Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - No Crypto at the Dinner Table!

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

It’s our annual Thanksgiving special! We’ve got a look back at the year that’s been, some things we’ve gotten right, some things we haven’t, some tips for toys this holiday season and some things we’re thankful for. (00:21) Bill Mann and Jason Moser discuss: - Why it doesn’t feel like the market is up 18% YTD and their slices of humble pie this Thanksgiving. - The reasons they’re thankful for Cadence Design Systems, CRISPR, and our podcast listeners around the globe. - The no-go topics at this year’s dinner table – crypto and weight-loss drugs. (19:11) James Zahn, Editor in Chief at The Toy Book, shares the toys and brands to watch this holiday season. (32:48) Jason and Bill break down two stocks on their radar: Samsara and Domino’s. Catch a picture of the new Domino’s delivery oven bike here. Stocks discussed: CDNS, CRSP, IOT, DPZ Host: Dylan Lewis Guests: Bill Mann, Jason Moser, James Zahn, Mr. Gobbler Engineers: Dan Boyd, Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trade ice skating at Nathan Phillips Square for ice cubes in your umbrella drink. Let Porter Airlines fly you from Toronto Pearson non-stop to 10 top sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica. Enjoy award-winning Porter service Toronto has loved for 20 years, and start your vacation as soon as you're on the plane. Book your sunny getaway today at FlyPorter.com, and actually enjoy economy. We're serving up seasonal dishes and sharing our thanks. Motley Fool Money starts now. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money.

From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me in the studio, Motley Fool Senior Analysts Phil Mann and Jason Moser. Gentlemen, great to have you both here. Hey, hey. Glad to be here. And if I'm not mistaken, we might be joined by a special holiday guest as well.

Is that right? Ah, yes. the holiday gobbler of our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd, and the Thanksgiving peanut gallery joining us. We've got our annual holiday cornucopia today, a look back at the year that's been, some things that we've gotten right, some things we haven't, and some tips for toys this holiday season. We're going to start with a dose of humble pie here. I think it's important to lay expectations down and low here. Bill, the S&P 500 is up 18% year-to-date. The NASDAQ is up 37% year-to-date. I don't know about you, but I still feel like it's

a year of humility for a lot of investors. If you go to look at the mean return of the average company in the Russell 2000, it's down more than 30% in some ways. You can't really do it this way. This is what I'm about to say is unfair and indefensible, but it's still a brutal bear market. So, for a lot of people out there, they look at the returns of the big indices and then they look at their own portfolios. They're like, what in the world am I doing wrong? And it is simply a function of not being invested in the S&P 7. I mean, that's it. Yeah. And I would say there's the return side of that. And I think there's just the general atmosphere side of it too, Jason. With all the macro stuff that's been going on, I think it's been kind of hard for

be able to get a grip on exactly what's happening. It just feels like it's not been as good of a year as mathematically it has been. It's confounding, no question. Why don't we dig into some of the specific slices of humble pie here. Bill, what do you got? Oh, man. So, I still have a Hall of Famer from last year, which was, oh, no, Russia's not going to invade Ukraine. That was me. That was a quote from Bill Mann. I don't have as much this year that was quite that bad, although that one was historical. But I think that maybe my worst was not really worrying about Silicon Valley Bank collapsing. Because I really had a belief, and this belief is backed by history, that rising interest rates would be pretty good for banks in terms of their capacity to generate returns. But

What I didn't really count on was that banks that are mostly branchless have very little customer stickiness relative to branched banks. Silicon Valley Bank imploding was a surprise to me. I got beat by the turkey there. Bill, if it makes you feel any better, I feel like a lot of people could look at the year in review. These come out all the time around this time of year. There's the highlights or the lowlights of what happened over the course of the year and be reminded that there was a banking failure because so many other things have happened that it almost felt like a non-event in the grand scheme of everything we've been processing. That's right. And it is funny because after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, everyone started looking at the next bank and

the next bank and the overall system. But there were two basically somewhat crazily structured banks that collapsed. And that was it. That was it. We put an end to it. We were expecting more. We put it into it. I like that. It makes me feel like I had a say in it, you know? Jason, what about you? What's the humble pie this year? Well, I mean, January 2nd, the beginning of this year, I did say on our local Fox affiliate here, Fox 5 DC, that I quote, we will probably witness a recession in 2023. And lo and behold, to this point, we have not witnessed a recession.

So it looks like I am just a big, fat turkey and I hang my head in shame. it's really kind of a bit confusing, too. It's been a year full of a lot of things, right? I mean, clearly, I mean, Ukraine and Russia not resolved. I mean, no one really could have predicted what's been going on over in Israel, of course. Bank failures along the way. It really feels like the economy should have gone through some type of protracted contraction there. You looked at the prior year, we did see two consecutive quarters of economic contractions. I think, you know, you had that rolling recession term bandied about a little bit. So, who knows?

I mean, the consumer has been a bit more resilient than I think a lot of us expected. I also wonder if maybe we're not going to see the impacts of these rate hikes and student loan repayments start to flow through the financials a little bit more in early 2024. So, will there be a recession in 2024? I'm not going to get out here and make that call. Leave it alone. I'm just going to say, are you doing the, I wasn't wrong, it was just the timing? Lessons learned.

Well, I mean, if we want to get really big picture, yeah, there's going to be a recession at some point here. Whether it's 24, 25, 26, there will be another recession. Who knows when? I mean, we might see a situation here in the near term where what's bad for the economy is ultimately good for markets. So, yeah, we'll have to put a pin on that and revisit the first half of 24. Yeah, I feel like the recession that has been coming for what feels like 18 months hasn't quite materialized. And I don't have a specific item of humble pie. I think broadly, my feeling is just, it didn't matter what the topic was, whether it was bank failures, whether it was geopolitical stuff, whether it was the recession materializing or not.

You could have given me data points. You could have told me what was going to happen three weeks ahead of time. And I probably would have gotten the market reaction wrong. I probably would have gotten the long-term trajectory of the market wrong without fail across the board. And so, I'm curious for you guys, having looked back at some of these decisions, did those decisions impact the investing decisions you made at all this year, or anything you'd do differently based on this retrospective? Personally, no. I will say, we talked about this last week with Buffett and that net buyer versus net seller thing, Buffett being a net seller this year. I've been a net buyer all year.

I think, if anything, it probably limited my buying activity because I thought there might be a few more obvious opportunities that just never really came across. But it didn't, ultimately didn't affect me. Bill, what about you? Not really either, but you do remind me of one of my least favorite phrases in finance, which is, the easy money has already been made. Have you ever heard anyone say the easy money is about to be made? No, you never know. No, you never know. For me, I think one of the things that I completely underestimated was just how excited people would get about AI. Not so much with the AI companies themselves. But flowing through, particularly a company like NVIDIA, which has had such an

unbelievable year in the market, I always have assumed, and I still do assume that it's coming, that the learning part of this cycle is upcoming. And so, the easy money has already been made. You mentioned NVIDIA there. I think a lot of people are probably pretty thankful for the Magnificent Seven and the S&P 500, talking about those year-to-date returns. They were Better be! Responsible for a very large portion of them while some other companies struggled. I'm curious, what are some stocks that you guys are thankful for this year? Jason? I'm thankful for Cadence Design Systems, ticker CDNS. Cadence offers what they call the building blocks of intelligent electronic

product design. But ultimately, Cadence, they're the behind-the-scenes company that helps all of these other chip companies like Qualcomm, Nvidia, Samsung, AMD, Marvell, even companies like Microsoft and beyond, they help these companies build their superior technology through their software, their hardware, and their IP. They generate revenue a number of different ways, licensing its software, selling or leasing its hardware. It's ultimately 85% to 90% recurring revenue. Very attractive from that perspective. Again, you mentioned those big customers like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and whatnot. You can see they've established a very important position in the value chain. They benefit from all of these tailwinds that we're seeing play out

in things like IoT, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, all of that stuff. These are tailwinds for Cadence's business. It's worked out very well for the company. They've grown revenue over the past five years, 13.4% compound annual growth rate there. Earnings per share growth of 33.4% over those five years. Generated $1.1 billion in free cash flow over the 12 months. Best of all, Dylan, this is a two-time recommendation in my services. It's a market beater for both. The stock is up better than 60% this year, so our members are winning along the way. I'm very thankful for that. I'm not a shareholder. I don't have it in my portfolio. But I always love a business that reminds you, you do not necessarily need to be

investing in the company that makes the end product. You can invest in the companies along the way in the supply chain and do just fine on a trend. I love it. Bill, what about you? What's a business you're thankful for? I'm actually thankful for CRISPR Therapeutics, which has not had a stock year in the way that Jason has described, although it is at an all-time high and it is up a cool 70% this month. On the back of the authorization in the UK of its sickle cell anemia treatment called Cascavi, which is the first approved of the CRISPR therapy. So CRISPR has the prospect of really changing how healthcare is given and medicines and pharmaceuticals are designed based on a genetic

editing capability. So I don't know if you know this, but your genes are different from my genes are different from Jason's genes, even different from what are we calling the turkey? The gobbler? I think that's a stand-in, though. I'm open to suggestions, and it seems like the turkey is as well. Listeners, if you have suggestions, podcastatpool.com. Bill, you were saying? I'm going with Barbara. No, I'm sorry. So there is such a power to having drugs that are based on your own genetic code, and it's been coming forever. And so seeing this first drug and seeing this first therapy get approval, to me, just is the portend of really, really great things in healthcare upcoming. All right. We've got more Stock Talk coming, including the topics we are

desperately trying to avoid this Thanksgiving. And of course, some love for you, our listeners. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. You just found out that your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic. just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount plan, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you'll see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed. Question answered. Action taken. Crisis averted.

When you have critical business questions that need answers, don't just file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Rippling AI build it instantly from your live people and business data. Whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business? Head to rippling.ai slash fool to get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g dot a-i slash f-o-o-l. Sign up for exclusive access today, rippling.ai slash fool. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined in studio by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Gents, I'm too quick on the draw. I'm

not used to Mr. Gobbler in the studio. I'm sorry. I should have said I'm joined again by Mr. Gobbler too. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are we assuming it's a Mr.? I don't know. It was Dan, so I just kind of assumed yeah i don't know we know we know about as much here as we do about crisper it turns out we've been grateful and now we are switching gears and we are putting up some boundaries thanksgiving's a feast and it's a lot of time around the table jason what topic are you trying to avoid well i used to say crisper i like my turkey crisper so hey let's uh there you go not at the table can we just take it back a notch here on the ozempic and glp1 analog talk i'm not anti-ozempic. Don't get me wrong. There appears to be some real potential benefits to these drugs.

They can lower A1C to help folks manage their diabetes. That's great. Perhaps can lower risk of major cardiovascular events. Huge win. May help you lose some weight. I think we're all on board with this stuff. But can we just admit there's simply a lot about these drugs that we just don't know yet, right? I mean, we don't know how these are going to ultimately impact humanity. We were talking before production here. I mean, Bill made the great point. When you're talking about weight loss implications. You're talking about chronic use of these drugs. We don't know how these drugs are going to impact those after chronic use. The only way we know that is for lots of time to elapse. When I start seeing investing theses being drawn out to where I think someone hit

us on Twitter, where there was talk of investing in airlines because people are going to lose weight. Therefore, planes are carrying a lighter load. I'm packing more. I don't know about you. I don't want to spend as much on fuel. Let's just bring it back. Let me focus on the real inflation here of getting my belly as big as I possibly can at this Thanksgiving table. And then let's just give these things a little bit of a breather and learn more about them. You want to enjoy the meal. Absolutely. And not be reminded of the other stuff. Absolutely. Bill, what about you? For me, it still has to be crypto.

Yeah. Simply because all of the arguments have been made. And generally speaking, you're talking about whenever you talk about an investing case that is based on something that is close to like a religious fervor. To me, there's just no win in having that discussion. So I don't like discussions in which there's no, was that an agreement tap? Just enthusiast. I'm amazed that didn't warrant a gobble. My gosh, were you sleeping back there? Yeah. You're just not going to convince someone on either side of the argument of whether crypto currencies are going to change the world or not at this point. And so the dinner table where you can't escape because as Jason has just noted,

you've eaten way too much. It's just not the place to do it. So, you're putting crypto in the same bucket as politics, where you're like, no one's changing their minds, so why do we even bother talking about it? Yeah. I mean, in that forum, I think the answer is absolutely yes. I do not want to talk about crypto with Uncle Pete, who knows everything. And a tryptophan has gotten him. He's maybe had, you know, one beer too many.

Not the time, not the place. I just want to watch my football. I'm with you. I'm right there with you. on the couch, of course. We are thankful for many things this holiday season. We're especially thankful for our listeners. We get to do the show because you guys are out there listening to it on radio stations and in your podcast feeds. As we wrap this segment, I wanted to talk a little bit just about some listener and some member love. I have a couple notes

here. One from listener Ken, who recently wrote to us on X, formerly Twitter, saying, we keep him company while he's out on his long runs. Ken, we appreciate you. Stay hydrated. keep those knees high. I also want to give a shout-out to our listener, Matthew, who wrote in after the holidays last year and said, I hope the email finds you well. I was listening to the podcast, How Much Does Santa Weigh?, and the host said they have one listener in Ireland. I wanted to say, hi, I believe I'm the listener. I've been on my investing journey for a little over a year and found your podcast early on. To hear the Christmas Eve episode as I waited for my wife to finish getting ready that I might have gotten a shout-out absolutely made my day

surprisingly exciting. Thank you for all the content you do and the calming word you bring. Look forward to many more years of listening, your Irish listeners. And I'll say, I wanted to read this story, even though it's a little bit of an older one, because one of the most gratifying parts of the job to me is realizing the reach of the show, how many different people, how many different places it goes, and where we fit into people's lives. Hearing that people are running and listening to the show, hearing that we're reaching people in Ireland. I did a quick count. We're in over 100 countries in terms of our downloads. It's absolutely incredible and something that I always have to remember as we sit here in

the studio, just the three of us and Dan and Mr. Gobbler in the background. We are deeply appreciative, and I think Mr. Gobbler is as well in his own way. Jason, what's something that sticks out to you as a member moment? Well, I love all the stuff you brought up in regard to listeners, and it's always a good reminder that people are actually listening, and it's always a really good feeling, and it's humbling, and we really do appreciate it. I'm going to go one step further. We recently had a member event in New York City. First member event we've had in a while. They've been very few and far between. I can't even pinpoint one conversation or one interaction, because this was a quick two- to three-day event. It was chock-full with so much good stuff.

We had the kickoff reception at the Nasdaq Market site location. We had three tremendous speakers. Ron Shaik, whom you interviewed, did a great job, Dylan. Melissa Schilling with Michael Lewis there, which was very timely. A terrific reception, all of our members down there talking. And the word I kept coming back to with our members and all of the Fools there was, it was reinvigorating. It was something I think a lot of us really needed. I think we all felt that. And coming away from it, I mean, if there's a way to recharge your batteries, I mean, that was a surefire way to do it for me. Bill, what about you? I recently got a shout out from a longtime full member named Randy Williamson. And I want to give Randy kind of a lifetime achievement award

because every once in a while, I'll just look in my inbox and there's a note from Randy. And he just said, you know, I'd interviewed Howard Marks. He's like, that was just such a great interview. And I really appreciate it. And I learned so much. And it was, again, just, you know, to your point, sometimes you kind of forget that there's, you know, that there's something out there. You know, we sit here and talk with each other through a microphone, but not that long ago. So I am the quiz master at a pub on Wednesday nights. And not that long ago, I went in and I was wearing a piece of full swag. And this woman who comes in every week said, wait a minute, I know who you are. I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out where I knew that voice from. And it was from

the show. And I just, I shouldn't say whether she was approved or not. It wasn't glowing or damning, but it was appreciation. It was, it was, she, it was noted, I guess. I think that's all to say listeners. We love hearing from you. Podcasts at fool.com is where you can reach us up next. We've got tips for holiday shopping and gift giving. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. Thanksgiving means a lot of things, including the ramp up to the winter holidays and gift giving. We wanted to find out what the hot toys for kids were this year, so we spoke with James Zahn,

Editor-in-Chief at The Toy Book and Senior Editor at The Toy Insider, to talk through the toy industry and maybe save us from putting cash in envelopes this holiday season. Let's start with the headline. What are the It Toys for 2023? It's always interesting to think about the It Toys because this has evolved over the decades, where there's no longer that singular must-have-it toy that every kid on the planet needs. So on the consumer side of our business, on the Toy Insider, we put together a hot 20 list every year because there's ideas there. We're hoping to inspire people. But a few of the big hits this year, some of my favorites, there's a toy called Beast Lab from Moose Toys where kids are going to

make their own action figure. And there's this bio mist that comes out of this thing. And it's very visual. There's lights and sounds. It's a lot of fun. Kind of old school, new school. jazzwares has the star wars micro galaxy squadron ad at this is the imperial walker from the empire strikes back but micro style and it's really interesting because their vehicles in that line are to scale which if you've ever been a kid and it's like okay you've got the millennium falcon but somehow the toy is the same size as the x-wing that doesn't really work with this new micro galaxy squadron they did them to scale so that your snow speeder is properly small next to the ad at so got that updated hot wheels ultimate garage and barbie dream house from metaller hot

bitsy from spin master which is a virtual digital pet that kids can actually interact with physically which is a unique spin there's a new line of micro collectibles from mga entertainment that combine crafts with collecting it's called miniverse make it mini droid is a company that's big in the EV, like the electric mobility space. They have a trike called the Romper that's like an old school 70s big wheel, but it's an EV. Pretty sweet ride for kids. And then up and coming company called PMI Kids World, they have a property called Pinata Smashlings that merges physical toys, all kinds of action figures, vehicles, play sets, but then they've also got of Roblox games. So there's all kinds of stuff. It interacts. Those are just a few ideas to kind

of get us started. You mentioned Roblox there, and that's a name that's familiar to a lot of our listeners. It's a company that comes up a lot. We have kind of a mix there, it sounds like, of the conventional get your hands on it kind of toy and also some digital toys. Do you see strength in both of those categories? I do, and I see it in new ways because when you think of digital toys, even a few years ago, there was this huge movement of every toy needed an app or somehow needed to be connected to a screen. And that's a prime example of an actual fad. Now, the companies are putting a lot more effort into tying this stuff together, where it's very synergistic between them, where it's like, okay, we've got this property and we

want to put it where the kids are which might be roblox it could be youtube but we want to get it back into the physical world and the nice thing is being able to use these toys without that connected entertainment that was the big problem a couple years ago i always equate it to like teddy ruxpin it's like that was a toy from the 80s but now 40 years later if i were to find one and put fresh batteries in it and pop in a cassette, it works. But if somebody made a toy like that that was using, say, an iPhone for its face with an app, you don't know if that's going to be supported two months from now. So they've gotten better and there are some ways where it all intersects in kind of a way that'll hopefully make these things timeless. You might have just

answered this a little bit, but do you see any categories or approaches to toys and play that are fading a little bit? Yeah, I'd actually, I would go right back to that. So screens are fading a bit, which is a welcome change. There are really strong tech toys that are screen free while there are some great products that are incorporating those screens in a complimentary fashion. And I think one of the companies that's probably best at doing this right now, they're called abacus brands they make these vr and ar kits and they're doing a lot in the license space they have a um they have a pen and teller magic lab vr kit this year that teaches the kids magic and it's interesting because it goes beyond that it's not just teaching magic

or illusion it falls into this toy trend that we call mesh which is mental emotional and social health. To perform magic, to be an illusionist, you need confidence. You need public speaking ability. You need to be able to work the crowd. And that's a lot of like coming from within the child. And by learning this in a way that pairs physical magic tools, it comes with a whole magic kit. But then with an app and a book in which Penn and Teller are teaching you how to do this, it can open these kids up, kind of crack them out of their shells. So that's a good space where it's like using the tech in a way that's actually beneficial and it's doing something. I think another area that might be dipping a little bit is some of the blind bag collectibles or the

mystery collectibles that were big a couple of years ago. And that's due, I would say solely due to cost increases. Used to be the whole magic of that is you had a pocket money toy that was three to five bucks well now is they're slowly creeping into seven to ten dollar toys well for ten dollars maybe the parent could get the kid something more meaningful and then um also this year it felt like traditional baby dolls with a few exceptions sort of started to drop off a little bit following the pandemic boom that had a lot of uh that had a lot of like comfort with playing with dolls. And then the only other slide I can think of is maybe some of the Marvel toys outside of preschool. Preschool, they have Spidey and his amazing friends, and it's doing great.

But think about the way Marvel and Disney, their trajectory this year cinematically, that sort of declines. So the demand for those products sort of declines along with it. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about some of these media brands that have really big intellectual property libraries. You read my mind there with Marvel because we've seen interest in some of those movies, Wayne. On the flip side, we saw a huge blockbuster movie with Barbie. Are we seeing the hits that come out on the pop culture side start to drive interest in sales, especially for some of these brands that have been around for a while? Yeah, we're going back to that a little bit. Entertainment really used to

be such a key driver in getting interest into the toy sales, which if you look at the industry as a whole, you kind of backtrack it to like the 50s, 60s, 70s, where TV started to explode and there was a lot of licensing interest. And then of course, late 70s, Star Wars totally changed the game and basically wrote the playbook, a playbook that in large part is still in use today. But But the pandemic really just threw a wrench in everything where the toys and the movies or the content, because now we have streaming and all of this, they were out of sync. You had movies in theaters with no toys. You had toys on shelves. This was the kicker for the industry.

You had toys on shelves for movies no one had ever seen. So no one cared that those toys were out there. I mean, there were Top Gun Maverick toys on shelves almost two years before Paramount put that movie out. So you had this weird thing happening, but now it's back together. So I think the first big hits of this year was from Paramount. They sort of had a double whammy of success with Transformers Rise of the Beasts, which had toys from Hasbro.

Of course, that's a Hasbro brand. and Transformers is actually doing really really well for Hasbro in general and then you add Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem and those toys came out from Playmates Toys and they won a toy of the year award just really good so those brought some attention to the action aisle and then over in the doll aisle Barbie the movie comes out and it was box office behemoth as we all know, it came out at the basically in the first weeks of the third quarter. And a lot of the products that shipped for that right out of the gate were firmly geared towards adults or this kid adult market, as people are calling it. But now that the movie has come home, it's

available on digital. Now more kids are starting to see it. And in these weeks leading up to the holidays, that is driving some foot traffic back into the theaters. But I think the biggest surprise is Five Nights at Freddy's this fall, which we've been eyeing this in the world of the toy book for years as basically a sleeper hit that is nine years old, that has tremendous brand recognition with kids that it started as an independent video game. It's also a very interesting story because that property, that IP is still owned by one guy. So he didn't give it out. He's got a licensing firm called Striker that's marketing this for him. But he got his movie deal with Blumhouse, which is through Universal. And they have these toys that are

out there. This movie was number one at the box office, I think, two weeks in a row. And Funko was one of the early players that got in on that action and not just through the pop vinyls that they do they had all kinds of products they got in on it early they got them out there and then you've got these other emerging companies like u2s and just toys and hex that are making this product and now it's got this big retail presence like i was just in an fye a couple weeks ago and it's just five nights explosion go into hot topic you know all the kids mine included they call it FNAF, Five Nights at Freddy's, the acronym. FNAF, all over the front of Hot Topic. So you've got this property that went games, toys, now movie, and they have a book line from Scholastic

that's already moved like 10 million units. James, you have kids. I don't have kids, but I do have kids on my shopping list. Help me out a little bit. What should I be doing or what are some tips for me as I'm thinking about the kids on my list this year? The biggest thing to remember is that every kid is different. Their families are different. You need to take into consideration their parents. Try to find out what those kids are into. You want to make a thoughtful purchase. I used to say that there used to be a joke and it still surfaces once in a while that like the wacky aunt or uncle comes in, they buy the kids the loud, obnoxious thing, like the drum set. Still people talk about that, like, oh, he brought the drum set over so that the kids could

bang on it and ruin the house and all this stuff and sometimes that totally works and people are into it other times they're like i don't like when that guy comes around with a gift so it's better to be that cool gift giver where you've got something that's really awesome that has some thought that was put into it and a great way to make this happen is to think outside the big box I mean, we love Target, Walmart, Amazon, but think about your local independent toy stores, your specialty stores, hobby stores, gift shops. Those stores are staffed by people that legitimately know the products that they sell. They know what interests they tap into.

They know some of those other things, like I mentioned Mesh earlier with the mental, emotional, social health, or STEM, the science, technology, engineering, math. They can tie into those interests and really suggest something to you that might be totally off the radar, but the kids and their families end up loving. Listeners, you can catch more from James on over at The Toy Book and Toy Insider. Coming up after the break, Bill Mann and Jason Moser return, and they weigh in on one of James' recommendations for family gameplay and give some stocks on their radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Early Christmas morning, sneaky as can be. I creep across the carpet and I peek under the tree.

Pick out a gift from mom to me and bring it to my ear. Give it a little shimmy shake and what do I hear? Socks. Team Socks. 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 anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Bill man and Jason Moser. And if I'm not mistaken, yep, there he is, one more guest, Mr. Gobbler.

Our last interview segment was with James Zahn, who is a toy industry expert. And after we finished our recording, I asked him what he would recommend for family gameplay during the holidays. You get a bunch of different people together from the family, different ages, what would you do? And he said two main options. He said large format Monopoly, which apparently is new, or large format Connect Four, the old classic. Jason, which one of those two are you going with for a family get-together? Well, I mean, I love Connect Four, don't get me wrong. I feel like for a family get-together, Monopoly is a bit more suitable

because it's a game that's going to last a little bit longer. And, you know, yay, capitalism. It's just a fun one. So I'd probably opt for Monopoly. I think it is a matter of an attention span thing, Bill. I think that's what it comes down to. If you feel like you can grip the attention of the family for more than a couple minutes, maybe Monopoly's the play.

But Connect Four is really for people that don't have the longevity. Yeah, but also, Monopoly's the worst game in America. Well, let's go Connect Four if we can introduce gambling to the affair as well. So, we start betting, because those games go pretty quick. You want to play a lot of hands. Let's throw some money, you're saying. Yeah. See, I need to know what you mean by large size.

I mean, is it like the size of a billboard and you've got these manhole covers? Because that's pretty fun. Yeah, we're all looking at drones carrying your piece. I think you are capable of lifting and moving the piece. Yeah, it comes with one of those little backup shuffles for you. To me, I would play that for a very long time. As I understand it, the Monopoly piece is about the size of your hand. Does that shape anything for you? No. They need to be bigger. It's not big enough. We're going to get over to Radar Stocks in

a second. But first, I'm curious, fellas, you guys both have Thanksgiving dinners. What are you excited to have on the table? Well, I did it last year, and it worked out so well, I'm doing it again. I'm going to spatchcock that turkey and throw it on the Traeger with some Dizzy Pig Mad Max turkey seasoning. Wow. How are you going to follow that up? You hear that sound right now? That's the sound of the pastrami that I'm curing, doing its thing.

Yeah, I polled my family earlier this year, and they were like, yeah, let's not do a turkey this year. So I am, I've got the Prague salt. I've got the spices. It is curing right now. That's what's happening at the Mann household. Again, on the smoker. Pastrami is so good. Do you have an extra seat at the table? Just out of curiosity. It is possible that some of it will find ... We've got 14 pounds of it, so some of it may find its way into the office because there are just five of us. I think a lot of people would appreciate that, Bill. All right, let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd,

is going to hit you with a question. Jason, you're up first. What are you looking at this week? Yeah, just keep an eye on Samsara. Ticker is IOT. They've got earnings coming out on November 30th after the market closes. This is a company I've recommended in our next-gen super cycle service. It's done very well thus far. Samsara is the pioneer of the connected operations cloud. This ultimately allows businesses that depend on physical operations to harness that internet of things magic and data to ultimately develop actionable insights and improve the operations. Video-based safety is the company's largest and fastest-growing application today. Ultimately, serves as a good springboard from which to grow those customer relationships. And the nice thing

is, contracts with their customers are typically three to five years long, which means two things, really. Customers usually take the leap with a longer timeline in mind. And then it also gives the company a longer road of revenue generation with the opportunity to really hammer home the benefit and the value of those services. Dan, love a ticker that has some fun in it. This one's IoT. What's your question or comment about Samsara? very appropriate uh i guess that's all we got for that one uh bill what's what's on your radar this week i'm gonna try and top sam sarah with domino's pizza winner pizza how are we doing so far yeah pizza's always best so domino's is uh australian franchisee is rolling out uh new electric bikes

that have an oven built onto the back of them. This is a trial in certain markets in Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere so that your pizza shows up fast and really honestly freshly coming out of the oven. And who is against that? I mean, you don't want to have the situation where it's warm and then it cools down in transit. That's the worst-case scenario, right? Right, and that's physics, right? You take it out of the oven and it's starting.

But what if you don't have to take it out of the oven until the moment you put it into the hand? But we're talking about an actual oven here, right? You're not talking about like one of those, you know, koozies. Not a warmer, not a koozie, an oven. Like it is cooking on the way. And the last thing that happens is you get delivered a piping hot Domino's pizza. Dan and Mr. Gobbler, a question about Domino's pizza and these magical e-bikes. This is the wildest thing I've ever seen, okay?

So, our listeners, because this is an audio medium, can't see these things, but you all deserve to look up the pictures of these things. They look like they're from a movie. They're amazing. It's so cool. And I want one, and if I ever see one, I'm stealing one. At the risk of asking a question, I know the answer to. Dan, which company is going on your watch list this week?

Well, I don't even remember what Jason said, so we're going to go with Domino's. Yeah, I think that figures. It's really hard to beat Tron-looking bikes. We'll put a link to the Domino's article in the description. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money radio show. We appreciate you listening, and we hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We'll be back with a new episode on Monday.