Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 02.04.2011

Episode Date: February 4, 2011

Best-selling author Michael Lewis talks about Wall Street's next big bet.  BP resumes its dividend.  Mattel reports big earnings.  And Netflix braces itself for some big competition.  Plus, we put you to the test with our Victoria's Secret quiz and share some stocks on our radar.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Chris Hill, and I'm joined by Motley Fool Senior Analysts Seth Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross. guys. Good to see you. Good to see you, Chris. Best-selling author Michael Lewis is our guest this week. We've got strong numbers from the world of retail, and we'll look at whether the millions spent on Super Bowl ads are a good investment. Plus, as always, a look at

the stocks on our radar. But we begin with the big macro. Fed Chief Ben Bernanke said this week he sees increased evidence of an economic recovery. We had a massive winter storm that stretched from Dallas to New England, affecting 100 million people. And on Friday, the government reported the economy added 36,000 jobs in January. Ron Gross, I'll start with you. Not exactly great job numbers. What stood out for you this week? Yeah, not what economists were expecting. Normally, when I hear weather being blamed for something, it kind of makes me go, ha! But in this case, I think I'm going to give it to them.

Did you look out the window? The weather has been pretty severe. And so, we saw pretty weak numbers in construction and transportation. Factory employment was a highlight. Those numbers look pretty good. The bigger headline, perhaps, is that the unemployment rate was down to 9% from 9.4%. But let's not get too excited. Once again, the labor force shrunk. More people are becoming discouraged each month and are dropping out of the job hunt, and that's making the numbers look better than they actually are. Seth? Well, I was looking at the numbers. I like to look a little bit below the headline because that's the only way to differentiate yourself, right? And the number

of persons employed part-time for economic reasons actually dropped a little bit. So that seems like a little bit of decent news to me. And employment in retail trade, I noticed, rose a bit. And that should start perhaps a virtuous cycle by which retailers, if they're adding people, that suggests that they are seeing sales that are encouraging. And once people start spending money, they start getting jobs. That's how you get economies rolling again. So this actually looks like a decent report to me yeah but also important to note that even though bernanke sees evidence of a self-sustaining economy he's not willing to uh ease up on the quantitative easing and so it he needs to see and i think this is right significantly lower unemployment before the government pulls back

it is good to know that he is least aware as my colleague jason moser read to me recently and i guess read to me makes it sound more paternal than what james was on his knee quote was quote A real recovery is going to require a job, so it's good to know he's mastered the obvious. But I guess it implies that the monetary policy has been some sort of a fake recovery, which I can't figure out. Don't you think Bernanke needs to make some sort of bold pronouncement, like if we get to 8% unemployment, he'll shave his beard? Yeah, that would be good. He'll streak the quad, something. Some kind of incentive for the American people.

We talked earlier in the week on MarketFoolery, our new daily podcast. We were talking about the snow, and one of the winners that one of our colleagues identified is Compass Minerals, which is a company that makes rock salt, one of the few companies out there that makes rock salt. When you look at the airlines canceling thousands upon thousands of flights, it's pretty obvious to see the losers in a massive snowstorm. Are there any other winners out there that you guys look at or industries that you think have potential? I don't know. I mean, you cancel a bunch of flights. You've got the ticket money from these people, and you don't have to fly them.

That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Shovels. Amazon, more people are buying online. People are buying shovels. Really, the shovel manufacturers? Shovel manufacturers are cleaning up. They're buying stuff online. Ba-dum-bum.

Actually, while we're going to talk a little bit about retail numbers coming up, but if you look at some of the reports we're getting, the weather didn't keep as many people away as you might think, and a lot of them had to run to the store and buy jackets. All right. The other story dominating headlines around the world is the ongoing situation in Egypt. James Early, this is a business show, and there are certainly some different storylines to pull from, the importance of the Suez Canal, global food prices, the Internet shutdown.

As an investor, when you see what's going on in Egypt, what are you focused on? Well, it is interesting, Chris. We see pictures of the unrest, but how many stories do we see about the global economic problems that this is causing? And it's partly because it's not really causing a lot of economic problems, and that's why the Egyptians are upset. Egypt has not been a big player. economically, you know, thanks in large part to Mubarak. So it's understandable that they're upset that the stock market, I think, dropped 16% and has been closed for the past week or so. So we really don't know what's happened with Egyptian valuations. But the Egyptian economy really just

depends on four things, the Suez Canal, remunerations from Egyptians working abroad, tourism, and U.S. aid. So the real risk, I would say, is that the risk, is that the unrest, excuse me, spreads to the Middle East. But if it's contained in Egypt, it probably won't be too big of a deal. Seth? From the reports I'm seeing about Egyptians sort of taking out frustrations, at least some groups of thugs on journalists and foreigners, the Egyptians probably ought to be worried that they kill their tourism industry, at least in the short term, because if people are worried about that kind of thing, they are not going to go to Egypt, and that's a pretty big source of revenue for the country. If you're killing your tourists, it might actually kill your

tourism industry. Yeah, ask Miami. Ron? And this seems to be fading into the woodwork just a little bit, but the geopolitical spreading of this problem, perhaps into Yemen or Jordan, if that were to happen, I think then this becomes a much bigger deal. And if the Mideast becomes destabilized more so than it already is, we could see a lot of uncertainty and weakness in the markets and in the economies around the world. You're saying buy oil futures, Ron? Could be. Do you have a preferred country for it to spread to if you had to pick one?

If I had to pick one? Canada. Wow. Canada's the end of France, right? That's awesome. Wishing it on someone? I don't know. Yeah, I'm with Seth.

I think France. France, yeah. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're going through some of the big headlines of the week. Seth Jason, we had some strong retail numbers this week led by limited brands and the gap. Have you been doing more shopping? Well, you can tell from my wardrobe and my haircut that I don't go to the mall nearly often enough. Not a stylish man.

Your haircuts are only at the mall for you. Yeah. Haircuts for me are in the bathroom next to the bathtub with my wife wielding the shaver. I tried that at one of my marriages. Wow, there's an image. Yeah, the numbers we got this week were based on an International Council of Shopping Centers. Yes, there is an International Council of Shopping Centers, and they are kind enough to add me to their report list.

They have a lot of good information. It's very interesting. But this is a survey of 32 stores. And in this case, it's a very strange situation. Numbers across the board at a lot of chain stores were pretty decent. But since it's a small survey, a couple of really large performances are big stores. can have an oversized effect on the overall index. In this month, that was true

because Costco had a 9% gain in sales and the Limited had a 24% gain. And those juiced the overall numbers by a couple of percent, just between the two of them. Overall, actually, there's some interesting takeaways for investors. And I think that that is that the two strongest segments, if you want to call them that,

that you can find in there are luxury on the one hand, up 6%, and then wholesale club up 5.3%. once you get rid of gasoline. So expensive and very cheap. Those are the two places. And by 32 stores, you mean 32 companies, right? 32, yeah. 32 chains or companies, exactly. And within limited brands, wasn't Victoria's Secret a big driver of that? Didn't they have some just huge blowout numbers for January? They did. And do you want to get ahead of ourselves? Should we get straight to

Victoria's Secret now? Because I've got all the details. Sure. Victoria's Secret, part of the increase they had there was because they moved to sale last year it was in december and this year it was in january but the comparable store sales number was up 35 and only 10 of that they figure was because they moved it from one month to the other they also managed to keep their merchandise margins and the amount of money they make on each item they sell either flat or improved across a lot of their businesses they also did a good job at at their bath product store i mean i would i love to look for the bad

in these reports, and there's not a lot of it to find in here. So Victoria's Secret, it's not just a pretty face. They're actually getting it done on the business side. No, dirty underwear is really doing it for them. I'm talking about the kind of underwear that sends you to the confessional on Sunday, not the kind of underwear that James is usually wearing. Or that I hang

from my car mirror. Alright, coming up, some great earnings from Tupperware and Mattel, and I'm to blame for at least one of them. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. We're in the money. We're in the money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Seth Jason, James Early and Ron Gross as we go through some of the companies making headlines this week. Tupperware's fourth quarter profits were lower due to some charges the company took, but the results were still better than expected and the stock jumped on the news. Ron, I'll be honest, I didn't even know Tupperware was a public company. So how are they getting it done?

They're getting it done. As you said, it was a little bit of a confusing quarter because of some charges. But if you strip them out, profit was actually up 13%, pretty good. Emerging markets were strong for them, specifically Brazil, India, Philippines. There were some declines in Australia, Germany, and Japan, interestingly enough. But Austria, surprisingly, was a big market for them for the quarter. People dig Tupperware parties in Austria. Yeah, you would be surprised. But they increased, they gave full-year guidance, I should say, that was above expectations.

They're putting a big increase in their stock buyback plan in place and the company's doing a nice job. Does anybody here have Tupperware at home? Not the actual brand name, Tupperware, no. Me neither. In preparing and trying to find something bad to say since that's my job on the show.

I went to their website and looked at the product and it looks, maybe this is selling now because of Mad Men, but it looks like the same exact stuff we had at my house in the mid-70s and it also looks really overpriced, sort of four plastic Tupperware coffee mugs for $18, you can get those at Target for four or the equivalent.

So good for Tupperware. If they can sell a cheap product for much more money than it's worth, good for them. They've also got beauty products too, which makes sense. Right, that was pretty strong for them for the quarter. Remember, in the U.S. it's kind of invasive to invite somebody to a Tupperware party, but abroad in a lot of emerging markets, sales are relationship-based. So you can just add on some lipstick while you're selling your things. Selling your things?

Selling your plastic cups. It was on the tip of my tongue, but then it wasn't. Plastic pitchers, cups, plates, picnic baskets. So here are some storage containers to put your leftovers in. And, oh, by the way, would you like some lipstick? Yeah, you'd look great in this color. It sure fits, baby. All right.

Mattel's earnings were better than expected. Revenue up 9% for the quarter thanks to sales of Barbie, American Girl, and Monster High. And Mattel shareholders can thank me for that last one. I did purchase a Monster High doll over the holidays for one of my daughters. And Monster High, Chris, is the— The premise behind Monster High is that all of the classic monsters, Frankenstein, Dracula, the mummy, et cetera, all have teenage kids, and they are all in high school together. So you buy the doll, and then there's this whole website component that just, frankly, sucks your kid in. Do they charge for that website?

Is it a free website or are they charged? It's a free website, but it's sticky. In the same way that the Transformers program on TV was free, quote, unquote. Exactly. James, what did you make of Mattel's quarter? It's interesting. It was certainly a good quarter. And it's interesting that the girl stuff paid off, especially the branded girl stuff.

And that's what I'll highlight as really the trend in the toy industry is you see Barbie, you see American Girl. And with Hasbro also, the branded stuff is what's popular now. My son is like this too. I give him Fisher-Price stuff. This is a Mattel product. He's okay with that. He wants Elmo. He wants the name brand.

He just turned two, but that's what he knows. Like Elmo potty, Elmo camera. He flushed Elmo camera down the toilet. But Elmer will do other things. So you combine them. Yeah, so that's really what it's all about. So the extent that Mattel does that is the extent that they'll do well. Seth?

We should maybe apologize to our listeners for the monstrous noise that's coming. They're doing construction above us, and there's literally nothing we can do to avoid it. Yeah, a lot of construction going on here. At least we passed the savings on to you. Full global headquarters. All right, reports this week that Amazon is preparing to roll out an unlimited video streaming service to rival Netflix. Seth Jason, shares of Netflix hit an all-time high this week, $218 a share. Bad news is good news for Netflix.

So who's afraid of the big bad Amazon? Apparently not Netflix shareholders, but I'm not sure they're using all of their brains when they're buying this stock because there are a lot of challenges coming up at Netflix. I've talked about them in the past, including the price of content, which is likely to increase a lot. This Amazon thing is very interesting. It came from a web shot, which could be bogus, but it was sent to Engadget. And it showed that if you were on your Amazon Prime page, it showed that you were getting free streaming video. Now, they already offer paid streaming video on Amazon, but you're sort of watching it on your computer.

I don't think anyone's really that interested in that. But if you bundle streaming video in with the $70 a year free shipping Prime thing, which I already have, and then you put a few apps, you know, on your Windows phone, on your iPhone, on your TV, you just publish those gadgets, suddenly Amazon has a very big potential competitor. And remember, Amazon is already, what did they buy that? Love, what is it? Love movies? Love film, I think.

Love film in Europe. A European service. So they're getting into this business. So Netflix shareholders, curb your enthusiasm a little bit. Amazon is probably going to have to start slow. It said that maybe they'll have 5,000 titles versus Netflix's 20,000. But Amazon has plenty of time and plenty of cash flow to build this business out and really could take Netflix head on.

James? Well, let me just say, first of all, the $70 Prime thing seems like a cruel exploitation of American impatience or short-termism, but my wife does it and other people do too. So obviously Amazon is a force to be reckoned with. But let me just ask Seth, it seems like for years we've heard this Netflix is dying any day now narrative. Oh, nobody's been saying that for years, months.

DVDs, a video on demand, excuse me, is going to eclipse the DVD market, but it keeps going. Is that because the shareholders have just gotten more and more irrational or what is it? Well, it's a combination of two things. I don't think people have been saying it's going to die for a while. The trick for shareholders now, the problem is that a lot of the streaming video content that Netflix has came through a sort of an add-on deal through Starz,

and they got a really cheap rate on delivering that content. And in the future, the content makers like the Hollywood Studios, they are not going to let Netflix purchase that content at that cheap rate, and that could really put a damper on the profitability at Netflix. There have been rumors in the past that Amazon is a candidate to buy Netflix out. Any chance this is a bluff? Any chance this is just a head fake by Amazon to sort of scare Netflix a little bit and maybe drive down the price? My guess is no.

I don't believe that's the case. Not when you've got a hammer big enough to squish the competitor. BP's earnings for the fourth quarter were up 30% over the same quarter a year ago. The company also announced it will resume paying a dividend. So, James Early, I have to assume that you're just tap dancing over news like that. It is actually pretty good news. BP, despite recent bad results, has plenty of cash, like $20 billion or so, and its Gulf oil spill liabilities are a little less than expected. So I think that's part of it.

Another thing is it just wants to get that identity back as a dividend-paying stock because it gets back into certain indices and it just gets on people's radar. The thing I would look for if I were looking at BP as an investment is their production, which has not been that good. It goes back now to being just a regular oil company as it sort of moves away from the Gulf spill. And it's sort of okay. I don't see it as a top-tier company, though. Seth, you're a shareholder. What do you think?

Yeah, it's definitely not as cheap as it was back a few months ago when I was pounding the table telling everyone to go ahead and buy. But they're doing some interesting things. They're divesting of some of their refining capacity, which hasn't been making them as much money as they would like. They're doing some of that to concentrate on finding growth markets going forward. And what's interesting to me about the dividend is that they never really needed to suspend it. Their cash flow is amazing. They had to do it for political reasons because, as I said, President, what did I call him, O'Chavez, Obama, was looking to put a lien on BP's cash flow.

And so they had to kind of give in. And so even now they're bringing the dividend back. It's not at the same level it was. They need to kind of inch that up. But what other investors out there or even people who think they don't own shares of BP ought to take a look at is that mutual funds and all sorts of retirement plans, they've got money in BP. So you really need that dividend coming in. It's not enough just to say, oh, what the heck with BP? They spilled that oil. I hope they get punished. Guys, in the time we have left,

I want to spot you up with an investment idea. You tell me what you think of this. It's $200 a share. It doesn't pay a dividend. And the stock will never go up. Are you in? Who's with me? Ron? No. James? Maybe. I don't think so. $200 a share. It doesn't pay a dividend. Stock never goes up. you don't want this? It's the Green Bay Packers. Oh, that thing. Green Bay Packers are the only nonprofit community-owned franchise in American pro sports. There are more shareholders than there are citizens in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We've got the Super Bowl this weekend, and we all love the ads. So here are a couple of stats to chew on. Fox is expected to bring in $200 million in ad revenue. A 30-second spot is going for as much as $3 million in some of the big advertisers,

Pepsi, General Motors, Anheuser-Busch. Is this what you want to see as an investor? Do you want to see your company spending money like this, or does it not matter to you, James? Well, last year, Pepsi backed out of Super Bowl ads and instead spent $20 million on social media instead. And apparently, it worked so well that they're back to doing Super Bowl ads this year. So last year, there was 106 million viewers to the Super Bowl. And if you add in social media, viral videos that keep showing these ads after the Super Bowl, you're getting really tremendous, tremendous exposure. So on the face of it, you want to say, this sounds ridiculous. But actually, the Nielsen stats show that it can be money well spent, not

in every circumstance, but certainly in some. Seth? Depends on the company and if they've got the money to blow. Coming up, a conversation with Michael Lewis, bestselling author of The Blind Side, The Big Short, and Moneyball. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Michael Lewis is the author of such bestsellers as Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short, which was released this week

in paperback. He joins me from New York City. Michael, welcome back. Oh, well, thanks for having me. When we talked in March of last year, the big short was first released. Now, when you look at what has played out on Wall Street and the markets, what has surprised you the most over this past year? Well, the obvious thing is how little has changed in the structure of the financial system. Wall Street is not the same place it was three years ago, but it's not changed in the way I would have hoped. I'm amazed, for example, that basically these big firms essentially have gotten bigger and are operating effectively with government guarantees and are doing essentially the same stuff.

So that hasn't changed. On the other hand, they're much, much more wary about what people think of them. They're aware of political risk. So what's evolving is just like two cultures thing, where you've got Wall Street and the rest of the world. And there's always a bit of that, but it's just gotten more extreme. Do you think that the financial reform law that was enacted last year is having any meaningful effect in the way Wall Street does business? It's really hard to say.

Yes, I do. I guess I think that the increased capital requirements are really important. I would like to have seen them be even higher. But the Volcker Rule banning proprietary trading has had at least a surface effect because it's caused all the big firms to drop their proprietary trading desks. And if they're doing proprietary trading, they're going to do it under the guise of something else. It's a little hard to see if that's happening, if they're doing the same thing but hiding it. And I'm not equipped to tell, and I'm not even sure the regulators are.

So it's hard to know. I tell you, the test will be the next time there's a big convulsion in the market on the down. If we see like a crash in a bond market, it will be interesting to see what kind of loss, how exposed these firms are. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're talking with Michael Lewis. His latest bestseller, The Big Short, is now out in paperback. Michael, you've got an article in the March issue of Vanity Fair entitled, When Irish Eyes Are Crying. For those who haven't followed the financial crisis in Ireland, how is it different from what has played out here in the United States? So this is part of a series.

I did Iceland and Greece, and I'm not finished. And this is what's interesting. What's interesting is, so the cause of all these national collapses is the same, that cheap money flooded into the society. Loans were offered to people who should never have gotten loans on incredibly good terms. And so lots of bad loans were made, and now there are all these bad assets and bad debts. And so that's cause everywhere, but the symptoms, how this played out in each place is very different. And it's sort of like what temptation the society wanted to succumb to is different.

So in Ireland, what happened was the banks, three big banks, essentially dropped, became the worst banks in the world. They lent money to property developers to develop domestic commercial real estate, mainly. but also there was a residential property bubble. And the Irish proceeded to essentially compete for each other for pieces of Ireland. It was entirely a domestic event. And the scale of the bubble was so much greater than what happened here. So, for example, at the peak, a 4,000-square-foot house in Dublin, albeit on the nicest road in Dublin, but albeit a fixer-upper, something that needed some work,

changed hands for $86 million. dollars uh and um the there was a similar madness in the commercial real estate space if you they're they're tracks of dublin where they're skyscrapers i mean skyscrapers that are empty with some water pooling in the lobby because uh because nobody's been in them and uh and their holes in the roofs and it's just the most amazing thing so um the further difference is that once the markets collapsed in September of 2008, the Irish nationalized all the losses of these banks. The banks had, it appears to be, about $106 billion in losses, which if you scale it to

population is sort of the equivalent of like $10 trillion of losses here. And they just nationalized them. So those are now burdens of the Irish taxpayer. In the big short, you identify a few people who are able to see the financial crisis in the United States coming before it hits. In the same way, there are a couple of people in Ireland who see this coming. One of them is Morgan Kelly, a university professor in Dublin. How did he see it?

This is great. So Morgan Kelly is like a pure academic economist, and he's more of an economic historian, too. He writes papers on very obscure subjects. He's interested, for example, in the Little Ice Age, which I think took place in the 16th century. I don't even know. But anyway, he's paying no attention whatsoever to the Irish economy. He has no interest in it at all. But he starts seeing his former students from University College Dublin turning up on TV as financial experts,

saying that this real estate bubble is not a bubble and there's going to be a soft landing and so on and so forth. And he knows these students, and he's so skeptical of them that he starts to dig into the Irish property market. And before he's finished, he's writing newspaper articles saying, oh, my God, we've created a calamity. That's great. That's like, hey, I remember grading that kid. He's an idiot. This is what happened. The idiots were on TV as the experts, and it alarmed him.

Now, there's another professor who says the narrative shifted in early October 2008. Sort of the average Irish citizen thinks that everything's fine with the economy. And then in early October, Patrick Neary goes on TV. And Neary is Ireland's financial regulator. He goes on live national TV for an interview. What happened? Well, you can get it on YouTube or on the website of RTE, the national station. But he goes on the TV and is asked about all these banks.

And everybody in Ireland now knows, oh, my God, look what we've done. I mean, they can see the empty skyscrapers. The evidence of the disaster is all around them in the buildings. And he says the banks are sound. They've done nothing really terrible. And as far as he's concerned, this is just a crisis, a brief crisis in confidence. But it's also the body language. He looks like he's a mole.

He comes out of a hole. And nobody's really seen this guy. And as Morgan Kelly's colleague, another professor, put it, he said that, you know, everybody in Ireland thought there was a little old man who took care of the money. And for the first time, they saw the little old man, and they went, oh, my God, we're doomed. That's the guy? This is the guy who's taking care of our money? Yes. You can't quote the professor. He was profane. But yes, he said that nobody could believe that this was the fellow who was in charge of watching the banks.

You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're talking with bestselling author Michael Lewis. Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist who says that if the average person had their salary raised to $10 million a year, in relatively short order, they will start to believe that they actually deserve that money. When you look at how quickly the Irish banks abandoned their principles, is this one of those situations where we're just hardwired to see this type of scenario play out over and over again? um i think that to the extent the system the financial system is allowed to go on unreformed yes ireland is not going to go through this anytime soon it's a devastated economy uh the banks won't be allowed to do this sort of thing again banks are all basically nationalized so

it'll be a it'll be a while before this happens again in ireland um but here sure i mean look it's still going on here. You've got guys on Wall Street who are working for firms that are too big to fail, that have been subsidized up the wazoo by the federal government, that are profitable because they're being subsidized, that are essentially socialistic institutions, who are being paid millions of dollars, who would be outraged if you suggested to them they didn't deserve it. What do you think that Wall Street is eyeing next? Certainly, if we could hop in a time machine a few years ago, it was the housing market and credit default swaps and that sort of Do you have a sense of what the big firms on Wall Street are eyeing next?

Well, there's a lot of money being made piecing through the rubble they created. You know, there's money to be made in finding value in the crappy loans that were made. There's, you know, if you ask me, what are they betting on that is going to get them in trouble? I don't know this, but if I had to guess, I would guess commodities. But I don't know. I actually don't know. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're talking with bestselling author Michael Lewis.

It's Super Bowl weekend. Let's delve into the business of football, which is certainly something you've written about in the blind side. Concussions are becoming more and more of an issue for the NFL. Do you think the risk of head injuries and concussions is going to change the way professional football is played? Yes. Now that the issue's been raised, yes.

I think eventually it will change. It's going to take a little time. I think it's already changed the way it's being played. The games are being refereed differently. What I find shocking, given the heightened awareness of what this game does to the players, especially as they age, is that the NFL owners are pushing for a longer season. You would have thought the natural conclusion for all this would be play fewer of these games. So I think something's going to give, whether it's they change the equipment

so it's harder to have head-to-head hits, or they change the rules and enforce them differently so that players are just dissuaded from that. Or, you know, the real thing, the thing that is clearly going on is, you know, the more players see what you become after you've played this game, you know, that you won't remember anything when you're 45 years old and you'll be a virtual cripple when you're 55, the more I bet they adapt their behavior. Not completely, but a bit. And before we wrap up with Buy, Sell, or Hold, the movie version of Moneyball is due out in September. How are you feeling about it? Good, but, you know, you're talking to the writer, and the writer's the last one to know. I mean, I visited the set twice, and Brad Pitt seemed to be giving a wonderful performance as Billy Bean,

but I know no more than that. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're talking with best-selling author Michael Lewis. All right, let's wrap up with Buy, Sell, or Hold. We'll start with Buy, Sell, or Hold, the future of the euro. Sell. You're that certain? You asked me to buy, sell, or hold.

I don't want to hold it. I don't want to buy it. It gives me one option. Fair enough. You and I both have two young daughters. Buy, sell, or hold Justin Bieber. Sell. They come and they go.

You're looking at the David Cassidy of the future. Wow. So, I mean, the Euro and Justin Bieber, any idea which one's going first? The Euro. duly noted all right buy sell or hold the future of facebook um facebook as an idea or facebook specifically the company facebook is a technology that people use or facebook the share price the business uh sell despite the fact that it's got this 80 billion valuation i mean there are a lot of people betting on it right now why are you taking the other side i'm taking the other side

because it seems to me to be one of those, it's a fad, easily jumped off of by the people who use it as soon as something bigger and better comes along. I think the basic idea of that sort of social networking is a buy, but I just don't think, I think it's very hard to monetize it over a long run. So I wouldn't buy shares in Facebook right now the way it's valued. And finally, Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her performance in The Blind Side. Buy, sell, or hold an Oscar nomination for Brad Pitt's performance in Moneyball? Hold.

Baseball movie. You know, if you were to ask me to judge based just on what I saw on the set, I'd say buy. But it's a baseball movie, and it's a comedy, too. So it's a little hard to see that getting an Oscar nomination. The paperback edition of The Big Short is now available everywhere. Michael Lewis, thanks so much for being here on Motley Fool Money. Thanks for having me. Coming up, a Victoria's Secret quiz and a look at the stocks on our radar.

This is Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. Don't buy or sell stocks, base selling on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill, and back in the studio with me are a trio of senior analysts, Seth Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross. Guys, we were talking about some retail companies earlier in the show, and our man Steve Broido has a retail quiz for us. Steve Broido, what do you got?

I have a quiz for you on Victoria's Secret. Yes. Question number one, true or false, Victoria's Secret was started by a Stanford business student who felt embarrassed buying lingerie for his wife in department stores. Is that true or false? I'm going with false. True.

True, I just saw the social network, and that scummy guy tells the story of it. Oh, I haven't seen the movie, but I'm going to go with Seth. I'm going true. Steve? The answer is indeed true. Victoria's Secret was started in San Francisco in 1977 by Stanford alumni, alumnus rather, Roy Raymond, who felt embarrassed buying lingerie for his wife and wanted to create a comfortable environment for men.

Well played. Yeah, I don't know. I don't feel so comfortable in the Victoria's Secret store. Question number two, Steve? Question number two. Which one of the following countries does not have a Victoria's Secret store? Is it Kuwait, France, or Canada? The obvious answer would be Kuwait, so that's what I'm going with.

I'm going to say France because Kuwait's the obvious answer. Wow. I'm going to go with Kuwait. I'm going to stick with James on this one. I think France has probably got their own. No, no, no. It's Canada. It's Canada.

It's Canada. I'm going France. They've probably got their own comfort level with buying lingerie. No, Limited has a store concept in Canada. No fair. You did research. It's not Victoria's Secret. Well, congratulations, James Early and Chris.

Victoria's Secret does not have a store in France. Yes. Wow. They do have stores in Canada and opened a store in Kuwait last year. The Kuwaiti store offers beauty products and cosmetics, but does not offer cosmetics. That was a trick question. Final question. It's a little bait and switch if you're walking into Victoria's Secret in Kuwait.

Yeah, and the French probably outlawed it because it's not French. Exactly. All right, Steve, final question? Final question. finally what costs more one share of johnson and johnson stock or victoria's secret sexy little things apron baby doll lingerie ron well i'll go baby doll i'll go approximately equal i don't know and ron's size they might charge extra for that so i'm gonna go with the johnson johnson share i'm gonna go i'm gonna stick with ron in this one go with the baby doll what's the answer

Well, a Sheriff Johnson & Johnson is around $60. Victoria's Secret Sexy Little Apron Baby Doll Lingerie is $48. Now, swish. That's a bargain. You got us all. Now, James Early, you're our dividend guy. Which one do you think pays a bigger dividend? Victoria's Secret, well, Limited is actually one of the few.

No, no, I'm talking a Sheriff Johnson & Johnson versus the Baby Doll. Oh, the Baby Doll. Oh, God, I'm trying to take your question seriously. What are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. Are we? Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Are we taping? we've actually gotten James to stutter. No comment. He's turning red. I'm optimistic. I always like to believe that a baby doll will pay a bigger dividend, but that's just me. Throw in a box of chocolates, you got yourself a party. Does getting punched in the face count? Well, if you're into that sort of thing. All right, time to talk about the stocks on our radar, and Ron Gross, we will start with you. All right, Chris, I'm going to continue my theme of rising food prices, and I recently purchased the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF,

ticker symbol Moo M-O-O The ticker symbol's Moo? You bet That's why I bought it Is it dairy centric? If you buy into this ETF you become an owner

of companies like Deere and Potash Monsanto Archer Daniels and it's a great way to play the theme of rising food prices The ticker should be dirt

not Moo That's a phenomenal ticker That's right up there with Harley Davidson's hog James Early stock on your radar this week? Chris I am not above stealing ideas

so I'm going to mention one brought up to me by analyst Alex Pape who's an income investor, analyst, and also MDP, I believe. Yes, exactly. It's Amco Pittsburgh. The ticker is AP. This is a $265 million market cap company.

It's very small. It pays a 2.8% yield. It makes equipment used for making cold-rolled steel, which is sort of a niche processing type of steel for higher-end construction and automotive applications. The thing is it sort of owns this niche or owns this part of the industry. So I'm still looking at it, but it's certainly on my radar.

The ticker symbol is AP. AP? Yeah. What are the odds that our colleague Alex Pape just likes it because it's his initials? You know, there could definitely be a bias there. I'm considering that. I want to factor that into your thinking. Or these guys could have found that idea on the Hidden Gems watch list a while ago.

I'm just saying. I'm just saying. By all means, steal Alex Pape's credit. So I stole Alex Pape's idea. Who stole it from you guys? I used to own it in my hedge fund, so I win. Oh, you win. I thought of it first.

I used to listen to them before anybody else. All right. I'm just going to go back to limited brands. They produce good cash flow. They obviously know what they're doing right now in a time when many other stores are struggling a little bit in January. They're knocking the cover off the ball. I would say go ahead and take a look at it. The stock isn't that cheap, but I think in the long run they continue to do better.

And as long as they're cranking out the products like the Victoria's Secret. What was it, a baby doll apron? What was that, Steve? That's correct. As long as they're cranking out quality merchandise like that. It is for people, right? It is not for dolls. Yeah.

But you don't like a dress up. Are you dead serious with that question? I'm so serious. Believe me, you don't want to fry bacon in this thing either. All right, after the show, we'll go to the Victoria's Secret website, and we'll just type in the word baby doll, and then you'll... After? I'm on that right now. It's a whole different kind of thing.

All right, Seth Jason, James Early, Ron Gross. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks, Chris. Thanks to our special guest this week, Michael Lewis. His latest bestseller, The Big Short, is now out in paperback. Next week, Costco CEO Jim Sinegal will be our guest, so tune in for that. Our engineers are Steve Broido and Gail Añonuevo. Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the Super Bowl, and we will see you next week.