Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 12.13.2013
Episode Date: December 13, 2013A new CEO takes the wheel at General Motors. Lululemon's CEO steps down. And MasterCard reports big earnings. Our analysts discuss those stories and share three stocks on their radar. Plus, CNBC's Car...l Quintanilla talks Twitter, television, and investing in the new year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Chris Hill, Jr.: Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Chris
Hill. Joining me in studio this week, for Motley Fool One, Jason Moser, and for Million
Dollar Portfolio, Charlie Travers and Ron Gross. Good to see you, gents.
Hey, how you doing?
We've got the headlines of the week, and we will answer your questions by dipping into
the Fool mailbag. We will check in with Carl Quintanillo from CNBC to get his thoughts
as we wrap up 2013 and look ahead to 2014. And as always, we will share a few stock ideas
for you to put on your watch list. But let's start with one of the big retailers, and that's
Costco. Shares down this week, Ron. First quarter profits came in a little lower than
expected. Same-store sales up 3%. I don't think they're firing on all cylinders. Are
they firing on most cylinders? That's fair, okay. Things aren't as strong
as I think we're used to, I think, in this retail environment. That shouldn't necessarily
be that surprising. They are better than, for example, if we look at Target and Walmart's
same-store sales numbers, which were either flat or even negative, they are doing better
operating income was up almost 5%. It would have actually been better if they didn't have
some technology expenses for the future for their IT system. So, things are going well.
I mean, 90% renewal rates in the U.S., 87% worldwide. Amazing numbers. The model still
works. Everything is absolutely fine with the business. We just happen to be in a kind
of a soft environment right now.
How are they feeling about the next quarter? I guess I should say the current quarter,
because one of the things we've talked about over the past few weeks is a lot of retailers,
and I know Costco has the membership model that others don't, but a lot of retails,
it's not just that their quarterly results are not great,
it's that they are, in some cases, downright pessimistic about the holidays.
I think they're neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
They're kind of right in the middle there.
I think it's a wait and see how this shapes out.
But they're still in expansion mode.
They're going to continue to open new stores.
as international expansion continues. There's only 650 stores. There's plenty of room, especially
internationally, to continue to open up warehouses. As long as the model works, and it does,
we're going to continue to see that.
Yeah, I think that's a good point Ron kicks in there with the international growth.
As it stands right now, their split is about 70% of their stores are in the United States
and 30% international. But the goal is to get that back down to about a 60-40 split.
The way to do that is to make about half those stores that they open up every year in international
the location. So, you'll see that, I think, going forward over probably the next decade.
It was an eventful week for Lululemon Athletica. The company announced that co-founder
Chip Wilson will resign as chairman of the board of directors. You may recall Chip Wilson,
he of the famous quote, some women's bodies just don't actually work for our yoga pants.
By the way, if you're a man, generally commenting on women's bodies, that's rarely a winning
strategy. That's just a little advice for Chip Wilson. But, Jason, shares down more
than 14% this week, in part because third quarter results just weren't that great.
No, I think the market's reaction to the stock is appropriate. Like you mentioned,
Chip Wilson doing his best, Mike Jeffries' impression there about Chromian Fitch, the
guy can't seem to really say the right thing. So, I think getting him out of the picture
is going to be helpful. Christine Day stepping down, we have a new CEO stepping in. That'll
be good, at least, to get some fresh eyes on this business model. But the fact still
remains that the bottom line for Lululemon is they need to get their supply chain in
check, because right now it's killing their margin line. And if you just look at the numbers,
they were able to grow their direct-to-consumer sales over the quarter 37%. They now actually
represent more than 16% of overall sales, but margins for the quarter still came down.
Typically, a direct consumer is going to be something that helps boost those margins.
The reason why those margins are down is because production costs are so high.
The Dole for Reaction today, I think, is warranted.
I don't know that I look at something like a Lululemon as optimistically as something
like an Under Armour.
What really surprised me was, in comparing the two, Under Armour and Lululemon are actually
the same size.
If you look at the numbers that they're going to put in, 2014 sales for Lululemon will be
around $1.6 billion versus Under Armour's around $3 billion. Then you just have to look
at the market opportunity from there. I think I like Under Armour's market opportunity significantly
more than I do Lululemon's more niche market opportunity.
Charlie, we've talked before, Christine Day, an amazing run as CEO of Lululemon.
We got a new CEO coming in. How much time do you give the new CEO before you can tell
that they are doing an effective job?
I think maybe a couple quarters at the bare minimum, just to get their feet wet and get
things up and running. I think they're going to be fine. You can always bet on companies that make
women look good doing well. I think that is a universal theme. I think as long as their brand
reputation isn't tarnished too badly by what happened this year, I think they're going to
be fine in the long run, though I do concede your point about Under Armour.
Shares of MasterCard up this week. The company announced the following, a 10-for-1 stock split,
a $3.5 billion plan to buy back stock, and a dividend increase of 83%. Charlie, that's
the kind of dividend increase that makes our colleague James Early just do the happy dance.
Yes, Chris. And I'm dumbfounded why I don't actually own shares of MasterCard.
We were talking about this before the show, Ron. MasterCard, when I was looking over the numbers,
and frankly, for that matter, Visa, I look at these two stocks. They are ubiquitous companies.
they're all around us, and I just think, why don't I own shares of either of these?
I agree. It might not be too late, however. It's something that I think we need to look
at, both personally and for Million Dollar Portfolio.
Since 2006, MasterCard's stock has gone from $45 to $7.85. This is not a hidden secret.
The reason why we don't own it, though, I can tell you why. It's because the stock's
never on sale. It's like one of those ones you always wait for it to mess the bed, and
it'll go on sale, and then you can add a few shares. It never does that. The market commands
It's because I think it's literally impossible for MasterCard to have a bad year because people are using plastic more and more.
Is the 10 for 1 stock split a surprise?
Splitting the stock, I'm not surprised, but 10 for 1, we don't see that very often.
Not often, but there also aren't a whole lot of stocks over $700 either.
So it'll still bring it down to a $78 share price, which I think really only matters if you're trying to use options.
Yeah, I mean, the perception will be that the stock is cheaper.
I mean, we know that it's not cheaper.
It's really worth the same.
But when, yeah, I think the perception is when you have a $750 stock versus a $75 stock,
that will potentially bring more buyers into the market for that stock, make it more liquid.
General Motors in the news for two big reasons this week.
First, Uncle Sam sold off all the remaining shares from the 2009 bailout.
And second, General Motors has a new CEO. Mary Barra is currently the Executive Vice President of Global Product Development.
She's the first woman CEO in the automotive industry.
So, kudos to the automotive industry for coming into the 21st century.
What do you think, Jason? She's got a really impressive resume.
Yeah, I like this. I mean, she's got a long history with the company.
There's a lot of stuff going on at GM right now, wrapping up this year.
they're sort of cleaning up all their loose ends here. They sold the Ally financial stake,
they're selling a Peugeot stake, they're pulling Chevy out of Europe. So, they're kind of getting
this business, I think, in really good working order for Miss Berra to really take over in the
new year. And I know there'd be two perspectives on this. Either one, you're going to think that
the company really just needs an outsider to come in a fresh set of eyes. The other point of view
would be that you want someone who has some experience in the business and has been able
to see it fail, more or less. She has actually been able to do that. She's seen what has
gone wrong with that company for so many years. I like having that experience in the executive
suite there. I compare it to something like with Ford. We have Alan Mulally there now
as CEO, but at some point here, it looks like COO Mark Fields is going to take that position
over. He's a veteran of that company as well. I think there's a lot to be said for that.
Coming up, we'll dip into the Fool mailbag and answer your questions. You're listening
to 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. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money.
Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Charlie Travers, and Ron Gross. You can always
follow us on Twitter. At Motley Fool Money is our Twitter handle, all one word, at Motley
full money. You can send us questions there. Or you can email them to us. Radio at fool.com
is our email address. Let's dig through the mailbag, Ron. Question from Daryl Bagnall
in San Francisco, California. I have 100% of my portfolio in Berkshire Hathaway. Is
this foolish, with a capital F, which we consider to be a good thing, or foolish with a small
F? Is this a good idea, or is this a horrible, risky mistake?
I don't know if horrible or risky is the right terminology. I'm not a big fan of it,
and here's why. A lot of people think of Berkshire as a diversified mutual fund. To some extent,
I can buy into that, but it's not as diversified as, say, buying an S&P 500 ETF or a mutual
fund that owns hundreds and hundreds of companies. We're 33% in insurance with Berkshire, 35%
energy. Warren Buffett himself is a big, important part of this, versus if you buy the S&P 500,
you're not really focused on any one particular person. I also don't think the return,
looking forward, the return of Berkshire really warrants, the return potential warrants having
all your eggs in that basket. I think you could do better elsewhere. And I think Warren Buffett
might even agree with you if you asked him and he was as honest as he typically is.
I think it's a little bit risky. Obviously, Mr. Buffett will not be with us forever. Hopefully,
the transition there will be smooth. You never know, but you are taking on added risk whenever
you do something like that. You mentioned where Berkshire Hathaway
is concentrated in terms of industry. Is technology the biggest missing piece? Because Buffett
has said time and time again, he does not really invest in technology, because he doesn't
think he has an advantage there. There's smatterings of technology within
the businesses, but certainly not in any big way. So, it probably would be the biggest,
because if you have insurance and some financial products, retail, manufacturing, rail, energy,
you're hitting the big sectors. Healthcare is not huge. Certainly, biotech, you're not
going to see anytime soon. But yeah, technology could be one of the reasons why the stock
would underperform if it was all of your portfolio.
Question from Nate Becker, who writes,
I enjoy listening to your show. You're very interesting, informative, and funny,
but you're horrible to work out to. Just saying.
I can't argue with that.
Fair point.
He goes on to ask a question about advanced micro-devices, which is the chip maker.
He included a link to a story from PC Magazine that says that AMD has some part of every gaming console being produced.
and goes on to write, I was thinking that AMD has cornered the gaming market and I'll win
either way, no matter if Xbox One or PlayStation 4 won. I was essentially playing the part
of the only arms dealer in a war, but apparently this war is being fought with pillows and corgi
puppies. His basic question, Charlie, is, look, if that's the case, if AMD really does have this
corner on the gaming console market. Why is the stock still, as he puts it, still doing horrible?
Well, more often than not, AMD actually loses money in a given year. If you look over their
history, it's an income statement that bleeds red ink, unfortunately. That could change in
the future. That hasn't hurt Twitter so far. No, no. But yeah, so they are competing with Intel.
They're at a scale disadvantage. AMD spend about $1.2 billion on R&D versus $10 billion for Intel.
The gaming console angle could help them turn it around.
I think both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have each sold 2 million units since they launched last month.
But the console market is much smaller than the desktop PC market, where Intel is a lot stronger than AMD.
For example, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, over their eight-year console cycle, sold 80 million units apiece.
So we'll call that 160 million consoles sold over eight years.
There's more than 300 million desktops sold in one year.
So just the volume difference is staggering.
So they can do well in consoles, but they've got problems elsewhere.
And he concludes by writing,
I know you like to keep track of where your listeners are located.
I'm in the Navy in Yokosuka, Japan.
So thanks for listening.
A question from Eric Klein in Las Vegas, Nevada.
How much is too much?
In my IRA account, Chipotle has doubled.
It's now 20% of my portfolio.
Do I sell some?
Jason Moser. Where I come from, we call that a nice problem to have.
That is a nice problem to have, yes. Woe is me, my stock has doubled.
Yeah, tougher things to have to deal with, I'm sure. But, I mean, that's actually a very good
question, because when you run into a situation where a stock that you own has performed very
well, it's going to typically take up more of your portfolio as time goes on, particularly if
you're not adding as much to that portfolio. So, I mean, the short answer is, no, I don't think you
should have that large of an exposure, that large of a position in something like a Chipotle.
To put that into perspective, with Motley Fool 1, we have the Everlasting portfolio.
We have 23 separate companies in that portfolio today. Chipotle, which is about a double for
us as well, makes up about 4% of our portfolio. The disparity between 4% and 20% is obviously
significant. And we feel like at 4%, that's an acceptable position for a company that
we feel like still has a lot of growth left. And I think that's the key there, is that
you do have a company with plenty of growth left, not only for the Chipotle stores, but
also the Shop House stores and whatever else may come along. But it is also something that's
very tied to the leadership team, and I think that's something you have to keep in mind.
There is risk there involved. Restaurants are notoriously tricky, and things can pop
up out of nowhere, if a leader steps down or something like that. So, I can't advise
you to sell the shares, but I think it's something that if it's causing you to lose sleep at
night, then certainly you should consider rebalancing.
I think we play matchmaker here. We get Eric together with Darren from San Francisco,
maybe talk about Chipotle, Berkshire Hathaway, work a little something out in terms of diversification.
We've got just a few minutes left. Let's get to the stocks that are on our radar this week.
We'll bring in our man Steve Broido from the other side of the glass to hit you with a question.
Ron Gross, what do you got?
Keeping an eye on FedEx, FDX.
They report next week.
They're going to tell us a lot about what's going on this holiday season.
We'll be informed about online versus bricks and mortar,
some economy news in general, I think we'll learn.
A lot going on at this company.
Huge share buyback, cost-cutting, restructuring.
So I want to keep a close eye.
And the ticker?
FDX.
Steve?
Saw the movie Castaway again recently on television.
FedEx played a big role.
What are your thoughts on that movie?
I have not seen that movie.
What?
Is that the Tom Hanks?
Tom Hanks on an island?
The ball?
I still haven't seen it, but I know what you're talking about.
It was very sad.
Jason Moser, what's on your radar?
I am taking a look at White Wave Foods.
Ticker is WWAV.
These guys recently spun out of Dean Foods, and so now it's a separate entity.
They have relinquished all interest, or Dean Foods has relinquished all interest in the company,
so they're operating on their own.
But White Wave Foods is responsible for brands like Soy Milk, the Soy Milk Silk, other Horizon Organics.
They recently made an acquisition of a produce company called Earthbound Farms.
And given the importance of produce and dairy in the organics market, you can see where White Wave has some pretty good market opportunity to pick up there.
And so, I'll be keeping an eye on it.
Steve, question about …
I saw the movie Castaway recently.
Steve?
How do you hit it big in the food industry?
You sell a lot of food.
Is this a growth play?
Well, I think it is.
And typically what we're looking at today with the advent of naturals and organics is really kind of a new sort of perception on the market there
with all of these new grocery stores coming out like Sprouts and whatnot.
And so they are building more and more of a naturals and organics arsenal in their stores.
And that's how companies like White Wave make their hay.
I'll tell you how you hit it big.
Doritos, Locos, Tacos.
that's it Charlie we got about a minute left uh Nike reports earnings next week uh stalwart sports
apparel company shoes they grow their earnings per share at a mid-teens rate uh pretty much every
year I think if you own Nike uh you can count on them staying on top raising that dividend every
year uh they're doing great in emerging markets so there's a lot to like here with Nike and the
ticker NKE Steve I haven't seen a lot of Nike ads on television is this something I should be
worried about? Yeah, we grew up with the Michael Jordan, Mars Blackman kind of stuff, and they just
don't seem to have that kind of presence out there anymore, but I think their name brand carries
itself. Steve, what do you got on your feet right now? I know that's a personal question, but are
you a Nike guy, or are you brand agnostic when it comes to sneakers? Yeah, I'm pretty agnostic. I
think Nike's, I don't know, some Asics somewhere. I don't really give it a lot of thought. I probably
should. Nike's are good, though. So you're saying when you were watching Castaway during the
commercial breaks. There were no Nike ads. Exactly. Not on this channel. All right. Ron
Gross, Charlie Travers, Jason Moser. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks. Up next, we will check in
with Carl Quintanilla from CNBC. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Wilson. Please leave that in.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. At The Motley Fool, we watch Wall Street
from a few hundred miles away, but our guest this week has a front-row seat to the action.
He begins each day on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Carl Quintanilla is the host of CNBC's Squawk on the Street,
which you can catch each weekday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern.
Carl, thank you, as always, for making the time.
Great to talk to you again, Chris.
I want to look back at 2013 in a moment, but before that,
the last time you were on the show was back in August.
we were talking about Twitter. You had just wrapped up the primetime documentary you had
done, Twitter Revolution. And for part of that, you had sat down with CEO Dick Costolo when Twitter
was a private company. Now that they are public, and we obviously know a lot more about their
finances, I'm just curious if anything has surprised you, whether it was when they first
filed the S-1 to go public and we could look at their books or anything since then?
Well, I think we knew two things. We knew they were going to go public. It just was a matter
of when. I think you could argue they timed it pretty well. They got right in the sweet spot
and the IPO market continues to be strong, but they just, they came out, it was clean.
They priced it smartly.
They got just an amazing wave of pretty solid publicity.
I think the filings sort of prove the other thing we knew, and that is that they have big ambitions, right?
They truly want to be global.
They truly want to be ubiquitous.
They truly want to be bigger than Facebook, which they've got a long way to go to do that.
But as a result, they're spending everything they're earning and then some.
So they're not making a profit.
They probably don't have a problem with all those headlines that said, well, Twitter is not making money.
They are apparently going to adopt, take a page out of Jeff Bezos and keep margins small, not post a profit for a while,
just plow it back in the business the way any young, small business owner in this country understands,
and just see how much they can scale, how quickly.
And that's a bold bet, probably bolder than I gave them credit for at the time.
You mentioned the stock and the way they priced it.
Do you think at least part of that had to do with watching Facebook in Facebook's first year?
Obviously, Facebook raised a ton of money with their IPO.
But if you think about how that stock, and to some extent the company, Facebook,
struggled in year one of being a public company,
Do you think this is an example of Twitter just watching that and saying, whatever we do, we don't want to repeat that scenario, even if it means we make less money?
Without question. Without question. I mean, we all forget how small Silicon Valley is. These guys basically live next door to each other.
And they all remember that day when Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell remotely from Menlo Park.
So that was clearly on their minds. I think what actually goes talked about not enough is the fact that Twitter's CFO, right, the chief financial officer who's in charge of basically dealing with the street, is a veteran of Zynga, which, you know, has had an incredibly tough time as a public company.
I think all of those lessons were very instructive.
They hired a really smart banker from Morgan Stanley to run their corporate development.
Her name's Cynthia Gaynor.
And I think they went into it with a modicum of caution, and it probably for the better,
probably did them some good.
We're a couple weeks away from wrapping up 2013.
I think it's safe to say that one of the business stories of 2013 has been the IPO market.
I think we've had more IPOs this year than any year since 2007, 2006.
But I'm curious, watching the news as you do every day, what stands out to you in terms of business stories this year?
You know, it's funny.
I was just making a list of that today, and you and I could talk for an hour about all the great business stories.
I'd like to warn our affiliates we'll be going over this week.
But think about it.
Think about all the great corporate stories, GM, Tesla, Amazon, and Bezos.
twitter jc penny blackberry and then broader things the the oil uh renaissance in this country
the government shut down and the subsequent ceasefire apparently in congress um the fact
that you know some have called this year chris the year that the financial crisis really came to an
end right where the market started to say okay fed you want to taper uh all right if the date
The data is beginning to look good enough that you have our permission, in a sense.
The polarization of wealth.
How can the rich keep getting as rich as they are, Chris,
while people are unemployed for such a long period of time,
where we have so many people on food stamps?
I mean, it has run the gamut this year.
And I don't know where I would – I guess if I had to pick one,
you'd have to go broad and say corporate profits up 6%,
but people are willing to pay 20% more on a multiple for the market this year.
People are willing to invest in stocks again.
And whether that's because they were hungry for yield
or they're more confident that we're actually going to survive this thing, who knows.
But that's a turning point, and it's a turning point from where we've been the past five years.
Fortune magazine named Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, as their business person of the year.
I'm curious, when it comes to investing, is there, as Time magazine used to say anyway,
is there a person of most consequence?
Oh, that's tough.
You know, I mean, Musk is, I think the market, I don't know if you agree with me,
the market is craving mavericks right now.
The market wants to celebrate people who are throwing long, who have huge aspirations.
Musk is fascinating, but I think you could argue that Bezos has been, you know, not only is he more seasoned, but he's more consistent and more diversified.
He's got more risks involved.
He's got a consumer to worry about.
He's got a rainbow of retailers he's up against.
Musk is up against, you know, a smaller field of competitors.
But, you know, Bezos is just, is he going to own the world?
I mean, is that the story we're going to be writing in five years?
The drone thing, how can one technology that he admits is not even going to be used for years, if then, make such a splash?
I think, you know, if I had been fortunate, I probably, and they've done them before, but I probably would have gone with Bezos again.
You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with CNBC's Carl Quintanilla.
Before we look ahead to 2014, one question about holiday retail.
If you look at the data on imports of toys made overseas right now, the classic Barbie doll is on track to be the number one toy this holiday.
I'm assuming your daughters don't listen to this radio show.
I'm just curious.
Is that the case in your home?
Are you finding that to be the case for Barbie?
You know, we've not, we have tried, we know eventually, it's like McDonald's, right? They're eventually going to discover Barbie, but you try to minimize it in there early, and there are only four, so we're not getting Barbie for Christmas. But that was a great, I thought it was a great set of data that that group posted.
They looked at imports on the containers that came in earlier this fall, Barbie number one.
And remember, she's gone through a few years where she, you know, was not growing as a franchise for Mattel.
So maybe she's back.
Some say it's because there's a dearth of must-have toys this season.
I did notice that Nerf is also on the list, along with Sophia the First and some other franchises.
But look, she's been around for so long, it's going to be hard to kill that franchise.
It's been a perennial winner for Mattel year in and year out.
As we look ahead to 2014, our CEO, Tom Gardner, has talked before about how challenging it can be for investors to reset expectations.
It's difficult to do, but it's important to do, maybe more so at the end of a year like this when the market is up.
what are you expecting for the market in 2014 if you poll analysts on wall street there are a bunch
who are saying there's absolutely going to be a quote-unquote correction of some sort but whether
it's the market in general or international markets or or any particular industry do you
have any expectations for 2014 i'm yeah i'm torn uh and thank goodness that it's not my job to
manage people's money because they'd all be in trouble but um i think i think two things one
will probably get back to basics in a sense because we fully expect the fed to start paring
down their asset purchases which will allow people to to start focusing again on earnings growth on
the you know shipping rates uh you know just mundane economic indicators you know the way
the way we used to count, the way we used to monitor back before we got into this other
dimension. And that's setting aside the Fed's other task of withdrawing all that liquidity.
So I'd like to see us start paying attention to the real economy again. You'll notice that
a lot of the price targets around the street are pretty conservative. I mean, they're only
looking for $1,900, maybe $2,000 at year-end S&P, which is a single-digit gain.
I will point out that S&P's data shows that very good years, the kind that we're having this year, are generally followed by also good years, maybe not as good, but it's rare that you have a big double-digit year followed by a down year.
It just doesn't happen very often, at least in modern history.
So I think people would be happy to have a 2014 that is a little more muted, but hopefully
longer-term healthy.
Presumably, at least in the early part of 2014, we will see this hot IPO market continue.
This time last year, I think it was reasonable to think that Twitter was going to be the
big water cooler IPO of 2013.
Do we have one going into 2014?
The only two I jotted down in my notes were Alibaba, which is almost certainly going public, and Snapchat, which is a company that has yet to even bring in $1 of revenue.
And as you and I had talked a couple of weeks ago, I said, this is just one of those companies that makes me feel old.
Because not only do I not get Snapchat, I don't see how it's a viable business.
And my favorite line from the Journal story a few weeks ago about their valuation was that the company doesn't have a business model yet.
But, look, I can't comment on Snapchat.
I mean, obviously, we all know that Alibaba will dwarf anything we've seen come to market in a long, long time.
That'll be a real test for the market to see if it can absorb something like that.
We haven't had a great history with Chinese IPOs.
There's implications for Yahoo, whose business, whose core business continues to struggle,
even as they have this huge tailwind of their partial ownership in this company.
So I don't have a good sense of the IPO market in the next year,
but I will tell you that the companies that are going public now,
feel lucky uh they feel lucky uh in the sense that there's there's a window's eventually going to
close and they they just got in remember when indiana jones pulls his hat you know from before
that uh that wall comes down to the floor i think there's a sense that you know we're indiana jones
we're going public and we just got our hat back before this before this door shut coming up more
with Carl Quintanilla. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill
talking with Carl Quintanilla of CNBC. Do you think 2014 is the year that the line to the extent
that it exists, the line between television and web video disappears forever? I realize that might
be a sensitive question, given that you work for a television network. But I don't know, when I see
Netflix winning awards for programming that never showed up on quote, unquote, traditional
television, I'm just wondering if that line gets obliterated in 2014. I think eventually it blurs.
Apologies to Robin Thicke. But I don't think it's a 2014 story. And we've been talking about
cord cutting how long now chris right i mean it's the idea has been out there in every month
or every quarter i should say cable companies come out and subs are decent uh their high speed
subs are are good um you know a lot of smart cable executives will tell you and obviously i work for
some that there's always going to be a place for people to come home and plop on the couch
and say, I wonder what's on tonight.
That's passive viewing, and that's not something that Netflix does,
at least not right now.
And then also, separately, there's the idea of live sports and news,
which has to be done passively in a sense.
So Emmys are nice, and the Golden Globes are nice,
and cheers to Netflix and their producers for getting some.
But I don't think it's a game-changer yet.
Last question before we wrap up with a round of buy, sell, or hold. When you look at the stats
regarding mobile and just how much change has occurred in mobile just over the past four years,
I mean, it's almost hard to believe now that it was only four years ago that BlackBerry had over
40% of market share, and that has literally been decimated in the intervening four years.
I'm wondering, from an investing standpoint, if mobile is now just becoming a tougher and tougher place for investors to navigate.
Of all the economies, micro-economies that we cover, it probably is the most difficult to understand competitively, aside from maybe teen apparel, right?
I mean, these entrants, you mentioned BlackBerry.
I tweeted a chart of the past four years of market share, and it just looks like giant Xs as some show a downward slope and others show an upward slope.
You know, sometimes we're at a loss.
That's why Apple selling phones in China, where China Mobile has seven times Verizon's subscriber base, is a big deal.
And it'll be interesting to see if that eventually gets reflected in Apple's stock price.
But it is the Wild West, and people probably don't appreciate enough how much the world either doesn't have a phone yet
or is waiting to upgrade from your basic phone, the kind we used here in the States 10 years ago.
So it's going to be an exciting space to watch, but it will make your head spin.
All right, we will wrap up with a round of Buy, Sell, or Hold.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos created a lot of buzz when he unveiled this idea in an interview on 60 Minutes.
Buy, sell, or hold flying delivery drones.
I'm going to hold until it's clear that these things can work and that rules will let them work.
This winter event often takes place in a domed stadium, but this year it will be outdoors in New Jersey.
Buy, sell, or hold cold weather outdoor Super Bowls.
that's a sell, not only because it's on a competing network, but because no tailgating?
What is that? As Roker said the other day on the Today Show, I thought we lived in America.
If there are no holdups, and that's always a question when you're talking about the United
States Senate, her final confirmation should come in the next week or so. Buy, sell, or hold
Janet Yellen's tenure as the next Fed chief. I'm a buyer of Yellen. And that's not just because
she's a either she's either a Brooklyn or a Queens native, but she's tough. And I think
people probably underestimate her at this stage. And finally, you work in cable TV news. And this
story is set at the dawn of cable TV news. Buy, sell or hold. Anchorman 2. Oh, man, that's going
to be a buy. Is there is there a single picture you're more anxious to see aside from the Scorsese?
I mean, this is it's going to set a new standard for sequels, maybe the most successful
since Empire. It may also increase pressure for future marketing efforts. I was stunned
that the CEO of AutoNation gave credit to Will Ferrell for a spike in Dodge Durango sales.
I think he said like 35% based on nothing but those ads.
I hope Farrell's attorney got him a cut of some of these things, because it is brilliant.
When he is not guest anchoring the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams or the Today Show,
he's hosting Squawk on the Street every weekday morning on CNBC.
Carl Quintanilla, always good to talk with you, my friend.
Happy holidays, Chris.
We've got about a minute or so left in the show.
Let me bring back our man Steve Broda from the other side of the glass.
Steve, Carl Quintanilla are obviously very bullish on Anchorman 2.
Did you see the first one?
I have seen Anchorman 1.
I thought it was terrific.
Big fan?
Big fan.
Ron Burgundy.
Love Ron Burgundy.
I want to be bullish, but the first one was so good.
I feel like this is one of those movies where the first one was so good.
And as Carl and I talked about earlier in the interview, we talked about investor expectations,
something Tom Gardner is very big on.
Reset your expectations.
I feel like my expectations are really high going into this movie.
I think that's a very good point, but I won't mention, was it jazz flute or jazz,
when he was dancing, Ron Burgundy dancing?
Yes.
Okay, incredible. I'm sure there'll be more of that. I really did enjoy that,
so I will see Anchorman, see if it looks great.
I will say this, I read an article about the writing process that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay,
who's his writing partner from SNL and the director of a lot of these movies, including Anchorman,
and the jazz flute thing was literally something that Will Ferrell just said.
But I think he's going to play the jazz flute.
And it was like, great, just put that in the movie.
I loved it.
And he also had his little dog.
What was his dog's name?
I want to say Rufus, but that's not it.
His dog was good.
I hope the dog comes back.
Baxter.
Mac Rear.
Mac Rear for the win.
All right, that's going to do it for this edition of Motley Fool Money.
We will see you next week.
