Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Hot IPOs, Cold Pizza & Star Wars

Episode Date: November 20, 2015

Wal-Mart surprises. Jack in the Box pops. Square makes its public markets debut. And Urban Outfitters buys a pizza chain? Our analysts discuss those stories and share three stocks on their radar. Plus, corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow talks Wall Street reform, Volkswagen, and Star Wars. For a free preview of our MDP service, go to MDPRadio.Fool.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hillman, Jr.: Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Chris Hillman. Joining me in studio this week from Million Dollar Portfolio, Matt Argersinger and Jason Moser. And from Motley Fool Deep Value, Ron Gross. Good to see you as always, gentlemen. We have got the latest earnings from Wall Street. The one and only Nell Minow is our guest. And as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin this week once again with the big picture for retail and definitely looking better than

last week, guys. Walmart's third quarter profit came in higher than expected. They had an upbeat forecast for the holiday quarter. And something we rarely get to say, Matt, shares up more than 7% this week for Walmart. O' I know! Well, it's been rare for them. They've had a really tough couple years here. Results were better than expected, but I think that's what we're seeing with all these retail companies, the ones that are actually, the stocks are moving up. It's not as bad as we thought. And I think that's the case with Walmart. If you look at the revenue, still down year over year by about 1.3%. If you strip out foreign exchange, revenue is

up 2.8%. So, bravo Walmart, you're keeping up with inflation. That ain't easy. O' You're right, it's not easy, But profits were better than expected, but they were down quite a bit, because Walmart, as we know, is invested in technology, they're investing in their people, they're raising salaries, trying to refurbish a lot of their stores. But a lot of that, I don't know how much of that is paying off. If you look at, for example, their e-commerce sales, e-commerce sales were up just 10%, and I compare that with Amazon, a much more mature e-commerce platform, and their revenues more than double that growth rate.

My take on Walmart is this. I think over the next 10 years, no doubt, tens of millions of people will still be shopping at Walmart. They have a $20 billion buyback on the table. It's a 3% dividend now. But I just think this model doesn't work. I haven't met anyone under the age of 30 who has any interest in going into Walmart, ever. The one time I went in, Matt, it was quite an experience. I will say they have a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. But I don't get the attraction of the model anymore. I I just think long-term, it's going to die. Slow death. I will say, though, that Doug McMillan, the CEO, I give him points for the Investor

Day recently, where he came out and he, in my opinion, went beyond what he needed to do in terms of transparency and just very bluntly communicating what they're doing in terms of investing in their people, in the e-commerce platform. I feel like, at least if you're looking at this company, you've got to feel good about Macmillan and the way he's going about his business. I do. I just think, has Johnny come lately with this, with a lot of their efforts? I don't get the growth picture. I mean, it's one thing to go back and say, we've got to make our stores better, we're trying this new urban concept, we're investing in our e-commerce business, but I just think it's

too late. Best Buy's third quarter profit was mixed. Profit came in higher than expected, but same-store sales, Jason, barely in the a positive column, and that's just not the kind of momentum you need when you're going into the holiday quarter. Yeah, but is it really a win for Best Buy this quarter, just in that we are actually talking about them? I mean, for the past couple of years, I think we've all more or less been talking about Best Buy's slow demise, and it just hasn't happened, really. Now, I do think that with Best Buy, part of their success has come at the expense of HH Gregg. We are seeing HH Gregg really die that slow death.

One of those big box retailers can't exist, the other one can. Again, going back to what Matty's talking about with Walmart, I think Best Buy, again, it's facing that challenge going forward of, consumers' behaviors are just changing, even slowly. But we're seeing more e-commerce, we're seeing that become more and more important as time goes on. Now, Best Buy is obviously investing in that. Online revenue this quarter was 8.8% of sales versus 7.5% a year ago. So, there is improvement there. But when you compare that to something like an Under Armour or a Nike, for example, they are still far behind in their direct-to-consumer efforts there. So, they still have some ground to cover.

In what I'm not seeing from Best Buy, what I think we've all hoped to see to a degree here is a way for them to differentiate themselves in becoming more of a service provider, right? I mean, the reason why this holiday season doesn't necessarily look all that great for them is because there isn't really that device that everybody wants. There's not really that big of a reason to go to Best Buy. And it doesn't really help their cause that Black Friday essentially is every day on Amazon.com at this point. And so, I mean, we're seeing already a lot of deals being kicked out in the email inboxes there from Amazon and other retailers like Under Armour and Nike, and I think Best Buy is going to face some challenges there. But

again, I think this is not a stock that I'm sitting there saying, go out and buy it today. It's not one that I would say, go ahead and short. I think I can see a scenario where next year they do okay. But again, a lot of headwinds there, a lot of challenges, and it's just a very fast-changing space. They've been slow to change. I'm pleased to see we're working Amazon into every story so far. We'll try to keep that up. I think the only chance the Best Buy has to differentiate themselves would be through exceptional service, where you go in and you need help picking a television, you need help picking a computer.

I do, by the way. They fall so far short of differentiating themselves in a positive way with that metric that I can't see them turning this around. And then that begs the question. You go online to buy something like a TV. I mean, are you trusting more of this collection of reviews that you read on this online platform, or are you trusting the input of a sales representative there at the store, who may or may not have ever even bought their own TV to begin with? So, I think that you're starting to see how we're more crowdsourcing opinions and reviews on things like that, and those are becoming

more and more valuable as time goes on as well. Alright, let's move on to home improvement. Third quarter profits for Home Depot and Lowe's both came in higher than expected. And Ron, they're both putting up some pretty strong same-store sales numbers. Well, you know what Amazon says about ... No, I'm just kidding. This is definitely the one bright spot, among others, of retail, and that's because we have a solid housing market. People are seeing their home values increasing. And actually, the warm weather actually helps here, because it extends the outdoor season, and it extends the time at which people can do their home

projects. And that certainly helps. Both strong reports from both companies. I think Home Home Depot edged Lowe's out a bit, as it periodically does, and as the stock has done, but still is very strong. You have things that are comparable, like, Home Depot's same-store sales are up 5.1%, Lowe's is up 4.6%. 4.4% increase in transactions for Home Depot edged out Lowe's at only 2.5%. The one bright spot for Lowe's, with their average ticket, increased 2.1%, Home Depot was less than one. But still strong reports. Home Depot raised guidance. Lowe's just reiterated guidance. That's obviously more positive. And you see that positivity actually show up in the valuation, with Home Depot being just a bit more expensive than Lowe's.

Yeah, but you look over the last couple of years, Lowe's has really performed well. The stock up more than 50% in that time. And there was a stretch there, Jason, where Home Depot was just taking their lunch money every single quarter. And now, they're a little bit like Visa and MasterCard, in terms of, you can have more than one winner in this space. Definitely a little bit more parity there, and Home Depot has maybe 400 or so more stores than Lowe's does today. One thing I will add there, and I just think this is a really nice sort of dynamic of this market, of these two stores, is that weather is never

really an excuse, right? I mean, if it's warm, then that's great for them. If it's cold, well, hey, that's fine, too, because people need snow shovels and salt. So, either way, I think they have a reason. If there are hurricanes, it's even better. Even way, they have a reason to really gin up traffic and get consumers out there for whatever may be going on. Just a really tremendous performance on both companies. You look past the last five years, if you sunk half your savings into Home Depot and the other half into Lowe's, you've got to be feeling pretty good about that right now.

An interesting metric coming out of Lowe's, which I think speaks to larger projects, which the weather helps versus snow shovels and things like that, is that transactions over $500 was up 7.2% for Lowe's in this quarter, which is a pretty strong metric. The No. 1 stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average this year is Nike, which increased its lead after announcing a two-for-one stock split, a dividend increase, and a $12 billion stock buyback program, and shares up 7% this week, Matt. That is the trifecta when you want to get investors excited about a stock. I just question the timing. Now, the $12 billion buyback, that's a meaningful buyback. That's

buying back more than 10% of Nike's outstanding shares. And I can't blame, I mean, this is a great business. Steady, huge cash flow, always great returns on invested capital, of course one of the most popular brands in the world. It's a business you want to be investing in. I just question the timing here. Nike stock's at an all-time high. We're looking at 30X this year's earnings. In general, this makes me a little uncomfortable, because there's not a conference call I read that I didn't read this quarter that didn't include something about buybacks. I just think it's something a lot of companies are turning to now. Sometimes, that can be a signal that there just isn't a lot to be excited about. There's not end

demand for products and services. Therefore, companies have a lot of excess cash, like we know they do, and they're buying back stock. A, that boosts your earnings per share. It can return value to shareholders in a way, because it does shrink, generally, the shares outstanding. I just think that's telling me something a little worrisome about the economy and end demand. Regardless of what the business is, if you hear Company X is buying back their stock, your first thought is, well, they're lacking imagination. Well, yeah. Let's just put it this way. I'm a little more cynical these days about buybacks

than I have in the past. What about you? I often think they're signaling that they believe their stock is undervalued, but it also means that they believe their stock is undervalued relative to other opportunities in which they could put their cash. And if they're not seeing strong opportunities to put their cash into, as Matty said, that can be troubling. I think the popular opinion is to feel pretty good about share buybacks. I think as investors, I tend to look at it with a little bit more pessimism. Initially, the

first thing I do is I go look at their share count outstanding over time, and is that something that has come down, or is that flat, or is it up? That'll tell you a lot about how good they are at buybacks, or really what those buybacks mean. Coming up, we've got a new horse in the race for 2015's most questionable business decision. Stay right here, this is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Matt Argersinger, and Ron Gross. Fourth quarter profits for Jack in the Box came in lower than expected, but the company offered some strong guidance for 2016, Jason, and guidance

trumps results. Yeah, I really need to go to a Jack in the Box. I've never been to one. I've never eaten at a Qdoba, never eaten at Jack in the Box. This is a stock that's done really well here over the past couple of years. I think, we look at the restaurant business today, the way the space is changing, it's really proving out these concepts that have more than one brand, one concept under their umbrellas. We have Buffalo Wild Wings, and they've got Pizza Rev, and Artaco, even Chipotle is bringing some new concepts under. I think the restaurant company to have more ways to make money is proving to be actually worth looking at here.

With Jack in the Box, it's always been a Qdoba story. We've talked before about the potential of them actually spinning off the Qdoba concept. But I think, wisely, they're going to keep that in-house for now, because it's a big moneymaker. They're going up against some pretty tough comp numbers from last year. We talk a lot about businesses that are victims of their own success. I'm not saying that'll happen here, necessarily. But we go back to share buybacks, for example. This is a good example of a business since 2011. Their share count is down 32%. We've seen that play out on the earnings per share side. Now, on the net income side there. Net income is not growing at nearly the Pays Earnings Per Share is.

So, what that tells you is, you get that multiple with those earnings per share numbers there, and that's kind of supporting the stock price right now. The question investors need to ask is, is that sustainable for the coming year? Are they going to be able to lob up those same kinds of growth numbers, or is that something we see kind of compressing over the course of this coming year? I think the jury's still out there. Third quarter profits for the Gap fell nearly 30%. The parent company of Old Navy and Banana Republic also lowered guidance for the full fiscal year, and yet, Ron Gross, the stock up 6% on Friday. What's happening here?

I am scratching my head. I cannot figure it out. The only bright spot was that they matched revised expectations. Why that bids the stock up, I just can't figure it out. Things are not going well here. The Gap stores, same-store sales were down 4%. Banana Republic is the worst of the lot at minus 12%. The only bright spot is Old Navy. We saw a positive 4%. Same store sales there. And online was up a bit as well, but gross margins weakened, earnings were down, they're resorting to cost cutting, closing 175 underperforming stores. Things are not going well at the Gap. Stock valuation reflects that, and the word cheap has to be in quotes because maybe it deserves to be cheap. A PE of only 10 and a 3.5% dividend

yield for those who want to take a flyer on Gap. That could be interesting, but I think there's more trouble to come. You know how in sports there are teams that do well in the regular season and then just gag in the playoffs? I feel like that's what the gap is with Old Navy. Yes, I get that every quarter, Old Navy does well. I feel like if you're looking at the gap, it's just like, yeah, Old Navy, what did you do besides Old Navy? So, the gap is like the Cincinnati Bengals? That was the first team that came to my mind, too!

The Cincinnati Bengals of the apparel retail. No hate for you Cincinnati Bengals fans out there, but the facts are what they are. Square, the mobile payment company, went public this week. Shares rose more than 40% on the first day of trading. A lot of nice headlines, Matt. It really isn't quite that rosy, though, is it? No, not at all. I mean, they were pricing this at between $11 and $13 by the end, and it came in at $9. So, yes, the stock is up, and it actually ended up closing around $13 on its first day. But this is a company

that coming into the IPO at $9 was a $3 billion valuation. But Square raised capital a year ago in the private markets at about $6 billion in valuation. Coming in, this IPO has lost a lot of luster. And by the way, doing the deal at $9 and not at $11 or $13, they gave about $100 million in funding that they could have had through the IPO. Square is an interesting one. It's Jack Dorsey, it's the CEO and founder of Twitter as well. Really right now, they're making 95% of their sales just helping individuals and small businesses credit card transactions. It's a big market, but it's also a very competitive one, it's a very low-margin business, and Square is hoping to break into some higher-margin areas

like payroll processing and working capital loans and things like that. But I don't know, it's really hard. They're not profitable. And I would say, we were talking about this past week, that the IPO market's getting a little ... the IPO, the private market, whatever you want to call it, is just getting a little stalled, I think, in terms of capital. It's kind of telling us something interesting about what's happening in that market. stalled, but do you think frothy in terms of valuations, especially in the private market still, or do you see some of that coming down? Still, but I actually think there's some rationality coming into that a little bit.

I was going to say, it seems like the enthusiasm is starting to wear off, a little bit more sanity coming in. I'm happy to see the market really look at these businesses square and match and say, OK, maybe we should look at these with a healthy dose of skepticism, because their paths to success aren't necessarily so clear as maybe they once seemed a year ago to the folks in Silicon Valley. Right. Third quarter profits for Abercrombie & Fitch came in much higher than expected and the stock up 20% on Friday. Jason, they cut back on their discounting and that move is really paying off for them.

Surely. At some point, being a victim of your own success reverses course and you become a beneficiary of your own failures. Abercrombie & Fitch has just been a dismal situation for a while now. It seems like we talked about them every quarter and it's never been good. And so, it's nice to see they're maybe turning the tide here. Now, let's be very clear, this isn't the quarter that tells us the story is turning around. But, I mean, they stanched the bleeding, so to speak, I think, and that's encouraging. Direct-to-consumer sales, about 21%, 22% of overall sales, which is in line with what they did last year, I think that's encouraging, especially when you compare that to other retailers. Buying

back shares as well. Since 2011, share count is down about 21%, and that's encouraging. But hey, they brought in a nice quarter, and they didn't even need to buy a pizza joint to do it. Yeah, what about that? Urban Outfitters this week came out with yet another dismal quarter. Their third quarter same-store sales were terrible, and they announced that they're buying a small pizza chain. It would be one thing if they were really good at retail, and they said, now we're going to go bring our expertise to the restaurant business. They're terrible at retail. What makes them think they can run a restaurant? O' Trying to make more dough.

Oh! I mean, isn't pizza the answer to everything, really? Pizza's one of those things you can say, hey, there's some pizza. Well, it's not very good. Well, yeah, but it's pizza, so let's go ahead and have it anyway. Even not good pizza is still pizza, right? I guess maybe they're thinking that no matter what, it's a way to drive traffic. It's a huge example of diversification, most likely. On the face of it, it seems Let's be clear, I see no rational thinking behind that acquisition there. It just seems bizarre on every level. I agree with you that even mediocre pizza is still pizza,

but I feel like even a really terrible retailer like Urban Outfitters can screw up pizza. Sure. What about bacon, though? Is there even mediocre bacon? Can you screw up bacon? I don't think you can, can you? Tofurky. Turkey bacon. I'm not eating that crap. But, I mean, regular bacon? Tough to screw up. You could cook it a little bit wrong or too hard.

You know, I don't know, but microwave it, it's kind of not so good. You know what? I think you just keyed in on Urban Outfitters' next acquisition. Hey, now. Guys, we'll see you later in the show. There is only one guest who can talk big banks, Volkswagen, and the business of movies. Nell Minow is next. Stay right here.

You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Eat it, eat it, if it's getting cold, reheat it. They're going to put me in the movies. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Nell Minow is an expert in corporate governance. She is also the film critic known as the movie mom, and she joins me now. Nell, happy early Thanksgiving. Thank you very much.

The last time you were on the show, in the spring, Volkswagen was one of the most highly respected automakers in the world. They had a thriving business, and then the emissions scandal happened. and a lot of opinions about who's to blame, what the damage is going to be. What did you think as you watched this story unfold? Well, I hate to say it again, but it was a big fan. I told you so. They've got, like, the worst corporate governance ever.

All you need to know is that the guy who controls the majority of the voting stock put his fourth wife on the board, the one who used to be the kid's nanny. Where were the other three wives? They weren't also on the board, were they? No. But come on, really? No, that's an absolute nightmare. And it bothers me a lot that this story was reported as a consumer fraud story, which it certainly is.

But it's an environmental story along the lines of BP. You know, we don't have iconic photographs of oil-drenched birds. But what we do have is something like 10 times the amount of bad stuff being put into the air instead of the water. And I am hoping that the various governments that are working on this will treat this as an environmental affront as well as a consumer fraud problem. It's interesting that you mention that, because it's absolutely true that when you've got photographs, when you've got video, it makes something so much more real to a mass audience. And yet, in some ways, the damage could be more widespread with this emissions scandal. I mean, at least in the case of BP, yes, we had oil-drenched birds, but it was

contained. And this sort of seems like a story that could spiral for years. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of asthma. There's going to be a lot of lung disease as a result of this. All of our current projections, as scary as they were on climate change, will have to be rejiggered. And no, it's a very, very, very serious problem. And I'm not sure that, well, I am sure that replacing the CEO is not enough to address it. They're going to have to have a thorough change. And I'm predicting right now that they may end up doing what Altria did and just saying, our name has been so severely damaged, we're just going to have to start over.

Do you think, though, that they're going to be, I don't want to say protected, because that's probably the wrong word, but when you consider just how important Volkswagen is to the economy in Germany, one in seven jobs tied to the auto industry in Germany, it sort of feels like they're going to have a lot of leeway with the government. Well, there are going to be a lot of jobs involved in cleaning up this mess. So I don't think it's a, you know, it's a jobs issue. It's always a mistake in my mind to look at a false dichotomy between jobs and abiding by the law or jobs and environmental protection.

There's always lots and lots of jobs, and Europe is ahead of us on this, lots of jobs of jobs to be created in environmental protection and in compliance. And believe me, some of those engineers who created the defeat device, they'll be out of a job. They'll need to replace them. Let's move from Germany to Wall Street. John Reed was the CEO of Citi from the mid-1980s to 2000. He had an op-ed recently where he said the big banks, like the one that he used to run, are, and I'm quoting here, inherently unstable and unworkable. That's a pretty big charge from a CEO like John Reed. Yeah, I kind of feel like I got an I told you so on that one, too, because I have been saying all along that too big to fail means too big to succeed,

too big to control, too big to comply with the law. And I kind of feel like he should maybe give back all of that big pay package that he got. Yeah, he's calling for going back to Glass-Steagall, which I think might be a good idea but would not be enough. And what he's saying is that as optimistic as we were about the benefits of conglomerates and the synergies and all those great buzzwords that were so popular in the 90s, it turns out that there are things that are simply too big for any group of people to monitor and to keep out of getting in each other's way. And we've seen that over and over and over again, and he's quite right.

And the question is, is the government strong enough now after all of the weakening that has come out of lobbying expenses and political contributions to follow through on what he's recommending. We're a year away from the next presidential election. And on this show, we focus on business, not politics. And yet the political season has begun. And there really are candidates on both sides who are talking about reigning in Wall Street. I'm curious what a Nell Minow administration would prioritize in terms of Wall Street. Well, you know, I feel that it's time for the government to look more carefully at what I call the demand side rather than supply side of finance. The largest investors in the country, of course, are institutional investors, pension funds and mutual funds and endowments and insurance companies.

and yet we've done very very little to uh get out of their way in providing the kind of oversight that capitalism needs to thrive uh it's interesting to me that for the first time this year our neighbors to the north in canada had a number of no votes on say on pay and they're very rattled by that none of the companies have changed their pay yet but they're talking about it and so what i would like to see is the treasury department the sec and the labor department which have jurisdiction over these various institutional investors and to remind them that as fiduciaries, they're obligated to provide more of a monitoring role than they currently do. As you may know, there's a lot of pressure to go the other way. They're trying to loosen up

the fiduciary standard even more than there already has been to allow institutional investors to self-deal regardless of the impact on their clients. I think that's absolutely catastrophic, And I would hate to see that happen. The administration is on the right side of that, but there's a lot of pressure from the Hill to go the other way. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with Nell Minow, corporate governance expert, film critic extraordinaire. Let's talk about the business of movies, because it's certainly looking like a good year for the box office. and particularly if you look at the top grossing films of the year, a lot produced by Disney and a lot produced by Universal, Jurassic World, Avengers, Inside Out, Furious 7, Minions.

I'm curious, as someone who has followed this industry very closely for decades, when you see a couple of studios controlling the top grossing films, is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? or are you indifferent? You're just hoping that it's a healthy movie industry. I want to see a healthy movie industry. And the movie industry is much more unpredictable than even, say, the stock market. There have been a number of films that have come out this year that everybody thought were slam dunks that have died at the box office. Look at the Steve Jobs movie. You couldn't ask for more leading indicators of success than that one in terms of the director, the subject matter, the screenwriter, the stars, and yet, for some reason, nobody wanted to see it.

I don't think it's because the market's been saturated, because the Ashton Kutcher movie didn't do all that well. The Alex Gibney documentary went to television, but it didn't play in theaters. And so I'm not sure why that is, because I thought it was an outstanding film. So I'm a little sanguine about the idea that certain studios control a lot because there are always little independent films that knock everybody's socks off and do very, very well. The most successful film in history in terms of return on investment was a very, very low-budget independent film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding,

which made a lot of money for Tom Hanks. He made more money on that as producer than he ever made as an actor in any of his films. And so I think it's a very, very healthy market out there in the movie world. And on the flip side from the Steve Jobs, because you're right, that was a film that really had all the makings of a hit. On the flip side of that, for me anyway, is the Minions movie. Because I get a superhero movie making a billion dollars.

I get fast cars. I get dinosaurs. Don't tell me anyone on this planet was predicting Minions would do a billion dollars at the box office. I certainly wasn't. I was disappointed by it. And, you know, we had just had a great spinoff from an established series, animated series, in the Penguins movie, Penguins of Madagascar.

And so I was really hopeful. I loved the Despicable Me, the first one. I liked the second one. And I thought the movie was a disappointment. I didn't think the villains were all that interesting. And to be honest, the minions don't talk, which is hard. You know, if you're Shaun the Sheep, you can get away with that. For me, not so much.

But I think internationally, that's a great thing, because the one thing that we know that does well internationally is light dialogue and a lot of action. And people love the minions. I mean, how many minion trick-or-treaters did you get? Plenty. Yeah. The Star Wars movie is, we're just a couple of weeks out.

It seems like the only way this movie fails is if it does not become the highest-grossing film of all time. I mean, the expectations are incredibly high. What are you expecting out of this movie? You know, I try not to be overly optimistic because you don't want to get crushed, But I am a total Star Wars fan. I went to the first one when it first came out in the theaters and sat through it twice. I was so excited. You could still do that in those days.

Wait a minute. You didn't leave the theater? You saw it twice? Yes. With one ticket? Yes. You could do that in those days. Wow.

Those were the good old days. I went with my then-fiance one week from becoming my husband. We went together, and we said, let's just stay again and see the scene in the bar. well let's just let's just stay until the until the trash compactor and we ended up staying through the whole thing a second time so yeah i'm a big big fan and i cry every time i see the trailer for this new one i'm so excited about it um harrison ford han solo one of my favorite movie characters of all time it looks absolutely fantastic and they brought in all the right people to work on it and so i'm really crossing my fingers that it's as good as as i think it's

going to be. Definitely not as big as Star Wars, but certainly a surprise, I think, this year is the success of the recent Peanuts film. It's a G-rated movie. It's brought in $100 million at the box office. I know I was surprised by the success. I was very surprised. I was really nervous about it because they stepped away from that iconic aesthetic that we've seen in all the previous Peanuts movies that's very simple, like the old comic strip. And they went to a 3D, fully animated uh cgi uh look and and yet charles schultz's son and grandson wrote the screenplay it's very very true to the spirit and the characters one thing that i think is hilarious is that as you know in the peanuts movies the adults don't speak they just go want want want

they brought in the greatest trombonist in the world trombone shorty nice play that part so they you can tell they took the whole thing very very seriously i'm glad it did well but i want to talk you about another movie that's coming up that is right up your alley, and that is the movie of The Big Short. Do tell. Well, it's one of my favorite books. It's certainly far and away my favorite book about the financial meltdown, and so I was holding my breath on that. Great cast. Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Christian Bale, and I've seen it, and it is great. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I have to tell you, I loved it. Anybody who has any interest in investing or finance has got to see this movie. And just to give you an idea, when they get to the boring

technical stuff, they have to explain about CDOs and credit default swaps. They take Margot Robey, the gorgeous actress who was Leonardo DiCaprio's wife in Wolf of Wall Street, they put her in a bubble bath sipping champagne, and she explains it to you. I'm sold. I'm absolutely going to be watching that film. Were you surprised at all, though, that the director of this film, I mean, this is a drama, and it's his first drama directing, Adam McKay, who is better known as Will Ferrell's writing partner and directing and producing partner, I mean, known for success for big comedies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights, but they gave him the keys to a high-priced drama. Well, I heard Michael Lewis talk about it, and I have to tell you why I wasn't surprised.

He made a very funny film with Will Ferrell called The Other Guys about two policemen. And it was a good movie. And over the closing credits of that movie, for no reason and having almost nothing to do with the plot of the movie, he had a PowerPoint explaining the financial meltdown just because he was interested and he cared about it and he had to talk to somebody about it. So that's in the closing credits of, and you can see it on YouTube, of The Other Guys. And so I knew from that that this was something he was very interested in. And Michael Lewis, in a talk that I heard, explained that he came to me and he said,

you have to understand, this is the greatest obsession of my life, is what went on here. I know your stuff. I love your stuff. I'm going to have Selena Gomez explaining the technical stuff so that people will sit through it. I'm going to have Margot Robbie in the bubble bath. I'm going to have Anthony Bourdain. And I'm going to get the biggest stars in Hollywood, and we're going to tell this story to people who need to understand it.

And he really has done that. I thought it was great. Last question, and then I'll let you go. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, what's a movie that we should watch with our family? You know, there's a movie that I love for Thanksgiving called What's Cooking? It's about four different families all preparing for Thanksgiving in their different ways. And they're all different cultures and ethnicities, and some are immigrants. and each one of them is dealing with family craziness and dysfunction in their own way. And it was made by the same director who went on after that to do Bend It Like Beckham.

And I just love it. I think it's a real neglected gem. So I think that's a great one. One of the best reasons to be on Twitter is so that you can follow Nell Minow. You can get her thoughts on corporate governance, executive pay, movies, and a whole lot more. Nell, have a great Thanksgiving with your family. Thanks for being here. Anytime. Bye-bye.

Coming up, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and 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 Ron Gross. A couple of things before we get to the stocks on our radar. First, behind the glass this week, it's not Steve Broido, but longtime listener Steve Macrae hanging out with us.

Thanks for coming over to Fool Global headquarters. Also, Matt Argersinger, Million Dollar Portfolio, the service that you run, is reopening to new members for the first time in a while. Give me the 15-second pitch on what it all is. Sure. It's Million Dollar Portfolio, it's our flagship real money portfolio service at The Fool. We're building a portfolio, a Million Dollar Portfolio, that really is trying to pick the best of the best companies from our five newsletter services here at The Fool. For example, if you're a James Early fan, which I know we have a lot of them out there, He's the advisor on Income Investor, and so we are regularly looking at the Income Investor

scorecard, trying to pick the best dividend stocks for a million-dollar portfolio, but that goes for Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Inside Value, Hidden Gems. Just the best of the best companies building a portfolio, trying to beat the market. If you want more information, you can go to mdpradio.fool.com. That's mdpradio.fool.com. We've got a site with a lot of great content, videos, etc., interviews with Matty, Jason, and the rest. Alright, just a couple of minutes, let's get to the stocks on our radar. Ron Gross, last week you mentioned Perry Ellis, which is up 15% since then, what about this week? Going with Markel, MKL, often called

Baby Berkshire, just hit $900 per share this week, don't let that price scare you. Long-time chief investment officer and full favorite Tom Garner was just elevated to co-CEO this week, I'd love to see that. We think it's an exceptionally well-run specialty insurance company. Jason Moser? Yeah, I've talked about TripAdvisor before, and I'm going to talk about it a little bit more. Ticker TRIP. This is one that we've gotten a lot more clarity on the instant booking product that they're rolling out, not only with their hotel partners, but now we know that Priceline is a partner. And it looks like this actually is an exclusive deal

right now with Priceline, which means no Expedia for the time being. I think this is going to continue to prove out a lot of value here, and I think it will continue to grow and diversify the revenue stream. And just real quickly, my daughters are ready to add the next stock to their portfolio. It came down to Wayfair and TripAdvisor. They couldn't decide, so I went to Twitter for a poll, and overwhelmingly, Twitter has said TripAdvisor. So, it is my daughter's next stock purchase, TripAdvisor, baby. Thank you, Twitterverse. Matty, we've got about 30 seconds left. Okay, speaking of million-dollar portfolio, our latest buy in MDP, Chipotle needs

no introduction, ticker CMG. Fears of slowing growth, the E. coli scare, we had a chance to buy Chipotle at about a 10% discount to our cost basis in MDP, and way off its all-time high. I just think if there's a time to buy into a great restaurant concept like Chipotle, is at a great price today. You go into Chipotle, what's your go-to order? I go with the three tacos almost every time. Barbercoa, tacos, love them. Alright, Matt Argesinger, Jason Moser, Ron Gross, guys, thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money. Our engineer is Rick Engdahl, our producer is Mac Greer.

I'm Chris Hill, thanks for listening, we'll see you next week.