Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Twitter’s Hack, Silicon Valley’s Changing Landscape

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

The FBI investigates a major Twitter hack. Netflix sells off on earnings. Domino’s serves up strong sales growth. Banking software company nCino has a big Wall Street debut. Pepsi gets a boost from ...snacks. Fiat Chrysler & Peugot unveil Stellantis. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Ron Gross discuss those stories and the latest from Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth, and big banks. The guys also share two stocks on their radar: Boston Beer and 3M. Plus, CNBC reporter Kate Rooney discusses the latest with Robinhood, fintech, VC investing, and how Silicon Valley is rethinking office space.           Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Chris Hill, joining me this week, Andy Cross and Ron Gross. Good to see you, gentlemen. How are you doing, Chris? Hey, Chris. We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. CNBC reporter Kate Rooney is our guest. And as always, we've got a couple of stocks on our radar, but we begin this week with Twitter. The FBI is investigating Wednesday's attack on Twitter's platform that involved hacking a number of high-profile accounts, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Joe Biden. The hack was a scam to promote a cryptocurrency, but it has raised serious concerns around national security.
Starting point is 00:00:55 And Ron, there are a lot of questions yet to be answered, including a report by Vice that alleges that one or more Twitter employees were involved in this, and just whether or not Twitter has a circuit breaker to deal with this sort of thing, because this hack went on for hours. Yeah, it looks like insiders at the company were potentially tricked into handing over access to internal systems, which is obviously a major internal flaw, whether they were involved on purpose or not. Either way, a really large weakness that absolutely has to be corrected. There are broader implications to this than just a Bitcoin scam, which is bad enough. It looks like
Starting point is 00:01:40 maybe $120,000 or so were scammed from unsuspecting folks. But this is especially worrisome heading into the U.S. presidential election, given that Twitter is so important to the discourse, the political discussion that goes on. And no matter which side of the aisle you stand on, I think we can all agree that this is the mother of all elections coming up here. And we need our information sources to be as pure as possible, free from hacking, free from manipulation. And right now, it doesn't seem like that's the way it is. Andy, what do you think? Yeah, I think the worry for me on this is the tactical approach they took, and it wasn't really widespread. It wasn't like we've seen a lot of the other hacks across some of the credit card companies we've seen, Home Depot, Target, the like, but it's much more specific and almost like a surgical strike against very specific targets, and to Ron's point about the worries about the discourse in our country.
Starting point is 00:02:39 Twitter is now becoming a platform. It's a major platform for communications across all board, whether you're a person, corporation, movie star, politician. So the fact that the hackers, even though they just essentially it was just a small amount of the ransom, but it was much more than messages sent. So clearly Jack Dorsey, who still is the heart and soul of Twitter and talked about this on his own feed and owns a good chunk of stock of this company, still has a lot of – this has to be really one of the big concerns sitting in the boardroom about going into the election. But just in general, because Twitter now is becoming so ubiquitous as a platform of communication. It feels to me like this was kind of a test run, to be honest with you. I can't imagine they thought they would get dozens or hundreds or thousands of people sending in money in the hope that the money would be doubled and sent back. That seems a bit far-fetched, which is even scarier, to be honest with you, if this truly is a test case for something bigger, something more widespread.
Starting point is 00:03:40 FBI, I'm happy to see they're in there. We need to get our technology experts in there, the Twitter experts. We need to shore this up, these communication systems that we're all using every day and Obviously, going into the political season is even more important. Yeah, and it does just continue to speak to the use of cybersecurity firms, whether you're talking about CrowdStrike or the like, just as we think about where we are spending our time and the security around that and what we're putting out there right now. It gets more and more valuable and really speaks to more of the cybersecurity investment ideas and recommendations we've talked about numerous times and have recommendations at The Motley Fool. Let's move on to some earnings news. second quarter profits for Netflix came in much lower than expected. That plus weak subscriber
Starting point is 00:04:25 guidance in the third quarter sent shares of Netflix down more than 6% on Friday. Although, Andy, shares of Netflix still up, even with this drop, 50% year to date. Yeah, it's been a wonderful year for viewers of Netflix, for customers of Netflix, and also for shareholders. The two big pieces of news, Chris, you mentioned the earnings, but the other one was the Ted Sarandos announcement that he is now going to be the co-CEO with founder Reed Hastings. So two big pieces of news across the earnings stream. But just looking at the earnings or the earnings report, looking at the earnings, they added 10 million paid members during the quarter. It's a record. That was versus 2.7 million last year, down a little
Starting point is 00:05:04 down from the 15.8 million monster quarter they did in the first quarter. So they talk a lot about the earnings that, hey, this is a pull forward. When you think about what we've done over the last two quarters. Essentially, they did 26 million new ads during the quarter. That was compared to 28 million of all of 2019. So they pulled that a lot forward. They talked about some of the growth slowing, but really a monster continuation of gaining members because of the platform that Netflix has, the content they are continuing to produce and the winning content, the the customer reactions to that and then obviously with the with the with the COVID-19 quarantine and we're all stuck inside viewing um things on television on our streaming platforms
Starting point is 00:05:49 and the fact that the competition for those eyeballs with sports gone live action sports now starting to come back but vanished the past couple quarters um has been a big advantage for Netflix so revenue up 25 percent average revenue per user up five percent when you back out some foreign X effects this quarter. Obviously a great quarter, but the concern a little bit going forward is that the growth just won't continue into the year. They did get a little bit more competition this week though, as Comcast rolled out its Peacock streaming app. Yeah, it did. And that's great for Comcast. They've been testing this now, I think since April. I've actually had it on my own Xfinity system. So I started using it a little bit over
Starting point is 00:06:32 the past couple of weeks. I got to say, they still have some kinks to work out. It doesn't operate nearly as smoothly as Netflix or some of the other ones. There's some things I'm noticing that they don't quite have down, but clearly, it's a competitor into the space. In the U.S., the market continues to be really ramping up in competition. International, well, Netflix really has an advantage, Chris, I think, and continues to build out that member base. Not quite as profitable as the U.S., but they're going to build that out. That's a real advantage for them globally when you look at Netflix, the company, and Netflix, the stock. But the Peacock announcement and the release this year is nice. It's a free app, so users can access all that content on
Starting point is 00:07:10 the Peacock network. It's funny, I think a lot of the buzz has focused on making fun of some of the content that is free. It's like, you know, you come for Battlestar Galactica, but you stay for Columbo. I'm not sure how that is exciting viewers that are older than, let's say 30 um of course that there's a lot more than that but i've seen a lot of back and forth about making fun of you know whether it's royal pains or monk or snl looks good 30 rocks look good so there's some good content but a lot of others that make me chuckle yeah i've been using him to watch yellowstone uh the kevin costner kind of western movie just catching up on that but um yeah there's a lot of other things out there that are that are a little bit speak more to the 80s
Starting point is 00:07:55 and 90s. The big banks on Wall Street out with their latest quarterly reports this week. JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley both posting record revenue. And Ron, at the other end of the spectrum, Wells Fargo just continues to struggle. Yeah, better than expected results for those banks with strong trading departments like a JPMorgan or a Goldman Sachs. For example, JPMorgan trading revenue was up 79%. Goldman's was up 93%. Now, profits were still weak because all the banks increased their provision for loan losses, just to be careful. Some of that was probably more conservative than necessary, but that's fine. JP Morgan set aside $8.9 billion, Goldman $1.6 billion. But then, as you said, we pivot to Wells Fargo. They've been struggling
Starting point is 00:08:39 for years to get out from under their 2016 fake account scandal. Regulators have stepped in, put some curbs on them, which make it even tougher for them to do business. Wells does not have a large trading division. They're more focused on retail clients. So it was just a weak quarter. Revenue down 18%. They took an $8.4 billion loan loss provision. They cut their dividend.
Starting point is 00:09:02 So Wells continues to struggle. Shares of Johnson & Johnson up this week, despite the fact that second quarter profits came in 35% lower than a year ago. Andy, the medical device division kind of taking a hit this quarter, but their consumer division is still looking good. Yeah, overall, the consumer business wasn't too bad. It really was the medical device sales were down 33%. They did see a little bit of an improvement in the month of June, though, Chris.
Starting point is 00:09:29 So really, the first part of the quarter, the medical devices continue to get hit badly. We saw a little bit of an improvement in June. Interesting, they kept their – they actually raised their guidance a little bit to $7.75 to $7.95 for the earnings per share for the year. That was a little bit of an increase from last quarter, increased the sales as well, too. So consumer health strengthened the over-the-counter oral care, a little weakness in health and beauty. Medical devices was pretty weak across the board as people have postponed or pushed off elective surgeries and some pretty nice results on some of the pharmaceutical business. They continue to work on some of the COVID-19 vaccinations and putting those into trial and putting a lot of effort and a lot of focus in there as well, too. So Johnson & Johnson, overall, a massive company, nice little dividend yield, not really a hugely
Starting point is 00:10:22 expensive stock, but you can't expect too many gangbusters if you're owning the stock at this point. And I might have buried the lead. I'm glad you mentioned the fact that they raised full-year guidance at a time when most other companies out there are withdrawing guidance across the board. Yeah, I think so too, Chris. I think I caught a lot of, maybe a little bit by surprise. But again, because it wasn't such a great first half of the year in the medical devices business, which is an important part of the Johnson & Johnson revenue picture, was so weak, they expect that to kind of start to ramp back up in the second half, and that'll help the profit picture. Up next, we've got more with healthcare restaurants and a red-hot IPO. Don't touch that
Starting point is 00:11:04 dial. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill here with Andy Cross and Ron Gross. Shares of UnitedHealth up 5% this week after second quarter profits came in much higher than expected. And Andy, UnitedHealth also maintaining guidance for the full year. Boy, much higher than that. That's an understatement, Chris. It was their biggest profitable quarter pretty much ever. They generated $6.6 billion in profits versus $3.3 billion last year and $1.6 billion five years ago in the quarter so that's a massive growth now we have to be careful though because that growth has really on the profit side revenues were up a little bit but nothing like the profit side most
Starting point is 00:11:48 of that was because unlike or like with johnson johnson we saw with people holding back on some of their medical spending um that's benefited united health that hurt johnson johnson it's actually benefiting united health so their medical loss ratio which is the claims they pay out as a percentage of premium was 70.2% versus 83.1%. The lower means it's much more profitable for UnitedHealth, and that's one reason, the key reason why their profits were so high in the quarter. So really a massive quarter. They expect that to, you mentioned the guidance, Chris, they expect that to kind of more normalize throughout the year. Guidance of still in the $15, $15.50 per share EPS for the year, still forecasting long-term growth of 13% to 16%
Starting point is 00:12:32 the earnings over time. It's a profitable company, a growing company, been a wonderful stock over the year, very well-run, and I continue to see that continuing for the next five, 10 years. Second quarter profits and revenue for Domino's Pizza came in higher than expected. Same-store sales rose 16%, and yet, Ron Gross, shares of Domino's flat this week. Are we not entertained? At $400 a share, it's not the cheapest stock in the world, I think it's around 33 times earnings. So, you've got to impress to keep that momentum going. But I am impressed. I think U.S. same-store sales up 16% is great. The weak spot, which maybe folks were focusing on, was international.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Those same-store sales up just 1.3%, rather anemic. Perhaps not surprising, though, because at the peak, or maybe I should say the trough, about 2,400 of the company's international locations were closed. That's improved to about 600 now that are still closed. So, perhaps not surprising that there was weakness. But still, 106th consecutive quarter of international same-store sales growth and 37th consecutive quarter of U.S. same-store sales growth. Really impressive. Net income was up 28%. Maybe 30, 33 times earnings isn't that bad for a company that's putting up those numbers.
Starting point is 00:13:51 Perhaps they're artificially inflated somewhat because, obviously, we're all home and getting food delivered, but they're continuing to be innovative. Their new contactless car-side delivery option was introduced. They're rolling out a new and improved chicken wing. Who doesn't love a good new and improved chicken wing? So, they're continuing to improve their menu, which I love to see. The Stock of the Week award goes to Encino, a company in North Carolina that provides cloud-based software for financial institutions. On Tuesday, Encino went public at $31 a share and got as high as $91 on its first day. Andy, this has me thinking of last year when shares of Beyond Meat went crazy on its first
Starting point is 00:14:37 day of trading. Yeah, Chris, it's more evidence of the IPO market, which really just froze during the past two quarters, is now coming back. So according to NASDAQ, they said that this Encino IPO. It was the biggest one-day pop in a U.S. tech stock since 2000, and the only one that beat it was Baidu back in 2015. It was actually looking pretty good because they continued to raise the range. They actually issued more shares than they expected. It's actually a pretty nice business. It involves, like you mentioned, cloud system, banking stocks, helping banks and financial institutions manage their customer relationship, onboarding, workflow, account opening, processing, all that kind of stuff that is in pretty big need when you think about all of
Starting point is 00:15:27 the institutions out there that could benefit from this. But again, more evidence that the IPO market, which has done very well this year, according to the Renaissance IPO Index, which is up 37% for the year versus 1% for the S&P and 17% for the NASDAQ. So more evidence that the IPO market is warming up here. Yeah. And I think that's further evidence that investors, certainly institutional investors may think this market is a bit frothy and they're looking for alternative investments, something new. The newness creates a flood of cash, a flood of demand for that stock. And we see the pops that really shouldn't be happening if investment bankers are doing their jobs appropriately. So perhaps a sign of a little frothiness in the stock market.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Yeah, it's interesting. Bank of America and Barclays were like the lead on it. And so I just wonder, if you're the founder of Encino and you're saying, oh, do we leave some money on the table, I appreciate the pop, but we could have raised a little bit more capital there. Pepsi's overall revenue fell 3% in the second quarter. But Ron, we saw the snack division once again being a bright spot and Quaker Foods putting up some solid growth numbers too. Yeah, for sure. Snacks saved the day. The beverage unit was down 7%. Biggest decline in Latin America. Interestingly, Asia Pacific was the one bright spot, up 10%. Restaurants and other point of sale remain closed. Hurts the beverage unit quite a bit. 11% volume decline,
Starting point is 00:16:48 helped a bit by 3% higher prices, but still overall very weak. Frito-Lay, up 7%. We're all home eating chips. That's just the way it goes. Quaker Food, we're all getting up eating our oatmeal, up 23%. Operating income in Quaker Oats division, up 55%. So that's very strong as well. COVID-related costs, as we've seen pretty much across the board, did eat into margins. So EPS was down about 18%. And as is typical, no guidance was offered. Am I the only one of the three of us who's actually gone to snacks.com, which is their relatively new direct-to-consumer e-commerce site and bought some stuff there? I can tell by the look on your face. Yeah, I am. But you're not the only one because those numbers are really strong, especially in June. We've had big boxes
Starting point is 00:17:35 of snacks, like chips and snacks delivered to our house. And when I see those on doorstep, I get a little bit excited to kind of dig in, even though they're meant for the kids. Well, and in all seriousness, Andy, to go back to the point you were making about Peacock, you've tried out the Peacock streaming service, it's a little clunky, the interface isn't great. That to me is, all kidding aside, that's one of the great things about snacks.com, it's just a very clean site. Clearly, it's designed with the economics for the Pepsi Corporation in mind, they're not offering everything under the sun. It really wouldn't surprise me if those numbers start to get a lot bigger. Yeah. Convenience and clarity are two big
Starting point is 00:18:11 Cs that corporations have to understand is what consumers want. And it's what's made them stronger than Coca-Cola in this environment as well. Sure. Absolutely. All right. Andy Cross, Ron Gross. Guys, we'll see you later in the show. Up next, we are heading to Silicon Valley to get the latest on VCs, fintech, and more with CNBC's Kate Rooney. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Kate Rooney covers fintech, VCs, and more from CNBC's bureau in Silicon Valley. She joins me now from San Francisco. Kate, thanks for being here. Hi, Chris. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Normally, in these situations,
Starting point is 00:19:08 I go big picture and then go small. I actually want to do the reverse and start with a specific company because we've seen an increase in individual investing over the past few months, all the major online brokerages, but really leading the charge is Robinhood. It's popular with younger investors. Robinhood just raised another $600 million, putting its private market valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of $8.5 billion. What do you see as Robinhood's advantage right now? Because a year ago, it seemed like their advantage was they had zero trading commissions and all the big players followed them. And that's no longer an empirical advantage for Robinhood. That's been so interesting to watch. So when the rest of the industry slash commissions,
Starting point is 00:19:56 analysts were saying this really puts pressure on Robinhood and predicting they would potentially see some attrition for customers, a slowdown in growth. They've seen the exact opposite. They've seen record new accounts this year, especially. I think their advantage is the interface and the way that it looks. And they sort of gamify stock trading. So for somebody who's new to the market, who wants to buy a couple of shares and just sort of dip their toe into trading stocks, it seems to be more approachable. It seems to be more fun. But that's also been sort of the criticism with them that they make it too lighthearted. People don't take it seriously. There is big potential for people to lose money trading options and things
Starting point is 00:20:36 like that. But like you said, the fundraising has been unbelievable. So in during the pandemic, they raised an initial $300 million. And then on top of that, this week announced $320 million that was part of that series F funding round. And so the companies like Robinhood that are still able to raise money during the pandemic have done really well. And then you see the other side of VC and Silicon Valley that are sort of drying up when it comes to venture capital. But a ton of investor interest, a ton of growth, and they really have sort of cornered that millennial first-time trader market. It is going to be interesting to see if they can expand beyond that as people who start with Robinhood get older, get more money,
Starting point is 00:21:22 maybe they want a more robust platform, more research, that sort of thing. So, being able to hold on to those people as they age, that'll be interesting to see. Where do you think this company is in three years? Do you think they are looking to go public? At one point, they would seem like an acquisition target, but now they're bigger than ever. Right. They have co-CEOs have both said that an IPO is the sort of end game for them. They want to be a public company. And you think of someone like Robinhood, whose goal publicly is to democratize finance, and yet people that are trading on their platform can't buy into the value of the company. So you'd think if any company would want to go public as part of their mission, it would be Robinhood. So I would
Starting point is 00:22:10 not be surprised if they went public in the next couple of years. People were predicting that they would go public this year? Obviously, the pandemic happened and they've still been able to raise money privately. The question when they do go public is their valuation. When you compare them, the public comps are obviously Charles Schwab and some of these brokerage firms, they are valued more like a tech company. So it'll be interesting to see if that valuation holds up when they do go public. Let's stick with millennials for a second. How is the pandemic affecting the ways that millennials and Gen Z are thinking about money? It's been interesting.
Starting point is 00:22:49 Deloitte had an annual survey, and they spoke to about 20,000 millennials and Gen Zs in December and were ready to publish this report. And then the pandemic hit. They did sort of a follow-up to that and were able to see that key period of sort of March through the end of April. And based on that, millennials and Gen Zs are seeing higher job losses less financial optimism and changing views of the workplace so on the job losses that gen z
Starting point is 00:23:21 we think of millennials and there is sort of that stereotype of uh avocado toast and and then being younger but the millennials now make up the largest portion of the workforce the oldest of that cohort are about 40 so those are sort of the vp key levels and it's concerning that they are seeing higher job losses and then you also have sort of the entry-level gen z uh cohort who's also suffering at a higher level than, um, the rest of the overall population. Um, and then in terms of financial optimism, it's one of the top causes of stress. And, uh, some of these shutdowns have obviously placed people on some sort of leave. So that was, um, part of their study and then changing views of workplace. I mean, I think this is probably true across the board, but it's
Starting point is 00:24:06 definitely changed the way a lot of us think about work from home and the potential to work remotely and live where you'd want to live versus living in a big city, for example, to get a certain type of job. So that was, I think Deloitte has probably the best handle on that that I've seen so far, but pretty interesting. I want to get to office space in just a second. But first, in terms of the VCs that you talk with in Silicon Valley, obviously not every company is Robinhood raising another $600 million. I mean, you look at the economy over the past few months, Some of the startups out there are struggling to varying degrees, some of them are very much in cost-cutting mode. How big an impact is that having on the overall environment
Starting point is 00:24:54 in Silicon Valley? So, around March, when this really was becoming an issue in the U.S. at a level that people probably didn't predict, earlier in the year, VCs that I spoke to said that they were in triage mode, they were focusing on existing portfolio companies. They wanted to make sure they survived, they were able to get access to PPP money, and that they could thrive and just figure out how to get through it. And that did involve a ton of layoffs in most cases. Fast forward to a couple months later, once they figured out their existing portfolios, VCs that I talked to now and have followed up with say that they are now seeing this as an opportunity. There's a ton of money for them to spend. They've
Starting point is 00:25:37 got record dry powder, so they're looking for opportunities. But it does seem, they've called it sort of feast or famine. The famine side of it is these startups that focus on hospitality, for example, or travel have not been able to raise money because of the uncertainty and the new environment. Whereas fintech, you look at a name like Robinhood or Stripe is another one that's now the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley. Those that do anything related to e-commerce or the new economy, online shopping, online banking have done really well. And it seems like investors can't get enough of those companies. So you see sort of both sides of that. But we've seen there's a layoff tracker that we've been using that shows about 25,000 layoffs
Starting point is 00:26:21 in the Bay Area for startups and 70,000 globally. So it's definitely hitting these fast-growing companies. And a lot of folks and VCs that I've talked to point to companies that have made it through recessions and that have grown up in recessions and have actually done pretty well. So, if you think about companies that came out of 2008 and 2009, they were sort of forced to be more disciplined on their financials. So, that is a potential silver lining that it sort of separates the wheat from the chaff if you ask a VC about it. So, you've got layoffs that are being tracked. You've also got huge companies like Facebook and Twitter that are increasingly allowing their employees to work remotely. What is the situation with office space in
Starting point is 00:27:10 Silicon Valley? Because I have to believe if I owned a lot of commercial real estate in Silicon Valley, I think I'd be nervous right now. Yeah, it's starting to show up in the data. CBRE Group, one of the bigger commercial real estate firms has showed that the volume of tenants looking for space has fallen by about half in San Francisco, which is what folks predicted when this first started happening. You have, like you mentioned, the big names like Twitter and Square and Stitch Fix and others saying that they are either moving employees out of the Bay Area or they're offering the option to work remotely. So going forward, I would think it's either, you know, people are working fewer days
Starting point is 00:27:52 a week in an office. You have the option to work remotely. I, and based on some of these reports that have come out, it's kind of already showing up. So it does seem like it's taking a toll on sort of the commercial real estate side. And then San Francisco in particular is interesting on the residential side. A lot of leases after one year are month to month. So whereas most cities, people would think about breaking their leases. I think I lived in New York, um, for many years before I moved to San Francisco and it's, I was signing 18 month leases versus the thought of going month to month and saying, okay, maybe I can pick up and leave even if it's for a few months. And anecdotally, there's couples I know out here that have said, okay, well, I'm not going back to
Starting point is 00:28:35 the office until January. I'm going to sublet or break my lease and move up to Tahoe or move home for a few months until this is figured out. So, I think there's two sides of it and we're seeing it show up already. Whether it is in the realm of fintech or just some other industry, what is a startup that we should keep our eyes on that maybe is flying under the radar right now? I mean, Robinhood with their recent valuation is probably starting to make those lists that pop up of, you know, not just the largest private companies, but sort of the companies we're looking forward to going public. What is a smaller startup on your radar that you think is worth watching? That's a great question. There's
Starting point is 00:29:23 a company called Marketta that, according to a few reports, I was out last week, so So I was getting jealous that I wasn't there to cover it. But Marketta, the credit card issuer, they work with DoorDash and Instacart and a couple other companies that you would know of. And they do sort of the back-end credit card issuing, which some of the more seemingly boring startups in the fintech space seem to be doing really well. And they raised money as well during the pandemic and doubled their valuation. So that's a good example.
Starting point is 00:29:58 but I think probably one to watch, especially if they do end up tapping in the public markets. The other ones I think would be the challenger banks. So you have companies like Chime, Vero, which is another challenger or startup digital bank. It's also raised a ton of money. They also applied for a bank charter. So I think some of these digital banks who don't have branches and are able to attract a younger audience and potentially an underbanked or underserved audience that might not need to visit a bank branch. And those companies have also done pretty well in this environment. So, those,
Starting point is 00:30:35 I think, would be the ones to keep an eye on. Last thing, and then I'll let you get back to work. Before you were a working reporter, you were a student athlete in college. You played lacrosse at the Division I level. And more colleges and universities are going online this fall. More of them are postponing fall sports or outright canceling their seasons. In the case of the big Power Five conferences, there is a lot of money on the line in terms of TV contracts and more with college football. So, as someone who knows how hard college athletes work to compete at a high level, and as someone who studies business for a living, what is going through your mind as you are watching this story unfold with college sports?
Starting point is 00:31:21 Oh, man, my heart goes out to these guys. Our Boston College women's lacrosse team had their season canceled halfway through. And I can't imagine the amount of preparation that goes into a season. You start practicing months, probably nine months before, especially in ACC. You have fall practice. You have weightlifting, training, running, and all of these things to prepare for a season. And just to have it cut short is unimaginable, especially as some of these seniors have sort of their last chance to make it to a championship. So that is just heartbreaking. And then the thought of any fall sports that we have coming up, like I mentioned, you start preparing so early.
Starting point is 00:32:01 So the decisions about fall sports now in July, they theoretically should be training and preparing for their fall season. So these decisions sort of have to be made early on, and I'm sure they're all preparing as if they're going to be playing. And so I think on that side, as a college athlete, unless you're going professionally, you really only get those four years. So it's so key to have that time. And the other question I've been talking to with former teammates about is, can you register? And can you come back and get a second chance at playing if this situation continues? And then from the economic side, can colleges and teams afford to bring back maybe, in the case of a lacrosse team, 10 or 15 people? But in the case of a football team, it's probably 40 people per class, and the teams are just much larger.
Starting point is 00:32:46 So I think that will probably put pressure on some of those bigger programs, and they'll be flooded with returning seniors. So I think that will be something that teams have to work through. And then, of course, the financial side of it, some of these big D1 and ACC schools and these big football schools make so much money from these TV contracts. You've got hockey as well coming up in the winter. So I can't imagine that they're not worried about the economic impact and the allure to new students. Part of the whole experience is in a lot of bigger schools, going to football games and people are attracted to the athletic program. So really, really tough situation for them. And obviously they want to be safe and not rush getting back.
Starting point is 00:33:33 But you really, the amount of time you spend with your teammates and the amount of time you spend on the road and obviously contact sports, probably a huge risk. So it's a complicated one, but it's a huge bummer for especially sort of the older seniors and juniors going into their last couple of seasons. If you want to know what's going on with VCs, fintech, and more, you can follow her on Twitter, or better still, follow her reporting on CNBC and CNBC.com. Kate Rooney, thanks
Starting point is 00:34:03 for being here. Kate Rooney Thanks for having me. Up next, Ron Gross and Andy Cross are back with a couple of stocks on their radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, Chris Hill here with Andy Cross and Ron Gross. Pour one out for Chrysler. The company that was founded in 1925 has gone through different names over
Starting point is 00:34:46 the years, Daimler Chrysler, Fiat Chrysler. But now that Fiat Chrysler is merging with Peugeot, the powers that be have picked a new name for the company, Stellantis. According to the press release, Stellantis is rooted in the Latin verb stello, meaning to brighten the stars. The name's Latin origins pay tribute to the rich history of its founding companies, while the evocation of astronomy captures the true spirit of optimism, energy, and renewal, driving this industry-changing merger. Really, Ron? Stellantis? Like, Peugeot is kind of a cool brand. So is Fiat. What are they doing? We love to take shots at these folks, which I'm sure poured their heart and souls into the new names. But like Mondelez, we went after
Starting point is 00:35:31 for weeks. This doesn't do it for me. It reminds me of Stellaris, which, interestingly, is the same route. It's a space exploration video game, which some folks may know. It hits a little too close to home for that. For me, it just doesn't ring true to me. I like the iconic old names, but maybe that's because I'm old. We have to say it like Stella Antus. Stella Antus. All right. Our man, Dan Boyd, is here. He's going to hit you with a question. Ron Gross, what is on your radar this week? I'm going with 3M, MMM, diversified manufacturer, healthcare, industrial transportation, known for postage notes and scotch tape, manufactures the N95 masks that we've all heard so much about during the pandemic.
Starting point is 00:36:18 Wide variety of products. They acquired Acelity for $7 billion to enter the healthcare sector in a bigger way. Just this week, they announced that they're working with researchers from MIT to develop a rapid response COVID-19 test. That will be really interesting to see. they've increased their dividend for 62 consecutive years and you can get a yield right now one time only 3.7 percent dan boyd question about 3m well not surprising that ron picked the dividend aristocrat over here uh 3m originally was minnesota mining and manufacturing i believe so ron uh do they still do any mining oh gosh they don't do any mining as far as i know certainly not in any big way that would impact the income statement i'm trying to think about the income statement as
Starting point is 00:37:14 i go down no i don't think they do i think they've moved on dan those are the old days all post-its andy cross we got a minute left what are you looking at i got boston beer symbol sam the beer cider and seltzer maker reports earnings next week i own the stock it's been on a tear this year, going from 300 to 634. Dan, the Seltzer brand has been driving the growth. I really want to hear what's going on with Sam Adams and the Angry Orchard, which hasn't done as well, but depletions from the Seltzer brand, Twisted Tea, very well, very strong. It's now a $7.6 billion company. So I want to hear what's going on with the beer business. Dan, question about Boston Beer? Well, Andy, in about four and a half hours, it'll be officially quit in time. The weekend will
Starting point is 00:37:58 have begun what are you drinking what boston beer product are you tapping into i usually go for the i usually go for the their autumn beer the october fest but i gotta wait a few months for that dan two stocks dan what do you want to add to your watch list i gotta tell you chris again it's friday and i'm already feeling it and i'm going boston beer today fixed all right ryan gross andy cross guys thanks for being here thanks chris that's gonna do it for this week's motley full money. Our engineer is Dan Boyd. Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

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