Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Disney’s Lost Decade and Next Act

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

The market’s had a surprisingly strong 2023, but investors might be eying easy low-risk yields elsewhere.  Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger discuss: - (00:21) How some investors might be tempted to move out of stocks given the yields elsewhere - (9:41) The latest with Disney – its standoff with Charter, plans to take full ownership of Hulu, and what investors should make of its lost decade - (19:11) NYC’s “de facto ban” for Airbnb, what it means for the company and says about the state of housing and short-term rentals.  (31:44) Jason and Matt break down two stocks on their radar: Hershey and Masimo. Stocks discussed: DIS, NFLX, ABNB, UBER  Host: Dylan Lewis Guests: Matt Argersinger, Jason Moser Engineer: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This family is on the brink of civil war. On September 18th, Mobland, the hit original series, is back on Paramount+. We are the Hartigans. Don't know them yet? Then Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder?

I want Comet dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want more? I'll give you more! Mobland, new season hits September 18th out in Paramount Plus. NYC says no to Airbnb.

Disney's woes continue. And are investors seeing attractive yields in areas other than stocks? Motley Fool Money starts now. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. The best things in life are free. But you can give them to the birds and bees.

From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me over the airwaves, Motley Fool senior analysts Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. Gentlemen, great to have you both here. Hey, Dylan. We've got one business facing a de facto ban in America's biggest city, a lost decade for one of entertainment's best-known brands,

and companies on our radar, but we're kicking off with the big picture and the big macro this week. Labor Day has come and gone, summer is over, and Matt, I think a lot of investors are probably happy to see August in the rearview mirror. I think so, Dylan. A little bit of a rough month. It wasn't terrible by any standards. We've had a great, obviously, year-to-date in the stock market. I think there are some seasonal factors that play here. August is typically a month where there's lighter trading volumes. You've got investors, investment bankers, fools that go on vacation. So low volume sometimes can cause technical moves in the market that create more volatility.

But then we have September, which we're now in, which is statistically the worst month for the stock market. So perhaps maybe investors looked ahead and said, September is coming, take some profits, head to the beach, get out of town. But speaking of profits, through Thursday's close, the S&P 500 is up about 17% year-to-date. That's a fantastic year. It's more than 50% higher than the S&P 500's long-term nominal annual return. And the Nasdaq 100 is up 40%. So, I think it's not hard to see a lot of investors, especially a lot of institutional money, saying, you know what? I'm sitting on some surprisingly great returns. There are risks still out there to consumer spending, which we're going to talk about, to inflation that could reemerge.

China, I think, is a big story that people are just starting to talk about. It's been such a workhorse for the global economy really for three decades now. If China's economy continues to sputter and if that real estate crisis that they're facing spills over into other areas, I think that has pretty big implications for a lot of companies that do business in China and for the global economy. Finally, you have valuations that are still pretty high. Depending on what measure you use for earnings, the S&P 500 is trading between 18, 20 times forward earnings multiple, certainly not cheap by historical standards. I can understand why coming into August and now in September, investors are taking a little money off the table.

Matt, I think generally the theme over the last couple of years has been, tell me the headline and I would have gotten the direction of the market wrong. That's certainly how I feel when I look at the S&P 500 returns and the Nasdaq returns this year. I think people pleasantly surprised by what they've seen in the market. One of the things I'm wondering is, we're starting to see returns and yields in non-stock investment areas creep up. Do you think that that is starting to draw some of that investor money away from the S&P 500 and from stocks? Absolutely. I think it already has, and I think it's probably just something that's picking up. Yields are playing a really important role right now. Talking about those investors that

want to take money off the table, they now have the best risk-free place to park cash than they've had in more than a decade, almost two decades, actually. So if you're an investor, you're saying to yourself, well, I've made 15%, 20% in stocks so far this year. Why not take a lot of those profits, park them in treasuries, money market funds, earn 5% on an annualized basis, call it a year? So at this point in the year, I think since where the markets come, those yields start to play a larger role. They're just at a point now where they're almost too good to pass up, especially if we think about some of the risks that are ahead that we talked about. I think, Matty, I think you're spot on there. I think all of a

sudden now we see this risk-reward sort of is tilted in a little bit of a different direction. In one dynamic, I think it's been very interesting to watch play out because it hasn't been this way over the last 10 to 15 years, but we're seeing now the ease with which investors can go purchase those treasuries, for example. The online brokerages, everywhere from Schwab to public.com, they're making it so easy to actually make those purchases. They never had the incentive to do that before because the interest was virtually none because everybody said, hey, listen, the best return is going to be in the stock market. That calculus has changed a little bit. Now that you're seeing it's even easier for investors to go in there and park that money, even if it's just for

the short-term in something like Treasuries, making it easier to do that, I think probably is contributing to that a little bit as well. Jason, we're starting to see the S&P back pretty close to where we were at highs in late 2021. As we've talked about a lot on the show before, the macro picture looking out for the rest of the year is uncertain. There are a lot of different things that I think are on our radar and have us saying, oh, we need to be watching this, we need to be paying attention to this. How are you looking at where we're at right now, knowing we're getting close to those all-time highs again, and we have those things like student loan repayments picking back up? This takes me to something we were talking

about in production in the Fed looking at quarter three GDP numbers and revising them upward considerably. And I think that headline, you read that headline and you think, wait, what? I mean, that's kind of that's confounding to an extent. Now, it does make a little bit of sense when you consider we're now in September. And so this is also reflective of right, July and August. And so we've essentially kind of gotten through the third quarter more or less. And a lot of these a lot of these headwinds that we're talking about are going to take place more in the fourth quarter and on into 2024. But I thought it was it was very interesting in reading. There was a Bloomberg piece on this that we read through. And the chief economist, the chief U.S.

economist with Bloomberg, Anna Wong, said something that I thought made a lot of sense. And I'll paraphrase it, but she's ultimately talking about the strength in the third quarter GDP. The question, is that something that portends maybe a soft landing or that things might continue to improve through the fourth quarter into 2024? And her perspective was was actually no, it's to the contrary. And this actually increases the chance of potentially even a negative GDP number in the fourth quarter, because you're going up against such a tough comp already. And I think you said something in the production meeting that really, I think, said it all. A lot of this growth in GDP with this revision, it's stuff that's been pulled forward,

right? It's stuff that's been pulled forward because we've known of some of these challenges that are coming into the back half of the year and on into 2024. I liken it to restaurants facing different difficult comps. You had a great year, the following year, it's a higher hurdle to clear and sometimes they may not necessarily clear it. You see some negative growth, so to speak, which isn't always so bad depending on the comp. But it is absolutely a fascinating time to watch all of of these economic forces at play. Yeah, Jameel, I think those are some great points. I think there is a situation where some of this economic growth has been pulled forward a little bit and we're going to get a high GDP print for the third quarter. And what

does that mean for the fourth quarter? But there could be something slightly more to the story. And I think we've talked about it, but it's always like a bit of a paradox, which is these 5% treasury yields, these 5% money market funds. If you think about it, it's been kind of the ultimate government stimulus for wealthy people and investors. Those who have substantial savings are getting big interest income checks every month. I think the wealthier part of this economy is still spending, spending on travel, spending on services, buying luxury items. We're seeing a little bit of that tail off. By the way, I was looking at data from the St. Louis Fed. Homeowners are sitting on about $30 trillion in home equity. It's like $200,000

per homeowner. And you can imagine that skews a lot higher for wealthier homeowners, but the Fed's efforts to slow the economy, to slow spending by raising interest rates could be actually feeding spending at the higher end, which might be keep the economy going actually, because we know a lot of that spending on the higher end drives a lot of the economy. Yeah. And to your point there on the luxury side, I think a big theme for this year has been money shifting away from goods and more towards services. And we talked about the last several week, sort of the challenges on the lower end, right? We talk about your discount retailers, dollar general concepts, and they're obviously seeing a lot of headwinds and

crimped consumer spending there. We saw this week, too, we're starting to see that the luxury goods side, at least in a bit more of a state of uncertainty, RH earnings out this week, CEO Gary Friedman noted. I mean, they expect the luxury housing market and the broader economy to remain challenged throughout the rest of this year and into next year as mortgage rates remain high and continue to trend higher. That's just something else to keep in mind there as we get into this fourth quarter and move on into 2024. All right. Coming up after the break, we've got a shakeup in streaming and questions about what's next for one of media's biggest brands. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined over

the airwaves by Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. It's been a rough week, a couple of years or decade for Disney, depending on what you're paying attention to. The House of Mouse has been in the news recently for writers and actor strikes, but this week piled even more onto its plate. Jason, let's start with the news of Disney's channels, ABC, ESPN, and Disney all going dark early in September for Charter Spectrum cable providers because the two companies could not settle contract agreement disputes. What's going on here? Yeah, well, thankfully for Disney investors, and I'm not one, but my kids are, so we're paying attention to this. But at least there's the park side of the business that's keeping this thing afloat, right? Because

the media side of this business is in a total state of flux. It's fascinating to watch this all play out. And when it comes down to the charter Disney ESPN angle, it's a good reminder that to a degree still, content is king, right? I mean, if you're a cable subscriber today, then chances are you have cable either because your internet provider is giving it to you for next to nothing, or you intentionally subscribe because you want that live TV product for sports and news and whatnot. And what we're seeing here clearly, I mean, ESPN is trying to play their hand a little bit and saying, hey, we have the content, you want our content, you're going to have to pay for this content. If not, then you won't get our content." I get that. That's economics 101,

pretty much. But what we're seeing, ESPN and Disney to a greater extent here, they have, I think, a longer-term goal in mind. They're really, I think, trying to figure out a way to bring as many subscribers as they can over to things like their Hulu Live product. and as they stand it up, their ESPN and ESPN Plus product will become, I think, a little bit more engaging, right? I mean, I don't know the sports offerings on that product today are necessarily so compelling. But, you know, when you look at Charter, for example, I mean, that's 14 million residential video customers that they have. And again, I'd be willing to bet that most of those customers, that number is going to continue to tail off. And I think part of that is because

of what's happening right now with Disney kind of turning the screws on this content and making them pay up. But if you figure that, you know, you look at Disney getting around $2 billion or something a year in programming costs from Spectrum for this stuff. If you math that out, you look at something like Hulu Live, for example, price increase getting ready to go through, it's $90 a month. You're going to bring in $1,000, $1,080, $1,100 a year. I mean, you get two million new subscribers, that kind of fills that $2 billion bucket, right? And that's good. Now, ultimately, they're looking to bring in many more subscribers than that. And I think they have a chance to do that as long as they have the content. And then they also have,

I think, some levers they can pull in enticing entry-level offers for new subscribers, right? They don't necessarily have to charge that full boat for new subscribers that they're charging for someone like me. We've had that service for six years now at our house, and we love it. It's a great service. But essentially, what it is, it's the new cable. It's cable, just in a different form. But it is a fascinating thing to watch play out because ESPN's gravy train, I think, has really hit a wall here. They are going to have to figure out a way to monetize this business a little bit more transparently than they've had the luxury of doing in the past. I can't help but look at the timing of this, Jason, and say, absolutely brutal for college

football fans and for sports fans expecting some of that ESPN coverage. Particularly interesting because we also saw the headline that Comcast and Disney may reach a deal over Hulu by the end of September. You mentioned Hulu Live there. You start connecting the dots. It seems like this is a play to push people to projects that Disney owns outright. Yeah. Well, and I think also accelerating this timeline is something that both sides want. I think Comcast wouldn't mind accelerating this because they know that they're going to get a better price than what they would have gotten back when the steel was cut. Disney probably wants to go ahead and get this thing done now before they have to pay more down the road. Again, I think there is the opportunity

for this Hulu Live product to succeed. What they really need to do is ultimately bring consumers, bring new subscribers over. You do that through a number of different ways, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it boils down to content. While ESPN has enjoyed such a long life of being able to hide behind the scenes with that cable bundle, they can still do it to an extent with things like Hulu Live or YouTube Live. It may not be as lucrative, but it can at least still give them a future, albeit maybe as a smaller business. It seems fitting to me that we're talking about the decline of cable during a year where Disney, one of the companies that has benefited the most from cable over the last decade plus,

is down 25% year-to-date. Matt, we were talking about market returns. Obviously, Disney is not stacking up to the S&P 500 and then the NASDAQ. You back out over the last nine years. The stock is basically flat since 2014. It seems like this company has had so many things go right, and yet shareholders haven't really been rewarded. It's been remarkable to watch. On June 10th of last year, 2022, I tweeted or X'd. Was that the verb you used? I X'd that if Disney fell below $80, it would be a generational buying opportunity. Last I checked, the stock is trading around $81. In my heart of hearts, I never thought we would get here to this price. But if you look at the market cap of Disney, it's around $150 billion. Netflix is at $200 billion.

And you can tell me about Netflix, the fact that Netflix is wildly more profitable, it's more focused, far less moving parts, no CEO succession right now, and a decade more runway of trying to figure out a profitable streaming business. But I just have real trouble squaring that reality when you measure the two businesses side by side, asset to asset, IP to IP. I think Iger's just got to figure this out. You mentioned it, Dylan, but given everything that's happened over the past decade, Marvel acquisition, Lucasfilm acquisition, Fox Searchlight acquisition, this should have been one of Disney's greatest decades, but it's ended up being one of its worst. You mentioned Bob Iger. Adding to the confusion of what you call things,

Iger is both the current and former outgoing CEO of Disney. He had handpicked his replacement, Bob Chapek. We saw a lot of buzz this week because there was a bombshell report breaking down the dysfunction from Disney insiders between those two. This was an incredibly complicated succession story and one that I thought a lot of people expected to be very clean, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Jason, what do you look at when you see Disney and its management, its leadership going forward? I think this is one of the biggest question marks. I think that every day that passes, Iger walks out of this looking worse and worse. I mean, he just does, right?

I mean, this is a business where, number one, it's clear that he kind of doesn't want to pull a cord, right? He doesn't want to take off. It seems like he still really enjoys that job and that title. But by the same token, I mean, you need to understand where new leadership is going to take this business in the future. and it's no accident to my mind that Iger continues to bring in more outside consultancy in regard to this ESPN deal because it's a very difficult problem to solve. And the biggest problem I think is ultimately this is a problem of his making. This is not something you can just put off on Bob Chapik. This is something that has been years and years in the making

and that they have not been able to address it coherently up until this point. I certainly understand the market's glass-half-empty perspective right now. Matt, it seemed like before you saw opportunity with Disney, and we were just talking about how it seems like they may be in a spot where they are a stronger streaming company six months from now, 12 months from now, a couple of years from now by reacquiring Hulu fully. Is that something that becomes material to this business and something that might kickstart this business? I think I'll just step back and say this is one of the situations where it doesn't look bleaker right now for Disney. And I feel like that's one of the situations where you kind of hold your nose. You say, this company's got

a wonderful history. It's got probably the best content IP on the planet. Will they figure it out? I think at some point, someone will. If it's not Bob Iger, some manager will. And this company will be a lot more valuable in the future. That's from today's price. Jason, same take for you? Yes, I love the hold your nose thesis. I think at the end of the day, I kind of look back to content as king. And as long as they've got that content, they're going to have at least some leverage here. Up next, New York City puts up a no vacancy sign for Airbnb. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Jason Moser and Matt

Argersinger. If you've got a trip to New York coming up, be ready to stay at a hotel or with a friend. The city put new rules into effect that targeted the business of short-term rentals in the city and forced hosts to register with the city. Jason, Airbnb calls the restrictions on the short-term rentals a de facto ban. Let's walk through some of the details here. What exactly is happening with Airbnb and NYC? Yeah. This is something we've seen this regulatory environment take shape for a while now with Airbnb and all sorts of different localities around the world. With New York City, this is Local Law 18, which ultimately says that Hosts can only rent a place where they live. Hosts must be present during the stay. It limits

to two guests per stay, and then you also have to register with the city, I think it is, or the state, in other words, to be able to do this, right? So, it certainly raises, I think, the barriers to entry for a lot of folks, and it creates some incentive to consider perhaps other options for travelers. You know, on its own, I don't look at this on its own. I don't think this is necessarily a problem for Airbnb. I think it could be a sign of headwinds, or at least it could challenge some of the growth assumptions going forward for the business, at least in the near term. Because the worry isn't really just here about how it pertains to New York City, but let's think bigger, right? I mean, the world is this company's market

opportunity. And so you see other municipalities, cities, communities taking a stand and shaping the legislation, how they want to deal with concepts like Airbnb. Now, I will say, when you look at the numbers, there's an estimated 47,000 Airbnb listings in New York City. Now, about half of those are active, and about a third of those are the ones that are most exposed to this local law 18. So, it's not like you're just looking at, you can't get an Airbnb in New York City at all, but it certainly is going to whittle down the supply there and change the decision for some folks who were considering being hosts. At the end of the day, in 2022, New York City represented around 1% of the company's overall revenue. So it's not insignificant, but it's not something

that's going to impair the business. But it could be that saying, death by 1,000 cuts. We just don't want to see a lot of cuts like this taking place all over the world. Now, encouragingly, I think you look at someplace like the EU, the European Union, that's home to over 1 million hosts on Airbnb. It's more than any other region in the world. They've been a little bit more proactive in trying to shape this legislation country by country. It's resulted in more middle-of-the-road solutions so that you're making concessions both on the Airbnb side and on the legislation side of things. It's not a perfect solution for everyone involved, but it still gives Airbnb an opportunity to exist and to continue to grow. I think that's what we should be looking for here

domestically as well. I know it's very easy to focus on the domestic issues when it comes to Airbnb. But remember, this is a company with 7 million listings worldwide and over 1.5 billion with a B, cumulative guest arrivals. So, I mean, they have a massive network that serves a very large market opportunity. And it's worth keeping that in mind. Let's talk a little bit about how some of the different cities around the U.S. have approached this. Because, Jason, I think a lot of people do look at this and say, is this a potential turning point? And are we going to see a tougher policy environment for Airbnb and other companies that operate like this, like VRBO, other operators in the space. Matt, we've seen other cities like New Orleans put rules in place

requiring hosts to live on premises. And it seems like what they are really trying to do is make short-term rentals more of the old school version of what Airbnb was rather than the business of Airbnb that has emerged over the last five or so years. I think that's right. I mean, J-Mo mentioned the power of Airbnb's network. Well, to me, it's a network effect, right? Because you want people to use Airbnb, you want guests to have a great experience, but you also need hosts. You need hosts with properties to build out that network. And so I'll speak about Washington, D.C. My wife and I have been long-term Airbnb hosts in the city there. We've actually been hosts since 2009 when most people were still calling Airbnb airbed and breakfast, believe it

or not. But I remember when we had one of our first rentals, we were one of three Airbnb rentals in the entire Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Back then, it was a completely different game. We've seen a dramatic shift in the regulatory picture there as well. It's not quite as draconian as it is in New York, as it seems like it is in New York, but you still have to register your property. You have to pay a hotel tax, which in D.C. is one of the highest in the country, by the way. I think that's probably fair, but the property also has to be a primary residence. If you're not present at the property, you can only rent it up to 90 days in the calendar year. So there are some restrictions. And I think it's a little bit

of a big deal because the experience of the host matters too. And if it's become too costly and too burdensome to post your property on Airbnb because you don't want to deal with the costs and restrictions, I love Airbnb's network effect. But my wife and I have actually transitioned to more long-term renting because even though cities also make it hard to do that, it's a little bit less restrictive than what Airbnb has become. It's a shame. Motley Fool Money listeners could have had a chance to stay at Matt Argersinger's house. They're still welcome to, by the way. If you're coming to D.C., let me know. I think a lot of what we're seeing from the city response here is a response to housing supply and price issues for locals. Do you feel like

these measures help address those, or does this feel more like a scapegoat, Matt? I think it's more of the latter, unfortunately, Dylan, because I think personally these restrictions have gone a little too far. I mean, just personally, if you own a property, I think there are certain freedoms that should come within the law about how you can monetize that dwelling that you own. And cities already make it extremely hard to be a landlord anyway. You know, even in D.C., you've got to get a business license. You've got to pay lots of fees, special taxes. Your property has to pass safety and zoning legislations. I mean, it's really hard and it takes a long time. And oftentimes, I don't think they're effective.

Whenever you see a city or county try to impose housing regulations or rent controls with the idea of either increasing supply or keeping the rent lower, what happens ultimately is you end up taking housing supply out of the market because you've made it too hard on landlords. And we're seeing a lot of the same situation if you step back into the overall housing market. right? The whole challenge of today's affordable housing crisis, if that's what we want to call it, is a supply issue, right? There's just not enough homes. And the way to attack it is not generally with new regulations. I mean, we're already facing, you know, ultra-low inventory. Mortgage rates are above 7%. You know, we've got three months roughly of supply of housing if you're

looking to buy a home. That's way less than the, you know, normalized rate of about six months. And that's because we've had sort of this below-normal housing construction and apartment construction situation for well over a decade now since the global financial crisis. So say what you want about mortgage rates, say what you want about regulations or what needs to happen to increase supply, but we are dealing with structural issues that aren't going to be helped unless there are market forces that come into play. And I think oftentimes cities and counties try to legislate change when if they actually freed up restrictions a little bit, especially on the landlord side. And in this case, the Airbnb host side as well, I think the situation

could actually improve on its own. I think Matty's right there. I think this really is more of a scapegoat. I think they love the fact that they can present this as, oh, well, this is the solution to high housing prices, right? Clearly, it's not. Now, I mean, there's been a lot of speculation. Low interest rates have allowed for a ton of speculation in the real estate market. This certainly isn't the first stretch we've seen of that. Folks getting in there, buy properties, become Airbnb entrepreneurs, so to speak, right? And it seems like maybe that's grinding to a halt there. But I think like with anything, when you look at disruptors, and I would put Airbnb in that disruptor mold, right? And this

is a company that basically found a new solution to an old problem, right? And we see companies do that all the time. I mean, you know, one that comes to mind is Uber, right? We've seen Uber kind of do this regulatory dance over the last several years and kind of figure out how it's going to be able to continue growing without having to deal with such a restrictive legislative environment. And I think ultimately that's where we get with Airbnb. It'll take a little time to get there. But I think if you're an investor in Airbnb today, you can't be surprised at this. This is the kind of stuff that comes with being a disruptor. You get in there and you go ahead and you do. You ask for forgiveness later. You don't ask for permission first because you're

never going to get permission. They can't give you permission because there's no legislation around which to work. Airbnb is getting there trying new things. As real estate goes, it is all about location, location, location, right? Some places are going to welcome stuff like this more than others. Those that don't want it, they're going to find ways to regulate it. And those that do want it, man, I'm going to tell you what, they're going to find loopholes at the end of the day if the legislation isn't adjusted. And yeah, Jamo, great points. I love the Uber comparison as well. I mean, you have a situation with Uber, Airbnb, where they've made the experience of renting or staying in a short-term vacation or renting a car, renting a

taxi, I should say, using a taxi, a much better experience. I mean, it's universally that that's the case, right? And so those forces are very strong. And I do think at the end of the day, those will win out over the long run, whereas the regulations, the sort of myopic ways of trying to control or tax or slow down the disruption that you've talked about, those forces ultimately lose. Yeah. And I'm glad you said that because you're right. Uber, they made it just far easier to get transportation. Airbnb has made it far easier to get lodging. And I'll tell you what, going back to that Disney story, and the reason I think cable operators are a little bit of a bind here in regard to video, getting something like a Hulu Live product is a far more enjoyable experience

than dealing with a video provider, getting video from your cable provider. Now I don't need the cable box. I don't need to deal with my cable company when it comes to video issues. Right now, it's cheaper. That's not going to last very long, of course. But because it's streaming-based, it's all internet-based, customer service now becomes far better experience than dealing with that old stodgy cable company. So again, you see this happen in disruption. It's not something like investing. We say it's never a straight lineup. Matt, I want to give you the final word here, and I want your advice, but not on stocks or on investing. I want you to talk about the perspective of someone who maybe is in the New York market as an operator of an Airbnb, maybe

owns several properties, or is in a city where they're seeing this type of policy in place, what would you tell people to do if they're in that position? Start to focus more on the long-term housing? Unfortunately, right now, I think that's the way to go. The way things are trending, at least in the short term, I think that's where it's going to be an easier process to get licensed to do it and not face sort of the restrictions. And oftentimes, as a landlord, you don't want to be on the premises of where your renters are, right? That's huge. And so, if that's the situation it's going to be in a lot of cities, I think long-term renting is the way to go. And to be clear, I think a lot of people who are

enjoying those stays don't necessarily want the homeowner there either. Absolutely not. I'm sure there's some delightful interactions that happen from it, but it's not necessarily what everyone wants on their vacation. All right. Up next, we've got the return of a fall favorite and stocks on our radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I told the landlady I'd lost my job and I didn't have the rent. She said, I don't care about you ain't got the rent. As always, people on the program may have interests 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. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. If you're feeling in a fall mood, Starbucks is celebrating the Pumpkin Spice Latte, turning 20 by offering a buy one, get one on fall drinks at Starbucks every Thursday afternoon this September. Jason, Matt, the eligible drinks here include the Pumpkin Spice Latte, the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, the Ice Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte, the Chai Tea Latte, the Apple Crisp Oatmeal Shake and Espresso, the Caramel Apple Spice, and the Apple Crisp Oatmeal Macchiato. I feel like I'm talking about the Taco Bell menu here, where you just combine different ingredients and words, and they all wind up working into different drinks. From that fall menu, which one are you guys ordering?

Matty, what do you think? Well, gosh, I'm not a very complex Starbucks customer. Occasionally, I'll get a chai latte. I have to say, I would risk it on the iced pumpkin cream chai tea latte. It's a mouthful, but it does sound delicious. For a one-off BOGO on coffee, I'll probably do it. I'm like Matty, I keep it simple. My go-to in these hot days is that cold nitro. a good uh just just black coffee drink i i guess i'm anti-pumpkin these pumpkin spice pumpkin i yeah go ahead and at me all you want man i couldn't care less this i i've tried one hot and cold didn't like either one of them my first inclination is to agree with maddie you just go

with a chai tea latte but then i also i'm like you know i want to try something new i want to try something new from this menu at least to see if it's any good so i'd probably give the caramel apple spice a try. But I tell you, after my experience with that pumpkin spice latte, my expectations aren't very high. And I feel like I'm probably just going to bump back that chai tea latte at the end of the day. I'm seeing a lot of sugar in all these ingredients, no matter how you cut it. Jason, despite your misgivings about the pumpkin spice flavoring, I think it's worth remembering at 20 for the pumpkin spice latte that this is kind of what set off a lot of the menu innovation and experimentation we've been

seeing at Starbucks over the last two decades. It really is. And Ian, I fully acknowledge I am the exception, not the rule when it comes to these drinks. While I may not really care for them, I do respect and understand that a lot of people love them. And I think that's great. As a Starbucks investor, I'm a big fan. The thing that really caught my eye in this story, it took me back. It's this one passage. It says, the offer can only be redeemed once per week. Okay, I got sure that makes sense, and cannot be used on drinks that cost more than $10. I had to reread that a couple of times to make sure I understood exactly what they're saying, because they're implying that you could get a drink that costs $10 or more, which I was just fully unaware of

for the longest time. I can't figure out whether to be bullish or bearish on that news alone, Dylan. If you're listening to this, what is a $10 Starbucks drink? I've never seen one. I mean, that thing must be the super customized 10 shots of super duper express. I mean, what is a $10 Starbucks drink? I think that's what it is. It's with all of the add ons. I mean, if, if you're going beyond $10 with your Starbucks order, we want to hear about it. Podcasts at fool.com is our email address. All right, let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd is going to hit you with a question. Matt, you're up first. What are you watching this week? All right. Well, speaking of fall,

pumpkin spice lattes and $10 Starbucks drinks. I know Halloween is still about seven weeks away, but you're seeing the displays in the grocery stores and you're also seeing the aisles start to get filled up with candy. It has me thinking about the Hershey company. I see not just an amazing company, tickers HSY, by the way. I see not just an amazing company with an incredible 130-year history and track record. I see not just a chocolate company, but the country's number two snack brand behind just PepsiCo, by the way. And it's diversified well beyond Hershey's Kisses, Reese's Cups. It has brands like Dots Pretzels, Skinny Pop Popcorn, even sports bars. More exciting to me, I see a stock price down about 24% from its high. I can't explain that. And a

dividend that's grown by almost 150% over the last 10 years and yields around two and a quarter percent today. Nothing is guaranteed in life, guys, but I can almost guarantee that the Hershey company will still be around a hundred years from now. And I think I can earn a nice annual return buying today. So Hershey. Dan, your favorite Halloween candy and a question about Hershey? Favorite Halloween candy is probably the bite-sized Snickers. They're incredible. I'll eat a hundred of them. I don't want a whole Snickers bar, but I will eat 100 bite-sized Snickers. Also, here's my question about Hershey. Why can't Hershey make chocolate that actually tastes good oh man wow dan has european tastes i guess yeah you're very sophisticated taste from

i don't want to listen listen i don't want to i don't want to like claim european here because i ain't but hershey chocolate tastes like i don't know bad let's just go with bad all right i can't respond to that dylan uh jason moser before we get to your radar stock favorite halloween candy well i'm not gonna lie much to my wife's dismay already got a bag of halloween candy in the house guys. Big fan of the Hunter Grand. I'm a big fan of the Hunter Grand. Crispy, caramel, a little chocolate. That's a good one. It's a classic for a reason. All right, Jason, what is on your radar this week? Yeah, I've been taking a look at Massimo a little bit more closely. Ticker is M-A-S-I. As a reminder, this is a medical device company

primarily known for its technology used to measure oxygen levels in the blood, known as pulse oximetry. And the company started to diversify beyond this core competency into other areas. is they recently made this acquisition of Sound United. That raised some eyebrows. Still some question as to whether this is going to pay off to the degree management believes it will, but it's linked more to its foray into connected healthcare with things like wearables. They've got this new stork baby monitoring system and others. The stock has had a really tough couple of years with all of this. In the most recent earnings report, management then had to rein back expectations because of weakness in sensor sales as hospital inventories piled up and hospital

budgets remain constrained. So I'm trying to get a better idea. Is this a value trap? Is this a value play? Digging in to understand that better. Dan, a question about Mossimo. So Mossimo's stock price is back to pre-pandemic levels, Jason. Was this company's success over the last couple of years nothing but a bubble? I don't think so. But I think we're going to find out a little bit more here as they bring more things to market, like those wearables, that Stork Baby Monitor. We're going to see how well they can get beyond just the healthcare healthcare segment. Dan, Stork Baby Monitor or Candy Company? Which one's going on your watch list? Well, Hershey's is trash, so they're not going on my watch list. So we're going to go

Mossimo this time around. Hot takes. Matt, Jason, thanks for being here. Dan, thanks for weighing in on our radar stocks. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd. I'm Dylan Lewis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. We'll be right back.