Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - “This is why we invest the way we do.”
Episode Date: February 4, 2022The last few weeks have been particularly head-spinning for investors. We've seen stocks setting records (both good and bad) as volatility seems like it's becoming the norm. It's sometimes difficult b...ut still important to remember how much better investing can be when we focus on the long term. Jason Moser and Emily Flippen share some perspective on their approach to investing and discuss: - Amazon's digital ad business and raising the cost of Prime to $139 - Alphabet splitting its stock (20 for 1) and posting huge 4th-quarter results - Meta Platforms battling "an unprecedented level of competition" - Snap's 1st-ever quarterly net profit - PayPal continuing to struggle with its transition away from eBay - Pinterest increasing revenue while losing global users - The latest from Qualcomm, Spotify, AMD, and Starbucks - Two stocks on their radar: Chipotle and Tenable Holdings Want 15 more stock ideas? They're included in our free Investing Starter Kit. Get your copy at http://fool.com/StarterKit Stocks: AMZN, GOOG, GOOGL, FB, AAPL, SNAP, PYPL, PINS, QCOM, SPOT, AMD, SBUX, MKC, DASH, SHAK, TENB, CMG Host: Chris Hill Guests: Emily Flippen, Jason Moser Engineer: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
David Gardner. This is one of those weeks when stocks were setting records for rising and
falling, which is why we're glad we're not short-term traders.
We're investors. 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
Chris Hill, and I'm joined by Motley Fool Senior Analyst, Emily Flippen and Jason Moser. Good to
see you both. Hey, hey. Chris.
It's earningspalooza. We have so much to talk about. We don't even have time for a guest this
week, but we do have a couple of stocks on our radar. Before we get to the earnings,
I think we should start with just how bonkers the market has been lately. And by that, I mean
some of the whipsaw movements of well-known businesses. A few examples. Last week,
Netflix had its biggest drop in a decade. This week, Snap had its biggest gain ever.
PayPal and Facebook had their biggest drops ever. And we will get to Amazon's
huge day in a minute. But Jason, we also had a huge jobs report for December that came with a
big revision upwards for November. And I am so glad I'm a long-term investor because the short
term can just be really confusing at times like this. Yeah, I think that's probably the best word,
confusing. It's a lot of information at once, and it all seems to, a lot of it seems very
contradictory at times. But I think to me, these are the strategies that really reiterate why we
invest the way that we do here. We live in a world of headline-driven markets. I mean,
they move on the daily and predicting what's going to happen is at this point, it is literally
flipping a coin, I think. If you want to gamble, that's great. Open a FanDuel account and have at
it. At least you go in there with the understanding that you're gambling. But we are investors,
obviously, and the stock market is the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world.
Now, with that said, it rarely, and I mean rarely, operates on our desired individual timelines. I
the longer you do it, the more apparent that becomes. For me, it really just takes me back to
this is why we invest the way we do. It really is just volatility being
the name of the game right now. I want to circle back around to that jobs report because
not that I can do any better, but this was such a large mis-estimation that it reminds me just
how much I dislike economic forecasting, at least with weather forecasting. I know there's
barometers or Doppler radars behind what they predict, but sometimes I feel like economists
are just doing the weather person equivalent of licking their fingers and holding it up to the
air. And I feel like that's what we saw this month. Let's get to Amazon's fourth quarter
profits being driven by AWS. No surprise there, Jason. The advertising division is now so big
that Amazon is actually disclosing the number. And as we talked about on this show two weeks ago,
Amazon announced it will increase the price of its Prime membership to $139. And all of that
combined to a big day on Friday for the stock. Yeah, it was a big day. It seems for a long time
on this show, every earnings season, we just say, well, nothing to see here is the same old
great Amazon. I will say, I think we can actually call this quarter a mixed bag. I think mostly it
was really good. There are some things, I think, to keep an eye on, though. Now, if we look at the
numbers, you look at the actual sales numbers there, this was a bit of an attention getter.
I mean, sales up, excluding currency, sales grew just 10%. And for a business that's just routinely
chalking up 20 plus percent growth, that to me is just something, it's a little bit curious,
I guess. I mean, granted, we're operating in unique times, but operating income got cut in
half to $3.5 billion for the quarter. Net income of $14.3 billion sounds like a really great number,
but it is worth remembering that includes a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion
from their investment in Rivian Automotive. Rivian, we know, just went public. This is
an electric vehicle company that makes no money. Literally, they are just starting to generate
revenues. You got to take that with a grain of salt, I think, as well. When you look at the
retail operations, really the core Amazon business, retail operations across the board,
both chalked up, they chalked up operating losses, the U.S. and international. And international
sales were actually down a tick. So back to your point on AWS, clearly a bright spot. Sales grew
40%, operating income 49%. Hey, yeah, a nice little $31 billion advertising business now,
Chris, Twitter what? Snap who? Raising the price of Prime to $139 per year. The monthly cost will
go up $2 a month. I don't know why you'd pay for the monthly cost anyway. That equates to $180 a
year. Just up for the full year, Chris. Come on. Everybody, just up for the full year. Do us a
favor. Mixed bag, I think, but all in all, more good than bad. Let's get to the timing of the
increase because I said two weeks ago on the show, they're going to raise the price of Prime this
year. I'm actually surprised they raised it this quarter. I'm wondering if you think they might
have pulled the trigger now as opposed to later in the year because of the revenue softness that
you referred to. Perhaps. I think also it's probably a good time to bump that price up now
because everybody is bumping prices up. Inflation is top of mind for everyone. If they wait six,
nine months, perhaps 12 months to do this when inflation isn't necessarily the forefront of
the conversation, maybe that's something that consumers push back on a little bit,
but I think right now it's something that people can understand a little bit more because
prices are being pushed up everywhere we look. Alphabet announced a 20-for-1 stock split,
which somehow overshadowed the fact that Alphabet's fourth quarter results were strong
across the board and not surprisingly, Emily, Google search leading the way.
Emily Flippen A really amazing quarter for Alphabet. They
handedly beat expectations on their bottom line by over 10%. Revenue also beat expectations,
but all anybody wants to talk about is this stock split, a 24-1 stock split, which effectively
decreases the average price per share to buy a single share of Alphabet. As we all hopefully
know, this fundamentally changes nothing for investors in Alphabet. A stock split does nothing
except for make the average price of the share lower. But in practice, we see a lot of retail
investors often associate the price of a share with valuation, which is to say they see a lower
price stock to be perceived as cheaper. There may be increased buying from retail investors
as a result of this split. We saw this happen with other businesses like Tesla, although there's
lots of other factors and play with Tesla as well. But stock split aside, this was an amazing
quarter for Alphabet. The weird downside here was actually YouTube ad revenue. This is interesting
because as Jason just mentioned, we're looking at Amazon come out with this $31 billion-year ad
business. Well, Alphabet has a $61 billion-a-year ad business, so around double what Amazon is
experiencing. So smaller, I think, when you compare it than expectations with something
like Amazon. And seeing the weakness come from YouTube ad revenue just makes us all realize
how much competition there is for our eyes in the entertainment space right now.
As I mentioned at the top, Facebook, sorry, meta platforms had its worst day ever. Shares fell 25%
on Thursday after the company's fourth quarter results reflected what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called
an unprecedented level of competition. Part of that, Jason, is Apple's change to its operating
system's privacy settings. That is clearly taking its toll on Facebook's advertising revenue.
I think you called it Facebook on purpose, Chris. I don't think that was a slip.
Look, I'm still getting used to it. It took me a full year, if not longer, to get used to
alphabet instead of referring to it as Google. Apologies to the dozens of listeners, and I beg
for their patience. Don't even get me started on Block,
but let's get back to Facebook. I mean, Meta, this was a breathtaking sell-off. I think it took us
all by surprise considering the scale of this business. But when you look at the numbers,
I think it actually makes some sense. Much like PayPal, this is not a business that's in trouble.
We'll talk about PayPal in a little bit, but they've got some work to do here. There's some
material risks going forward given this pivot toward the metaverse. When we look at the
actual numbers they recorded for the quarter, not all that bad. Revenue up 20% for the quarter.
You compare that to something like Alphabet's 33%, 34% growth though, they think you can
at least get a better idea of who's winning that race. It's something where Facebook I
think is starting to witness some headwinds there in their model. Operating margin fell
nine percentage points. Expenses well outpaced revenue growth at 38%. Earnings per share down
5%. But it's worth noting, actually, net income was down 8%. So there's a little bit of a share
repurchase effect going on there. Bit of a one-two punch there on guidance, right? I think you've got
macro concerns. You've got inflation impacting advertising budgets. The new iOS standards that
you mentioned as well, they're going to impact the top line of this business to the tune of about
$10 billion this year in 2022. The revenue guide of $27 billion to $29 billion was just well below
expectations, and we know how that goes. The market is going to reprice based on that new
set of expectations. But I think looking further out, the bigger risk I think for Meta, and this
is going to be something that won't be apparent immediately, they're going to be spending a ton
of money on this Metaverse investment. Whatever the Metaverse may be, Meta is aiming to play a
big role in it. They are going to spend tens of billions of dollars on this. If this doesn't pay
off the way they think it might or they think it will, that's going to be a big problem for this
business. The tough part for investors here is really understanding that these investments in
the metaverse, that's not going to be like flipping a switch either. That's going to be
something that just becomes more apparent over time. I think it's fair to say that as much
much success as Facebook has had, as Meta has had in the social media space, replicating
that in the Metaverse, I think it's going to be a tougher ask. I think it's going to
be a tougher ask and I think investors are starting to take stuff like that into consideration.
Coming up right after the break, we've got the poster child for this week's craziness.
Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Jason Moser and Emily
flipping. We don't obsess over short-term stock movements, but no business provides a better
example of the whipsaw movements we discussed earlier in the show than Snap. The parent company
of Snapchat saw its stock fall 25% on Thursday. Then Snap reported its first ever quarterly net
profit and shares on Friday rose 50%. Emily, please help me focus on the actual business here.
Well, who knew that a social media platform that I exclusively use to take photos of my cat
and send it to my mom was so monetizable? And I say this a little sarcastically because I think
part of what we're seeing here is a story of low expectations. The poor earnings reports from other
platforms earlier in the week certainly set up expectations, as you mentioned, heading into this
earnings reports that were extremely low. And when Snapchat came out and said, hey, no, we're actually
doing pretty well, the market was just stunned. That's a bit of what we're seeing here. But
revenue was still up 64% year-over-year, which is incredible. The daily average users, which
I think is even more impressive, grew 20%, almost 320 million globally. Now, it's important
to remember that Snapchat's really only monetizing those across North America and Europe, but
they see an opportunity to expand monetization across the globe. It really was, again, a
power of those low expectations for this platform. We talked about Meta or Facebook, whatever
you want to call it. They broke down these massive headwinds thanks to Apple's privacy
changes and expectations were for Snapchat to say, hey, our guidance is also hit because
of this. But heading into that, we're seeing Snapchat actually come out and say, no, our
ad transitions are better because we handle privacy with our ad targeting products a bit
more consciously. I think they said something along the lines of our product were built with
privacy in mind. We'll see if those realities come to fruition when they continue to report
in future quarters. But for the time being, Snapchat is doing pretty well for itself.
The main story of PayPal's business for the past year has been the company's transition away
from eBay as a payment platform. PayPal's fourth quarter results reflected how hard that transition
has been. Jason, I think you and I both like the job that Dan Schulman has done in the eight years
he's been running PayPal. But I also think you and I agree, he really hasn't done a great job
of communicating this. Oh, Chris, how the tables have turned, right? Instead of the war on cash,
it looks like we've got a war on PayPal instead. I say this as a PayPal shareholder of many years,
PayPal 100% deserve the butt-kicking it got this week. No, the business isn't in trouble,
but we heard three words in the call that we don't like to hear, transformation, investment,
and pivot. I think this all goes back to what you said at the top there. Leadership really
dropped the ball on communicating here. Now, it's not all bad. Let's focus on the good news
here because the quarterly numbers were good. If you look at the total payment volume, $340
billion that was up 23% from a year ago. They pushed through $3.2 billion of buy-now-pay-later
total payment volume as well. That's now operating on a $13 billion run rate, so not bad for
essentially what is a homegrown offering for them. Venmo processed $60.6 billion in total payment
volume, up 29%. They're now contributing. Venmo is now actually helping drive a sequential
increase in the overall take rate. Total take rate for the quarter was 2.04%. That was up
from 1.99% a quarter ago. But we get to what caused this sell-off, what led investors to flee.
And you've got guidance there for revenue growth of 15% to 17% for the year. That was versus an
expected 17.9%. It's ultimately going to result, though, in essentially flat earnings growth,
which is a problem. And I think that really boils down to the user base. PayPal pulled a lot of
successful. They added a lot of users in a short period of time over the past couple of years for
obvious reasons. That's starting to normalize a bit. Management now expects to add 15 to 20 million
net new customers in 2022. Further, they no longer believe that the 750 million user target that they
set here over the median term is even really achievable. It'll probably take a little bit
longer to get there. For context, they have 426 million actives today. Nothing to sneeze at,
but you can see that forecasting does matter. They are focusing more on the quality of the user.
They're going to be relying less on incentive programs to bring new users in. This matters
because the quality of the user matters for PayPal, of their massive user base. Really,
the majority of the volume comes from about a third of that user base. They put a lot of
information out here that should have been put out long ago and that's frustrating.
they have put themselves in a little bit of a position here. We're going for these next few
quarters. We're just going to need to pay very close attention to what they say and really hold
them accountable. Pinterest's fourth quarter results showed a small drop in global users,
but average revenue per user was up 23%. Shares of Pinterest bouncing up nicely on Friday, Emily,
but kind of like Snap, it seems like there were some low expectations going into this one.
I think the words I'd use to describe myself as a Pinterest shareholder after this earnings
report is cautiously optimistic. I've said this before, but Pinterest has always been a story
about monetization, not user growth. As you just mentioned, we saw monetization this quarter
up 23 percent, which is what they need. International monetization, so international
average revenue per user was even better, rising 62 percent in the quarter. It led to helping
the business beat on both the top and the bottom lines here. But management is also realizing their
backs are against the wall. They can keep users steady, they can lose a bit of users when they
have over 430 million monthly active users, that's okay, but they can't hemorrhage users.
This is what we saw this quarter. Users declined globally 6% in the U.S. by 12%. Now, they blame
some changes in Google's algorithm as a result of this big decline, but they can't be monetizing at
an increasing rate while also decreasing engagement. Finding the way to balance both
is going to be critical for Pinterest to perform well from here on out.
We're just a few months removed from PayPal reportedly looking to buy Pinterest.
How confident are you Pinterest will still be a standalone company two years from now?
I'd say fairly confident. I think Pinterest is underrated as a social media platform.
It's become so integral, especially in young American females' lives,
that I think it's being underappreciated in terms of its market opportunity. What the question mark
is right now is, what is Pinterest going to do to drive engagement from that audience? They already
have this massive user base signed up, but they now are having to compete for the time in those
eyes. Making sure that people are routinely coming back to that Pinterest app is going to be
critical. But I think if they're able to do that, then Pinterest, in my opinion, is better as a
standalone company than as a potential acquisition. Up next, we've got the latest on chips,
not the tasty kind, the semiconductor kind. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Emily Flippen and Jason Moser.
Qualcomm posted strong profits in the first quarter and gave upbeat guidance. Jason,
I'm not a shareholder, but for a variety of reasons, I would like the semiconductor chip
shortage to end. I know that Qualcomm is one of the companies that can help make that happen.
Yes, I think you're right. It feels like we're already seeing leadership with these chip
companies starting to use languages, putting this stuff in the rearview mirror, hopefully, Chris.
So hopefully 2022 is shaping up to be better for you there.
But if you look at Qualcomm itself, I mean, this was a really, really strong quarter.
And I'll lead off with just what a CEO, Christian Amon, said in the release.
He said, I quote, we're at the beginning of one of the largest opportunities in our history
with our addressable market expanding by more than seven times to approximately $700 billion
in the next decade, end quote.
Chris, to me, it feels like there's an opportunity brewing here. Qualcomm is just treading water here
over the last year, but you pan further out. This has been a wonderful investment over the last
three years, up better than 250%. I'm starting to see why. Revenue growth of 30% from a year ago
resulted in net income growth of 38% and earnings per share growth of 41%. Again,
a little bit of a share repurchase impact there. But it's nice to see that Qualcomm's repurchases
are ultimately having an impact on that overall share count. They brought the share count down
over 24% over the last five years. The QCT business, the chip side of the business,
the other side of the business is the licensing side, but the QCT business grew operating income
by 62% on 35% revenue growth. They saw strong performance in handsets with revenues up 42%
from a year ago. They saw strong performance in IoT revenue, that was up 41% from a year ago.
All in all, it feels like this is a business that has a number of different ways to win,
so to speak, because it's handsets, it's IoT, it's automotive, it's radio frequency,
it's all of that. Interestingly, and perhaps sadly, Chris, there was only one solitary
mention of the word Metaverse on the call, but it is something they're very excited about with
partnerships with companies out there, including Microsoft and Meta. For the second quarter here,
they are forecasting earnings to come in at $2.90 at the midpoint versus $1.90 a year ago,
and they're even so much as guiding out to 30% earnings per share growth for the third quarter
as well. It feels like the tailwinds for this business just continue to grow stronger.
Spotify showed strong growth in the fourth quarter, but guidance for 2022 sent
the stock down this week. Emily, let's face it, most companies are not getting the benefit of
the doubt from investors right now and the drama surrounding Joe Rogan certainly does not go
in the plus column. I describe this as a good earnings report that's really being overshadowed
by negativity thanks to the way that this platform has become a beacon, I guess, for misinformation
and almost like a political fighting ground in some sense. But looking at the quarter itself,
it was all good things from Spotify, right? Revenue grew 24%, monthly active users,
which is that critical metric as we've just discovered with Pinterest, that grew 18% to over
400 million. So tons of monthly users and their adjusted net loss was less than half of what was
expected this quarter. So the actual earnings report itself was great. Now the challenges
around what has been portrayed in the media with Spotify recently, I think is adding skepticism
mostly because of, as you mentioned, controversies surrounding Joe Rogan and the $100 million
relationship that Spotify has with Joe Rogan to be the exclusive distributor of that podcast.
So it's going to be interesting to see how CEO Dan Eck continues to navigate these challenging
waters because being a company that is having to deal both with the impact from users, musicians,
and even politicians is not an easy position to be in.
It's also a sign of just how big and influential a company Apple is, that Apple
isn't making headlines this week, and yet all these companies we're talking about are dealing
with Apple in one way or another. Facebook is impacted by the changes to the iOS privacy
settings. Spotify has a couple of musical artists who say, hey, we don't want to be in your platform
many more. And when I opened up iTunes earlier this week, there's Apple Music just promoting
these artists. If you get to be big enough, eventually you're going to have to deal with
Apple one way or the other. That's a fair criticism, but in Spotify's defense, they're
so large now that they're ubiquitous. And I doubt any one or two departures from any specific artist
is going to do a lot to take away those engaged monthly active users when Spotify hasn't been
able to get those exclusive rights to new albums in the past. It hasn't done anything to prevent
users from engaging on the platform, even when they've been available in other places. I doubt
this will be any different, but I hesitate to say that because we've seen the continued years-long
fallout with the meta and its perception from consumers and the government about its relationship
with information on its platform. Spotify certainly doesn't want to find itself in the
same situation. So again, it all comes down to being proactive and managing it with tact.
Jason, stop me if you've heard this before. Another strong quarter for advanced micro
devices and strong guidance for the new year. Lisa Su has been running AMD since 2014. And
not only is she one of the best CEOs in America, she's also one of the most under the radar.
She's just quietly going about her business. And AMD is just, I don't want to say unstoppable,
but this business and this stock has just been on fire for years.
Well, I agree with you. I think Dr. Su has just been a tremendous asset for this business,
and shareholders have really benefited all along the way. You look at the five-year chart,
the stock's up almost 900%. And I think that really, things are poised to get better. I think
on its own, there are plenty of reasons to like AMD over the coming years as connectivity continues
to proliferate. You see investments in Edge, Cloud, and Data Center. They're all becoming
greater opportunities, and they're helping A&B continue to branch out. I think the addition of
Xilinx should even open up a few more windows of opportunity for the business. We'll talk about
that shortly, but let's look at the quarterly numbers because there's a lot to like. Like you
said, revenue $4.8 billion grew 49% from a year ago. Interestingly, you look at non-GAAP diluted
earnings per share, $0.92 per share. That was up 77% from a year ago. Just amazing,
the growth this business continues to chalk up. Strength in enterprise, embedded in semi-custom
and segment revenue, I think that was something that really stood out. That segment, the revenue
of $2.2 billion was up 75% from a year ago, and they recorded their sixth straight quarter of
greater than 45% year-over-year revenue growth. You add to that five percentage point increase
in the gross margin side as well, which you got to love that. They continue to capitalize
on the data center opportunity as we continue to move more towards the edge in the cloud.
And then really, I think the icing on the cake for a lot of folks, the Xilinx acquisition has
finally cleared hurdles with Chinese regulators. So that deal actually should close any day now.
And that's really going to catapult their overall opportunity even more. So it brings
in additional tailwinds in 5G, data center, automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense.
in his eye links as a higher margin business as well. So I think there are a lot of reasons why
shareholders should be very optimistic about A&B's future. Jason, so many businesses depend
on semiconductor chips and with the global shortage, rightly so. So many of them for the
past year or so have been talking about that impact on their business. But at some point in
the future. We're going to get to that place where the shortage does not exist any longer.
And don't you think there's going to be at least one company that comes out in their earnings
report and says, you know, it was the shortage of chips that really hit us this quarter. And
analysts will have to be like, there's no shortage anymore. Like Qualcomm, AMD,
all these businesses. At some point, there's going to be no more shortage and therefore,
the excuse is gone. That's right. At some point, you have to go with Alice in Chains
are no excuses. I think that time is still a ways away. The neat thing about the opportunity
for these businesses is that as connectivity continues to grow, there are just so many
things out there that really require this technology. Chris, I got a Traeger grill for
Christmas that's connected to the internet for crying out loud. The possibilities seem
endless at this point, but I think you make a great point there too in that as optimistic as
this space looks right now because of obvious tailwinds. Let's remember, those tailwinds don't
last forever. And so just like we saw a lot of success pulled forward here over the last couple
of years with the pandemic impacts, at some point that party ends, right, and things start to
normalize a bit. So there will be a point where these chip companies start to normalize a little
bit, and that'll be something investors need to pay attention to. Starbucks' first quarter report
was a window into how many headwinds the company is facing, from higher costs to staffing challenges
to say nothing of its second largest market, China. Emily, I'm a big fan of the CEO, Kevin
Johnson. Even with the hits that the stock has taken recently, am I wrong to be optimistic about
Starbucks? Not at all. In fact, I love the kind of comparison here against chip businesses for
Starbucks, if you'll humor me. Because when you ask the average person, which do you think is
more cyclical, right? Demand for which wanes more? Is it something like chips or is it something like
Starbucks. I think a lot of people will assume that when economic times get tough,
businesses like Starbucks are the ones who face the brunt of that, whereas chips continue in demand.
Reality, we see a lot more cyclicality with a business like AMD or Qualcomm than we do with
Starbucks. It's become such a blue-chip bellwether business. Even though they did miss this quarter
in terms of earnings and revenue expectations, it really wasn't a complete surprise given the widely
publicized challenges with labor, supply chains, and inflation. But even with the miss, Starbucks
does what it does best. It had a great, really impressive quarter. Revenue rose nearly 20%.
Importantly, same-store sales across the globe were up 13%. Domestically, that was even higher
at 18%. The demand for coffee here has not changed. Actually, if you look at the change
in price for Starbucks products since just October, Starbucks has risen prices three times,
largely to keep up with all those challenges that I mentioned earlier. It really hasn't done a lot
to change demand for its products. While they did update their guidance to be slightly more
conservative, which is contributing to some of that skepticism we see today,
when you look at the actual business performance itself, Starbucks is doing what it does best,
which is Cell Coffee. Up next, we've got a business partnership
just in time for Valentine's Day, and we've got a couple of stocks on our radar.
Stay right here, 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. We don't buy or sell stocks
based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with
Emily Flippen and Jason Moser. A couple of things to get to before we get to the stocks
on our radar. McCormick reported fourth quarter results last week and maybe it took investors
a few days to digest the results because on Friday, shares of the Spice Maker hit a new
all-time high. Jason, I know this is one of your favorites.
It is. I'm an owner and I've been behind the stock for a long time for a lot of reasons
I stated before, but it was an impressive quarter. They grew sales 9% organically for
fourth quarter. They are calling for 5% annual growth here for 2022. Again, very encouraging.
I think they've made some acquisitions that have really paid off. They now hold the No. 1 in two
spots in the hot sauce market with Frank's and Cholula respectively. Chris, I'm going to tell
you something here. Over the holiday season, I was working on a recipe. I like to grill,
I like to barbecue, I like to smoke stuff. But I was working on a recipe over the season and
and I perfected it. It utilizes a lot of McCormick stuff too. I call it Big Daddy's Boy Howdy
Mustard Sauce. This is a mustard barbecue sauce. I made it. It's my recipe. I'm not going to tell
you what it is, but McCormick, give me a call because I got a feeling I've got your number
three shareholder right there. Wow. You went in a direction I was not expecting there.
Hey, listen. You listen every week. We're going to give you something new.
Real quick before we move on, the dividend aristocrat status of this business
does not appear to be threatened at all. I don't think so. It's just such a
reliable business and that's why. They really take a lot of pride in that. They raise their
dividend again to maintain that status. I suspect that it is a point of pride for leadership that
they will not relinquish anytime soon, I'd imagine. This week, DoorDash and Shake Shack
partnered up to create a limited edition dating app called Eat Cute. From now through Valentine's
Day, people can go to letseatcute.com, create a dating profile with a photo and share how spicy
they like their food. Once they are matched up with a compatible person, they'll receive
a promo code for Shake Shack's Buffalo Chicken Sandwich delivered, of course, by DoorDash.
Emily, I'm not saying it's cause and effect, but I will say that shares of both these stocks are up
since the promotion started on February 3rd? Let me be clear, I love a good gimmick,
but there is no way that I could review this story without experiencing it myself. I apologize
to my boyfriend, but I did have to go make a profile, obviously, to get my free chicken
sandwich. The experience was interesting. They made it very clear the app was not for chatting,
it was only for sending sandwiches. I went through, I liked about 100 profiles,
and nobody likes me back, so I don't get my chicken sandwich, I guess.
We just need to get the word out. Maybe once people hear this episode of Motley Fool Money,
get some more people on the app and we'll check back with you next week,
see if you actually get the sandwich. Dare to dream.
Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd,
is going to hit you with a question. Jason Moser, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?
Jason Moser. Yeah, taking a look at Chipotle, ticker CMG. They've got earnings coming out
Tuesday, February 8th. I'm going to be very interested to see how they frame the state of
the consumer and inflation. Last quarter, they talked a good bit about it from wage inflation
to construction and everywhere in between. But management is exercising patience in regard to
of this, but there was an interesting quote from last quarter's call. I have to call this out.
They said, and I quote, there is food inflation as we talked about. We don't know how much of
this is temporary or transitional versus permanent, but what we do know is we've got
what we believe is great value. Our customers continue to appreciate Chipotle. They love the
convenience, they love the value, and here's the kicker, Chris. We believe we've got pricing power
really better than almost anybody, if not everybody in the industry. I think this is going to be
really fascinating to see how they frame this this quarter, particularly as we just saw Starbucks
as an example. We saw Starbucks just start to pass along price increases as well. So
I'm kind of interested. Is my burrito bowl getting more expensive? I want to know, Chris,
because you know what? Even if it does, I'll still pay it. Dan, question about Chipotle?
Yeah. Jason, did you know that I'm a Chipotle shareholder?
Well, me too. Dan, welcome to the club. I bought in 2011, and I'm having a good time.
as a Chipotle shareholder. I don't know about you. I've owned those shares for about that same
time and you got to be feeling really good about that call right now. I am. I'm also a Chipotle
shareholder. Am I the only one confused that they've got this marketing message out there
about their plant-based chorizo that they refer to as this is the best chorizo we've ever made?
I'm like, wait, so it's better than actual chorizo? I'll tell you what, I will say my
daughter tried that last week or so when we last had Chipotle and she gave me a bite of it. I will
say it is very, very good. I'm still confused. Emily, what's on your radar this week?
Well, it's going to be hard for me to compete with plant-based chorizo, which is the best chorizo,
but I have a decent cybersecurity company for you. The business name is Tenable. The ticker is
T-E-N-B. They're a cybersecurity firm. I think it's underappreciated by the market.
Had a really impressive quarter this past week, generated massive 30% free cash flow margins,
and they're getting more traction with enterprise customers with their tenable IO and tenable EP
solutions. Now, I know that it's an extremely competitive space, but in some sense, a rising
tide really does lift all boats. And when you compare it to the valuations of other cybersecurity
firms in the market, I'm thinking mainly about CrowdStrike here, it is much cheaper. So I could
see it being added as a basket approach to tackling the cybersecurity industry.
Dan, question about Tenable Holdings? Yeah. Emily, what kind of plant-based
meat substitute products is Tenable introducing to the market this year?
Well, they actually force all of their in-house employees to eat at least one plant-based meal
a day. However, they do ensure that it's in salad form. So you can take with that what you will.
it's not quite Chipotle. Can't get your rice, but as long as you're eating your plant-based
salad at Tenable, you're okay. Wait, wait, is that, is that real?
No, I'm being a hundred percent sarcastic. Okay. I'll just add Dan, Chipotle is not doing
anything to keep your network secure. I suppose. All right. What do you want to add?
That makes it harder. Hey, I got one bumper sticker on my car and it says, I love tacos so
much. So here we go. I'm taking Chipotle to the moon, baby. There we go. Hang on to those shares,
Dan. Emily Flippen, Jason Moser, thanks so much for being here.
Thank you. Thanks, Chris.
Drop us an e-mail, podcasts at fool.com. Send us your questions, your feedback,
podcasts at fool.com. That's going to do it for this week's edition of The Motley Fool Money Radio
Show. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
