Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Valentines Day: Love, Money, and Stocks

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

The market plays a love/hate relationship with earnings from Fool stocks, and we talk about the ways you and your partner can be on the same page this Valentine’s Day and for years to come. (00:21) Jason Moser and Emily Flippen break down: - The Trade Desk's 30% post-earnings decline, and why it’s more about the company’s internal structure and execution rather than the long-term ad market opportunity. - Roku's impressive position in streaming and progress in advertising. Airbnb's vision to become the Amazon of travel and living. - Green flags from Dutch Bros, Shopify, and Upstart in their earnings reports. (19:11) Answers crew Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp break down how to talk to your spouse about money and why “money issues” might really be the symptom of other problems in a relationship. (30:00) Emily and Jason offer love letters to their favorite stocks, and two stocks on their radar this week: AAON and Zoetis Stocks discussed: TTD, ROKU, ABNB, BROS, UPST, ZTS, AAON Host: Dylan Lewis Guests: Jason Moser, Emily Flippen, Alison Southwick, Robert Brokamp Engineers: Dan Boyd, Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me over the airwaves, Motley Fool senior analysts Jason Moser and Emily Flippen. Fools, great to have you both here. Hey, hey. Hey, good to be here. We've got some big moves for big-time Fool stocks, how to talk about money with your partner this Valentine's Day, and love letters to our favorite stocks. We are going to dig

right into company results this week because we had a fairly large earnings week for a lot of the companies that our team and our members follow. Some big moves up, some big market reactions down. Jason, unfortunately for the Trade Desk, one of those companies that is in the red this week. Yes, yes. Big, big sell-off, as we saw. As a shareholder, I feel that, along with everyone else who owns shares. But this is a company I've owned for many years and will gladly continue hanging on to. I think when we looked at the results and how the market reacted. The question you have to ask, OK, so why did the market react this way? Well, it's because they missed internal benchmarks for the first time in 33 quarters.

And then guidance for 17% revenue growth in this current quarter was underwhelming. And so then you ask yourself, well, why did they miss and why are they presenting this underwhelming guidance? And I think that's the downside of a company that's known for consistently exceeding a high bar. At some point, you do miss and disappoint. You can become a little bit of a victim of your own success. But it wasn't a nasty quarter. Revenue was up 26%. They saw margin expansion, adjusted earnings per share up 43%. They continue to gain market share. They saw $12 billion in spend on their platform for the year versus $9.6 billion a year ago. You have to believe they definitely benefited from the election season there. I think the ultimate question here is,

is this a longer-term problem or is this a temporary situation that they will be able to get past? I would lean more toward the latter there. And I think a lot of that is, in simple terms, they would have us believe that this is more or less tantamount to growing pains. That may be the case. I mean, there's clearly competition out there in this space, but it does seem like this is a business that is still doing a lot. And a lot of these sort of unforced errors were based more on investing in the future and building out this business for the next level of growth that they talked about in the call? Yeah, CEO Jeff Green was quick to say, we were really running into internal issues and execution issues. And the market looked at that

and said, we're going to take 30% off of where you were before you reported earnings. But he went to the metaphor of a sports team and talking about how we had some issues, but we feel like we are championship team. I can't help but draw a comparison to what we saw in the Super Bowl last week. I look at the Chiefs and I say, they played a bad game. Are they still one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl next year? Yeah, probably. More than likely. I think there's also been a lot of conversation here over the last several days regarding companies like Applovin in the ad tech space and competition that's starting to heat up there. I think those are absolutely fair questions to ask. When we look at something like an Applovin, number one,

the stock. It's been on a tear, obviously, up something close to 1,000%. So, there is a very optimistic sort of vibe there in regard to that company today. But they're pursuing, they're looking to that connected TV market. And they're really just kind of getting underway as to assessing and then ultimately pursuing that opportunity. And that is a major part of the trade desk's business. It's the fastest growing part and the biggest part of the business. So, I think those questions about that competition are fair. Yeah, although I will say in the case of Applovin, I think this is a timing issue really in the issue of the trade desk. I mean, Applovin is basically solely mobile at this point. If they're looking in the area of CTV,

that's connected TV, that's entirely new to them. So really, I think the better connection here between the trade desk is to look at a business like Roku, which has really been solely operating in the area of CTV, who partners with not just the trade desk, but all of these other demand side platforms and executing upon their strategies. So I think that comparison between Applovin and the trade desk was one that of convenience for investors because they reported at similar days, one went up a lot, one went down a lot. And they're like, oh, look, these two companies, one's doing well, one's doing poorly. In reality, they're not competing over the same market share, at least not yet. Yeah, but they're going to get ready to. And that's, I think, what has some

people concerned. But yeah, to your point, yep, they're still just setting roots down and trying to understand that opportunity in CTV. Well, Emily, let's take a little bit of a deeper look at Roku. We got an update from them this week as well. Also a way for us to get a sense of what's going on in the advertising market. What'd you see there? Yeah. I mean, look, to tell the story, I have to take you back to last quarter because last quarter for Roku, the third quarter was stellar. I mean, this business beat EBITDA guidance by 117% at its highest ever margin of above 9%. I mean, absolutely incredible quarter. Share sank by double digits, all because management came out and said, you know what? The fourth quarter, it's not going to be good for us. I think we're looking

at something like $30 million in adjusted EBITDA, which is a big down draw from that $100-ish million that they posted in the third quarter. And you know what? Shocker. The fourth quarter, absolutely stellar. I wish this management team would stop shooting themselves in the foot here because the fourth quarter itself was great. Big disclaimer though, this is the last quarter that we're going to have streaming households and ARPU numbers for Roku. They're going to stop reporting that as we head into 2025. But all the metrics here are pointing in the right direction. They did $78 million in adjusted EBITDA. So yeah, a lot better than the $30 million they were previously guiding for. To the trade desk prior points, a lot of this performance was ad

based. So some of that weakness there, just further emphasizing those were internal issues at the trade desk. Roku seems to be doing really well in the ad market. Free cash flow grew by 16%. So, this business just continues to push in all the right directions. Usually, when we see a management team move away from reporting a metric that we have seen for a very long time, it's because the growth is not going to be as impressive going forward. In Roku's case, they are far and away the leading platform when it comes to smart TV. They are in, I think, half of the households in the United States at this point. Do you think that there's so much market attention on something like EBITDA because we are going from that TAM story to a profitability

story? Yes and no. I will say I'm disappointed they're pulling these metrics away. I do think it is going to be more of a profitability story in certain markets. They called out the United States and Canada in their Q&A as a good example of the areas where they're going to be more profitable. Mexico, actually, where they are also the number one selling platform as also an area where they're focusing on monetization. But they're still so new in so many international markets, Brazil and other areas in South America being key. So I understand de-emphasizing things like average revenue per user, because that's going to come down as they expand internationally. But households is still an incredibly important metric because they lose money on the devices

they sell for the sole purpose of expanding household usage so they can make up money in terms of their streaming, right? In terms of the platform revenue itself. So I expect we'll get benchmark numbers. For instance, when they meet a hundred million households, I expect they'll update investors then, but I do wish we were still getting those numbers on a quarterly basis. Market liked what they saw this time around. Shares were up about 15%. We also saw Airbnb getting similar love from the market. Shares of the short-term rental company up 15% after they reported this week, Jason. What was in the report? Yeah, good numbers. We'll get to those in just a minute. But one thing I wanted to go into here,

last quarter, CEO Brian Chesky was on a call with numerous references to Amazon in talking about this idea that what he expects every year, now for the coming years, they'll launch one to two businesses that'll generate $1 billion or more of revenue incrementally each year. Well, that theme really kind of continued on this course call as well. More references to Amazon, more references to building out this app to be something that people use as more of a destination, no pun intended. But the point that he was making was, people might use Airbnb once or twice or three times a year to book a place and then go travel. He wants to make this something that people are going to on a much more regular cadence. We'll see them investing $200 million to $250 million

this year alone in trying to bring new tailored experiences to the platform, things like tourist classes, workshops, and whatnot. Getting to the numbers, revenue is up 12%, $2.5 billion. It was driven by an increase in night stay. There's $466 million in operating cash flow for the quarter, very capital-light, so they bring most all of that down to the free cash flow line. Gross booking value, $17.6 billion. That was up 15%. Nights and experiences, $111 million, up 12%. Strong performance in geographies, including Latin America and Asia Pacific this time around. And I just will say, the one point of criticism I do have with this business, because I do like it and I've recommended it, but they spent close to $10 billion in share repurchases over the last

three years alone. And it's really not making much of a dent on that share account outstanding. So maybe they can get a little bit better with that one, but we'll take what we can get for now. I'm glad you're bringing up some investor concerns. It can't be all good things, Jason. All right, coming up after the break, we've got a West Coast coffee chain hitting fresh all-time highs. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money.

I'm Dylan Lewis, here on air with Fool analysts, Emily Flippen and Jason Moser. And we're running through earnings updates for some of the stocks our team follows most closely. We're going to pick up with a jolt of caffeine and a 25% post-earnings pop for coffee chain Dutch bros. Emily, this is one that West Coasters know well. If you're in the Northeast, maybe you're not as familiar with it. Give people a little intro here. Yeah, Dutch Bros. I mean, look, if you live on the East Coast, then you're probably scratching your head and saying, wait, we're not talking about Dunkin' Donuts. What's going on here? And Dutch Bros is your kind of like drive-through coffee chain, if you use the words coffee loosely,

because while they do sell coffee-esque beverages, they also sell a lot of smoothies and energy drinks, and they posted an astounding 35% sales growth in the fourth quarter. A lot of that is just driven by the expansion in shops. East coasters, they're coming for you, especially expanding into areas like Florida. And more importantly, they're doing so profitably. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was up more than 40%, so they're really reaching scale and expanding, even including this new shop growth. But here's the kicker for me. Management has consistently guided for same-store sales growth and around that low single-digit range, meaning the stores that have been open for more than 15 months, they're doing low single-digit growth in comparison

to how they did the year prior. But in this quarter, they posted astounding same-store sales growth for company-owned stores, nearly 10%, so a lot better than what management had been previously guiding for. And they chalked that up to the expansion of the mobile order rollout, which is now up to nearly 100% of their company-owned stores. So a lot of success here as part of their expansion. They just opened up their 1,000th shop. They have a pretty small footprint, so they're expanding extremely rapidly. I mean, they're coming for blood, Starbucks. Emily, I will say I'm a Northeasterner through and through. I grew up in New Jersey, went to school in Boston. I live in DC. That's as far south and as far west as I've ever made it.

I went to Dutch Bros for the first time over Christmas. I was in California visiting family and the coffee was great. The experience, I waited like 20 minutes for my coffee. It offended every New York, New Jersey sensibility that I have. Did I go to a bad store or is that just the vibe for this chain? Unfortunately, it actually is part of the experience. It's part of the vibe. While they're trying to move people through faster, talking to what they call the broistas, right? Which are the people who are taking your order. They try to strike up a conversation with you. They try to have that friendly nature and part of the experience and make it part of your daily experience when you come in and you develop a relationship with your

local Dutch bros. So the long lines are kind of standard, especially for the new stores. Now, as they expand, because Fortresync is part of their strategy. That means when they enter a new geography, they're building out a ton of stores. As they expand, hopefully those lines come down a little bit, especially as the stores mature, which could explain some of that management expectation for low single-digit growth, right, in terms of same-store sales growth. People kind of churn out of the ecosystem eventually. But those long lines, that experience, that's all part of the Dutch Bros pitch here. All right. We also saw earnings this week from longtime full-stock Shopify. And we were lucky enough to have Shopify president Harley

Finkelstein on Tuesday's Motley Fool Money episode. Jason, he called what they posted here peak performance for this earnings report? I felt pretty good about it, Dylan. I mean, how did you feel about it? I thought it was pretty darn strong. As a shareholder, I was happy to see what they put out there. Yeah. I'm right there with you. I think the growth story here remains intact, to be sure. We saw for the year, North American revenue was up 23%, with the U.S. crossing $5.7 billion in revenue, which is more than the entire company's revenue in 2022. They also saw two consecutive years of international growth exceeding 30%. That's nice. The quarter itself, another good quarter. It was their seventh consecutive

quarter of 25% or greater revenue growth when you exclude the logistics business that they got rid of a couple of years ago. Revenue of $2.8 billion was up 31% from a year ago. That was driven by strong performance in North America. They also saw gross merchandise volume of $94.4 billion in the quarter. And they saw that growth accelerate each quarter this year, ultimately achieving a 24% year-over-year increase in 2024 there. So, a very strong gross merchandise volume. And I think that is in large part thanks to the 875 million unique online shoppers that they saw in 2024 and 200 million-plus ShopPay users. ShopPay represented 38% of gross payment volume versus 33% a year ago. So it is catching on. And then encouragingly,

I think it's great to see that the business continues to scale. You go back to quarter four of 2022, operating expenses were 52% of revenues. They went down to 36% in the quarter following in 2023. But if you look at Q4 of this year, it's now down to 32%. So that really is an encouraging part of the story, I think, and a good reason investors should hang on to this one for a little while to come, I think. All right. Bringing us home here for our earnings look, Upstart shares up over 20% after reporting. They are now up over 200% in the past year. Emily, this was a company that was a growth stock, then it was not a growth stock. Is Upstart back? Yeah. I mean, let's blame interest rates here, right? I mean, it's really hard to be a

growth stock when you're underwriting loans in a high interest rate environment. So, as interest rates have stabilized. There's clearly a lot of factors that have been working at Upstart's favor here. And the fourth quarter was definitely showing that. They secured a lot of partnerships. And with more funding partners, they had access to more borrowers. And we saw that as underwriting activity picked up and they had higher deal flow, they had a higher conversion rate of around 19%. That's a dramatic improvement from around 12% last quarter. That saw loan origination rates up 68% year over year. And a lot of this is driven by the macro, but of course, this is a lot of platform improvements as well. And this success meant that for the first time in nearly three years,

Upstart came with an air of gap profitability. So, I mean, if you like this business and you're okay with the risk that comes with underwriting loans at a breakneck pace, all of this is great signs for Upstart and great signs for Upstart investors. But I will say, this does come with downside risk. A lot of these loans weren't able to flow through off of their sheets to their funding partners. A lot of this came through their co-investing accounts where they do take on some of the downside risk should these loan losses be higher than expected. So if you are expecting Upstart to be a platform and not a bank, then I think you need to readjust your expectations here because this success does come with a higher level of risk. If we see the right picture change,

I imagine that will be something that will be good for Upstart if we see rates come down. One thing that I saw as an opportunity for them, they started talking about a little bit more this quarter, was auto and home equity line of credit businesses. The reason I think it's interesting is they highlighted that the auto loan market is so much bigger than the personal loan market and that there's a lot of opportunity there. It's a small part of the business right now, but how are you thinking about what's in front of them there as a market? The amount of partners they can pull in through the auto loan side is also so much higher than the personal loan side as well. And their ability to pull through funding is just much higher there.

So the opportunity is great, but of course, again, the risk there for investors is also great as well. That is a lot easier to secure that during different interest rate environments because the purchasing needs for auto loans, different than the purchasing need for personal loans. So that alongside the home equity line, great opportunities for growth for them. But to your point, we don't know if interest rates are realistically going to come down over the course of the next year. I'm not holding my breath that that's going to happen given the opportunity for tariffs or other things to impact the rate of inflation. So I think it's great signs, but it's not something that I'm being overly enthusiastic for for upstart investors over the course of 2025. So it's always been a

growth stock. It's just been the macro picture, Emily. That's what my argument is. But again, you know, take the five plus year approach here. Don't hold your breath. All right, Emily, Jason, we'll see you guys a little bit later in the show. Up next, this Valentine's Day weekend is the perfect time to get on the same page with your partner about money. That's next. This is Motley Full Money. Stay with us. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. And it is Valentine's Day. And while money can't buy you love, getting on the same page with your partner about money can help you stay in love. This week, our Answers crew, Allison Southwick and Robert Brokamp, broke down how to

talk to your spouse about money and why money issues might really be the symptom of other problems in a relationship. Make this a Valentine's Day to remember. Picture it. You're at a fancy restaurant. There's a string quartet playing in the corner. A server entails, pours you and your partner a glass from the third least expensive bottle of wine on the list. As you gaze across the table at each other lovingly, the candlelight flickers in your eyes. You've thought of every detail and now is the moment. You reach for their hand and whisper the words you know you should say more often. Babe, we need to talk about required minimum distributions. Wait, what? Yes, this Valentine's Day, the most romantic thing you can do with your partner is to talk about money. Or,

as bro likes to make it weird and call it, make financial whoopee. Yeah, several years ago, I got a graduate certificate in financial therapy from Kansas State. Boy, did I read a lot about the nexus of love and money. One thing I read was a study called Revisiting Financial Issues and Marriage by Jeffrey Du at Utah State University. It's sort of an overview of the many studies that looked at finance and romance, and here are a few key excerpts. First off, one study found that sound financial management behaviors, things like budgeting, saving, maintaining insurance, were positively associated with relationship happiness even after controlling for the participant's financial well-being. Another study of long-term

couples who felt that they had quote-unquote great marriages. The couple said that having little to no debt and living within their means contributed to their successful and happy marriages. Another study confirmed something we probably all know, and that is the frequency of financial arguments was linked to the likelihood of future divorce. In fact, it's been found in multiple studies. But one found that disagreement over finances on almost a daily basis predicted the increase of divorce by 69% over those who never fought about money. And then finally, one study found that having shared financial goals and values predicted relationship satisfaction even better than the couple's reports of good communication. And here's the money quote,

so to speak, from Dr. Du. Quote, these studies suggest that spouses need to jointly determine their financial goals and the means through which they will meet these goals. We could call it a financial summit or a financial state of the union address, but that makes it sound pretty cold and calculated. Whereas money is anything but. That's because when we think about talking about money with our partners, we're also talking about our personal history, possible trauma, and a heap of other emotions that get wrapped up in money. Yeah, as any psychologist will tell you, arguments about money usually are not really about money, but really about other things. They often are what money represents, things like control, status, self-worth, fairness,

security, anxiety, right? So for example, one study found that if spouses argue about whether to combine their finances, they may actually be arguing about issues related to trust or autonomy. You know, what money represents to each of us can be traced back to how we were raised, experiences we had when we were growing up. And these so-called meanings of money can cause issues between couples because they're often subconscious, right? Yet they do guide our attitudes and behaviors, and they're often not aligned with those of our partner. And in fact, one study found that when it comes to money, opposites attract. The study's entitled Fatal fiscal attraction, spendthrifts, and tightwads in marriage. And one of the co-authors, Scott Rick,

turned this into a whole book. According to the study, people are more likely to marry someone with different attitudes when it comes to spending, which actually could have benefits. My wife has occasionally pushed me to spend more than I normally would on things like vacations, and I'm grateful she did. But as you might expect, the evidence shows that spouses with big differences in spending habits are more likely to argue and less likely to be happy. Now, if you're a longtime listener of the show, you know what's coming next. Say it with us, it's time to play The Foolywed Game. Yes. Anyways, it's a play on the old newlywed game, which started, I think, in the 1960s, lasted for decades. The Foolywed Game

was first created in the early 2000s. It's still available on fool.com, and you'll find other versions of it out there on the internet. Here's how it works. Each partner answers 10 money-related questions individually, and then the couple gets together to compare their answers. And it could also be interesting to try to predict what your partner's responses will be to the questions and see how well you know about her or his attitudes about money. All right, 10 questions, and we won't cover them all here, but bro, what are some of your favorites? Well, the first question is, what would your partner say is the annual income your family would need to be happy? And I like this because it starts a conversation about what happiness means to your marriage, to your family,

and to what extent money is needed for that happiness. And if you're not at that income level, then it establishes a financial goal, and then you can strategize about reaching it. But it might also begin a conversation about ways you're currently spending money that actually don't bring much happiness, which means you could then use that money to invest more if you want, or if appropriate, downshift your career and enjoy your life and family a little bit more. I also like question number four, and that is, how much would your bank account have to sink to before you panicked. And this gets the thinking ahead of the time about how much you'll need to have in an emergency fund so that you'll be okay if you have unexpected big ticket expenses or a

loss of income. And it can also get you thinking about what expenses you'd be willing to eliminate in an emergency. And it's important for you both to be on the same page about that. And then the other question I like is just how much is too much to spend without consulting your partner. And this is just good to know ahead of time in order to prevent any future surprises or arguments. Now, bro, you mentioned the fully wed game. It's been around for quite a while. And so there have been a few iterations with a few different questions. So the one that you stumble upon may be a little bit different than the questions we're saying here. One of my favorites is question number six. My biggest financial concern is blank. I think my spouse's

biggest financial concern is blank. I love this one because it forces you to really think about your own short and long-term goals and whether or not you and your partner are aligned. If your biggest concern is credit card debt, but your partner is more worried about their crypto wallet and the latest meme coin. Well, this might reveal that you two are not quite on the same page and that this is one of many more fun conversations you're going to be having. All right. So 10 questions, but there's also some ground rules in the fully wed game. The ground rules are perhaps even more important because they are good rules for any financial chat you're going to be having with your partner in the future. Yeah. We listed 10 tips for playing the fully wed game in the

original article, and I'll just highlight a couple of them. And one of them was accept equal responsibility for changing your lives around. When it comes to money and matrimony, there will be some, shall we say, just inequities, right? One person will likely be earning more money than the other. One person may be doing more work elsewhere. And frankly, one person may just have a history of making better financial decisions. But instead of focusing on those differences or the past or what your partner is going to do, focus on what you can do to improve the situation and recognize that both of you have a responsibility to improve it. And the other one I'll highlight is just don't play the blame game, right?

No fair bringing up outside issues that have nothing to do with money. Don't attack your partner's views and don't bring up mistakes from years ago. Let them go. And keep in mind that you can play the blame game with your tone and voice and posture as well. So watch out for those sort of silent accusations as well as maybe the louder ones. Bro, if you were to update the Fully Wed game today, are there any changes you would make or additions? Yeah, I think I would include a question about sort of the financial logistics of managing money

as a couple, right? Who's going to pay the bills? Who handles the investments? Who's going to find a lawyer if you need to get an estate plan? And make sure that both people are happy with their respective jobs. And then once you've decided who does what, how are you going to keep the other spouse informed so that you're both in the loop, but also so that the other person can take over in case the other person gets busy, sick, something worse, but for some reason they can't do the job. All right, bro. What is your parting advice for, your words, not mine, making financial whoopee? I got that from the original Newlywood game, by the way. I know. I know.

Just making it up. Anyways, find some of those old episodes on YouTube. You will have a big laugh. All right. Final words here. And I'm just going to quote one of my friend's dads who said, marriage is one big fat compromise. You have to accept that you won't always get your way, even if you're convinced it's the right way. If it helps, build in some financial independence into your marriage. It could be that you each have a certain amount that you can spend however you see fit without the other partner's permission. And if it helps, it might even be better to have that in a separate bank account. Or if one person has a much higher risk tolerance when it comes to investing, perhaps most of the couple's assets are invested in a more moderate way, but the more

aggressive spouse has a little side brokerage account in which they can invest however they see fit. And finally, if you've really come to an impasse, get professional help. And for some financial issues, there are strategies, beliefs, attitudes, moves you can make that are more right than others, right? You may be arguing about how much credit card debt is too much or how big your emergency fund should be, how much you should save for retirement, how much life insurance you need. And seeing a fee-only financial planner could bring in an expert, objective opinion to help settle any disagreements. And of course, if it really is going beyond money, you could see a financial therapist. It's a relatively new field. You can see if there are such therapists in your

area by visiting the website of the Financial Therapy Association. And most experienced couples counselors likely have experience helping couples navigate financial disagreements. Hiring such professional help isn't going to be cheap, right? You're going to expect to pay $150 to $300 an hour or more. But if money issues are an ongoing source of marital discord, paying for the professional help could be one of the best investments you'll ever make. Wise words from Robert Brokamp and Alison Southwick, invest in your relationship, invest in your happiness, fools. Up next, Jason Moser and Emily Flippen join me again to talk about stocks on the radar this week. That's after the break.

Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. The Motley Fool only picks products it'd personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Fool analysts Emily Flippen and Jason Moser. And we're here taping on Valentine's Day. And I'm curious, Fools, have you been scheming up something special for Valentine's Day? Jason, is there a special date tonight?

There is. I mean, we're dealing with the old empty nest thing now, Dylan. So the girls are off to college. And so my wife and I thought it would be just a great opportunity to make a reservation and go grab some dinner tonight in Clifton. So when she gets home from work, we will make our way on over there for a nice, quiet, delightful evening. Emily, do you have reservations tonight? Oh, similar plans. No reservations. Just going to a local place for dinner.

I like a low-key one, but I'll tell you what, I am looking forward to watching the next episode of Severance. I am more excited for that than I am for dinner. Don't tell my partner. I think we're going to be doing the same thing. We might order in and watch Severance, but I think that's in the cards for us as well. Some folks might be giving gifts this Valentine's Day. If you're not, you're not alone.

Emily, we have a survey out from Trustpilot saying that 77% of people say they'd rather put money towards a major financial goal, such as a home down payment, rather than spend it on gifts. Yeah, I love this survey because it's framed up. You're not reading the second part of this sentence, Dylan, because that survey then goes on to say that in addition, almost a full third, 30%, say they'd rather get nothing for Valentine's Day and have their partner save money. So, you know, I too also want it both ways.

I want my partner to get me everything for Valentine's Day and also save their money. So, you know, I think this is a great example of the psyche of the American consumer where we want to save money, but we also want our partner to, you know, buy us stuff at the same time. The duality of human, right, is what we give and what we get can be very different. I think one of the things that also jumped out to me bringing that survey up is, you know, we see a lot of the sensitivity around price showing up in the intended gift amounts, Jason. We see a more price-sensitive shopper. We've generally seen that with retailers.

Seeing that as people are starting to process gift-giving outside of the traditional holiday season. Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense, too. It feels like we just got through this holiday season, and now we're getting that Valentine's, and you've got to buy more stuff. Then you've got Easter. It's almost like it never ends. Dylan, I'm not the biggest stuff guy in the world. I would rather have shares of stock as opposed to like things. But it just is what it is, I guess, as they say. Well, if you're listening, Mrs. Moser, you know what to get them. Exactly. I can't wait to see what you got me for President's Day, Jason. I'm really looking forward to it. It feels like we're right about there, doesn't it? It feels like we're right

about there. Well, lucky for our listeners, we do have a gift for them this week. I asked each of you to come up with your company valentines. That's a love letter to one of your favorite stocks. Jason, who are you admiring this year? Well, I'm admiring, this is going to come as a surprise, I'm sure, Chipotle. Chipotle Mexican Grill just had me a delightful dinner from there the other night. I'm going to go ahead and get out in front of this one, Dylan and Emily. This is a Gemini-assisted love letter. I went the AI route here to try to be as cheesy as I possibly could. So here we go. My dearest Chipotle, from the moment I first tasted your perfectly seasoned barbacoa nestled in a warm flour tortilla, I knew we had something

special. You're more than just a stock to me. You're a consistent source of joy and delicious, customizable meals. I admire your innovative spirit and your dedication to fresh ingredients. every time I see your ticker symbol, my heart and stomach flutters. I'm in it for the long haul, my love. Here's to a future filled with gains and guac forever yours, Jason. That is fantastic. That is the kind of thing that's going to make Brian Nichol regret jumping over to Starbucks, Jason. I mean, this thing is just responsible for thousands of percent of gains in my portfolio. I had to do it right. And I have to say, this is great timing because I got a notification on my phone right before the show began from Grubhub saying,

you know what Chipotle is doing today for Valentine's Day? A BOGO offer if you spend $20 or more. So you know what, Chipotle is sending that love right back to you, Jason. I know. Emily, Jason just set a pretty high bar for his love letter. What are you bringing for your Valentine's Day? My love letter, it's a little bit more practical. Let me put it this way. I didn't get any AI assist here, but I will say in life, I'm sure we've all heard it. There's this thing called compassionate versus passionate love, right? And I'm sure a lot of our listeners right now are probably looking at, you know, maybe the NVIDIAs of the world and that's passionate love, right? Passionate love is sudden. You're looking at the best performers in your portfolio

saying, I love you. I love you so much. You know, it's the love that just takes off. It burns like a fire, but then it goes away suddenly. And then all of a sudden you're out of it. Something bad happens. You stumble. Compassionate love, it grows through time. You have the ups, you have the downs. You've been through it all, but you're still there at the end. And it's kind of like stocks, right? You can't just love a stock when it goes up. You have to love it when it goes down too. And, you know, I'll tell you what, Lululemon is my compassionate love here. We've been through a lot of up and down together, and it just seems like that relationship has gotten stronger over time. It was the first recommendation that, you know, I was kind of partially, mostly responsible

for when I joined the Stock Advisor team. So it has a special place in my heart. And I'm also wearing a full Lululemon outfit tonight when I go out to dinner. I swear it looks nicer than what you're probably imagining. Shows you the breadth of what Lululemon is. But yeah, that's my little a love letter this Valentine's Day. You know, Emily, I like that because, to borrow a phrase, if you don't like me when I'm down 20%, you don't deserve me when I'm a five-bagger or a six-bagger, right? Love it. Love it. All right, let's get over to stocks on our radar for the week. We have Dan Boyd back behind the glass after some time away welcoming a new member to his family. Dan is going to hit you with a

question after you pitch your radar stock. Jason, you're up first. What are you looking at this week? Dan, I can't believe we've made it this far. My dogs haven't completely ruined the show, but I'm going with Zoetis. Ticker is ZTS. Zoetis spun off from Pfizer back in 2013. But a fun fact, the company was actually founded in 1952. But Zoetis is responsible for the discovery, the development, manufacture, and commercialization of animal health medicines and vaccines from the pet side all the way over to the livestock side and everywhere in between. They reported earnings on Thursday. Revenue was up 5%, with earnings per share up 13%. I think the market was a little downtrodden on the guidance there, just an anemic 2% to 4%

revenue growth fair. In estimating earnings per share for the year, it did $6.05 at the midpoint. That puts the stock today at around 26 times those full-year estimates. But this is a company, it's boring business, yield of 1.2%. It's grown that dividend every year since the spinoff. They do really important work, and it fits nicely in the context of a retirement portfolio where you're letting time do the heavy lifting. Dan, a question about Zoetis, ticker ZTS. I've been gone for a while, Dylan, but it looks like Jason is still talking drug companies. What do you know? How the world turns. More of a comment to kick things off. Emily, what's on your radar this week? What's on my radar is Aon. The ticker is A-A-O-N.

and they are a maker of commercial custom HVAC systems. And Dan, stop rolling your eyes. I promise this is way more fun than Zoetis. This is kind of a sleepy business, but it's been growing a lot recently because they made an acquisition of a company called Basics, which gets them into the data center market. So imagine any commercial business that has unusually sized spaces that needs precision, temperature, or humidity control, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, data centers, that's your business for Aon. They're growing at a breakneck pace, massive market opportunity, a small player in a growing industry, incredibly profitable with a really unique, really experienced management team. One that I think a lot of investors sleep on.

Dan, a question about Aon, ticker, get this, A-A-O-N. Incredible, Dylan. You know what else is incredible is the founder's name, Norman H. Asbjornsson. Just a fantastic top-tier founder name. Emily's here with the slow and steady. That's what she's looking for. She wants the consistency. She wants someone who's going to be there for her. Dan, will you be adding that to your watch list this week?

I think I will, actually. HVAC isn't going anywhere. There you go. Emily, Jason, thanks for being here, bringing your stocks. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd. I'm Dylan Lewis.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. We'll be right back.