Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 07.12.2013

Episode Date: July 12, 2013

The market hits new highs.  Microsoft restructures.  Kroger buys Harris Teeter.  And Twinkie makes a comeback.  Our analysts discuss those stories and share some stocks on their radar.  And we talk business with the hosts of The Dinner Party Download. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hill, joining me in studio this week from Motley Fool 1, Jason Moser, and from Million Dollar Portfolio, Charlie Travers and Ron Gross. Good to see you, gentlemen. Hello. How are you doing, Chris? We've got the latest on the tech industry, the grocery industry, the retail industry, and more. A business icon is making his triumphant return next week. We will have a preview of that.

And as always, we've got a few stocks on our radar. But we begin, once again, with the big macro. This week, the Dow and S&P 500 both hitting new record highs. And, Ron, at least part of this being fueled by Fed Chief Ben Bernanke's latest comments. And we're back to that. The pendulum has swung back, and now we're all on board with the notion that QE will never stop and it will be free money forever. Do you have whiplash yet? It seems like a little bit of whiplash because we had it in May.

It dropped in June, and now in July we're back up again. Yeah, for me what kind of stood out was last Friday's job numbers where we added 195,000 jobs, which is nice to see. We've been averaging over 200,000, which are good numbers. unfortunately, and I feel like I'm always the pessimist here, that U6 total unemployment number that I just love to talk about, I can't get enough of that U6, increased rather significantly to 14.3% from 13.8%. So we really are not putting people to work. At least we're not putting them to work in the way they want to be put to work. We're putting them into part-time jobs rather than full-time jobs. The number of discouraged workers went up 20% in June versus last year.

So, we're not losing jobs, but we're not getting it done to where we need to. Ron, I hope I'll make you feel a little bit better here, because I will be a pessimist with you. I mean, I tend to agree with what Ron's saying. The concern, I think, for the longest time has been, while there are jobs that are being added, it's the quality of the jobs that we're getting. And there's not really a lot of full-time jobs, a lot of part-time work. Hours worked as staying flat. The labor force participation rate isn't really rising. Wages aren't rising. And so, then you wonder how substantial or how sustainable, really, is this going to be? I mean, we have a situation with interest rates so low that all the returns

are in the stock market, and that's fine. People have been able to take advantage of these low rates and refinance. But that refinancing boom is coming to a close. And I think a lot of people, while they've been able to lower their payments and maybe get their heads back above water, it doesn't necessarily bode well, I think, for a big spending environment going forward. So, I think there's a lot of reasons to be concerned. Boom! Charlie thinks everything is awesome. Well, I'll just put a little rosy picture here.

Coming out of the financial crisis, a lot of companies got lean, and their profit margins looked great. They cut all the fat. The balance sheets are good. And from an investing perspective, I think there's a lot of great businesses out there that are doing well, even though I agree with your guys' reservation about employment and the economy. Right. I think that's a double-edged sword. Companies love being lean so much that they're reluctant to put people back to work and increase their cost structure. So that's the conundrum. How do we get people back to work when companies love the cost structure they have? I get they love the cost structure, but at some point, if you're an executive at a company,

don't you have to go to the CEO and say, hey, look, do we want to stay this lean forever, or do we want to grow? Because at some point, you need to bring on more people if you're going to grow. Absolutely. They may not necessarily have a choice. I mean, if you go back to 2006, I was looking at this Freddie Mac data, and refinancing was such a popular thing to do, and housing values were so out of whack that in the second quarter of 2006, people pulled out about $84 billion in equity from those refinances. And you think about all that money that was flowing through the economy at that time, and it was certainly, there was a lot of money flowing through.

Everybody's living like kings. But this past quarter, it was only $8 billion that was pulled out of home equity. So, that's a tremendous, that's a factor of 10, really. And so, that's a lot less money that is being pumped through the economy. And you can see why the Fed is maintaining this monetary policy that they are, because they just don't have another choice. And while the companies have really fat balance sheets, they're holding tons of cash, and good for investors, they've been paying some of that out in dividends and in share buybacks. They've loosened the purse strings with respect to that. Capital expenditure programs are not

really being raised like we'd like to see them. People are not being put to work like we'd like to see them. Once CEOs start to truly believe in economic recovery and growth, you would think that will occur. Shares of Microsoft hit a five-year high this week after the company announced plans for a major reorganization. Microsoft will be organized around key functions rather than specific products. And the goal is a better sharing of information, better devices, better services. Charlie, at least in the short term, Microsoft is getting some credit, some kudos in the media. This is a company you watch closely. What do you think of this plan? It looks like a lot of talk. Honestly, I read through the memos. These are like

Thousand word memos. They're very long and it's almost like a Dilbert comic strip where we're going to talk about, you know, collaborating and having synergies. Yeah. So I'm not really sure what to make of it, to be honest. I do think some of it makes sense. It is clear that the devices angle they started talking about last year is going to be increasingly prominent going forward. And to do things like more surface tablets, they're going to have to be fast with the innovation there because new tablets are coming out all the time from their competitors. I do think that part of the business makes sense. I think they started talking a lot about hardware development and a supply chain, which is interesting as well, and playing up more of their own devices. So I think we'll see some new things over the next year. But I'd like to see some actual hard things coming out rather than just talk as we go through the coming quarters.

Ron, what do you think about this whole push into hardware? Not convinced. Need to see a little bit more. Balmer, the CEO, he's been under a lot of pressure, even pressure to move on, for them to get rid of him and replace him with something. He needed to do something. He needed to do something that at least appeared to be bold and big and new. This is kind of that. It was filled with a lot of those fancy words that people like to see, like vision and the future and reorganization. We have to see some of the specifics, some of the details. I'm not convinced that Microsoft is the hardware company of the future, but time will tell. This week, grocery chain Kroger announced it is buying Harris Teeter for $2.5 billion.

Jason, what do you think? It seems like a pretty good deal for Kroger, or a pretty good move by Kroger. Yeah, I think it was a good move by Kroger. On the one hand, consolidation in this space makes a lot of sense. They're in a tough spot, because we've talked about this before, where you have on the one end your higher-end grocers like a Whole Foods or even Trader Joe's, and then on the other end, your real value proposition, you're seeing your Walmarts and your Targets trying to be more things to more people and add more to that grocery selection there. So, you get your Safeways and your Kroger's in kind of the middle there,

and they're almost losing their identity. And so, really, scale is going to be the one way they are able to improve their operations. And it adds a couple of hundred stores to Kroger's store base. They're going to maintain the Harris Teeter brand, not really separate that out. So, if you're a Harris Teeter customer today, you will be a Harris Teeter customer in a month. I mean, they're going to still have that option. But I think just, you look at the valuations here, the price implications, and I think, you know, when you look at the deal there, it implied Harris Teeter being worth about half-time sales, 0.5-time sales, and Kroger trades for around 0.2-time sales now, which just tells us that this is a very low-growth, sort of low-expectation

industry to begin with. They operate on very razor-thin margins. But this should help their scale, hopefully improve their margin picture over time and give them a little bit of a bigger footprint in the Middle Atlantic and Southeast states. What do you make of the fact that Kroger only paid a 2% premium? I mean, we've seen acquisitions throughout the year where companies are getting a 15%, 20%, 30% premium on their share price. In the case of Harris-Teeder, that struck me as almost insulting. Well, I think two things. Number one, And we've had a rising tide that's lifted virtually every boat. And so Harris Teeter's valuation was fair, I think.

But also, given Harris Teeter's size, it was certainly a takeout candidate for a while. And so I don't think this was terribly surprising. I think it was expected, and I think that was priced in. So, Jason, mergers in general make me nervous because you are putting together two companies with different corporate cultures. And my brand perception of Kroger, you talked about companies in the middle of the grocery world. will Kroger be on the low middle and Harris Teeter's probably on the high middle? How well do you think that's going to blend together? Well, I think that's a genuine concern.

And I think that, honestly, that's why it's important that they leave these brands separate, because you keyed in on a good point there. Kroger is, I think, a little bit of a different clientele than Harris Teeter. I think if they really tried to meld those two operations together, that would be more problematic. This way, at least, Harris Teeter's going to operate as a subsidiary of Kroger, and they're going to be able to allow Harris Teeter to still, I think, operate within that culture that they've been able to operate within for so long. So, time will tell if the integration is seamless or not, but definitely something to look out for.

Good thing it's not a law firm, because then everyone would insist on their name being on the door, and it'd be Kroger, Harris, Teeter, and that's just too much of a mouthful. On Tuesday, shares of Barnes & Noble rose more than 4% on the news that CEO William Lynch has resigned. Isn't that a kick in the teeth? I was going to say, just kick a man while he's down. Like, yay, let's celebrate now that the CEO is gone. Ron, we talked about this company a couple of weeks ago. So, probably not a shock that the guy who was basically brought in to make a big push with the Nook tablet, given the demise of the Nook, he's also at the door.

Yeah, I don't even know if you can blame him, quite frankly. This is a tough battle to fight. It's a very competitive business. He was well-respected. He had a good resume. He had been focused on their website. He was brought in to focus on their digital business. Didn't work out as planned.

They're going in a different direction. It's known that the chairman, Leonard Ruscio, really, I think, would like to take this company private. I'm curious as to see whether this helps set that up or not. I think perhaps it will. I've mentioned the possibility that Microsoft, who already has an investment in the Nook business, I think a $600 million investment, is a possible candidate to come from Microsoft, that's actually true, could come in and acquire the Nook business. So, The Barnes & Noble we know now, at least from a corporate structure perspective, may cease to exist. Yeah, I mean, Ron's right.

I mean, I don't know how much you can really blame Lynch for this. I mean, the analogy I draw from this is like the rookie on the PGA Tour going up against Tiger Woods for an 18-0 match, you know, the very first time he's played him. I mean, Lynch was going up essentially against the beast in the industry of Amazon. I mean, you're just not really expected to win that. And if you do win it, well, that's great, but your chances are pretty slim from the very get-go. And, yeah, they just faced a tremendous uphill battle, and he wasn't able to get it done. It's understandable. Coming up, we'll preview the sweetest comeback in the history of ever.

This is Motley Fool Money. The best things in life are free. But you can give them to the birds and bees. I want money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Charlie Travers, and Ron Gross. Burberry, the British luxury brand, reported first quarter results. Charlie, sales up 18%.

They maintained full-year guidance. That's pretty good when you consider the relative struggles of the global economy. Right, and so we kicked off the show talking about economic weakness, and you know who's not suffering is luxury retailers around the world. Any of these companies you look at are doing very well. Burberry with 13% comps is among the best performers. And one of the interesting tidbits that came out of their call is Burberry has long mentioned that every store worldwide has Mandarin-speaking employees, and this is across all 534 stores,

and it never really sunk into me exactly how important that was for their business. So an analyst asked them on the call about their sales from Chinese customers, and it turns out that Chinese customers living in mainland China account for 14% of Burberry's sales, but if you account for Chinese tourists going to places like London and Paris and New York, total chinese spending accounts for 30 of burberry sales that's just staggering that's amazing yeah and it's and so it's not any i think that has to be true for a lot of these other brands like louis vuitton michael kors coach uh and it's not when they break out their sales by region it's not just china in china uh but it has a global ripple effect that is just a tiny stroke of genius

whoever came up with that idea and realizing the importance of having people fluent in mandarin and saying, no, no, no. I'm going to test it. It's got to be over. I don't buy it. Are you fluent in Mandarin? I'm going to learn one sentence, like, where's the bathroom? And I'm going to go around testing.

I would like a $2,000 trench coat. Yum! Brands, second quarter profits down 16%. Jason, once again, the challenge for Yum! Brands appears to be China. Yeah, I mean, we knew this was going to be a problem. We even saw sort of a foreshadowing of this in McCormick's results a couple of weeks ago when they talked about their industrial segment witnessing some weakness because of, they noted, China in particular. So avian flu concerns, poultry concerns all led to the problems that we're seeing now with Yum. It was interesting. I was reading through the call there, and management actually stated that the gift of time will be the most important contributor to the recovery of this whole poultry issue.

And it just struck me as, wow, man, you're throwing a lot up in the air there just to say it's all just going to take time. And I think we touched on this a little bit yesterday even with it's just really difficult to even say if you've got the problem solved that people would still be able to just go ahead and trust you and come back and say, OK, well, all's forgiven, I think. Because the quality isn't there really from the very get-go, right? It's not necessarily the most quality offering. And if you're going from not the most quality offering to making people sick with your offering, I think it takes just a little bit more than time to recover from that. Well, it was an avian flu scare in general and not people actually getting sick at KFC restaurants, which is a big differentiation from some of the fast food chains that actually had E. coli problems where people really did get sick eating there.

I was hoping for a buying opportunity off of Yum. When they were reporting negative 20 and negative 30 comps from KFC in China, if this was a lingering problem and they did not actually turn the corner. The stock didn't really get hit. No, and I was hoping it would, because this is a great business. I'd love to get it on the cheap. And I don't think they will get hit from this, because they're not solely dependent on China. I think once you start recognizing the growth avenues they have beyond China, I mean, you're looking at South Africa, Russia, Turkey, even Thailand,

where they actually have a presence more than twice the size of McDonald's. So I think that China is the headline, but when you look beyond China at India and the other opportunities, they should be okay. From fast food to retail, Gap's same-store sales in June rose 7%, much higher than analysts were expecting. Ron, good week for Gap. Yeah, and I think only to be fair, we really kicked these guys when they were down over the last few years. And so I think it's only fair to say they've done a really good job. They've done exactly what you would want a retailer that is struggling to do, which is close underperforming stores, focus on the main brands, focus on improving the product lines.

They've done just that, introducing color, focusing on women's lines. The stock reflects it, up 46% year-to-date in this year alone. So, credit where credit is due. Gap is back. The number that blew my mind, same-store sales at Old Navy up 13%. That is a staggeringly high comp. So, that won't continue. They were up against Easy Comp. So, it makes the numbers look a little bit better than they perhaps would. I think next quarter, the quarter after that, won't look as rosy. And finally, guys, a business icon returns next week, and I'm referring, of course, to Twinkie the Kid. Starting Monday, 50 million

Twinkies, yes, 50 million Twinkies, will be making their way to stores across America. Metropolis & Company, the new owners of the Hostess brands, they're planning a big push, including marketing with the tagline, the sweetest comeback in the history of ever. Charlie I think we talked about this earlier in the week pretty amazing the way that they have turned this around obviously turning this around involved cutting a whole lot of jobs but they really seem to have streamlined the operation around the snack cakes well I think it goes to show that even if you have a fantastic brand it does take care and attention and good stewardship to manage it or you can ruin it which is what happened with Twinkie and it looks like they're

going to run it right this time around and I'm looking forward to that they have a number of snack cakes in the portfolio. Is Twinkie your preferred, or are you like a ho-ho guy, a Suzy Q, one of the fruit pies? You're a ho-ho guy, Charlie. All of the above. Just like a cornucopia, but I would say my one go-to would be the Devil Dog. Okay. Are they the snowball characters? They make snowballs?

I think they make snowballs, yeah. Is that still going to be? Yeah. Is that? I would imagine. Strawberry snowball. Strawberry snowball? All right. Jason, what about you? Ding-dongs.

What's that? Ding-dongs. Ding-dongs, man. That's where they're at. That's where it's at? I mean, yeah, ding-dongs. Need I say anything else? Drop us an email, radioatfool.com. Weigh in on the important issues of the day. Send us your stock questions.

And by all means, send us your favorite hostess snack cake. All right, Ron Gross, Jason Moser, Charlie Travers. Guys, we'll see you a little bit later in the show. Well, I wish I was Mr. Gates. Pay me my money down. Let all my money in in crates. Pay me my money down. It started with a couple of guys from the business show Marketplace, and now it is one of the hottest radio shows in America.

Coming up, the hosts of the Dinner Party Download. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I've got 90,000 pounds in my mouth. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Longtime listeners of this show know that we enjoy good food, a variety of beverages, and good conversation. So we figured it was about time to invite some guests who are experts in all three. Every week, Rico Galeano and Brendan Francis Noonan host the Dinner Party Download, an hour-long celebration of culture, food, and conversation.

And they join me now from two different studios, Brendan in New York City, Rico in Los Angeles. And if the technology gods are good to us, this will all work. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Thanks for having us. Hello, Chris. Hello, Chris. Rico, let me just start with you. I feel an affinity for your show because, like Motley Fool Money, the Dinner Party Download started out as a weekly 15-minute podcast.

That's right. How did you guys make the leap to doing an hour-long radio show that is now on more than 100 radio stations across America? Well, I hate to bore you and your listeners, but it was simply because we're so freaking awesome. We started as a 15-minute show. That is true, a few years ago. and it just i mean maybe even surprising to us although not totally because we did know that we were awesome it immediately did pretty well and uh we were kind of doing it in the shadows we both worked at marketplace the public radio show um i was a reporter brendan was a producer

and we an occasional reporter and we were kind of in the night we would almost literally be sneaking into the studios to put together this idea that we had had to do a show that was themed after a dinner party in which we got to talk about all our favorite stuff. One of the things I like about your show is, you know, just like a dinner party, it's got all these different pieces to it, one of which is etiquette advice, which makes a lot of sense for someone like me who's basically a slob at heart. But I'm curious behind the decision to get etiquette advice from people like Ralph Nader and Kathy Griffin, who I enjoy as a comedian, but she's not really known for her etiquette.

Well, you know, one of the things we do at the Etiquette segment is we, as you mentioned, we have some kind of big, bold-faced names come by and take our listeners' questions. And that's because on our show what we're trying to do is give people things they haven't really heard before. You know, we're assuming public radio listeners, they read a lot. Most of them have gone to grad school. This is statistically true. So they're like lifelong learners. And our show, we thought they had some blind spots in their learning.

And so our show is kind of about giving them things they haven't heard already. uh and so when you like the fact that kathy griffin is an awesome etiquette advice giver that's one thing or jackie collins or dick cavett or elaine stritch but the the idea is to bring them in and not just ask them the typical questions like oh what is it like promoting your new dvd uh so we thought it'd be more fun to learn about them through asking questions about hey my roommate throws out my you know throws their bottle in the non-recycling bin yes what should i do about it and so it's just kind of a fun way to have a cockeyed conversation with these these luminaries which does get us in a little bit it's it's interesting because actually

once a month you know we have actual experts of etiquette lizzie and daniel post sending emily post great great grandchildren that is correct and they actually give real advice that's actually helpful to human beings and navigating society yeah whereas let's say the kathy griffins of the world didn't necessarily always give the most excellent advice so sometimes people will write in and be like, Kathy Griffin's advice was wrong. It's like, yeah, what else is new? She's a stand-up comedian. Elbows aren't allowed on the table. Like, really? Come on,

guys. If you're really taking your etiquette advice from Kathy Griffin, maybe. Plastic surgery is not allowed at the dinner table. I don't know why she said that. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with Rico Galeano and Brendan Francis Noonan, host of the Dinner Party Download. How real a threat do you think

the health movement is for companies that deal with food or beverages that are high in calories, not necessarily good for you, because on the one hand, it seems like if you're a Coca-Cola, you can sit back and point to, hey, we've got bottled water, we've got honest tea, we've got all these different options. On the other hand, it really does seem like, to your point, Brendan, you look at the numbers, particularly in big cities, and that's a very real challenge that big city mayors face in

terms of dealing with the rising cost of obesity in America. Yeah, that's a good question. And I had actually spoke earlier today with Susan Burfield, who's a writer for Businessweek, and she's on our show this week. She wrote an article about the McWrap, which is McDonald's kind of attempt to have kind of a healthier menu item. And she said that McDonald's sells, they've had salads for years now, and it makes up less than 3% of their total sales. so that leads me to believe that most people still don't really want salads and people don't want these veggies and so these companies are adopting them these menu items more for commercial reasons more for marketing reasons sure people don't go i know there have been studies recently that basically people don't go to fast food restaurants we should say to eat salads just one more thing since we're in the realm of fast food the success of the doritos locos taco is that a surprise to you guys because from a bottom line standpoint, that has dramatically improved

things for a company like Taco Bell. I think anyone who went to college and goofed off knows that that's a dream. The R&D on that has been decades in the making. Dorm rooms around the country are like, Doritos are really good. Tacos are really good. Why don't they mix them together? And if anything, it's a statement on maybe Fortune 500 companies that it took this long for that idea to trickle up that they resisted yeah there was a great article in fast company

about the the creation of it it took years also i i should point out there's there was a phenomenon i actually don't know if it's still around the sushi rito brendan brendan did a story about the sushi rito and one of the items this guy basically had made a burrito out of sushi which that is not necessarily about that for a second when you bit into it it felt like you're biting into an arm yeah it was just filled with flesh it was really flesh disturbing but what this guy also had and Brendan brought some back and a lot of people surprisingly wouldn't touch it where Doritos top with spicy tuna. And it was just like,

it was amazing to me that just made total sense. I don't know what that means to me, but I do think that Doritos are sort of like French fries. You can add them to almost anything and it'll be fine. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with Rico Galeano and Brendan Francis Noonan, hosts of the Dinner Party Download. Before we wrap up,

guys, I'm just curious in the world of business, whether it is, business leaders thought leaders from the world of business who would you like to have over for your dinner party oh that's interesting i know i think i would go with i would start with warren buffett just because i think that he's managed to remain somewhat cool in spite of having all the money all of it um and it's like i would like to ask him how he managed to work that out it just seems interesting to me maybe it's maybe it's easier than i think when you have all the money

you can just chill about everything because nothing's going to be a problem for you but uh that he seems cool so that i guess that would be my first thing is that like too easy that doesn't seem very inventive of me no he also seems like a guy who really enjoys uh good comfort food just based on um uh the companies that he owns and you know uh being a big fan of dairy queen so if nothing else you'd get a nice dessert out of it probably i would get a soft serve yeah i would want a little more out of him i think i would like to have any kind of business leader on our show i wonder you know publicists being what they are and communications departments being what they are if they'd let us you know let them come on our show you know we don't our show is about food

and it's about culture you know we're not asking hardball questions about uh the impact of uh their products but i find it's off you know it's hard to i mean how about on the motley fool it's hard to kind of get those guys to agree to come on board and kind of shake them from their talking points. That's definitely true. That's been our experience on this show is that for the most part, CEOs are more like your grade A level politician

in that they're thinking, as they should be, they're thinking of their shareholders, they are thinking of their partners, and so they are less likely to loosen their tie, so to speak. Yeah. We need more Ted Turners in this world. Whatever happened to those guys?

Wouldn't that be great? When I'm interviewing someone, I wrap up the interview with a round of buy, sell, or hold. But one of your standards on your show is to say to a guest, tell us something you don't know. So before we get to buy, sell, or hold, I'm just going to blatantly rip you guys off. We get royalties when you do this, so please. Brendan, please tell me and our dozens of listeners something that we don't know. wow so what you don't know is that when we ask this question it often takes people a really long time to answer yeah and we have to come up with something together and then we edit it and cut the tape get ready for dead air that's something that's something not a lot of people know here's something a guest told answer how about i steal a guest answer is that okay absolutely not a lot of people know that crows can recognize human faces they remember human faces yeah really so

if you yeah so if you that's terrifying yeah it is very terrifying i think the yeah so you behave carefully they will they have they're really smart and um they can yeah they can identify you so you're saying that when the animal revolution comes and it will come that the crows are going to be front and center at that possibly um yeah they're everywhere notice they're everywhere and we haven't even thought about them the crows are like infiltrating yeah them and cheetahs i think are going to be the generals and commanders of the animal army we will wrap up with a round of buy seller hold uh brendan in recent years we have witnessed the rise in popularity of the gourmet burger and the cupcake and now it appears to be the half donut half croissant pastry that's

become so coveted that the going rate for just one of them on the black market is 35 buy seller hold the cronut whoa are we talking well i mean it's already they're already there so this was started in new york by dominique ansal we had him on the show he said he may only makes 200 to 300 a day but i have read reports that the don't they're calling it the dosant in california people are starting to mimic this so this is going to be like korean tacos or like frogo pinkberry yogurt so actually i would i would buy now the concept because it's going to explode across the country but then i would sell in about a year because people are gonna gonna be done get diabetes and just think and be interested in some other snack food rico this is a long-standing

tradition at weddings in western pennsylvania buy seller hold the cookie table oh i'm i'm buying on the cookie table because basically with your help the cookie table basically at weddings in western pennsylvania among all the other standard things that one would have at a wedding and say a buffet or you know a catered meal you also have a cookie table it's a table with like a million different kinds of cookies often baked the night before or the day of by relatives or friends of the bride and not only do you get those cookies to sample during the wedding but it's often accompanied with little boxes often little like chinese takeout boxes and at the end of the wedding you like pack up your little chinese takeout box with cookies and you take those home

with you how long has this been going on it's been going on for at least a few decades uh and it's never left western pennsylvania so i think sell but here's the thing though or it doesn't matter but here's the thing though first of all chris heard about it i wonder how that happened it might be because there's an article about it because rico happens to know a lot about the cookie table listen to me now but the new york times did a major piece about this not too long ago and i think it i think it's going to spread that this is the motley fool they read the wall Street Journal around here. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about it. Brendan, when going to someone's house for an event, a dinner party, a barbecue, whatever, some people like to bring

a bottle of wine, a small gift, buy, sell, or hold, showing up to a party with flowers. Like, do I think this is going to happen more or do I think it should happen more? Do you think it's a good idea? Are you a net promoter? Are you a buyer of that idea? I'm a total buyer of that idea. Really? I really am, yeah. I mean, first of all, we have a rule that I think any time you go to a dinner party, everyone brings a bottle of wine. Yes.

One bottle of wine per person, even if that person doesn't drink. Because let's be honest, you're going to make your way through it, and you'd rather have more than less. But I like flowers because I can see this happening more often. You know, flowers serve no purpose other than beauty. And I think the best part of a dinner party is, yes, there's food, but the food isn't the most important part. it's more like the community the coming together we all work hard and we're and we're celebrating and sharing and i think flowers symbolically that that's a great thing in this fast age where we're getting texts while we're eating about all this stuff to just have something that only purpose

is to look beautiful i totally buy it that's that's very nice and we'll get you dates but i disagree i just think i think that the fact that it has no purpose you're bringing this thing over that's then gonna die they're gonna have to like figure out you bring it over they immediately have to cut it what if they don't have a vase they don't know how to display it or whatever and then it's going to turn into shriveled vegetation later on that they're going to have to compost i think it's just inconvenient okay so if i'm ever my species will get my family line will continue to propagate and yours will die a death like a flower plugged in i'm a single man to the ground never picked the dinner party download is heard every week on more than 110 radio stations

across America. It is on iTunes and online at dinnerpartydownload.org. Rico Galeano, Brendan Francis Newman, gentlemen, it has been a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you. The pleasure was ours. Thanks, Chris. 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 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. Joining me in studio once again, Charlie Travers, Jason Moser, and Ron Gross. Guys, before we get to the stocks that are on our radar, we got a question from one of our listeners that had to do with, how do you deal with, or how do you approach, you've got a portfolio of stocks, how do you deal with the one that is your biggest holding? Because there are some people out there who get nervous. There are some people who set up systems where they say, look, I never let a single holding get above 15%. As soon as it's above that, I sell. Ron, what is the biggest holding in your

portfolio, and how do you approach it? Interestingly, or perhaps not, depending on your perspective. My biggest holding is an S&P 500 ETF, the SPY, S-P-Y. It's 13% of my portfolio. And that's because I like the diversification. It's an easy way to get that done. It's a nice chunk of my portfolio to have participating in the market. My biggest stock position is Berkshire Hathaway, which, not extremely exciting, but as a value guy, a big fan of Buffett, he's my guy, and I've held it for well over a decade, and it's grown to be my largest. O'Reilly. Jason, what about you? Jason Moser. Yeah, this has been obviously a banner year for Amazon. They've done very

well. Amazon is the biggest position in my portfolio, and it now represents about 20%, believe it or not. I don't know that I would let any company get to be that much of a position, but with Amazon, I feel a little bit better. I look at Amazon and think, well, if they close their doors tomorrow, it would be an earth-shattering event in many cases. I like Jeff Bezos and where he's headed. I love the trend towards e-commerce and the fact that It's only 5.5% of overall retail today. So I feel like there is a big trend we're playing into there. Now, with that said, I am always willing to trim a position back a little bit if I feel like the price is a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

But when I have something like an Amazon, I want to maintain a position, a core position in for really the duration. Charlie? So if you're watching TV and you see the sports car sliding around on a commercial and it says, like, professional driver on a closed track, don't do this. Don't attempt this. That's the caveat to what I'm going to say right here. My biggest position is a for-profit education company called Bridgepoint Education. It's about 20% of my portfolio right now. They had a good week.

They had a good week. So did you. Yeah, but they could have also had a really bad week, which is the caveat. But we own a million-dollar portfolio, too. So I run a concentrated portfolio. I only like to own about 10 stocks, but I do a lot of work before I do that and control the downside first. Okay. Thank you for the caveat.

I always appreciate the warning. We've got a couple minutes left. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Ron, you're up first. I've got Titan International, TWI. It's a new recommendation for us at our deep value service here at The Fool. They're a wheel and tire manufacturer for equipment companies like Deere and Caterpillar. Very interested to see what they say in the next earnings call, which is coming up. They've suspended guidance recently, so I want to hear what the new guidance is. We were fortunate to get in after that suspension, so we think there's a lot of upside here, maybe 50%. Is that automatically a red flag when a

company suspends guidance? It's automatically a red flag to figure out why. Yes. I'll go with yes. All right. Jason, what about you? I've been keeping an eye on Joy Global lately. Just as you pay hefty for a cheery consensus, you can get a nice little discount for a dreary

consensus. And I think that's what we get with Joy Global right now. Just commodities in general are taking a hit. Coal is, I think, evil in many people's eyes. But the fact of the matter is that Joy Global is a tremendous player in this mining equipment space. And they do have a considerable presence in China, which I think is also contributing to the pessimism there. The CEO is on the way out voluntarily.

He's just retiring, and they have a replacement already in place. And there are some questions in regard to an acquisition. Not long ago, Caterpillar took a very big write-down on some accounting fraud in a Chinese acquisition. And Joy Global also made a small acquisition over there. Now, they have come back time and time again to say that they are certain that there is no fraud. I guess time will tell. But I think at 7.5 times earnings, it's still worth a shot. And the ticker symbol?

J-O-Y. Charlie? I'm going with BlotX. Ticker's B-L-X. This is a Latin American bank that Ron and I own a million-dollar portfolio. It's very conservatively managed. They're not doing home loans or car loans. They are there to finance trade.

No credit default swaps? No. So like import of oil and gas or coffee or any of that kind of stuff. Very short-term, business-focused loans. Conservatively managed. It'll give you exposure to Latin American growth. You get about a 5% yield right now. And I think they report next week, if I'm not wrong.

Next Thursday. Okay, great. I meant to add, just in the interest of disclosure, that I do own shares of Joy Global myself. All right. Charlie Travers, Jason Moser, Ron Gross. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks. Thank you.

That's going to do it for this edition of Motley Fool Money. Our engineer, Steve Broido, mysteriously is on vacation this week. Who? Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? So, our producer, Matt Greer, doing double time, doing all the work behind the glass. Thank you, Matt.

Gilman's work. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week when our guest will be Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner talking about the 20th anniversary of The Motley Fool.