CEO Shakeups, Fowl Earnings, and Hot Holiday Toys

December 3, 20210 comments♥ 0
00:00Chris Hill, joining me this week, senior analyst Maria Gallagher and Ron Gross. Good to seeyou both. Nice to see you, Chris.We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We've got the hot toys for the holidays withindustry expert, Jackie Breyer. And as always, we've got a couple of stocks on our radar,but we begin with the big macro. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, which is two percentage pointslower than where it was in January. The number of jobs added in November was just 210,000,well below expectations. But Ron, the one thing we know about monthly job numbers,they get revised. And I'm going to be stunned if a month from now, this number is not revised higher.
01:02Yes, that jives perfectly with what I was thinking. I will first point out that thisreport differs pretty dramatically from Wednesday's ADP private payroll report,which was better than expected. The reports often diverge from that report from the governmentsurvey. So I'm guessing, as you said, we may see an upward revision. It's not unlikely that thetwo things diverge, but I do agree that this seems a little extra weak here and we maysee upward next month. Despite that miss, as you pointed out, the unemployment ratefell to 4.2%. Professional and business services and transportation and warehousing led theway, but hiring in leisure and hospitality, which were really strong in October, which
01:46was nice to see, were weak this time around, unfortunately. Retail jobs were down despitehiring for the holiday season, scratching my head a little bit on that one.Labor force participation rate increased for the month to 61.8%, notably highest levelsince March of 2020, indicating that people are returning to the workforce or at leastare starting to look for work again, and that all-encompassing U6 unemployment rate we talkabout sometimes dropped from 8.3% to 7.8%. We'll have to wait and see what the Omicronvariant does. That's going to maybe wreak a little bit of havoc with employment, maybe nottoo early to tell. The Fed is walking a real tightrope here between a relatively strong economy
02:32and inflation and the risk of an economic shock due to Omicron. On Tuesday, Fed Chairman Powellsaid he expects to accelerate the timetable for the tapering of monthly bond purchasesand potential interest rate hikes. I think that surprised investors who thought the Fed may pumpthe brakes a bit until we have more data on Omicron. Maria, like Ron, I was sort of scratchingmy head at the retail number just in part because of seasonal hiring. Was there anything in the jobsreport that stood out to you? Yeah, I was really interested in that participation rate as well. Soprime age participation in the labor force is up as well. So that's at about 81.8%, which is peoplebetween the ages of 25 and 54. But the quits rate, which are workers who are leaving jobs as a share
03:18of overall employment is at or near record high. It's another one of those that's a little bitinteresting to look at the juxtaposition when you have both of those things in tandem. I thinktaking it all into account is really interesting. Let's get to some earnings. We're going to startwith Salesforce. Third quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected, but the biggerheadline is that once again, CEO Mark Benioff is making way for a co-CEO. Chief Operating OfficerBrett Taylor has been promoted. And hopefully, Maria, this goes better than the last timeBenioff had a co-CEO. Yeah, this is hopefully going to be secondtime's a charm for Mark Benioff. So previous co-CEO Keith Block left the company in 2020.
04:01Brett Taylor was also named executive chairman at Twitter this week. So he has a lot on hisplate coming up in 2022. Like you said, in terms of results, their revenue was up 27%,which was about in line with estimates. If you were thinking about and checking in on theiracquisition specifically of Slack that was acquired earlier this year for about $27.7billion. That is actually outperforming their expectations. Slack Connect, which allowsintercompany messages between customers, saw 176% growth year over year. It's going to be a couplemore quarters before it's fully integrated, but that's something that I'm going to be continuingto watch for Salesforce. For the second time in five weeks,
04:37a major tech company is changing their name. CEO Jack Dorsey announced that Square is changingits corporate name to Block. In addition to Square, the company is also the parent ofbusinesses like Tidal and Cash App. I guess I see the logic, Ron, but this seemed differentfrom the motivations that we recently saw from Facebook. Ron Grossman. Some differences,but also some similarities. Square represents its different businesses as building blocks,or at least that's what they say they do now. The name is also making a reference, obviously,I actually didn't realize this at first, but to blockchain, which along with Bitcoin is aprimary focus of Dorsey. So before I realized blockchain was part of this and it was just
05:21changing the name from Square to Block, I was like, eh, kind of a lame rebranding. I don't getit. Now I got to say, I do get it a little bit more. Square had become synonymous with theirseller business. The new name will distinguish the corporate entity from its businesses. So inthat sense, it's a bit similar to what Facebook Meta did in that sense, I guess. So what you haveat Square or what you have at Block is Square, which is the peer-to-peer payment service,Cash App, the mobile payment service that competes with PayPal's Venmo, and it allowsusers to buy and sell Bitcoin. Tidal is their music streaming service, and they have theirBitcoin-focused financial service segment, which has a weird name right now. It's TBD54566975.
06:07do with that what you will. Square Crypto is at a separate initiative of the companydedicating to advancing Bitcoin. That's going to change its name to Spiral.Square has invested about $220 million in Bitcoin, currently considered in creatinga hardware wallet for Bitcoin to make its custody more mainstream. So here we go. Bitcoin clearlywill be a big part of Square's future. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.Really no predictions for me at this time. We're going to watch it.Dorsey's tenure as CEO of Square has really been great and shareholders have been rewardedas a result of that. So far, year-to-date, the stock is down 20% and now that he doesn't have
06:51other distractions, which we'll get to in a minute, it really does seem like this is going tobe one of the most interesting companies to watch in 2022, because they need it all to work.They kind of do. And as a shareholder, I'm rooting for them. I am happy to see Dorseyfocusing. The focus on Bitcoin is a little bit concerning to me. I want to make surethat they execute on this right. And I want to watch where it's going.But I am glad to see that he is kind of all in.He is all in. And it's been a busy week for him because on Monday, he resigned as the CEO ofTwitter and handed the keys to the corner office over to longtime Chief Technology Officer Parag
07:36Agrawal. Maria, activist investors were looking for a change at the top, they got it, but so far,it's not helping Twitter's stock price. I think a lot of it's going to be aboutwhat Agrawal decides to do with the company. He's apparently been on the same page with Dorsey aboutthe value of blockchain, which I think is going to be interesting to see if that gets integrated,especially if he's coming in from the CTO position. But I mean, we've seen a lot oflackluster reaction from users when Twitter rolls out new features, like they had fleets,which got rolled back. They had their new Twitter blue subscription service.So Twitter's kind of an interesting one because it has a lot of value for users. It has 211 million
08:15daily active users. Nearly nine in 10 of them say they use it for news. 74% use it daily. Soit clearly has a lot of value, but they haven't really been able to capitalize and figure outthe best way to roll out these features that these users are excited about. So, I think it'll beinteresting to see what he does, and then maybe we'll see the stock react a little bit to thosechanges. Yeah, we were talking earlier today, this is one of the most important companies that I haveno interest in owning shares of. I am one of those people who uses it for news. I think if thiscompany went away overnight, it would be seriously missed. But for some reason, they really haven'tbeen able to figure out a business that rewards shareholders. Yeah. Since 2015, their shares are
09:01up 85%, which is compared to the S&P return of about 127%. You haven't been beating the marketif you've been a Twitter shareholder. I think it'll be really interesting to see if they makeany changes that can move their stock in a more positive direction. Which group of shareholdershad the worst week. The good news is, we found them. The bad news is, I'm one of them. Detailsright after the break, so stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Maria Gallagher and Ron Gross.Shares of DocuSign down more than 40% on Friday after the e-signature company's guidance for thefourth quarter completely overshadowed the positive results DocuSign reported in the third
09:54quarter. Ron, I'm one of these shareholders. Please help me figure out how to think about this.It's painful, Chris. I feel for you. I don't think we can talk about Docu's price declinestoday without some context, so give me a minute here. Prior to the pandemic, let's say February2020, DocuSign was trading around $85 a share. The pandemic pulled demand forward, got lotsof investors excited about remote technologies, and the stock shot to a high of $314 in Septemberof 2021, a 270% increase in a year-and-a-half. Even after this dramatic sell-off, painfulsell-off, which I think is an overreaction, by the way. Shares are still up 65% from pre-pandemiclevels. Small consolation if you bought it at the higher levels, but it's important to have
10:45that context. Moving to specifically talk about the business, DocuSign, while it's widely used,likely has a bright future. I like this business. It's not profitable yet. That's important tounderstand. They're cash flow positive if you don't count their large stock-based compensationexpense. I'd be careful about doing that, though. That is an actual expense at some point.As far as this actual quarter right now, the report goes results were strong. They beatexpectations. Customers continue to spend aggressively with dollar net retention at121% for the quarter. They added 59,000 new customers in the quarter, including UPS,which is modernizing its contracting process using DocuSign. But as you noted, it was the
11:27future guidance that really spooked investors, specifically the concern of slowing demand asbusinesses return to the office. Omicron being a wild card here. We'll watch that. On the conferencecall, management noted that demand is slowing and the urgency of customers' buying patternshave tempered. CEO Dan Springer said the environment shifted more quickly than we anticipated.Investors obviously don't like to hear comments like that. Selling the stock off dramatically,I think it's a bit of an overreaction. The stock shouldn't be worth 40% less than it was yesterday.So, is this a buying opportunity for people who think it also has a bright future, as you do?Since I think they're on the cusp of profitability, I do think now would be a good time to nibble on
12:15this weakness, yes. Ulta Beauty's third quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected.They also boosted guidance for the fourth quarter. But despite all that, shares of Ulta Beauty downjust a little bit on Friday. Maria, this does seem like what you want to see if you're anUlta Beauty shareholder. Yeah. I mean, they're continuing to deliver, especially before theholidays. These numbers are really exciting for me to see. So they had almost $2 billion in salesfor the quarter, up about 28.6%. Their comp sales were up about 26% as well, with a 16.8%increase in transactions and a 7.7% increase in average ticket volume. So I think that's animportant thing to note that they have both more people coming in and more people spending more.
12:58They're expanding their ultimate rewards loyalty program to nearly 36 million members,which is up about 13%. Ariana Grande's latest fragrance, which is called God is a Woman,is exclusive to Ulta and that's coming out soon. So stay tuned for details on that. And I justthink that this space is going to continue to grow because 65% of beauty enthusiasts believebeauty is significantly connected to wellness. And you see a lot of push for that in today'ssociety, talking about wellness and self-care. And beauty is a really important part of that.And Ulta has more brands than many other corporations. And so I think they've reallycapitalized on this market, will continue to do so. So I think it was a really strong quarter for
13:36them. Are celebrity endorsements like that,Are those the type of things that move the needle in this industry? Becauseif you look at sports apparel endorsements, if you look at things like fast food and celebrityendorsements and value meals and that sort of thing, it seems like they have a mixed record.What is the record like in this industry? Yeah. So, I think there's a differencetoo between celebrities endorsing products and then celebrities having their own products.You have Selena Gomez with her Rare Beauty and Kylie Jenner with her Kylie Lip Kit, that's Kylie'syou know, that's her lip kit. And so that becomes really popular. I think that really ends up moving
14:14the needle when it is the celebrity's product themselves, because they spend a lot of timethen endorsing it because it's theirs, as opposed to just saying, I like this thing. And so I thinkthat that's kind of the distinction you see a lot of times with this skincare, is you see more of thecelebrities actually owning them as opposed to just endorsing them.Shares of Okta rose more than 10% on Thursday. Third quarter revenue was higher than expectedfor the ID security company, and so was guidance for the fourth quarter.Okta, still not profitable, Ron, but the loss this quarter was smaller.Yeah, stock hasn't done much this year, actually down year-to-date, but this was a strong report
14:53which reversed a really weak stock earlier this week as the high-growth stocks reallyacross the board kind of got whacked on Omicron and other economic fears.But this report was strong, revenue up 61%.that was helped by the acquisition of secure platform Auth0, I hate that name. Excludingthe $46 million in revenue that Auth0 contributed, Okta's revenue was up 40%,still a nice strong number. CEO Todd McKinnon said, we're already seeing early success cross-sellinginto each other's customer bases. That's obviously what you want to see when you make an acquisition.Some other metrics bode well for the future, their remaining performance obligations,
15:34which is basically their subscription backlog, grew 49%, but they're continuing to invest heavilyin their business, which they have to do at this point, and that will continue to impactprofitability. On an adjusted basis, they had a net loss of $10 million. Management did increasetheir revenue and profit outlook. Investors like to see that for sure. They expect revenueto increase 53% in the fourth quarter, but investors should still expect an operatingloss of about $35 million. Maria touched on this when she wastalking about Salesforce and their acquisition of Slack. As you mentioned with Okta and Otzer,it is a nice reminder for investors that when acquisitions happen, they take time.
16:20They really take a lot of time for the company to absorb those costs, to really account for them,even when they work out well, which not all of them do.Yeah. You can't overpay, you have to ring out costs that are not necessary,you have to capture synergies, we hate that word, but it's true,and they have to be properly integrated from a culture perspective. It's hard to get right.Allbirds went public a month ago, and their first earnings reportprobably makes some of them wonder if they should have stayed private. Revenue was up,but their loss nearly doubled, and shares of Allbirds down more than 25% this week.
16:56Maria, if I love this business as much as I love the shoes that I'm wearing, I would buy this stock, but I don't.Yeah, I think you see with Allbirds, they're continuing this trend of kind of lackluster IPOs with about 49% of companies that raise more than $1 billion are trading below their listing prices that came public this year.With Allbirds specifically, what I think to watch for them is their growth in performance and how they compete against Nike and Adidas in that space.and then their growth in physical retail. At the end of the quarter, they had a total of 31physical locations, which is one of the explanations for that widening loss. They openedfor this quarter. So it'll be important for them to see that consistent growth, see how loyalcustomers are. If they like Allbirds, the leisure wear, if that then translate to liking Allbirdsperformance wear. And I think those are things that I'm personally going to watch before I
17:49I would invest with them. This is a company that made their bones as direct-to-consumer.Do they maybe need to rethink the store openings? I think it's going to be interesting to see it.A lot of times you see these bigger companies, they have stores, and they say the stores arekind of a marketing tool, right? You get the interest in the story of walking past, try themon, walk around in them, and then you might buy them online. And so seeing how they can track thatperformance and seeing how useful physical retail is, I think is going to be important for them.All right, Maria Gallagher, Ron Gross, we will see you a little bit later in the show.But up next, Jackie Breyer has got the hottest toys this holiday season,
18:27as well as advice for parents who are looking to do a little shopping.Stay right here, you're listening to Motley Fool Money.Chris Hill. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. It's time for the holidays,which means it's time to get the latest on the toy industry, which means it's time totalk with Jacqui Breyer, Editorial Director of The Toy Insider. She joins me now fromwhere else? Her home. Jacqui, great to see you. Thanks for being here.Jacqui Breyer. Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me.Let's start with the three-word phrase that's getting a serious workout this year, and that
19:21is global supply chain.How has it been affecting the toy industry, and how is it currently affecting it?It has dramatically affected the toy industry, but things are starting to ease up.So, over the past most of this year, so many toy companies spent five, six times what theynormally would spend to get their toys into containers onto ships from China to, you know,LA and Long Beach ports. But when they, you know, by the time they spent all that money, got themand got them over here, there was the delays, the backups, the congestion, unreal, unbelievable,like never seen before, as you know, just like every other consumer category. And retailers were
20:11finding holes in their shelves over the past months you know hot toys any toys would justbe you know somewhere on the water and manufacturers some said oh they should be in afew weeks we don't really know there's so much uncertainty which I've never seen before thiswas just an unreal situation this year and you know it's starting to get better we're seeingthe congestion easing in the port they're they're managing to clear away some of these emptycontainers which which was becoming the new problem at the ports they were unloading containersand then just like leaving them everywhere so there was nowhere to put new things um you knowbecause because every step of the supply chain is a problem um even down to the truckers and the
20:56warehouses so what we what i'm what i'm expecting is that as we continue to move through these lastfew weeks of the year shelves are going to be more filled some of the products that we were sayingthese are hot toys. They're going to be sold out. They did sell out, but some of them are back.So things are moving. Things are moving through. It's great news. The hope now is now that someproducts that had been very delayed, that should have been in stores months ago, are now arriving.Some stores, particularly Target, such an influx of product right now. The shelves arepacked, which is great for consumers, but for Target, they've got to get through this productbecause this is all 2021 product and they're going to carry it into next year if they don't
21:49sell it. So we saw a lot of big, big toy sales, especially this, this weekend for Black Fridayand Cyber Monday, we saw the buy one, get one half off sale, which we've seen from them. Andthen assorted categories 30 40 50 off these different toy categories trying to move throughthat stock so you know we're still saying if you see a product that you that you want that yourkid has to have if you haven't gotten it by now now's the time if you weren't able to get it beforegive it a shot now you may be able to find it you mentioned target i remember when you and i spokeat this time last year, we talked about major retailers like Target and Walmart and Amazon.And a year ago, you said Target was winning the toy war. Has the competitive landscape shifted?
22:38Are Walmart and Amazon not experiencing the same challenges that you described with Target?I don't think I would necessarily say that. No, I would say that Target right now,if I was a consumer looking to go shopping for toys as so many are, I would go to target becausetheir shelves are stocked. They've got tons of product and they're, they're going to, you know,be able to give people what they want. Walmart, um, lots of holes, not a great, um, mix of productsout there on the shelves, not as appealing as the displays that you're seeing at target.um and you know they they did have some deals not to the extent i don't think that target didthis weekend so i'm not sure what we'll see this week but you know we shall see and then amazon
23:29they they've been doing a pretty good job i would say amazon and they are getting people productgenerally on time of course there's there's some problems here and there as as you would expectum but you know i think they're doing a decent job they are i think it's pretty apparent they'remaking it clear to people you know this is when your product's gonna come so people are more awarei'm you know it's the people who are ordering products and then they're not getting them whenthey thought they would and it's getting pushed it's getting pushed that that's really turningpeople off. One last thing before we get to the hottoys for 2021. With more options than ever before when it comes to online shopping, do
24:16you actually expect to see a rise in store traffic? It just seems to me like more sothan years past, this is one of those times where if you're a parent and you're lookingyou get a toy, you want to be able to, you're going to feel more confident if you can go to astore, pick it up, pay for it and walk out rather than you're hoping that the shipping comes through.Yeah. And there's multiple reasons for that, right? So one is if you are shopping online andmore people than ever still, I think 85% of consumers were planning to buy toys online.Um, so that's, that's even 5% more than it has ever been before.So they're still going to shop online, but there's so much uncertainty is, is the product
25:06really going to come when they say it will, um, you know, is the price the right price?I don't know if I'm actually buying from a third party.Is this the right product of, you know, even Walmart and Amazon have third-party sellersthat you're not totally sure whether you can trust.So you have to be very careful.We are actually seeing more stock available in stores.and if you go into stores if it's there you've got it right you don't have to wait you don'thave to hope and and there's more availability it's very interesting and and you're finding
25:35more stuff you maybe you weren't looking for when you're in store definitely the way to goand of course year over year foot traffic in stores is going to be higher because 2020 wasyou know very little traffic let's get to the couple of the hot toys for this year and um oneof them I'm very excited about, even though I'm not going to be buying this because I don't havea child of this age to buy it for. But there's a home version of bumper cars that I'm personallyvery excited is on the shelves and available for people. Yes, Bly Bar bumper cars. These are thecutest things that every adult wants in their own size. So these are mini bumper cars for kids asyoung as 18 months old so you know imagine your your baby your toddler in a bumper car they can
26:26control it with very easy to move joysticks it only goes one mile per hour that's the max speedso you don't have to worry about you know some real bumping and hurting themselves or you knowyour furniture your walls it's it's very sturdy soft rubber bumper so your stuff's not going toerect. It turns 360 degrees and goes in every direction. It's got flashing LED lights aroundthe bottom. It's just a really, really cool product that I think every kid is going towant to cruise around their house in. One question, this is more of a broaderquestion than hot toy specific, but look, this is what you do for a living, you and your teamthe toy insider. Is there ever a year where you're doing your research, you're looking at the trends,
27:15you're looking at the hot toys, and you're genuinely surprised at something? Is thereever a time where you just say, yeah, this is a really hot toy and I'm not really sure why?Like the bumper car thing, I totally understand why that's a hot toy this year. But I'm justwondering if there's ever an occasion where you just, you know, whether it's a craze likeCabbage Patch Kids. And yes, I'm dating myself with that reference. But have there been yearspast where you're genuinely surprised by a hot toy? Yeah. I mean, look, a couple of years agowith those fidget spinners, remember, you couldn't get a spinner for your life. And they're justthings that you just spin and spin and spin. Now, fidget toys actually made a huge comeback this
27:56year, especially when it comes to the fidget poppers and things like that. But I would saythat's one example of something where i was like i don't i don't get it um what is we got the bumpercars for for much younger kids for kids who are a little bit older grade school that sort of thingwhat's uh what's hot this year i love for preschoolers big play sets that they canrole play they can act out um and it works for both you know for girls for boys for any childreally and a lot of times on the doll side we see really great doll houses where kids can bring intheir different dolls their little figures and and have them interact and play house and livethe dream life and all of that great stuff and we're seeing so many doll houses this year that
28:46are really cool so um on that end we have the lol surprise omg house of surprises this one isfour feet tall and four feet wide. It's got four stories and 10 rooms, you know, including a movietheater and a rooftop patio and all of that. They're all fully furnished rooms. They haveinteractive lights on the fire pit and it's a working elevator and the dishwasher. It's gotall the things you would want in your dream house. I was just going to say, I think I want to buythis just so I can take it to a contractor and say, build me a life-size version of this.I would like a big slide that loops around a palm tree, but you know,and then of course there's the Barbie dream house, which similar concept,
29:37you know, for that similar size doll,Barbie dream house is always one of the top selling toys every holiday.I think because parents grew up with it, they know it, they trusted grandparents.They, and what kid doesn't want the Barbie dream house.So another amazing dream home that we'd all like to live in, um, definitely going to bebig this year as well.And then we've got a newcomer Gabby's perfect dollhouse, which is based on the new kidsNetflix show Gabby's perfect dollhouse, which, you know, what maybe we haven't seen so much
30:15of since our kids are a little older, but the younger kids are obsessed.This right now is actually sold out.So I don't want to go too much into detail, but that's how obsessed kids are with this particular show and the, you know, the characters in it.So it could come back, could come back in stock where nothing's, nothing's definite this year.And similarly for more of your action figure fans, the, the Batman bat tech play set and look, it's a similar thing.it is a big batman it's a nearly three foot tall batman but he opens up into an epic bat caveso now kids are taking their action figures their batman and moving their action figures throughthis giant play set with so many that there's a an escape trap and all kinds of booby traps and
31:08tons of accessories and you know it comes with an exclusive batman action figure so there's just somuch play value in all of these items and and really kids get into it they become the figuresthey're living out full you know storylines in their minds while they play it I personally thinkthat kind of imaginative play is always fantastic and always a hit do your kids think that you havethe greatest job in the world or or are they blasé about it you know it's funny because everyonealways tells them their mom has the greatest job in the world. They hear it all the time.And I feel like at this point, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, now they're moreinterested in, you know, well, dad works with computer screens on in the New York Stock Exchange.
31:56So, you know, like I've become boring almost to them. I think they're a little toy spoiled, maybe.Last thing before I let you go. One of the trends that is getting a lot of attention in theinvesting world and getting a lot of investors excited is the prospect of the metaverse andthe applications for gaming, for social media interaction, all kinds of things.Is that something that is starting to make its way into the toy industry, or do you thinkwe're probably a few years off from that? I think the metaverse is definitely,you can see it growing in the entertainment world. Um, and, and we're going to see it moveinto toys. I think for sure, we're already seeing it. There's so many collaborations
32:42and, you know, pop-ups of one brand into another. I think it's definitely somethingthat's very interesting and something that engages both parents and kids.If you want more information, if you're looking for hot toys, and if you're like me and you reallywant that indoor bumper car, go to thetoyinsider.com. Jackie Breyer, always great talking to you.I know it's the busiest time of year for you, so thanks so much for being here.Thanks, Chris.Up next, Ron Gross, Maria Gallagher are coming back with a couple of stocks on their radar.Stay right here, you're listening to Motley Fool Money.
33:29As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, andThe Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocksbased solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here onceagain with Maria Gallagher and Ron Gross. Last year, Chipotle launched Chipotle Goods,an online store selling branded apparel and products. All profits from the store go tocharity. Chipotle just sold out of their newest item, cilantro soap. Among other things, Ron,this seems like a cruel jab at those small percentage of people for whom they can't eateat cilantro because it tastes like soap. Yes. Now, because I love our listeners,
34:29I did a little research here, right? Aldehydes are in cilantro and they're in soap. But aldehydesdon't inherently smell like soap. But since they're often added to soap, people learn toassociate the smell of aldehydes with soap. And that's where you get in trouble if you are one ofthose folks who have that issue. That's a shame. I think cilantro is great. Interesting to note,the soap is sold out. If you click on the link, you get a 404 error. And you're out of luck untilthey either restock or wait till next year. I don't know, Maria. Seems like an opportunityfor more soap somewhere down the line in Chipotle's store. Yeah, definitely. It's going tobe like the tequila for Tesla. It's what people, give the people what they want, what they're
35:16interested in. All right, let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass,Rick Engdahl, is going to hit you with a question. Ron Gross, you're up first. What are you lookingat this week? So continuing with my theme from last week about adding an energy allocation tomy portfolio, I'm revisiting NextEra Energy, N-E-E. It's already a recommendation in ourtotal income service. They're the largest electric utility in Florida, and they're the largestproducer of wind and solar energy in the U.S. They've got a fast-growing backlog of renewableenergy products that gives great visibility into their future revenue and earnings growth.The Biden infrastructure package will likely help companies like NextEra. Skilled management team,
36:00great capital allocation, industry-leading margins, love all three of those things.They've increased their dividend for 25 consecutive years. They're aiming for a 10%growth rate in dividends per share through at least 2020. The current yield is 1.7% for thosedividend investors. I think I like NextEra Energy right here. Rick, question about NextEra Energy?Yeah, Ron, I looked at the website. It's beautiful. It makes me feel really goodabout the future of the energy industry. And this is going to sound harsh, but the last time I sawa website that made me feel that good about the future of the energy industry, it was a littlecompany called Enron. I just want to make sure this was real, right? I knew you were going to
36:41say that. Yes. No, this is nothing like Enron. This is a strong operating business. I don'tthink you have anything. I think they hired the same web designer. That's all. Maria Gallagher,what are you looking at this week? So this week, I'm going to spend some time looking at DoorDash,ticker symbol D-A-S-H. I think as we're adjusting to this new version of life, I think what'sinteresting is to understand what are permanent behavior shifts versus what are COVID kind ofbehavior shifts. And so something that picked up a lot of traction in the pandemic was onlineordering. And so revenue for DoorDash was up 266% in 2020. Total orders were up 210%. Global onlinefood ordering is continuing to grow. So I think it's just going to be important to understand
37:22the dynamics within the industry and how much it's going to grow, especially as people aretalking about Omicron, we're going into another winter. What is that going to look like for us,for food? And how long do these habits need to take before they become permanent for us?Rick, question about DoorDash?Maybe this is an obvious question, but DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, there can be only one.How many of these can there be out there?I don't know. They talk a lot about the promiscuous customer, which are the customers who will go back and forthdepending on what are the deals they can get from Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates.
37:56So as a customer, you want them all around so that you can get the best deal.Too much effort for me. I can only fit so many apps on my phone.What do you want to add to your watch list, Rick?I think Ron tells me it's real, so I'm going to go with NextEra Energy.Sweet. Presumably, executives at that company are not calling their customers promiscuous.Maria Gallagher, Ron Gross, thanks so much for being here.Thanks for having us. That's going to do it forthis week's edition of Motley Fool Money. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. Our producer is
38:27Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.