer packaged goods as well. And one more thing he said
about China, which I thought was encouraging, if he's right, he's a smart guy. He's gotten
some things right.
Well, he's traveled there more than any other CEO, so I'm sure he's right on this.
He might be more Chinese at this point, then.
So, he said the buffeting of the Chinese economy, as it is happening right now, is a necessary
part for it to move on to its next stage of growth. He really believes that there's another
stage after this, and this is a natural kind of cycle.
General Electric's core business did well in the fourth quarter, but they've also got
some divisions that cater to the oil and gas industry, Matty, and that's not going as well.
No, not at all. It's really hard to gauge GE's performance right now, because the company's
going through so many changes. They're shedding all their financial units. They're in the
process of selling their appliance unit. They're moving to Boston, which, I support that move.
But it's hard. I wouldn't say it's not really the economic bellwether it used to be. It's
much more about energy and aviation today. In fact, they've made a huge investment in
the energy space in recent years. And of course, we know that didn't turn out so well starting
this year. So, their oil and gas revenue there fell 16%. It really offset everything good
that was happening in the rest of the business. And the guidance for 2016 looks, you know,
they got a slight pickup in overall revenue, but pretty much flat earnings. It's hard to
get excited about GE, especially with the heavy oil and gas bets, which I just don't
see having any kind of resurgence in 2016. O' So, Matt, you're not a buyer of GE?
I'm not. I can't be. I would never probably be a buyer of GE, but I certainly can't be
right now. O' Shares of Netflix falling this week,
despite fourth quarter profits coming in higher than expected. And, Jason, to pivot off what
what Jeff was saying with regards to Starbucks and how its stock price is valued. I'm wondering
if part of this is, Netflix is a pretty richly valued stock.
Yeah, it's richly valued. I think that one of the concerns maybe is that domestic
growth here is starting to slow down a little bit, which is understandable. You saturate
a market at some point. Certainly, global growth is still there, but I think a lot of
those assumptions probably have been brought forward to the stock price today, which is
why it's valued the way it is. But let's be very clear, this is a wonderful business that's
doing a lot of great things, and Reed Hastings has really, to my mind, done a phenomenal
job pivoting from essentially saying, we're going to take this one country at a time,
to basically just rolling it out in the entire world. That was a 180-degree turn there, and
they've done it quite well, I think. Revenue is up 28%, and in the face of that, streaming
content obligations are only up 15%. So, as long as they keep growing sales more than
they grow those streaming content obligations, I mean, everything's hunky-dory, right? Domestic
subs are slowing down, but international net ads are up 66%. And I think, really, at the
end of the day, we always talk about the original content for Netflix. I mean, essentially trying
to become more like an HBO, and they're doing that. They're going to focus on 600 hours
of that original content this year versus 450 hours last year. Now, it's going to cost
them a lot of money. They're going to probably have to take out some more debt here at some
point. And I don't think that really changes for them any time in the near future. It just
costs a lot of money to feed this beast. But it's working as people sign up. It's a pretty easy
expense to cover every month. And I anticipate that it will continue to roll out across the
world and do well. As people hunker down for the storm,
not just this storm, because let's face it, there'll be other storms this winter, what's one
TV show or movie you would recommend? You know, I just recently started watching
Showtime's Billions, and it's only two episodes in, and it's a little bit over the top, but
it's sort of that Wall Street vibe there. It's an interesting show, two shows in. I'm
going to give it a chance. It's probably worth a look if you have Showtime.
O'Reilly. Jeff?
Jeff Fischer. You know, a kind of slow-moving, creepy, but well-acted series was Bloodline
on Netflix, set in Key West. So, if you're in the middle of a blizzard, head to the Keys.
O'Reilly. What about you, Matt?
O'Reilly. Another Netflix show, my wife and I just finished watching Jessica Jones, which
I wasn't excited about it. I mean, the whole superhero stuff, I'm getting a little tired
of it right now, but that was a really well-done first season for Jessica Jones. I highly recommend
it.
Coming up, sure, we're paying less at the pump these days, but which companies are also
benefiting from the low price of gas? Details next. This is Motley Fool Money.
Let's kick it!
Ice, ice, baby.
Ice, ice, baby.
Oh, my God!
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Matt
Argersinger and Jeff Fischer. Southwest Airlines putting up record fourth quarter profits.
And Jeff, they're doing well on the operations side, but the low price of gas sure doesn't
hurt. Low fuel costs certainly helped, even
though Southwest hedges out some of the risk of fuel. But it's interesting, their hedge
strategy going forward is, they called it more conservative, and I take that to mean
they're not going to hedge out much, they're not too worried about energy the next couple
of years. But they had a capacity growth last year of about 7%, and traffic grew even more,
it grew nearly 9%. You have a decent economy, you have more people looking to fly, and you
have Southwest, you have fares holding up well. So, the industry as a whole is expected
to have record profits last year, and possibly this year, too.
Big blue shareholders seeing red these days. IBM's revenue fell for the 15th quarter
in a row. I'm not an expert, Matty, but that seems like a trend.
It is very much a trend, and I don't see it turning anytime soon, Chris. Like GE, IBM's
in this big transition. They're going from low-margin hardware products to these higher-margin
services. CEO Jeannie Romani, she calls it IBM's transition to a cognitive solutions
and cloud platform company. That's like perfect IBM speak. But my thing is, with companies
like this, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, even GE to a certain extent, they're in this transition.
In a way, it tells me that they either missed some markets trying to play catch-up, or they
made some bad investments in the past. And I think that's the case with IBM. I would
just avoid companies like this that are in these restructurings and undergoing big changes.
I would throw Intel in there, too. We've talked about Intel recently. In some ways,
it's almost like these companies are in a race. It's essentially, how quickly can we innovate
on this smaller thing that isn't making us as much money right now? It's like a corporate game
of beat the clock. We just got to get this ramped up as quickly as possible because we're losing on
the other side. Right. It's hard to see who comes out of this ahead in any way. I think there's so
much value for focusing as investors on companies that do one thing really, really well. Netflix
streams movies really well. Chipotle makes mostly healthy burritos. It's just doing one
thing very, very well, and IBM is kind of all over the place right now.
Yeah, Hewlett-Packard, same thing, and then you have IBM. We considered shorting
IBM in Motley Fool Pro around $200 per share, and didn't, largely because Buffett was buying.
So Buffett has cost me some money.
You don't hear that very often.
Damn you, Warren! Shares of UnitedHealth Group up this week
after fourth quarter revenue came in north of $43.5 billion, Jason. Profit's also higher
than expected. Yeah, these guys throw around numbers
that just make you wonder, did numbers really go that high? Health insurance is one of those
political hot potatoes. Everybody seems to have an opinion, and nobody seems to quite
be able to get it right. But it seems like UnitedHealthcare is one of those in the health
space that is worth owning. I think that stronger growth in the Optum side of the business is
what is really encouraging. Focus on health services side versus the insurance side. That's
really the faster growing of the two segments of the business. They're serving 129 million
people now versus 88.5 million a year ago. The fact that they're able to grow so quickly
on the Optum side gives them more ability to control costs on that side, to contain
any, forgive the pun, hemorrhaging on the insurance side. Shareholders certainly have
won with this one over the past five years. It's handily outperformed the market. When
we look at the health space, we tend to really look at these big dogs first, and they're
not many bigger than UnitedHealthcare. Next week, consumers in Japan will be
able to sample the latest creative food offering from McDonald's, the McChoco Potato. Yes,
the company says its famous French fries are getting the ultimate chocolate makeover. The
The Michaco potato comes with two types of chocolate sauce, regular and white, drizzled
over the fries for a salty-sweet combo that you will not find anywhere else. I'm not sure
you would want to. Who's in on this?
What took them so long? I mean, come on. This has the 1980s written all over it.
Jeff's a fan.
I've got a tremendous salt tooth. I mean, the sweet tooth I can do with or without,
but I feel like they've just ruined a really good thing.
Yeah, I don't know. Do potatoes and chocolate even go together?
There's only one way to find out.
They're like chocolate-covered potato chips, I think, so I've never tried them.
Those can be pretty good. I've tried those before.
Like caramel goes well with salt.
You need the crisp, though. If it's crispy, then it's good, the chocolate and the chip, but with kind of soggy fries.
Well, to me, it's not just a salt and sugar combination, which can be very good.
I mean, think of caramel popcorn, but it's like salt, sugar, and grease combination.
It doesn't sound like a good mix to me.
Let's bring in our man behind the glass, Steve Broido.
Steve, are you interested in this?
Are you going to give it a shot, you think?
Absolutely.
Chocolate and salt do make a very good partnership.
But what about, I think Matty's on to something with the grease factor there.
I don't know what to tell you about that.
He may be right.
You're saying if your beloved Olive Garden offered something along these lines, you're
going to take a shot at it.
Give it the old college try.
Chocolate-covered breadsticks.
We'll find out next week
Here's the thing with McDonald's
We'll know if this works
If they bring it to the United States
They're going to test it in Japan
If it works they're going to bring it here
Alright Jeff Fisher, Jason Moser, Matt Argersinger
Guys we will see you a little bit later in the show
Up next
A conversation with columnist Morgan Housel
Stay right here
You're listening to Motley Fool Money
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money
I'm Chris Hill
Joining me in studio now
the one and only Morgan Housel. Thanks for being here.
Morgan Housel. It's the least I could do.
I appreciate that, because I feel like your particular brand of insight and expertise
is needed more than it usually is when you consider that in the past month, we've seen
the S&P 500 drop more than 7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 8%. And
the Nasdaq dropped nearly 10%. Yeah. Small-cap stocks are down 25% since July.
Full-on bear market in small caps. You're a cool customer. Please tell me you're
at least mildly freaked out by this. Freaked out is probably too fun.
No. Well, look, as much as I try to study the history of the market and market declines and
preach about how common they are and you should take the long view, which is absolutely the right
device. As much as I say that, do I appreciate logging into my brokerage account and seeing it
down 10%? No, nobody does. And I think that's important to admit to yourself that even if you
are a long-term investor and there's no way you're going to sell, if anything, you're looking at this
as a buying opportunity, it's okay to admit to yourself that you don't enjoy this. That's okay.
I think there's too much in the media sometime of, oh, we love downturns because it's a great
opportunity and we love this. Why is everyone upset? This is great. Sometimes I think that
goes a little too far. It's fine to admit that you're a human being with emotions and
you don't like seeing 10% of your net worth disappear. That's fine.
That being said, for investors who are looking at this downturn and thinking, you
know what? Some of these stocks, the business hasn't really changed all that much in the
past month. I think I'm going to do a little shopping.
You know, there are two right ways to respond to a bear market, only two ways.
One is ambivalence and just, this is what's going on, but I'm not going to pay attention to it.
I'm going to go to the beach with my kids.
The second is to look at it and say, this is an opportunity.
I'm going to buy a little bit more than I otherwise would.
Those are the two responses that you should have.
And either one is fine.
It's fine to do nothing.
Most people will and should do nothing.
But if you're going to do something, it's looking for opportunity.
I feel like, for all the talking we do about Warren Buffett, when you just mentioned
one response is ambivalence, that seems like it's right up the alley of his right-hand
man Charlie Munger. He seems like a guy who's just like, whatever, this is what it is.
Yeah, I think he said before, he made most of his fortune sitting on his ass.
Yeah, buy great companies, just sit back. You had written something recently
that gave me a little bit of pause, which was, you wrote in relation to investors,
some of you must fail. And you were very quick to point out, not that some of you might fail.
Must.
Must. Why?
Well, the reason that the stock market provides good long-term returns is because it is volatile
in the short run. That's the cost you have to pay. That's why it provides higher returns than
a bank account or bonds, is because it's wild in the short run, up and down and up and down.
Well, what makes the market go down? What is causing that volatility that creates good
long-term returns? It's people freaking out and selling. And if nobody ever panicked,
the market would never fall. And if the market never fell, it would just get really expensive.
And if it got really expensive, it wouldn't offer good returns. And if it didn't offer good returns,
people would panic. And it's this thing where the market has to be volatile. That's what a market
is. And volatility is just a reflection in real time of people panicking. So it is not only
inevitable, but a necessary feature of markets that some people will fail. And by fail, I mean
selling at the bottom. Because the reason the market is going down is because people are selling.
And hopefully that's not you or me or any of our listeners, but someone in the market,
who knows who it is, someone is going to have to have a bad time.
You know what's far less expensive than it used to be is the price of oil,
which continues to fall to the point where it is at its lowest level since 2003.
You know, oil is 25% cheaper today than it was in 1990.
Do you remember 1990?
I bet we have people who work at this company who were not born in 1990.
That's almost certainly true.
Austin, the guy behind the glass, not born in 1990.
How are we supposed to look at declining oil prices?
because it seems like one of those things that, for some investors who maybe don't have any
exposure directly to oil stocks, they think, well, that doesn't really affect me. And yet,
it is one of the most frequent headlines, and certainly one of the biggest business stories
of the last, I'm going to say, 18 months. Yeah. If oil is your business, this is one
of the worst things that might ever happen in your career. This is bigger than 2008,
if oil is your business. But oil is not most people's business. And what most people's
business is, or one of their biggest expenses, I should say, is buying gas and buying heating
oil in the winter. And something like this clearly benefits them. I think when you look
at the price of oil plunging, you have to keep one thing in mind. There are two reasons
that oil or any commodity or stock or whatever will fall in price, either because you have
too much supply or not enough demand. In 2008, when oil was plunging, it fell from $140 a barrel
to $30 a barrel in 2008, 2009. That was clearly because of a lack of demand, because the global
economy ground to a halt. So, oil's decline was indicative of mass economic doom. So, back then,
you could look at the decline in oil and say, this is not a good thing we're looking at.
Today, overwhelmingly, not entirely, but overwhelmingly, the reason oil is plunging is because we have
too much supply, because U.S. oil producers in Texas and North Dakota have just exploded
their supply over the last five years, because sanctions in Iran have come off, because OPEC
and mostly Saudi Arabia just keeps pumping and pumping full bore.
You add all that up, and we just have too much oil sloshing around in the world.
But it's not necessarily indicative of global demand, like the entire global economy is
slowing down as it was in 2008. China's economy is definitely slowing down, but most of the world
is kind of chugging along right now. So if people look at the price of oil and say, what's going on?
Is this indicative of a coming recession? I doubt it. Most of the world is doing pretty okay right
now. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with columnist Morgan Housel. Let's get
to some of the headlines that we've been seeing recently. You just sort of touched on this. We
talked on last week's show about the hysteria in the media. I don't think hysteria is too
far off the mark when I use that word. I know they're trying to get someone to buy a magazine
or a newspaper or click on a link, but some of the headlines over the past few weeks,
when you see things like, sell everything, and even one of our listeners had written
in a headline that he saw that he wanted me to flag for you, which is, the stock market
hates the eighth year of an American presidency. It seems like it's a bull market for people
who want to prognosticate that everything's going to hell.
It's a bull market for something else that starts with B and ends with S. As someone
who consumes a lot of financial news, I guess I'm kind of immune to it. Because if you follow
enough headlines and pay attention to the subsequent outcomes connected to those, you
really realize that headline writing and a lot of financial media in general is not connected to
reality and is definitely not something that you should read a headline and then log into your
brokerage account and act on it. That's really dangerous. Most financial journalism is a form
of entertainment. And it's important for readers to know that. A lot of times the journalist thinks
you understand that, but a lot of readers don't understand that. That is really a form of
intellectual entertainment. So who are a couple of the people that you like to read,
thoughtful, engaging, and help to give you perspective and balance, particularly,
as I said at the top, when the market is having the kind of volatility that we've seen over the
last few weeks? Some of the people that I follow on Twitter and are friends of mine,
but mainly Twitter, is where you can see their content in action. There's an investor named
Ben Carlson, often confused with Ben Carson. I was going to say.
Different person. Okay, not running for president right now.
He is entirely sick of that comparison. But I just did it again. Ben Carlson with an L.
He's one of the smartest investors I think I've ever come across. And he's just a really nice
guy too. He's on Twitter. He runs a blog called A Wealth of Common Sense. He also wrote a book by
the same title. And he's just, I would just describe him as hyper-rational, but also very
bright. He's a great guy to follow. Another guy I follow on Twitter named Michael Batnick.
He writes a blog called The Irrelevant Investor. He too is just a great guy. He provides a lot of
market history and psychology in just really quick, short investment takes that you can read
in one minute, but provide a lot of insight about what's going on. And he, too, is just
a very rational person. These are not people that are going to get excited with big headlines
or freak out. They're really people that put the market into proper perspective and help
you get a proper mental mind frame.
One of the things that you do in your writing is frame, or in some cases reframe, a way
of thinking, because again, a lot of the headlines are framed a certain way, and I find that
one of the reasons I enjoy following you on Twitter is because you will reframe things.
And you had written something recently about what the market decline means in terms of
your 401k plan. I never really thought about it in that sense, that like, oh, my contribution
that I make every month is actually doing a little bit more heavy lifting.
Right. Because the market fell over the last week, your next 401k contribution,
you will acquire more shares in that contribution because shares are cheaper now. So I think if
rather than you said the stock market fell 3% today, if you reframe that and say
your next 401k contribution, you will acquire 2% or 3% more shares than you would have yesterday.
Both of those statements are true, but I think the second one is a better context for what most
investors are after, which is not current returns, but future wealth accumulation.
Those more shares that you acquire today because the market fell over the last two or three weeks
is going to pay off, likely will pay off down the road between now and whenever your goal is,
if your goal is retirement or whatnot down the road. It's hard for people to think of that because
when they see a lot of red lights flashing and blaring headlines and watching their net worth
declined by 10%, it's easy to just take the automatic pessimistic view of stocks fell
3%. But if you think of it as, you can now acquire more shares. Most people do dollar
cost average in their 401 . They're just making purchases automatically every two
weeks, each paycheck. Those people absolutely benefit from things like this. It's just hard
to wrap your mind around that. You can follow him on Twitter. You can
read his stuff. See, this is why I love having you on the show. I always feel better when
have conversations like this. So, Morgan Housel, thanks for being here.
Morgan Housel. Good to be here.
Coming up, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our 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. I'm Chris Hill, and
joining me in studio once again, Jason Moser, Matt Argersinger, and Jeff Fischer. Guys,
a couple of housekeeping notes before we get to the stocks on our radar this week. Happy
to say that for the third week in a row, I think this is a record, third week in a row
on Motley Fool Money, we get to welcome a new station. It's KITC AM 1400 serving the
Puget Sound region in Washington state. Any of our folks in the Seattle area, check it out.
Pressure's on now. I want four weeks in a row.
I'll see what I can do. Manny Argersinger, we talked about this recently. One of the
services you work on, our Supernova service, it's one of our services here at The Motley
Fool that's open just for a limited time for folks unfamiliar. This is a service, by the
way, we talked recently about the market volatility. You go back to when Supernova launched four
years ago, the market was launching at a time kind of like what we're seeing right now.
I remember those days very well. We came out of the gate in March 2012 with the
Odyssey One mission, which is the portfolio I'm in charge of. Same thing, the market was
very volatile. A lot of our early recommendations were just all over the map. I remember specifically
buying Netflix, for example, really early on. It was down 20% within a month.
That's always a good feeling.
Oh, yes. It hurt. But I see the same thing happening right now. We're launching Supernova,
and we're also launching a new mission, Odyssey 2, which really follows in the footsteps of
the portfolio I'm running. It has kind of the same charter, the same goals, really investing
in some of the best stocks from Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor and building real money
portfolios. And that team, it's David Kretzmann. He has a great team. Brendan Matthews is also
on the team, a great analyst we have here. And they're picking stocks in an environment
and I'd love to be picking stocks in, because I think there are so many bargains all over
the stock market, but especially in the Supernova universe. And if you join now, you kind of
see their first three picks right off the bat this coming week.
So, for more details, go to supernovaradio.fool.com. That's supernovaradio.fool.com. It's a free
microsite with a lot more information on the service, including videos with Matt Argersinger,
David Gardner, David Kretzmann, and others. Radioatfool.com is our email address. Question
from Jay Wozniak, who writes, as a stakeholder in UPS, I'm a driver and a shareholder. How concerned
should I be for my career and long-term value of my shares regarding Amazon's new approach
to jumping into the delivery space? I recently finished reading the book, The Everything Store,
and it seems like nothing is out of Amazon's reach. Thank you, and keep up the good work.
Great question. And yes, for anyone who's read The Everything Store, the profile of Jeff Bezos
and how he has grown Amazon, Matty, no surprise that it's one more industry that they're looking
into the delivery space.
Well, and Jay's right on. Before I read The Everything Store, I really thought
there were some markets, some industries that Amazon really just probably wouldn't get into,
and one of those is shipping. It's very capital-intensive, as Jay probably knows, very labor-intensive.
But I tend to agree, I don't think there's anything out of Jeff Bezos' reach. They've
made significant investments getting into that zone. Jeff's probably got some stats
behind that. I don't think Jay has to worry about his job anytime soon, although, maybe
at some point he might be working for Amazon. Not totally out of the question.
Yeah, and no single customer accounts for more than 10% of UPS's revenue, for
one. And two, only about 40% of their revenue as a whole is from the U.S. And to what you
you said, Matty, too, if Amazon's really going to seriously get into this, it's going to
take them years to build it out and to do it. And Amazon already uses all kinds of different
delivery services. O' Jay, you're in good shape.
Yeah, you should be fine. O' Alright, let's get to the stocks
on our radar, and we'll bring in our man Steve Broido from the other side of the glass to
hit you with a question. Jeff Fischer, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?
Well, I don't know. I like to say this is being flexible, but it could be just
plane being stupid. So, I usually buy, as you know, Chris, things like Visa or Gilead
or things that are really compounding cash flow for many, many years. But American Airlines
is what I'm looking at again. Ticker is AAL. I looked at the airline industry about a year
ago and just found that I think it has really changed. I think the profits may be here to
stay. And so, these shares look really cheap. They're at about five times earnings and they
should have, just like Southwest, record results this year once again. They don't hedge their
fuel costs at all, so they're really enjoying these low prices. That said, the market has
only sent it lower in the year that I've been following it, and the market needs to believe
that American Airlines can stay profitable for the long-term.
Steve, question about American Airlines?
Steve Broidoff- Jeff, you travel quite a bit. Do you actually enjoy flying? I hate
it. It's becoming worse. Every year, it seems like it's getting worse, and I look at the
airlines and I just don't feel the love.
You know, I had an experience on American recently that made me not want to fly.
Whenever I fly Southwest, I'm happy to. I get a lot done on an airplane. I kind of
love the isolation of, well, you have Wi-Fi, but you're on a plane, you can't get up and
move around. So, I get a lot done on planes. I like flying. I actually thought about flying
just to get some work done.
Jason Moser, what are you looking at?
Yeah, there's been an on-again, off-again relationship with this one. I think
it's turning to on-again. It is Panera. The stock has been stuck kind of in neutral here
the past couple of years, but I think that's for good reason. We've been a bit critical
of their in-store experience and throughput and how that's shaken through the numbers.
But, you know, Matty and I were talking about this the other day, and we have that one across
the street from us now here at Fool HQ that is very convenient. You can order on the computers
there and you don't really have to do a whole heck of a lot. It seems like they get the
orders right.
You don't have to talk to anyone, just get your food.
Yeah. It's a very convenient service, I think. It just has impressed me that maybe
that Panera 2.0 initiative is starting to take hold here. This is one I think that I'm
going to start looking at for MDP a little bit more closely.
And the ticker? P-N-R-A.
Steve?
How do you categorize Panera? It just seems like a place that sells a bunch of
different kinds of food, sort of. There's nothing unique, it's some bread, they've got
coffee.
It's kind of like Starbucks' third place, but not quite. I think that's a good
question you asked there, Steve. It's sort of an identity thing, and maybe they've still
got to work on that.
Mattie?
What I mentioned earlier, Activision Blizzard, you've got a nice, the ticker's ATVI, biggest
video game publisher on the planet. You've got a nice little 10% pullback here. I just
think video games are getting ever more popular. There's more platforms. No one does it better
than Activision. Esports is also going to be huge. There's some studies suggesting it's
more popular than the NBA right now, which is hard to fathom, and Activision's a big
play on that as well.
Steve?
Are you ever too old to play video games?
No, because I am 36 and I still play many hours of video games and intend to for many, many decades.
Steve, three interesting companies. You got one you want to put on your watch list?
I would have to go with Activision because I just can't do American Airlines and Panera.
All right, Jeff Fisher, Jason Moser, Matt Argersinger. Guys, thanks for being here.
Thank you.
Check out supernovaradio.fool.com for more details on our Supernova service.
That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money.
Our engineer is Steve Broido.
Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. We'll see you next week.
We'll be right back.
