Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Roblox Hits Roadblock
Episode Date: May 9, 2024Wall Street thinks two growth stock prices have gotten a little too high. Plus, we feature a weed company with a lot of cash. (00:21) Kirsten Guerra and Ricky Mulvey break down earnings from Duolingo... and Roblox. Then, (16:30) Nick Sciple takes a look at the legal pot business, and a legislative change that could have profound implications on the market. Companies discussed: DUOL, RBLX, GOOGL, GOOG, CRON Public.com disclosure: A High-Yield Cash Account is a secondary brokerage account with Public Investing. Funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn a variable interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance. Neither Public Investing nor any of its affiliates is a bank. US only. Learn more at https://public.com/disclosures/high-yield-account Host: Ricky Mulvey Guests: Kirsten Guerra, Nick Sciple Producer: Mary Long Engineers: Dan Boyd, Tim Sparks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Wall Street might need some help translating this earnings report.
You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
i'm ricky mulvey joined today by kirsten gara kirsten thanks for being here
hey ricky happy to have you happy to have me happy we are happy to have you i appreciate you being
here i love this start we've got two high flyers that you follow pretty well both experiencing a
little bit of a fall, one more than the other. But Duolingo, let's start with Duolingo, which is
the app that helps you learn different languages. We'll talk about the earnings in a sec and why
the street isn't happy that Duolingo grew revenue by 45% and daily active users by 54%.
But I loved this, Kirsten. The earnings call started with the announcement of Duolingo on
Ice, which is a four-hour musical celebration with no intermission. They wanted to let the
analysts know about it. What is your hype meter for Duolingo on ice? Oh, it's high. If being
bullied by a digital owl is this much fun on a regular day, it's got to just be more fun on ice,
right? Absolutely. I'll be buying my tickets on the surface for Duolingo's quarter. It seemed like
it seemed like a lights out quarter beating every estimate for earnings and revenue and bookings
also raised guidance. So, so what's going on with the drop? Why is, what's the street so worried
about? I mean, the street is all about expectations and this is a company with a lot of expectations
built in. So every quarter for the last year, analysts have set expectations for Duolingo.
That's what the street does. And every quarter Duolingo has beat them. So weirdly, it's almost
like analysts are now expecting duo to beat their expectations and they did beat expectations.
yet again, but only narrowly this time. So here we are. I will say a 12% or maybe 16% drop now,
I think, does seem rough until you realize that that's something like 20 days back in the market.
We've just returned to the price where it was 20 days ago. And I realize that that's tough for
someone who bought five days ago. I don't mean to minimize that. But again, keeping perspective,
this is still a stock that's up more than 50% in the last year. So I think the investor takeaway
really from this share price movement is that the business is still performing well based on
fundamentals, which it has earned. It has earned at a lofty share price, but the expectations are
high and investors should just know that going in. Looking at the business, not just the share
price, what are your headline takeaways then from Duolingo's quarter? I think one of the most
important for Duolingo is that unit economics here remain really strong. They are still pulling in
a solid return from their marketing spend specifically. This is one of the more impressive
companies I've ever studied in terms of marketing. Just for this quarter, their revenue is up 10%
sequentially and their marketing spend is up less than 4%. They're getting a substantial return
in revenue more than they're having to spend to get that.
Another big takeaway, one of the things I've been wondering about is related to the TikTok ban,
the potential TikTok ban here in the U.S. Duolingo does a lot of advertising there.
it is one of the big drivers of a lot of its popularity and why its marketing spend is so
efficient often. Management has said it's not worried here, that more than half of Duolingo's
social impressions actually come from outside the U.S., but half is a lot, and U.S. subscribers
tend to be the most valuable in terms of average revenue per user. They tend to spend more on
things like this. So I'm not sure I actually believe that TikTok will be banned or that this
is a huge risk, but it is certainly something to watch out for. Even though management has said
it's not a big deal, I think it might be a little bit understated there. Duolingo is very much a
marketing story, and they've known how to create those viral moments, starting off their earnings
call with it, with the musical celebration, where one of the reactions to their musical celebration
is an audience member saying, they took my son. Where is my son? So if you look at just the
earnings transcript for Duolingo's quarter, you will see a very odd sentence with how the quarter
kicks off beyond, what is it, something about forward-looking statements, yada, yada, yada.
The growth story for Duolingo, though, is that it's going to rapidly take share in this
language learning market, of which it has a very small percentage of.
CEO Louis von Ahn saying that this is a $115 billion a year industry, that seems extraordinarily
large. Kirsten, where are they getting that market number?
Frankly, I don't think that the market is that big. I'm really glad you've asked this question
because when I started looking at this, if we take them at their word and assume,
okay, it is a $115 billion market, what does that mean? With 8 billion people on the planet,
that would be roughly $15 per person. And maybe that sounds reasonable, right? But every person
in the world cannot afford to fork over 15 US dollars, but let's make it more reasonable and say
that there are an estimated 1.2 billion people who are actually actively learning a language at any
time. And if you consider just that population, then you're talking closer to a hundred dollars
per person. But part of the beauty of Duolingo is that it's a freemium platform. Not everyone pays.
And so actually their premium penetration, which is like the percentage of people of all of their,
of all of their users that are actually paying for a subscription, that's about 8%. So if we say
that that percentage holds and Duolingo does go on to serve 1.2 billion people and 8% of them
pay up for a subscription, that's almost $1,200 per person per year. And I believe that language
learning is valuable, but I don't believe it's that valuable. And by the way, to contrast that
Duolingo's current super plan, they charge $60 per year. If that's the value they think they're
giving, what an incredible deal they've offered. I don't know how to make that make sense.
I will say this, though, to wrap it up. I don't think that that particular total addressable
market number needs to be true for Duolingo to still have a solid runway ahead of it. I guess
maybe it really just sounds nice to say that you have only 1% of the market, but I modeled them as
having almost 7% of the market close to a year ago, and they've done just fine. Don't
listen to this number in particular, but I also wouldn't write them off for this alone.
This is a fast-growing company. Traditional valuation metrics are tough to use.
I think the stock is at about 71X earnings, 20X sales. What metrics are you using as you
follow Duolingo's story? It is really tough. You cited earnings,
but this is only Duolingo's second straight profitable quarter. So when you have a rapidly
evolving number in the denominator like that, the numbers will look outlandish. And if you don't
know what I mean by that, you can go check out Duolingo math, but even forward PE ratios that
take into account near-term growth will look a little wild. So what I did was I actually modeled
out what I believe are reasonable growth rates to expect in two numbers specifically, just monthly
active users, and also that premium penetration that I mentioned. So, those are the two main
elements that are really going to drive revenue. And I think of those two, it's the premium
penetration percentage that will really be the biggest lever for how much they can grow earnings.
Right now, over the past year, it's stalled out around 8% of total users paying for subscriptions,
but that's been due to some softness in the economy. So, it's unclear if that's all that is.
So, going forward, the question is, will that shrink as Duolingo expands into a broader
user base that's maybe less likely to upgrade into a subscription, or will it actually recover
back to the steady growth rate it had before, and will it surprise us with how high it can
climb?
How many people are willing to purchase subscriptions, ultimately?
I think that will be a major driver for how well the company ends up performing in shareholders'
eyes.
Let's move on to Roblox, the online game platform and game creation system.
it's down more than 20 this morning at the time of this recording real quick kirsten because i
don't think there's a lot of crossover between the roblox playing audience and the motley fool
money listening audience it's it's a free video game platform uh quickly how does this company
make money first of all i can't believe that's true surely tons of our listeners play roblox no
maybe i don't know if you are podcasts at fool.com that's the email address there you go but it is a
great question. I think people could get confused because there's been a lot of talk in the news
about advertising developing on Roblox. And to be clear, that's actually, it's negligible today
in terms of revenue and management says it won't be material by the end of this year either. So
really where Roblox makes its money is directly from users. People pay to buy things on the
platform. So Roblox uses a model common to gaming, this freemium model where they get tons of people
in the door, kind of build up the network effect. And then those who find it valuable can pay up for
certain things. So Roblox sells Robux, their virtual currency. That's the first step is you
translate your money into that. And then you spend them on things like upgrades to your avatar,
which is like your digital representation inside Roblox, or you can buy a speed boost to kind of
progress a game faster. For certain games, like if you're playing a racing game, maybe you want
to pay up for a really nice car and roblox has also recently added subscriptions as a monetization
tactic so some creators if they decide it's best for their experience they can make that experience
exclusive and require an ongoing subscription to it it's really up to the creators of any
individual experience how they choose to monetize if at all many are still completely free but those
are some of the monetization mechanisms that roblox provides yeah i was playing the racing
game this morning on on roblox and i was having a good time until i ran the car into this like
wedge point between like a barrier and the off-road thing and then i couldn't continue playing
and then realized i should probably um get back to work anyway kirsten i think the problem at
roblox uh came down to what the ceo said quote we saw less growth than we expected that said
we exceeded our margins on cash flow targets end quote um looking at does roblox have a business
problem or an expectations problem? Management says that they're trying to get Booking's daily
active users' hours engaged back to 20% growth rates. I think for daily active users, they
reported something like 17%. What's so special about 20% specifically? Well, Roblox is a lot
of things, but at its core, it's a social network. It's a social network that was first popular with
kids and is really aging up from there. About a year ago, I looked at how Roblox's growth
has compared to Facebook's early growth.
And once I normalize them
by kind of the year they went public,
the growth rates are very similar from there.
And so looking ahead for 2024,
I kind of tried to extend that curve out by both 20%,
which is what they say they want to be at,
and the 17% they were actually at for this quarter.
And they don't really look that different, right?
They're still right on track for following
kind of in something like Facebook's footsteps.
So for a single year or a single quarter,
a slowdown from 20% to 17%,
is not that huge in the overall story, but there will be always some vacillation around kind of an
average growth. But certainly if that growth rate continues to trend downward, that would be a
different story. So maybe it is an expectations problem for the moment, but it could be a business
problem down the line. And I'm glad that you clarified that's actually a quote directly
from management. I thought maybe it was just your quote, but yeah, that's wild. You mentioned
or you mentioned that the CEO mentioned exceeding the cash flow targets there.
And they did technically increase their cash flow from operations year over year.
But they started with a lower net income and they just juiced it with more non-cash
stock-based compensation. So I certainly wouldn't point to that as some silver lining. And I'm
maybe a little disappointed that the CEO did. Yeah, this is a company with a lot of stock-based
compensation. I think they spent about a third of their revenue on stock-based comp over the past
12 months. And when you have CEO David Bazzucchi saying, hey, look over here at our cashflow
numbers, they're adjusting out something significant. Not bad for a company to have
stock-based comp, but forgiveness becomes a little lower when you're not meeting your growth
estimates. Speaking of the CEO, David Bazzucchi blamed the slowdown basically on shipping out
a bunch of new technology that low-end Android devices just can't handle. Are you buying that
explanation? What do you think of that? Sure, somewhat. I mean, about 80% of users
do access Roblox through mobile devices, and many of those are Androids. And it is true that they
have recently introduced features like dynamic heads that use a lot of local processing power
by design. And I'm sure that that does suffer on a lower-end device, and it makes for a less
an ideal user experience. So maybe some of those users turn away from the platform.
That said, those devices exist and they will continue to exist. So if you want to grow to
serve 1 billion daily active users, as they've said, they will have to contend with that. The
platform in some capacity will have to be able to serve users that don't just have top of the line
phones. And I will actually mention, if it's okay, one other thing that I think is huge that the CEO
pointed to, and that is that the way they highlight all of their new content bubbling up on the
platform is, quote, not optimal. I'd say that's understating it. I think this is one of the
biggest things that they really have to solve, especially if they want to retain the older,
more mature users with higher expectations in games. They need a much better recommendation
engine. There are 15 million plus experiences. And yes, there's a little bit of fun in the
treasure hunt element of clicking through and seeing what you'll get. But really, I need them
to find some of that TikTok-level greatness in knowing what games I will love before I know what
I want and just serving them to me. I don't have time to go dig them up. Just give them to me,
Roblox. We've talked about two high-growth stories, and we're long-term investors here
at The Fool, 25-plus stocks holding on for three to five years minimum. But Roblox, Duolingo,
you follow both of these. Are any of these more appealing for an entry point for investors taking
a look at these companies? Yeah. I mean, both of them you could say have dipped, but dips are all
relative, right? I think before these earnings releases, Duolingo was already kind of soaring
at what I see as a pretty steep premium valuation. And I think Roblox has really been suffering
with a stagnant stock price for somewhere around a year that was maybe undeserved. For me,
my own personal expectations are more at odds with the market on Roblox's story. So I think
that's where I see the larger price dislocation and maybe the greater opportunity. But that's
just me. I think if you agree with the market punishing either of these stocks today for
whatever reason, then it might not be the company that's easiest for you to hold in the long term,
because certainly they're both growing and they're both going to experience a lot of volatility.
These dips aren't nothing for a growth investor. Kirsten Guerra,
appreciate you coming on for the A segment. Thank you for your time and your insight.
Thanks for having me, Ricky.
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rippling.ai slash fool. The excitement about investing in the legal weed space died down
over the past few years significantly. But there's a big change coming, and its classification is a
federally illegal drug in the United States. I know this sounds technical, but it could have
profound changes for the industry. My colleague Nick Seipel joined me for a look at the legal
market in a publicly traded weed company that's high on cash. Nick, we're a few years past sort
of this weed investing boom, and it's an extraordinarily difficult business where
There's not a lot of tax incentives. You have to basically deal in all cash. The drug is still
federally illegal. But before we get to the state of play today, I think it's worth looking back on
that investment boom. Why was there so much hype? Sure. I think the short answer to that is marijuana,
pot, weed is a product a lot of people use. There's a big community around it. Folks saw
a potential opportunity to own the next great consumer goods product. We'd also had lots of
movements towards opening up sales of the product. 2014, you'd seen recreational legalization
take place in Colorado. I believe it was in 2016, you saw recreational legalization
take place in Canada. You had a product that had an existing constituency, some belief among folks
that this could be a big consumer product, and you had a legalization trend taking place.
In some ways, this really did become a really big, important consumer product. California,
one of those states that legalized recreational sales in 2023. Last year, it did $5 billion
in recreational marijuana sales. You look at Canada, it's been legal again. Going back to
2016, it did $5 billion in sales in 2023. It has been quite a big consumer product market that's
generated lots of revenues for the tax authorities in those jurisdictions. But this is a commodity
market where you saw lots of cash and excitement rush into that business, bound to lead to
oversupply and push prices down, which we've seen in really all these developed jurisdictions over
the past several years. You add in a really substantial tax burden in a lot of these
markets. If you look at the stocks in the industry, really all down about 90% from their
peak. There's been a washout among even some of the smaller players, folks totally exiting the
industry. Now, there's something new going on, though. It sounds technical, but weed is going
from a Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 3 drug. Glad we have a lawyer on. Why is this a big deal?
Yeah. This has been something that's been going on for quite a while. It was first recommended
by the Biden administration back in August of last year. About a week ago, April 30th,
the Department of Justice announced its intent to follow through the rulemaking process to
reschedule marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 under the Controlled Substances Act. Under
Schedule 1 drug, those are drugs that are viewed as having no medical use and a high
likelihood of dependence. Think about things like heroin. A Schedule 3 drug, much lower
classification, substances with moderate to low abuse potential, a currently accepted
medical use, and a low potential for psychological dependence. This new rescheduling puts marijuana
in a class of drugs with things like testosterone, anabolic steroids, Tylenol with codeine.
For one, it just means that the level of federal regulation will reduce. Again, this isn't
a final rule in place to go through the federal rulemaking process. Won't really be at the
earliest until the fall that we see this rule go into place. But in addition to changing
the regulatory environment for the operators in this space, potentially allowing more investment
in research of marijuana as a drug, also significantly changes the tax environment these companies
operate in up to, and still today, again, because this rule hasn't been enacted, companies
selling marijuana have been subject to Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, which essentially
prohibits companies, operators selling Schedule I and II drugs from exempting ordinary business
expenses, the types of tax deductions that most businesses would get, things like your rent,
payroll, things like that. Historically, they've only been allowed to deduct their cost of goods
sold on their taxes. It comes down to what these companies report can be tens of millions of
of dollars in cash flow that is now going to drop to the bottom lines of these companies
that was previously required to be paid back in taxes to the federal government. However,
that doesn't change everything for the industry. Recreational marijuana still remains federally
illegal. There is continued push by some members of Congress to allow marijuana banking entities
to be treated in the same way as traditional businesses. That would require further action
from a legislative point of view. But if that takes place, again, it would reduce costs that
the industry has had to bear that normal operating businesses don't. So, big takeaway is it reduces
the regulatory barriers to entry, perhaps, in the marijuana business and also is going to
significantly change the tax regime, which should be a windfall for the folks currently operating.
It's a step, but not an all-out win. One problem for a lot of these weed businesses is that it's
hard to sell across state lines. There's no interstate commerce. What does this change
in the scheduling mean for interstate commerce? I think that would be a significant factor for
these companies. To be determined right now, it potentially could open up a lot more competition
across state lines than we've said previously. As you alluded to, currently, medical marijuana
operators, folks that are even selling these recreational states, are locked within the
states they operate in. However, with these changes, perhaps you could see some new entrants.
I mean, the early easy one is maybe you see more activity among the pharma industry. It's much
easier to get a license to research a Schedule III substance than a Schedule I substance. So,
maybe you see some marijuana-based pharmaceuticals and products out there in the market that could
be sold under the existing regulatory regime for pharmaceutical products, which would, again,
add more competition in the industry. More interesting, California for a number of years
has been dipping their toe in the water of exploring interstate sales via partnerships
with other states operating out there to be determined whether this change in scheduling
allows that to take place. But if it were, there'd be quite a lot of attitude among operators,
in particularly places like California and Oregon, that because of their more mature market,
have their wholesale prices 20% below the U.S. average, could potentially open up
opportunities for some of these lower-priced states to undercut operators in these other
states if those regulations allow interstate sales? Could it also offer the opportunities
for more developed companies in the Canadian market and elsewhere to enter the U.S.? That's
something they've been sniffing around at for quite a while, to be determined.
But we do know for sure that if we allow new entrants into this market, it's going to increase
competition. If it's anything like what we've seen previously, more capital pouring into the
space should push prices down. So, these near-term tax windfall that current operators are going to
capture with this tax change won't necessarily stick around for the long-term if we see higher
competitive intensity come about. Yeah, I think the reclassification in
research is going to be significant, just because there's not a ton of research on weed about the
long-term implications, just because it's so difficult to study a Schedule I substance if
you're a researcher. So I'm a little optimistic about that just to get the science. One of the
big investment theses about weed sales was that more states are going to open up, more federal
legalization, and that means more sales. But with this news, did your investment thesis
around these weed businesses change at all? I wouldn't say the investment thesis changed
at all. I would just say this is one of those buy the rumor, sell the news events that I
You've seen that in the activity in the marijuana stocks. I say that just because this promise
of rescheduling that's been out there for a long time, the potential windfall in these
tax changes, you've seen a lot of these stocks move quite a bit this year. They moved quite
a bit leading into the announcement. But on the back end, now that we've got this information
out there and the market is starting to digest it, we're thinking about, who are these winners
long-term? I still think it's hard to say what the end state of the market is going
to be today. I think there's maybe an opportunity to trade around the news, short-term, longer-term.
I think you're going to still need to see a little bit more of a shakeout before we know the clear
winners and losers in this market. I have some ideas, which I know you're going to ask me about
here in a little bit. But I do think, for many folks, the reaction in the market to rescheduling
taking place, you think, wow, man, these stocks are going to go straight up. But I think we're
learning there's a little bit more uncertainty now than many folks had hoped for. I think that's
why it was potentially one of those buy the rumor, sell the news events.
Well, it's an industry that, even with this reclassification, still has a really strong
illicit market as a competitor. Even in the legal states where people can buy weed from a store,
there's still a lot of black market weed going on.
Yeah, that's right. The short answer to that is just the big tax burden that many of these
legal operators face. If you just look at Canada as an example, a mature nationwide
marijuana market. About 30% of the selling price that you see at the market comes from
excise taxes, which obviously gives an opportunity for illicit folks to undercut on price. Over five
years post-legalization in Canada, estimates have 25% to 50% of the marijuana sales still remaining
in the illicit market. From the bullish side of things, you could say that's an opportunity to
squeeze out some of those illicit sales, opportunity for the legal operators to come in.
but I think that the real explanation is high taxes and also inertia. Where were folks getting
these products before legalization? These products haven't just teleported onto the
market over the past five years. Yeah. I also got to take, I just want to
bounce off you. I think the vibe in Colorado, at least, has shifted around weed. There's just
lower consumption post-pandemic. And I think there's a little bit more of a discussion about
health risks out here, as opposed to a lot of these states, early legalization, it's like,
yippee, yippee, we have weed now. Yeah. I guess it's like the end of
prohibition. People probably drank more than 10 years after the end of prohibition, what have you.
I think Colorado, being the most mature recreational marijuana states that had
legalization for over a decade, you've probably hit a maturation of the market that you're going
to see in other markets over time as well, where the folks who want to partake in the products
have. The folks who thought about trying the products and didn't try them until legalization
have done so, and you reach a balanced level in the market. I will say, nationwide, the issue is
arguably as popular as it's ever been. If you look at Gallup polling, at the end of 2023,
it had 70% of Americans supporting marijuana legalization, compared to just 51% in 2014,
when Colorado was enacting its legalization. You're still seeing more jurisdictions open up
to recreational use. Florida, a big state, is going to vote on opening recreational sales in
November. Also, if you look internationally, Germany approved recreational use on April 1st.
It's still a growth industry when it comes to more legislative dominoes falling around the world and
around the U.S. A lot of the smoke has cleared. A lot of the hype has died down. There still are
companies operating in this space. I know you've looked at a few of them. Are any of them investable,
in your opinion? Yeah. Lots of uncertainty in this market. A lot of ins, a lot of outs,
a lot of what-have-yous. But if you had to dip your toe into this market, I do think there's
one company that stands out to me. That company is Kronos Group. Ticker is C-R-O-N.
Canadian cannabis operator. Again, the Canadian market's been legal since 2018. It's had fewer
of these regulatory issues that the companies in the U.S. have had. They've been able to build
national distribution, invest in R&D and branding in Canada in a way that these U.S. operators
haven't been able to do. Kronos has grown to become the No. 2 brand by market share in Canada,
and importantly, number one brand in edibles. I think a lot of folks think about marijuana
consumption and have this vision of smokeables being the dominant area of the market. I think
in the same way that you're seeing nicotine go more towards things like vaping and nicotine
pouches and that sort of thing, I think that's where you're going to see cannabis move over time.
So, having an advantage in those sorts of products and having established branding in
those sorts of products, I think, puts companies at an advantageous position. And I think Kronos
is one of those companies. Second point I'll make, they have a great balance sheet. This
is a company with a billion-dollar market cap that has about $860 million in net cash,
was trading for less than cash a few months ago here today, still trading at a pretty
reasonable valuation. If you back out a lumpy tax payment last year, it's approaching cash
flow break-even. You're continuing to see a washout in the Canadian market. This is
going to be one of the companies that's standing at the end of that. Also, have some interesting
opportunities in other legal cannabis markets. They're importing products into markets like
Germany, the U.K., and Israel. So, already have an established operation in Canada and
an ability to export the operation into new markets.
And then last but not least, that I think is very noteworthy for Kronos is they're backed
by Altria, the big tobacco company, parent of Marlboro in the U.S. Altria owns over 40%
of the company's stock, has rights to appoint four of the company's board members, has a global
partnership agreement with Altria, gives the company access to Altria's distribution and
regulatory expertise in the U.S., which I think will be very important to them if and when
they come into that market. So, strong balance sheet, strong competitive position in a mature
market, opportunities in foreign markets, and then the partnership with Altria, I think,
positions them well with access to distribution, cost of capital, and perhaps gives them a foot
the door in the U.S. if and when that time comes. For those reasons, I think Kronos is
a company to have on your radar. Hickory C.R.O.N. also trades in the U.S. as well.
Look at that, a weed company with a great balance sheet. Was not expecting that when
we first started talking, Nick. Appreciate your time and your insight.
Yeah, happy to do it. Happy to do it. I've got high hopes for this one.
As always, people on the program may own stocks mentioned, 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 Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
