Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 11.22.2013

Episode Date: November 22, 2013

Shares of Tesla lose some energy.  Target misses the mark.  Green Mountain grinds out big earnings.  And Campbell's Soup serves up some disappointing numbers.   Our analysts discuss those stories and share three stocks on their radar.  Plus, corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow talks JPMorgan Chase, CEO pay, and must-see movies.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Joining me in studio this week from Motley Fool One,

Jason Moser from Motley Fool Supernova, Matt Argesinger, and for Million Dollar Portfolio, Mr. Ron Gross. Good to see you guys. How are you doing, Chris? We've got the latest on retail, automotive, gaming, and more. We'll get a holiday movie preview from our good friend, Nell Minow. And as always, we will share a few stock ideas for you to put on your watch list. But we begin this week with housing. Home sales fell more than 3% in October. That is the second month in a row of falling home sales. We also I got the latest results from the two biggest players in the home improvement industry.

Home Depot's third quarter profit rose 43%. Lowe's third quarter profit rose 26%, although, Jason, that was lower than expected. That stock got hit a little bit. Overall, kind of a mixed bag when you step back and look at housing. Yeah, maybe a mixed bag. I mean, you have to figure at some point housing sales are going to moderate a little bit. And we've been in the middle of this big refinance boom, which is going to start sort of tapering off here over the next couple of years. But when you look at Home Depot and Lowe's, what impressed me with both companies' results,

they grew their top lines very significantly. Home Depot was about 7.4%, Lowe's up 7.3%. And that, to me, is very impressive in an environment where we've been really looking for a lot of top-line sales growth, and not enough companies are bringing it. Yeah, interestingly, we got a dip in mortgage rates this week, and we haven't had that. It's been going the other way on us. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues, because that obviously would be good for both real estate as well as the home improvement firms. Just getting back to the earnings outlook, I thought Lowe's actually looked pretty good. Just not as good as Home Depot and not as good as those wacky analysts were expecting.

But who cares what they think? I thought the numbers actually were strong. Yeah, this does seem, in the case of Lowe's, which has outperformed Home Depot year to date, did seem like one of those situations, Matt, where the expectations were good, they just weren't perfect. That's right. I think Home Depot benefited from going first, even though it was only a day. But it just builds momentum. It's funny just how Lowe's, for whatever reason, the numbers are always pretty good. It just always falls a little short of Home Depot. Home Depot's revenue will go up 13%, Lowe's will be like 12.5%. That's enough to sell Lowe's and always have it as a cheaper multiple.

O' But Lowe's always sets themselves up for that, right? Every release, they're like, we're Lowe's, we're the second biggest home improvement company in the United States. They're always setting themselves up for that, one step lower. But Home Depot's bigger, Depot has more financial resources, better margins, so they perpetually just offer up better results. From an investor's perspective, it's certainly the more attractive of the two. Third quarter profits for Target fell 46%. Executives are placing the blame on the big losses. They're placing the blame, Ron, on their Canadian locations, which, I did the math, that's about 5% of their stores. It is 5%, but it's enough to hit margins a bit. They really

had to be promotional to get some merchandise out the door. So, Canada's not going that well. They've got a plan, though. Don't worry. They do have a plan. I think we'll see things firm up. But even here in the U.S., revenue growth, not so great. 2%. ComStore sales less than 1%. So, again, we're seeing some of that bifurcation where the high-end retailers look pretty good, the lower-end not so good. But I'm a fan of Target and have been for a long time. O' Do you think, in some way, Target, the stock, gets the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to Walmart, just because, in general, the customer experience is a little bit better at Target?

That's what I've always felt, definitely. Although, we famously always say, I've never been in a Walmart. O' You've never actually set foot inside a Walmart. Ever? Ever, never. O' I've never been in a Walmart. Oh, man, I don't know. O' That's not for lack of trying. My biggest problem with Target is that their consumables, their perishables section, goes under the brand name PFresh, which, come on, I'm no marketing genius, but let's change that. O' It was a big week for video gamers.

On Friday, Microsoft began selling the new Xbox One game console. At the start of the week, shares of Sony were up, after Sony announced it had sold more than one million PlayStation 4 consoles in the first 24 hours they were available. Big week, Matt, what stood out to you? No, it was big, really big numbers. This is the first console cycle we've had in at least seven years, so there's huge anticipation for this. Now, there were some bugs out of the gate. That's what I've been reading about in some of the reviews, about how Sony's freezing up and getting the blue screen of death, and then the Xbox One's also having some issues with the disk drive. This happened the last

time when the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 came out. According to Sony, it's affecting about 0.4% of machines, about 1 in 250 of the ones they've sold so far. So, not a huge deal. And we've got to remember that the gaming segments of these companies, while exciting and certainly growing, for Microsoft and Sony, it's about less than 10% of their revenue for each. So, yeah, you know. It seems, though, when we look at, in the case of Sony, as you said, this is the first model, new model, in seven years. So, I don't want to say that it has to be absolutely perfect, But the fact that there are any kind of significant bugs whatsoever, that's got to be troubling.

It is. I mean, they've had a lot of time to really go through it. Again, I just think this is one of those things where, you know, any kind of fabrication, when you're manufacturing these types of complex systems, there are always the lemons out there. And it just depends on how much. Now, the publicity is bad. I mean, we've seen what's happened with Tesla in the past few weeks with just a few car fires. And this is exactly what can happen. Just a few. Cars catch on fire.

Let me just say, though, this is exactly the reason I love the early adopters of products like this, and why I'm always the guy who waits months before I'm actually the one who buys them, because I just know that there are always bugs that they're going to update and fix, and then I'm going to be the guy who buys and gets the great system. At a cheaper price, usually. What had been reported for some time became official this week. JPMorgan Chase paid the largest settlement in U.S. history. Jason, $13 billion, is that a fair price? Is it too much, too little?

So, I'm just going to rip off a quote here for you real quick. Jamie Dimon says that he's, quote, pleased to have concluded this extensive agreement, unquote. And I'm certain he is very pleased, because when you look at the numbers, it does seem like it's a drop in the bucket for J.P. Morgan. $13 billion is about half percent of their total assets and about 1% of total investments. So, it is not really anything that is going to cause any of the executives there lose any sleep. You go back to the 1980s, whether it's insider trading scandals with Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky, or banking crisis today, I just am very skeptical that any of these sort of pecuniary slaps on the wrist have any effect on these

guys whatsoever. O'Reilly. Say that again? Pecuniary. O'Reilly. Pecuniary. O'Reilly. That's a 50-cent word right there. O'Reilly. I've got a lot of them, Chris. O'Reilly. Ron, what about that? The notion that, yes, the companies are paying a large fine, but nobody's getting fired that we know of. It seems like that would be a step in the right direction. I agree. Remember Occupy Wall Street,

where people were really complaining just about things like that, that there's no accountability, and there really is too big to fail, and nobody gets fired, and the slap on the wrist. I'm not a fan of too much regulation, but I'm also not a fan of ... You have to have something that has a little bit of bite out there. Otherwise, people are going to just keep doing things over and over again. Yeah, I'm not saying tie these guys' hands behind their backs, but I do think that a fine like this, $13 billion is a great headline, but at the end of the day, it doesn't mean really anything to that bank.

But to bring sports into the equation, if this were a sports team, Matt, this would be a player does something, and instead of the player getting fined, it's the team that's paying the fine. Right, right. Exactly. I agree with both Ron and Jason. I just think there needs to be Some level of, you know, whether you change the business or you have a real impact on what companies like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America do, it doesn't mean a whole lot. Coming up, if you are a soup lover, we have some troubling news. This is Motley Fool Money. Hey, it's Chris here.

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Let's take a ride in an electric car. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Matt Argesinger, and Ron Gross. Shares of Tesla Motors down more than 10% this week. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has launched a formal investigation into the recent fires that we alluded to in the previous segment, Ron. They also said that Tesla has been very cooperative. Tesla has said they want the highest level of scrutiny here. That's the kind of thing you obviously want to hear if you're a Tesla shareholder. But still, the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, how big a red flag is this? Well, we've taken the pullback as an opportunity to actually recommend the stock and take a

little nibble and add it to our portfolio. We don't think this is a big deal going forward. Gasoline cars catch on fire, too. In fact, significantly higher rates than Tesla. However, it's something to look into, absolutely. They need to figure it out. They need to see if it's something that is going to be persistent and can be fixed. But, you know, Tesla's getting rave reviews. Consumer Reports came out and said it's the best car they've ever tested. They're winning awards all over the place. So, short-term blip, give us the opportunity to get in. Let's make an apples-to-apples comparison, though. There are Chevy, you know, there's

the Volt. There are other electric cars out there. None of them have had any type of fire problem whatsoever. I get why people who are fans of Tesla and defending this company and this stock are saying, well, look at gas cars. But if you compare it to other electric cars, they're the only ones having this problem. I think it definitely has to be looked into. It looks like it might have been that the suspension was too low, and they sent out a software update, which is a pretty cool thing about these digital cars. You can send a software update out to the cars that raises the suspension. Really? Yeah. It's very cool. And you can fix

a problem on the fly like that. Because two of the fires, at least, were the result of going over some debris, and that caused the problem. So, it might have been suspension. Now, I've got a question here, because Tesla is kind of a tech company nowadays, and we've heard all of these insinuations that someone could possibly hack into an airplane's cockpit and take control of the flight mechanisms there. Is that any potential concern here with Tesla? I have not looked into that. I sat in Alex's Tesla. It's like a computer on wheels, man. I mean, what if some disgruntled

individual out there gets in there and hacks into Tesla's software and people just start wrecking their cars everywhere? I guess that is a risk. We'll have to put that in the risk column. I think that's a movie plot. By the way, speaking of awards, also worth mentioning, Elon Musk, named by Fortune magazine as their business person of the year. So, congrats to Mr. Musk. Potential top in the stock, though, right there. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, up 14% on Thursday after fourth quarter profits rose 38%. 38%, Matty. The company also announced plans to buy back a billion dollars worth

of stock. First, on the buyback, good idea? Sure. They've got a lot of cash. This is a This is a company that has received a lot of scrutiny. Some of it may be a little exaggerated in recent years. This is a way, and they also initiated a small dividend too at the same time. This is a way of saying, hey, we're a real company making a lot of money and we're going to give a little money back to shareholders now. The results were really good. The fact that they sold 2.6 million brewers in the quarter versus a year ago when they sold about 2 million. People are still buying the Keurig machine. They're still buying the portion impacts, obviously. So, I don't know. And I looked at the cash flow. My only concern

with the quarter was that the inventory built up pretty heavily, and that's not a surprise given the holidays. But the accounts receivable line also built up pretty significantly, both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. So, their cash flow was a lot lower than their net income. Sometimes, this can signal that the company is giving generous terms to some of its customers. So, retailers like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, for example, that sell the Keurig machine might have gotten incentives to buy a lot of Keurig machines from Green Mountain in the quarter. Probably not, but just something to pay attention to going forward. Do you have any sense of how they are doing with their non-coffee thing? We've

talked before about soft drinks, lemonade, soup. I have no idea if that's working. I've heard some very positive things about some of the juice mechanisms, but nothing about the soup. Yeah. William Sonoma, third quarter profit rose 16%, and Jason, the company gave credit to the Williams-Sonoma brand, but to some of their other brands, West Elm Furniture Stores, Pottery Barn Kids. This is a company you look at. What did you make of the quarter? Yeah, that was an interesting part of the takeaway there, was that the Williams-Sonoma name actually was the lowest of all the performers. But it's nice that you have all of those brands

under that umbrella. But I mean, the earnings beat and the guidance raised there, I think it perfectly exemplifies what we've been talking about these past few weeks, and sort of that disparity between the low-income earners and the higher-income earners. And I think that you know, the higher-income earners, they're not being affected by these slow economic conditions quite as much. But, I mean, the quarter itself, it was a solid quarter. Top-line growth up better than 11%, which resulted in earnings growth better than 18%. So, they're doing a good job bringing that down to the bottom line. They saw a nice little bump in gross margin because they are selling more direct-to-consumer stuff. And, you know, that's

those internet sales that offer higher-margin sales. I think that when you look at the raise and guidance. A quote from the earnings release there was confidence in the fourth quarter. And so, I think that management is seeing signs, at least early signs, that this quarter is going to be a good one. I would be looking for a strong holiday quarter from these folks early next year. That puts them on a short list of retailers, doesn't it? Definitely does. There's really only, I mean, you could probably count on one hand the number of retailers that have gone into the holiday quarter with good results and confidence.

Yeah, but I mean, I think, again, that's really a testament, number one, to the different brands that they have under that Williams-Sonoma name. And again, also, I just don't think we're seeing those higher-income earners being as affected by these slower economic conditions as we are the lower-income earners. First quarter profits for Campbell's Soup fell 30%, stock down about 8% this week. What's going on here, Matt? Oh, you know, I follow Campbell's really closely. No, I mean, the one thing I'll point out, it looked like a pretty bad quarter. The U.S. soup sales declined 6%. Soup's their biggest

business. And it was because retailers adjusted inventories. That, to me, sounds like people just weren't buying soup, and then they adjusted inventories because people weren't buying soup. You had flagged this article before we started taping the show about the trend in soup consumption. I don't know. I always look at soup as one of those, it's a staple. It's certainly been a steady business. If own shares of Campbell's Soup for the past few decades, you've certainly done very well. So the idea that soup is declining, I was stunned by that. Well, there's just a lot of talk about the idea that the amount of sodium in soup

and the canned varieties in particular, that's just not appealing to especially younger people who are buying non-processed, organic, natural food. So that could be a trend. I wonder if it's a very seasonal business, the cold winter months representing perhaps a substantial portion of annual soup sales. Seems like it would make sense to me. I don't know the answer. Maybe Kenny Banyu was right and soup's not a meal. But it is good food.

It is good food. Let's bring in our man Steve Broido in from the other side of the glass. Steve, first, are you surprised that soup consumption is declining? And two, we were kicking this around earlier about kids and soup. You've got a little guy. Is he a fan of soup? He's not a soup fan, no. He tends to wear everything that he eats.

So we try to keep them away from liquid-based meals. Ah, good times. I'm not surprised. I guess what I have not seen as much of recently is there was a trend with the soups that went into the microwave-safe kind of container. And I'm seeing fewer of those. I have noticed that. So maybe that could be part of it. I think my experience with those was when you put them in the microwave and then you look to take them out, then you burn your hands.

That is quite possible, too. Maybe that is why it failed. Who knows? Do you have a favorite soup? I mean, if we strapped you to a chair and forced you to pick one? Oh, can we please do that? Tomato soup, there's nothing really with grilled cheese, a lot of salt, heavy sodium, right to heart disease. It works for me.

Ron, what about you? I think I can speak for Jason and myself in saying Whole Foods tortilla soup is just stupendous. Now, you've touched on something that our colleague at Motley Fool Funds, Bill Barker, this is a point of, well, anger with him, which is that Whole Foods actually makes this wonderful Mexican meatball soup, but they only make it available about one month of the year. It's like the McRib for Whole Foods, and it's one of those things where, as Bill said, it really disproves the whole notion of it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. No, it's brutal.

He really is invested in the soup. He's very invested in the soup. Matty, do you have a go-to of food? Yeah, split pea and ham. Really? Yeah, go on. Wow, that's adult. Wow, that is adult.

I've always liked it. It's healthy. I don't know why. Jason? Ron said it. The Whole Foods chicken tortilla soup is just unsurpassed. All right. Drop us an email, radioatfool.com.

Let us know your favorite soup. Let us know if you're concerned, frankly, about the decline in soup consumption. I'm a fan of soup. I'm a little surprised by this. I'm a little upset. Superheroes in your soup say come on in and play. Nicholas Ridiculous, will you have some superhero soup today? Radio at Fool.com is our email address.

Drop us a note. All right, Ron Gross, Matt Argesinger, Jason Moser. Guys, we will see you later in the show. Coming up next, Nell Minow on the business of the boardroom and the business of movies. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Let's go over there. Where? Here, inside this bowl of soup.

My baby, love a western movie. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. This week, we've got the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history, and we've got the holiday movie season kicking off. So, of course, we're going to talk to Nell Minow. She's the corporate governance expert with GMI Ratings. She is also the movie mom. Nell, always good to talk with you.

I'm so glad to be back. Let's start with JPMorgan Chase. We touched on this topic a little earlier in the show, the $13 billion settlement with the government. And even though that is roughly half of JPMorgan Chase's annual profit, there are some people out there saying they got off light. What did you think of the deal? They got off light. You know, it's funny. I'm hearing from a lot of executives who think that they shouldn't have had to pay anything at all because a lot of the bad actions were from the companies they acquired.

And I keep explaining to them that if you could extinguish liability by being sold, we would not have anything that we could reasonably call a justice system. And I'm speaking to you, Chevron, as well. So you don't do that. We all remember that they got those companies at fire sale prices, deep, deep, deep, deep discounts, reflecting that there were embedded liabilities there. uh i think my bigger concern with jp morgan right now is that there are no individual consequences i think the the amount of money sounds right to me but there don't seem to be any individual

consequences whatsoever uh and what i would hope to see uh in particular is that the sec does have the authority which they never use to uh include in the settlement a prohibition against those directors ever serving as directors of public companies again. That's the kind of thing that I want to see. And I also want to see some clawbacks from some of the bonuses that went out under these flawed programs. Not seeing that at all either. So I think as long as it's coming out of the shareholder's pocket and not the individual's pocket, it doesn't really have the deterrent effect that we're hoping for. Why do you think we don't see that from the SEC in terms of penalties? Because certainly on the trading side, we have seen people on Wall Street

barred from ever trading securities again, losing their license. Why do you think we don't see that when it comes to serving on a board of directors? It's beyond me. They explicitly gave them that authority. I think it was in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, so it's been around for a while. I can't recall a time they've ever used it. And I think that they feel, and this is a pretty damning indictment, that the directors really are who disconnected from what's going on to be held responsible. More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 combine the role of chairman and CEO. JPMorgan Chase is one of them. Jamie Dimon is the chairman and CEO. You've been critical of

combining these two positions. If they're doing a good job, does it matter to investors? You know, the problem is that splitting the two positions has had a tremendously beneficial effect in the U.K., which is where the idea first came out. But in the U.S., nobody's been able to show any particular beneficial impact because in the U.S. it often means Michael Dell decides he just wants one title, then he changes his mind and he wants both titles. It's not really meaningful. So I'm really more about the results, and that's why at GMI we grade companies based on the decisions that the board makes and not how they structure themselves or who has what titles. I thought it was very interesting that Jamie threw his risk committee members under the bus to hold on to both titles in that last contested proxy, and that may not be able, that may not continue again this year because, you know, $13 billion

and we're still being investigated. They still have a number of other investigations going that are attributable to the J.P. Morgan staff and not the staff of the acquired companies. So there's more happening there. So I guess with the splitting of the chairman and CEO, I think it can be a very useful thing, but it's not enough. It can be too easily subverted. You mentioned GMI ratings, which hands out a lot of grades. And as you and I have talked about in the past, not a lot of companies getting top marks. I am curious, though, when you look across the spectrum of public companies, what are one or two companies that right now you think are doing a great job getting a high rating from GMI for the way that they treat shareholders and all their stakeholders? Well, I'm going to mention the same people I mentioned before, which is Costco, because they're still doing a good job.

And I like mentioning them because they do things that they get criticism for on Wall Street, like paying their employees more. But, duh, it results in better, lower turnover and more loyalty from the employees. So I was a little concerned with a new CEO coming in that you wouldn't get that founder principle anymore, but the CEO is still relatively underpaid, and that's good news. On the other hand, GMI issued a report a couple of weeks ago. It's free. It's on our website. Anybody can look at it. We did an annual report on CEO pay, and for the first time ever, all top ten of the guys, they're all guys in our list, got paid over $100 million. The top two, over $2 billion in one year.

Does some of that, though, coincide with the rising stock market? Yeah. Should it? No. You know, I've said this to you before, that any stock grant or option grant that isn't indexed so that you're not artificially inflating it by overall market returns has no credibility whatsoever. Furthermore, I guess you won't be surprised when I tell you who the number one is on our list who made over $2 billion last year, especially if I give you a hint. He's in his 20s. Mr. Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg. Now, let's talk about pay there for a minute. If he's not already incented by the stock holdings he has, then we've got a big problem that even $2 billion isn't going to fix. Furthermore, I don't think he's a retention risk. You don't think so?

You don't think he's looking to take his talents elsewhere? Who's going to bid for him with those prices? When it comes to corporate governance, really just over the last couple of years, let's just use that as a time frame. Where do you see the most progress being made? And what do you see as, if it's not CEO pay, and maybe it is, but if executive pay is not still the biggest problem, what is? Well, COP is still the biggest symptom, so I'll put it that way. It is still the most obvious symptom, and it's still completely out of whack. And I'm sure that you, like me, when you saw that a painting sold for, a 20th century painting sold for $142 million,

you said some crazy CEO is out there with nothing else to do with his money. So maybe there are some trickle-down effects, and I'm sure the gallery owner is doing pretty well out of it. But that's still the symptom that board oversight is weak. On the other hand, I do have to give boards credit that boards are far more independent now and the executive session meetings are more robust. I have told you this before that I spoke to a 1970s-era GM director who said that there was never any time on the agenda for questions or discussion. It was presentation, presentation, presentation, new car, home.

And I think that era is over. What I'm hearing from a lot of directors is that it's no presentations. It's all discussion. They hand you the briefing package. They assume that you've read it, and then it's just off to the races, and the board meetings are much more productive. So all of that, I think, is great. I'm extremely encouraged by the way that institutional investors are stepping up to the plate.

There's still a lot of failures there, But the fact that we had, I think it was 60 say-on-pay proposals that failed last year, I think that's a good number. You know, out of, what, 6,000 companies, I think 1% should fail. Now, depressingly, 12 of those companies were failing for the second time, which shows the companies are not necessarily being responsive. But my favorite was the company where they had 100% vote against the pay. Wow. Yeah, well, in that one, the board had already thrown out the old management, and they were recommending the vote again. Coming up, more with Nell Minow. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill talking with corporate governance guru and film critic Nell Minow. Before we move on to movies, this week marks the 50th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, and so much has been written. But one of the more poignant pieces was something your father, Newton Minow, wrote for the Atlantic Magazine entitled How We Should Remember John F. Kennedy, a lovely piece that features a number of photos, including one of your father and mother and you and your sisters with President Kennedy in the Oval Office. Your dad shares a number of stories in the piece. I'm curious, when you read it, what stood out to you?

Well, you know, he knew President Kennedy when he was still Senator Kennedy, and he negotiated with him on behalf of Adlai Stevenson, who was considering him as a possible vice presidential candidate. And he roomed with Bobby Kennedy on the campaign trail for Adlai Stevenson. So he knew them both well. and really, really loved Kennedy, thought he was great. And I think that what I liked about what my dad wrote was that he said that he had a rare combination of optimism and practicality,

that he could be real without being cynical. And he says, I really miss seeing that in today's political discourse. All right, let's talk about the business of movies. In investing, we see red flags for companies. In movies, I could be wrong, but it strikes me that moving the release date for a film is a red flag. And we've got a couple of really big movies, Wolf on Wall Street, the Martin Scorsese film with Leo DiCaprio, Monuments Men with George Clooney and Matt Damon. They're moving the release dates back. That's never a good sign, is it?

It's almost never a good sign. You might remember a little film called Titanic. The release date was moved twice, and everyone said, that's it, it's over, this is going to be the biggest disaster since the actual sinking of the Titanic. And it made a couple of bucks. A couple of bucks. Yeah, so I think I'm terribly disappointed that Monuments Men and Wolf of Wall Street won't be out in time for awards consideration this year, because they both look great.

But yeah, it is never a good sign. But I, like President Kennedy, remain cautiously optimistic. The big blockbuster at the moment is the sequel to The Hunger Games, The Catching Fire. Have you seen it? What do you think of it? I have seen it, and I think it is great. It's a wonderful illustration for anybody who is in any kind of a business about how you keep your brand fresh and interesting and good. They brought in a new director, not that the old one was not good, but the new one is better. They added some absolutely outstanding talent. You think about that as sort of the equivalent of making a very accretive acquisition

because you've got Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amanda Plummer. They also did something that I like to see companies do, which is they found an undervalued asset. Jenna Malone has been waiting for the right role to come along for a long time, and she just knocks it out of the park. She almost steals the film as a character who's got a very bitter, witty sense of humor and is just terrific. I know that we have a lot of options on the table as we wrap up 2013, but are there a couple of movies that stand out to you as, look, in between trips to the mall and shopping and prepping for the holidays, try and get into a theater and see these? What are a couple that stand out to you? Well, this was a great year for documentaries, and there are some really good ones.

If you're business-minded, there's the Robert Reich documentary. There's the one about the Fed. There's a very even-handed, understated movie about the consequences of Citizens United called Greedy Lying Bastards. It's really good. There are a couple of fabulous, must-see documentaries about the music business. One of them is called 20 Feet from Stardom. It's about the backup singers, and it will blow your mind. It is just incredible.

And then also one called Muscle Shoals, which is the improbable but true story of two recording studios in a tiny, tiny little town in Alabama and how they produced most of the hits of the 1960s and 70s. In terms of performances, it seems like the best actor category this year is really stacked. And I haven't seen these movies, but Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey, Robert Redford, All Is Lost. I mean... A guy named Michael B. Jordan. That is definitely the category to watch this year. It is going to be a tough one because you've got the old, wait, Robert Redford never had an acting Oscar.

We better give him one now sort of category. and you have this breakthrough performance by Michael B. Jordan in the movie Fruitvale Station that is just extraordinary. So, yeah, Tom Hanks may be fighting himself because he's got Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks where he plays Walt Disney. So that is going to be a tough, tough one this year. Was that a tough decision for the Walt Disney Company, by the way? And for those who may not know, this is a film about Walt Disney, the man,

trying to convince the woman who authored the book that ends up being the film, Mary Poppins, he's trying to convince her to sell him the rights. And in the film, reportedly, Tom Hanks says Walt Disney is using profanity. He's consuming alcohol. He's losing his temper. Does the Walt Disney company... I would say that the Disney Corporation has nothing to worry about But in terms of the way that they portray their revered founder, the worst thing he does in the movie is he smokes a cigarette. I don't know. It's 2013 now, and, you know, smoking a cigarette on camera, that's, you know, that can be considered. Yeah, that is pretty bad.

And he's embarrassed about it. He says, I don't like to let people see me smoking a cigarette. No, he comes across as a wonderful, wonderful man. And there's a great moment in the film where he explains that he's been on both sides of this anguish that P.L. Travers is going through about seeing her beloved character handled by other people because he said, you know, when he created Mickey Mouse, somebody wanted to buy it, and even though he had no money and no power to fight the guy, he just was so committed to Mickey Mouse he was not going to let him go.

So he understands both sides. He comes across as a very, very appealing character. And, of course, Disney is also bringing out a gorgeous 50th anniversary Blu-ray of the movie. And this new movie is going to make you want to see Mary Poppins all over again. Before we wrap up, I've asked you in the past about movies for Thanksgiving. And often we think of Thanksgiving movies, quote-unquote, as being movies about families, family gatherings, the holiday itself. But today I want to focus on food because that's what I love about Thanksgiving. I love a lot of things about Thanksgiving.

But one of the main things is the food. So what's one or two movies that center on food that you would recommend for people who just can't get enough on Thanksgiving? The very best movie ever about food is Babette's Feast. And that one is a tribute to the sensual pleasures of food that is also just a marvelous, marvelous movie. And then I would also say that this is a Thanksgiving movie, but there's a great emphasis on food, and I recommend it every year because it's not well-known, but it's got a wonderful cast, and it's called What's Cooking?

And it's about four different families on Thanksgiving and all the various dramas that they endure. But there's a lot of cooking in it, and the food all looks gorgeous. And for the kids, you can just slip in ratatouille because that actually does fit. Ratatouille, but don't let them anywhere near that free birds Thanksgiving movie that just came out in the theaters. It's probably the single worst idea for a movie I've ever heard. It's about two turkeys that go back in time to the first Thanksgiving to prevent turkey from being served. That does sound terrible. Yeah. One of the best reasons to be on Twitter

is so that you can follow Nell Minow. You can get her thoughts on corporate governance movies and so much more. Nell, thanks for being here. Have a great Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you. 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. Joining me in studio, once again, Ron Gross, Matt Argesinger, Jason Moser. Guys, we've got just about 90 seconds left. Give me the stock that I can put on my watch list. Ron?

Hill & Brand, HI, reports on Monday, maker of caskets and industrial equipment. Believe it or not. Really strong third quarter. Going to see if that carries over to the fourth. Are those businesses connected? Industrial equipment? They are not. The casket business is rather slow growth, so they acquired an industrial business. Matty, what do you got? Big Laurie Holdings, ticker BH. Run by what I think is a really good investor, Sardar Big Laurie. They own the Steak and Shake restaurant brand. Also have a big investment in Cracker Barrel. Yes, kind of the crappy restaurants of the world. But doing very good returns on capital.

Very good investing. This is one you definitely want. They should report their annual results in about two weeks. Don't you say anything bad about milkshakes, ever. Never. Never in my presence. I promise. Jamo, what do you got? How do I follow crappy restaurants?

Alright, so, MWI Veterinary Supply, ticker is MWIV. These guys distribute animal health products to vets in the U.S. and the U.K. Grown sales at about 23% annualized for the last five years, and they have a wonderful recurring revenue stream because the products they sell are consumables. Market leader, and I tell you, the stock is up 600% over the last five years. I think it's going to keep on going. Steve, pick one. Are you all drunk?

These are very crazy businesses. I'll go with the coffin one. Sounds like fun. All right, guys. Thanks for being here. That is going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. Our engineer is the judgmental Steve Broido.

Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.