Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 06.10.2011

Episode Date: June 10, 2011

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon challenges Fed Chief Ben Bernanke. Hewlett-Packard attempts to challenge Apple's iPad. Big banks lose a big vote in Congress. And Hasbro introduces a heavy metal version of Monopoly. Plus, Pawn Stars star Rick Harrison makes the case for silver over gold and talks about his new book, License To Pawn: Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold & Silver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hill. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Chris Hill. And joining me in studio this week, from Motley Fool Asset Management, Bill Mann, from Income investor James Early, and from Motley Fool Hidden Gems, Seth Jason. Guys, good to see you. Good to see you, Chris. We've got news from Toyota, Apple, Hasbro, and more. Our guest is Rick Harrison from the hit cable TV show Pawn Stars. Plus, as always, we'll give you a look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with some bad news for the big banks. Earlier this week, the

Senate voted to reduce the fees banks put on debit card transaction. James Early, I'll start with you. We had the big banks on one side, we had the merchants on the other, and the Senate sided with the merchants. What do you make of this? Chris, big banks rake slightly above, I don't know, peeping Toms in terms of public sympathy, not that I would know. So when their fees get cut by 75%, I mean, nobody's going to cry. This is not going to go to the consumer. This is going to go to the merchant, but that's still a better allocation of resources. When you go to the store, they try like heck already to get you to use debit versus credit. The machine doesn't tell you you can use your Visa check card. You have to put

decline and then it'll somehow know. But they're going to try even harder. But look for banks to try to get you in some other way. I mean, I read an estimate that it's going to be a couple of bucks a month that they're going to lose in fees because I think they make almost 50 cents per debit card transactions. That's going way down. They're going to stick it to you some way. Kind of high margin. Yeah. I think what's really interesting about this is that we always, you always, the cynic in us assumes that when big business is lobbying government that the consumer is going to lose out on the end. But this time, at least, the consumer had yet another big business. We had top men on this one. So the big companies, the Walmarts and the

Targets were leading the charge. But it's really the little businesses that are going to benefit by having the swipe fees be a lot lower. And I mean, to me, that's economically meaningful, much more so than the banks. Some of this will come back to consumers because a lot of these companies that are paying these heavy fees are looking for ways to get people in the stores by lowering prices. If they have to pay less here, they will be able to charge less on some of the product. As investors, does this change your thinking at all when you're looking now at the banking sector versus the retail sector? Not really. The banks, I think, still in general, unless you live in the file cabinets and know exactly what is on their balance sheets,

they're pretty much untouchable. Somebody might make a lot of money knowing what's going on in certain banks, but for the most part, they are not for amateurs or even professionals who look at stocks on a broad basis. James? Yeah, I agree. I mean, this is obviously going to hurt the banks, and I think their credit ratings might suffer. But unless you really know some of the other things, I mean, it's really tough to say whether they're a good investment now or not. I yearn for the days when banks go back to being basically utilities. And so, the banks out there that have the big credit accounts, they don't really interest me that much because they're impossible to analyze. So,

for me as an investor, I mean, it's almost as if this segment of the market is private. This week, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke gave his first public speech in months, saying that the U.S. economic recovery remains uneven, and he offered no new steps to stimulate growth. Things got interesting during the Q&A after the speech, however, when Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, asked Bernanke if new banking regulations will slow the economic recovery. Poor Jamie Dimon, Bill. I love the fact that he introduced himself beforehand. They said, Jamie, do you have a question?

He said, yeah, Jamie Dimon, J.P. Morgan. I give Jamie Dimon a fair amount of credit for one reason. Well, two reasons, actually. J.P. Morgan and Jamie Dimon in particular was out ahead of the Fed in 2007 in terms of saying that the mortgage market was imploding. I mean, he saw the credit, he saw the defaults going up. So he really was in tune in coming out and saying this is something that could be very bad for the banking sector, which included him. So I think that unlike most of Wall Street, Jamie Dimon does have a civic bone in his body. So I think, I mean, it's easy to say, well, it's the bank saying this.

They're just looking out for their profits. And maybe that's, you know, 80% true. But I think he may have a point that, you know, if we do have regulations that are limiting competitiveness, I mean, that's a problem. Seth? It's really hard to feel sorry for any of these guys since they've benefited so much from the cheap money they've gotten. So, yeah, it depends on the regulations. But just to have a blanket statement and it's sort of to have a blanket accusation about all regulation being anti-competitive and hurting the economy, I think, goes too far. But I don't think that's what he said, though.

I think he went through kind of a laundry list of all the things. And Bernanke, you know, his first quip was, wow, when you started that, it sounded pretty good. James, back to the Fed sheet for a second. Ben Bernanke's response was essentially, well, we're not really sure. You know, we haven't really done a study or anything like that. That was the best part, Chris, because Jamie Dimon asked sort of an obvious question, like, how do we know this will work? And obviously, we don't really know. So then Bernanke's body language was the most unconvincing I've ever seen.

It's basically like a dog rolling over and allowing the other dog to come up and sniff his belly or something. He's like, well, we kind of thought about this. Just watch the video. It's pretty funny. Yeah, I've got to say, just as an average investor, I kind of wanted Bernanke to go ballistic there. I kind of wanted more backbone and just sort of a little bit of a smack. You don't get to be fed up there if you're a ballistic goer. A thank you would suffice.

It's like, yes, you may remember me from, you know. Exactly my point. They've gotten so much in the way of handouts, in the way of assuming that it will all trickle down and help the economy, that it just is really galling when they complain that there are some strings attached. On Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco to unveil the Lion, the company's latest operating system, as well as iCloud, a music streaming service the company is hoping will popularize web-based consumer services. Seth, I've got to be honest, I get more excited when a new device is unveiled.

What do you think of the new software? This is weird. I'm probably more excited about the iCloud than the average schmo, and I'm not a giant fan of Apple. On the one hand, this is a typical Apple. They stole a bunch of features that others have been putting into web-enabled services. They learned how to do that from Microsoft. Operating systems, including some from Windows Phone 7, some from Android, some from webOS, incorporated them into their products. And when they showed, everybody clapped and pretended Apple had invented it.

But they are doing something with the iCloud service, which really needs to be done. And I think Steve Jobs is right to point out that syncing all these different devices really is a pain. And for Apple, it's actually a bigger challenge than most. If they want to sell you an iPhone and then an iPod Touch, which is also an iPhone, and then an iPad, which is also sort of an iPhone, it's a real pain in the butt to keep plugging these things into iTunes, which is not such a great program, in order to keep things synced. And so not only will this service keep everything synced across all of those multiple device platforms, but it also promises to back up all of your files every day. this is a much more holistic cloud-based service than anybody else is offering right now. And so everyone will have to play catch-up, even though there are piecemeal services offering every single one of these items out there.

It seems, though, that the reviews during the week, when you looked at the reaction from the tech media, from bloggers, that sort of thing, it really seemed to be tepid, sort of this almost mixed reviews. Is there increased pressure now on Apple for the next? Because typically, with a Steve Jobs-led press conference or unveiling, usually there's this great response. I think they're missing it if they're not more excited about this. This, more than any single product, locks people into an Apple ecosystem and makes switching a lot more difficult in the future. So this is a lot more important than a new iPhone or a new product, in my opinion.

And I'm surprised that more analysts and more tech watchers haven't gotten that figured out. Coming up, when we have a bad meeting, stuff doesn't get done. When OPEC has a bad meeting, oil prices spike. Details next. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Seth Jason, James Early, and Bill Mann. Guys, on Wednesday, a meeting of OPEC officials ended in disarray, and for the first time in about a decade, OPEC couldn't agree on output policy, which in turn caused oil prices

to jump back up over $100 a barrel. On Friday, prices dropped as Saudi Arabia indicated it might act unilaterally to increase the supply of oil. Bill Mann, first, what is going on at OPEC? Super interesting. So, I guess there were two parts of this. The first of which was, it wasn't that they decided to leave them where they were. They could not agree on what the output would be. Now, all the OPEC producers cheat a little bit. You have to. It's the mob. You have to cheat a little. Right, exactly. You have to take a little bit of advantage. But the fact that Saudi Arabia, which really is, I mean, basically, Saudi Arabia has OPEC so they can look like they're not doing things unilaterally, came out afterwards and said, this was the worst meeting I've ever seen. And then later said, we're going to raise our output. And it's what they should do. I mean, I think it's lost on a lot of people that it is not great for OPEC if they destabilize the global economy because of oil prices. People tend to think of OPEC having 80-90% of the oil output. It's 33%. Ultimately, they don't have the ability to control prices. What they do have is the ability to try and

influence them one way or the other. When we were talking earlier in the week, we touched on the energy sector writ large. For investors looking to get into the energy sector. It seems as though, up until this point, oil would be the safest bet. Does stuff like this make oil, as an industry, less attractive to investors? Kind of depends on where. I think one of the most interesting sectors is exploration and production, and specifically oil services. Definitely what's going to be happening between the nuclear plants being shut down in Japan and in Europe is that they're going to be looking for more oil. I mean, you can get at the oil sector without necessarily leaving yourself

exposed to the commodity costs. James? In the long term, you've got big, big drivers of oil for every weenie like me who drives a Prius. You've got tons of people in China and India who are just trying to buy their first car. And demand is only going to go up. We just can't shift that quickly to alternative technologies. Don't sell yourself short, James. We think you're a weenie for reasons that have nothing to do with the Prius that you drive. Let's not go into that on air. Speaking of the Prius that James drives, on Friday, Toyota projected a 31% drop in its profits for the current fiscal year due to the impact of the earthquake in March. James, the company expects to bounce back in the second half of the year, but it really seems like it's

not going to be enough. Well, I mean, Chris, in one sense, you have to say, what do you expect? I mean, the country had an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear plant meltdown, or whatever the term is. Everything but Godzilla, right? Yeah, yeah. So obviously, they're going to have a rough a rough quarter. You know, the hidden part of this that's not as sexy but is very much there is the currency issue. You know, the yen is stronger relative to the dollar. And that's boring, but it makes every dollar that Toyota earns in the U.S. convert into fewer yen. So that is actually kind of the secret drain in the bathtub that Toyota really has to, and they can't really plug it, it's just more of a global thing, but it's cost them the number

one rank in sales. Bill? Yeah, I think a really interesting thing with Toyota has been the fact that over the last two years, they've really taken a couple of hits as being the most reliable, the most, you know, the most well-built cars in the world. Ultimately, I think that they're going to be OK simply because, you know, in a time when people who do have to and do drive cars choose, I mean, Toyotas are still amongst the cheapest cars in, you know, in the world to operate. And they have great resale value and they've held on to them. So I think ultimately Toyota is going to be fine. But the currency issue is big for corporate. The funny quote I saw in their press release was, or from the CFO, was, quote,

it is not at all important for us to be the world's number one, which I think is, you know, I think the CFO lost his Japanese citizenship with that one. I mean, that's just not at all the kind of thing that I think they really believe. They're going to try hard to get it back. Comcast has won the TV rights for the next four Olympics with a bid of $4.4 billion. Comcast outbid Disney and News Corp for the rights, and CEO Brian Roberts says Comcast will make a profit. We won! Seth, do you think he's right?

No, no. Can we just quit that? No, he's not right. Next topic. Next topic. On the 2010 Olympics, the network lost $223 million, if you're reading the articles today. That's somehow good news,

because they thought they'd originally lose $250 million on that Olympics. Well done. The best thing I think you can say about this is... Here's your bonus. Yeah, is that $4 billion represents somewhere about a year's worth of free cash flow for Comcast. So they're only blowing a year's worth of cash profits for shareholders on this most likely to be money-losing venture. I think that there's pressure. I think the analysts are right.

NBC feels like they have to keep the Olympics just because they've had the Olympics. And I can't really think of a dumber reason to keep spending a lot of money to lose money. We have to keep this money-losing programming. Yeah, because people associate us with it. It's tough to make money on the Olympics. History shows it. Hewlett-Packard will begin selling its touchpad tablet computer on July 1st for $500. No, they won't. No, June 9th, 2009. Did I say that out loud? I'm sorry.

Pre-orders are coming this month. So, Bill's right, technically. Exactly. Pre-orders coming this month. Seth, what does the touchpad need for you to buy one? It needs to be a lot closer to free in terms of price. going to cut it i i've looked at this device the web os which remembers that operating system they got when they bought palm is a nifty looking os it sure as heck looks a lot more like the uh iphone and ipad os than i remember it on this new tablet and i think that there's the problem right there

for anybody trying to put a tablet into the marketplace unless that tablet computer is a lot cheaper than ipad and this one isn't it needs to be differentiated and it needs to be the thin edge of of an ecosystem wedge wow that sounded pretty good think about that and and hewlett packard is going to try to get at this by putting a version of this web os on to its windows pcs i think that that is doomed to fail i think that i i agree with analysts who've said i'm not sure there's a uh a tablet market right now there's an ipad market if you're going to arrive late to market you might as well try to not be the same as everyone else who's there all i want is something takes a nice picture of my chest

that I can send to my friends. If it does that, I'm happy. Yeah, I just want to press the button twice. Friends who I've met, friends who I have yet to meet. Put a quote on friends, yeah. And finally, Hasbro has released many different versions

of the classic board game Monopoly, including putting out special editions that feature the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Next week, a new version will be released featuring, wait for it, Metallica. Did I keep waiting? Because I'm not satisfied by that. I don't know.

Is this likely to be a big seller? Did someone lose a bet here at Hasbro? What do we make of this? Who's a Monopoly fan and a Metallica fan, really? That's tough to see the cross. All right, so if you got to pick your own special edition, and it can be music, TV, movies, you can draw from anything, Bill Mann, what's your special edition version of Monopoly that you want to see?

See, I think with these kinds of things, you either have to go really attractive to an audience or really ironically attractive to an audience. And so I'm going to go like Culture Club, like a Culture Club monopoly. Is Boy George dead? I love Boy George. He's not dead. No, he has put on a little weight.

He has done some time for some different things, done some community service. How come James knows so much about Boy George? The makeup is a little thicker. Yeah, a little thicker. A little more desperate. James, what about you? Get into veganism. He wrote the intro to one of my feng shui books also, but I'm rambling here.

No, no, please continue. What the hell radio show did I walk into? I would make, Hasbro not like this, I would make a modular Monopoly because these things change so much. You could have like Justin Bieber inserts one month, and then let's say Lady Gaga is all the rage. Then you just buy like the insert packet, and you can change the theme of the Monopoly.

So you maybe pay a little bit more initially for like this board, but then whatever the flavor of the month is, you just buy that. You could mix and match, do a little People magazine. Seth, that's pretty clever. I'm just, I want sort of the Wiener version or the, you know, the- What? The congressman? The congressman Wiener version.

Please explain. Or actually, it's just like the DC scandal version. They could do one of these every year. Oh, yeah. These ridiculous DC scandals. What's his name? The guy who was caught in the airport bathroom in Minneapolis. Larry Craig.

Larry Craig. That would make just for a great Monopoly board. And there's enough of these bozos doing this stuff every year that they'd have a version every year. They'd have updates. Seth Jason, Jay Charlie Pillman. Guys, we'll see you later in the show.

Drop us an email, radio at fool.com. We always love to hear from our listeners. And if you want to hear from us, we're sending our Global Gains team to China for two weeks doing some on-the-ground research.

They'll be sending dispatches. So to sign up for the free reports from the Global Gains team, just go to fool.com and sign up. Up next, a conversation with Rick Harrison, the man behind the hit TV series Pawn Stars.

Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. pay me pay me welcome back to motley fool money i'm chris hill what do you get when you mix a las vegas pawn shop with the history channel television gold pawn stars is the highest rated show on the history channel and one of the highest rated shows in all of cable television and one of the stars is rick harrison the owner operator of the world famous gold and silver pawn shop and author of the new book, Licensed to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. Rick, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. Now, your pawn shop really is a family affair. You work with your dad, you work with your son. How did you get started in this business? When we first moved to town in 81, my dad went broke in San Diego. You know, in 1981, he sold real estate at 19% interest rates. You can't sell a lot of houses. Yeah, it wasn't going too well back then.

And he'd always bought and sold gold and always wanted a pawn shop, so he figured, what the hell, I moved to Vegas. For people who have seen your TV show, obviously a lot of what they're seeing is the selling, people coming in to sell items. Where does it shake out in terms of selling versus pawning? What percentage of your business at the shop is selling versus pawning? Oh, I do much more pawns than I do people selling stuff.

But there is a stigma attached to the whole pawning thing, and there's not really to selling something. So the people who pawn stuff never want to be on television. I mean, and after two and a half years of filming, I've more or less given up even trying to get those people on television. And for those who don't know, could you just give a thumbnail sketch explanation of what are the dynamics involved in pawning?

How do the economics work? The economics are pretty simple. It's the oldest form of banking. I mean, it's literally in the Bible. You bring in a piece of merchandise to me, say it's a wedding band. I offer you $100. If you accept it, I give you $100. I take in your merchandise. I put it in an envelope. I put it in my safe. And I hand you a pawn ticket. And say you come back in 30 days. You give me $115. I give you your merchandise back. And that's the

end of the transaction. Here in Nevada, the laws are that I have to hold this stuff for a minimum of 120 days. So if after 120 days, you don't pick up your merchandise, it becomes mine, title, 100% transfers to the pawnbroker. Now I can put your wedding brand in my showcase and put it out for sale. I can scrap it. I can do whatever I want with it. Nothing goes on your credit report. I don't sue you. I don't go out there to break your legs and get my money back. Thank you. That's the end of the transaction. Now, one of the things that you write about in your book is that one of the ways you can

track the economy is by looking at the number of pawned items in your back room that are there for more than 120 days without being picked up. So what is the gold and silver backroom indicator telling us about the current state of our economy? Oh, it sucks. I mean, don't mince words. I mean, no. I mean, I'm being 100% honest.

You know, when the economy is good, it's close to a 90% redemption rate. And I'm like 75% right now. Las Vegas was a hit a lot harder than other places. Even the tourists aren't picking their stuff up like they used to, because a lot of tourists end up pawning their stuff, and I just mail it out to them. That's basically the situation with the economy right now. In Mexico, believe it or not, the government owns a lot of the pawn shops in Mexico.

I mean, they own the largest pawn shop in the world in Mexico City, and it's one of their economic indicators, their pawn shops are. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Our guest is Rick Harrison, author of License to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. How has the success of the TV show Pawn Stars changed your business? I went from having 70 to 100 people a day in the pawn shop to 4,000. That seems like a positive trend. Yeah, it's been pretty good.

But I mean, are those people, you're getting a lot more people in the store, but are you seeing the same percentage of people who are looking to transact? Or are some of those people just tourists like, hey, I saw the TV show. I just want to say I went to the gold and silver pawn shop. I am getting more transactions at my pawn counter, and I'm buying more things. It's not equivalent to the increase of business. I mean, the amount of buys and pawns haven't gone up 40 times. But I do a really great business in T-shirts and bobbleheads nowadays, though.

Merchandise. They love the merchandise. Oh, yeah, we're definitely merchandising back out of it, yeah. All right, let's talk about a few of the items that you've carried and that you write about in your book. One of them, the battle plans for the attack on Iwo Jima. Yes, there was a lot of people who had those prior to the invasion. No one kept them, though. So you've got to remember the mindset. It's the 1940s.

People didn't really think about things like that. And there was actually one guy who was a landing craft operator who kept the entire set of plans in his inside coat pocket for the entire war. And his son ended up selling them to me. One of the other items you write about is a pimp's ring that's shaped like a king's crown. Yes. What is the story behind that? Being in the pawn business my entire life, I have seen every single walk of life.

I have talked to pimps, prostitutes, single moms, politicians, and billionaires. So you get to know every aspect of society. And back in the day, up until like 10 years ago, every pimp had to have a crown ring. And if you read the whole book, you'll realize that pimps always have to have a lot of jewelry. When a pimp is generally arrested, he's arrested for pandering. So any cash he has on him will be confiscated for evidence. But the jewelry won't. So when he gets arrested, the jewelry is impounded.

He sends someone down to pick up the jewelry, which can be taken back to the pawn shop so that they can get money for bail. And that's also why pimps always buy their jewelry in pawn shops, because if you buy something in a pawn shop, generally the agreement is you can always pawn it back for half of what you paid for it. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Our guest is Rick Harrison, author of the new book Licensed to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver.

In terms of the pawn shop, what's the best deal you've ever made? The best deal I've ever made was back in the early 90s. This is pre-internet. A lady came in with four photo graves. I could tell right away there were photo graves. It's a late 1800s, early 1900s photographic process. that was really expensive to do at the time. They were of American Indians.

I knew they had to be worth something, but they were worth, I had no idea. So I took a shot, I gave her 50 bucks for them. And I used to have to go to the library like once a week. There was all sorts of weird things I'd buy, and I'd have to do some research on them. Because I found out, I mean, a long time ago, if you put a story behind something, it's a lot easier to sell it, and you get a lot more money. So I go down to the library, I start looking everything up, and I find out that in the world of American photography, you have Ansel Adams,

And one step, and the next one down is Edward Curtis. These were all photo graves by Edward Curtis, and the negatives were in the Smithsonian. Wow. And I got $20,000 for the photo graves. Now, unfortunately, I have to ask you the flip side of that, which is, what's the worst deal you've ever made? The worst deal I've ever made? This was like two years ago, and the guy was actually filmed doing it. Wow.

I bought a pair of earrings off a guy in a suit with receipts, everything. I gave him $40,000 for the earrings. The next day, the police came down and took the earrings. They were fakes? No, no, no. They were stolen? They were stolen. And when that happens, I lose every dime.

Is that guy's photograph somewhere in your office, just in case he comes in again? uh no he is in the uh nevada state correctional facility at the moment now what's the i gotta ask because uh just in in watching some of your show uh there's some some pretty interesting items that people come in with i'm just curious in all the years that you've been running the gold and silver what's the strangest item you've ever seen um the strangest item has got to be is i actually had a guy come in with a scroll uh it's right around was right around 210 years old from japan and it was an instruction manual it's called a shunga scroll it was an instruction manual for a young girl before her wedding night it's also called a pillow book and obviously designed to

scare the living hell out of her um where everything all is exaggerated and it's correct down to the fluids. Wow. Yes. Yeah, it is definitely different. Now, are there ever times where you or members of your staff won't buy something

because it's too personal? Or is this a job where you just can't allow sentimentality to enter the equation? A pawnbroker with a heart is a pawnbroker out of business. Fair enough. Yeah.

So, you know, I'm not here to judge anybody or anything else like that. The way I look at it, thank God you had your mother's wedding ring so you could actually pawn it or sell it to make rent. It's much better than the other guy who didn't have anything and is out on the street. Now, one of the things you write about in your book is learning to negotiate by watching your father negotiate. Yeah. For our listeners out there, what's one thing we should keep in mind when we're negotiating? Okay, first off, never give the first price. I mean, why throw out there the first price?

I mean, why tell someone you'll pay them $1,000 for something when you can say, how much are you looking to get out of it? They say $500. I mean, the second you give the first price, you're always negotiating against yourself. The second number one rule I always have, never fall in love with it. I mean, if you have to have it, you've already lost. Always be willing to walk away from a bad deal. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

our guest this week is Rick Harrison. His new book is Licensed to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. He's also the star of Pawn Stars, which can be seen on the History Channel. Rick, before we wrap up with a round of buy, sell, or hold, for our listeners out there who are investors, how does Rick Harrison invest his own money? A few different ways. I mean, I have my own business here, so I got to invest a lot of my money back into that. I, right now, I absolutely love silver. Really? I think, oh yeah.

As opposed to gold? More than gold? More than gold. Well, I mean, the whole thing is gold, none of it's disappearing. It's just accumulated and the pile gets bigger and bigger, as opposed to silver, where it seems like every other day there's a new industrial use for it, and the piles around the world have just nothing but gotten smaller and smaller. I mean, up until in the early 80s, the U.S. government had 3 billion ounces of inventory. They have none now. They're a net

buyer. As far as an economic play in the dollar falling, I like that. But the fact of the matter is supply is not going to keep up with demand on all the industrial uses of silver. So the price has no way to go but up. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Our guest is Rick Harrison. The book is Licensed to Pawn, Deal Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. All right, Rick, we're going to wrap up with Buy, Sell, or Hold. Let's start with you are a great lover of books, a great consumer of books. Buy, Sell, or Hold, Amazon's Kindle. Sell.

The tablets are going to eat it up. Do you have an e-reader yourself, or are you just... I used to use a Kindle. I use my iPad now. Why carry around an iPad and a Kindle when I can just get the Kindle app on my iPad? This guy used to be a huge part of the Las Vegas scene, and like you, he's now got his own cable TV show,

Buy, Sell, or Hold the Future of Mike Tyson. Sell. Oh, come on. Iron Mike. He's had, I don't know, three, four, how many acts has he had already? I don't see it. I mean, I've been in the television business for a few years now, and you've got to be different every week, and I just don't see it.

One of the stars of your TV show, Pawn Stars, is Chumlee, your employee. Buy, sell, or hold Chumlee-branded merchandise? Oh, buy, buy, buy. Now, are you saying that just because you make a profit off of that, or is that really the most popular stuff? Oh, 50% of my merchandising is Chum. He is a rock star. He is paid to show up at nightclubs. He tweets that he's going to be at a nightclub,

a thousand people will show up. Women flock to him. I don't get it. I don't get it whatsoever. All I know is it works. And finally, you have now got both of these things, buy, sell, or hold, fame and fortune. Bye.

It beats The Alternative? Oh, definitely, definitely. My girlfriend just thinks it's the greatest thing in the world because every time we go to the strip to a restaurant, they go, oh, Rick, right this way. The book is Licensed to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. It is already a business bestseller on Amazon. Pick it up for Father's Day.

It is a great read. Rick Harrison, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. There's a pawn shop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 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 interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against,

so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill, and back in the studio with me, Seth Jason, James Early, and Bill Mann. Guys, before we get to the stocks on our radar this week, we have to welcome a new station to our affiliate lineup, NewsRadio 1620 WNRP in Pensacola, Florida, where I have to believe it's been cooler there this week than it has been in the D.C. area. Anyway, we will get with the stocks on our radar. We will bring our man Steve Broido in from the other side of the glass with one question for the three of you. Bill Mann, you're up first.

I'm actually going to talk about a company that we've talked about on MarketFoolery called BJ's Wholesale, which is in the midst of looking for go-private transactions. Looks like it's going to happen this next week. They're probably going to be taken out. So, Costco has potentially one less public competitor to worry about. Yeah. I mean, it's probably good for BJ's because they will no longer have to worry about quarter-to-quarter, and they can right the ship because they've got tough competitors. James Early? Chris, it seems like as good a day as any to go with Chevron. Again, this is an American

oil company that I really like and has a strong expertise in deep water drilling. With all this OPEC stuff, I'm reminded, and all this, I guess, tragedy and conflict in the Middle East, I'm just reminded that oil is such a precious yet volatile commodity, and it's one that I wouldn't bet against. So CVX is the ticker. Seth Jason. I'm going to go along with James on that one, but I'm going to pick a much smaller company. I was going to say, you can't pick the same stock as James picks. There's only seven stocks to pick from, right? It's called Oceaneering International. The ticker is OII. This is part of a group of oil services companies that we put a report on out last year, last July, at Hidden Gems, all of which have done very well.

You remember at the time, there was this big oil spill in the Gulf. Yeah, we're gloating a little bit. And a lot of these companies were written off for dead just about. They rebounded quite strongly not long ago. This one was trading for 90 bucks a share, has come back a little bit with The price of oil now to the $76, $77 range. I think long-term that this company, which specializes in deep water applications, robots, and other technology to get things done way down deep, that they just have a market that keeps growing over time. And so this is one of the better companies in the field. It's one I'm comfortable owning, and I think the price is a little more reasonable now than it has been.

You had me at robots. I was just going to say, man, if it involves robots, I mean, just roll. Do they do something with bacon, too? I sort of feel like we're in that sweet spot where robots are still cool. We're not yet at the point in history that we will be somewhere down the line where robots become our overlords. But I'm betting the guys from Oceaneering could do something with robots and bacon. So if there's anybody out there from Oceaneering International and you guys are working on one of these in the shop and you could get it to, I don't know, flip a piece of bacon on the grill or something for us, we'd love to see the video.

Great use of shareholder capital. Drop us an email, radio at fool.com. Steve Broido, from the other side of the glass, one question for the group. This is a tough one. I guess my question would be about public perception. I think there's a public perception about BJ's, that it's sort of a lesser Costco. With Chevron, Big Oil, and with Seth's company, there doesn't seem to be much public perception. They do something with bacon.

So my question is, how does public perception affect your business? Bill, how do you think public perception affects BJ's business? I mean, I think that if you move to a town and you wanted to set up an account at a warehousing company, that you'd look first for where the Costco is. I mean, so I think that's a negative perception for BJs, that people would choose to drive a little bit farther to go to a Costco, and that's something they need to sort out. James? Drilling locations in first world countries like the U.S., like in the Gulf of Mexico, when people get scared, that obviously affects Chevron's ability to drill. Seth? Well, Oceaneering International is not a household name, but it is a $4 billion company.

So it's well known enough that there could be public perception problems, and they had some of that last year when there were problems in the Gulf. On the other hand, a company like this is part of the solution when those things go wrong because you need a lot of these robots to get things fixed. All right. Seth Jason, James Early, Bill Mann. Guys, thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. Thanks to our special guest this week, Rick Harrison from Pawn Stars.

His new book is Licensed to Pawn, Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold and Silver. And speaking of books, we've got a book of our own coming out later this month, Warren Buffett, Invest Like a Girl and Why You Should Too. It goes on sale June 21st, but you can get the first chapter for free. Just go to fool.com slash girl. That's fool.com slash girl. Get the first chapter for free. And hey, if you like it, buy the book.

That's it for this edition of Motley Fool Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.