Motley Fool Money - 3 Broken Breakers Worth Buying

Starting point is 00:00:00 When are broken breakers worth buying, we break it down. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome, Fools. I'm your host, Tim Byers, and with me, our longtime Rule Breakers, teammates and old friends, Rick Bionaris, and Carl Teal. It's a Gen X power half hour. Today, we're talking about our favorite broken breakers, innovators that have yet to convince the market of their long-term potential. Carl, Rick, we've got a lot to talk. about, but first, Carl, since we've got you here, I'd love to take just a couple of minutes to talk about the federal layoffs and any potential consequences you see for the biotech industry. And for those who haven't been following along, this relates to federal cuts having to do with CDC and related health and human services agencies. Carl, what do you see in here?

Starting point is 00:01:05 And what should we pay attention to as biotech investors? You know, we're seeing things that have been affected both by budget cuts and then also by the government shutdown. I don't want to underplay any of this because every agency that gets cut can have a big impact. But I would say the most important ones near term for investors is FDA. And the good news there is that FDA is largely funded by user fees. So drug companies literally pay for their own reviews, which does mitigate the impact somewhere. And the agency has said something like 86% of employees are still active, and that keeps them active even through the government shutdown. The bad news in that regard is that there are certain things that they cannot do during the government shutdown.

Starting point is 00:01:56 And one of them is accept new NDAs, or BLAs. You cannot accept any new drug application that requires a user fee pavement because literally there's, you know, there's nobody to operate the till. So, if you're trying to submit a new drug, you can't do it during the shutdown. And this is one of those things that, you know, if the shutdown is a few weeks, you know, hopefully that doesn't impact things too much. Obviously, the longer that drags out, the more serious that gets. So companies that already have pending applications for the most part should be okay. Companies that are looking at making new submissions a little further out,

Starting point is 00:02:36 hopefully we'll be back in business by then. but there is a little awkward period right now. I will say there's some mitigation to that as well. So if you're a company that's trying to submit a new drug application that is for something already approved, to pick a random example, IONIS has said this year that they're going to submit an approval for a drug called Tringolza, which is for high triglycerides. It's already approved for a rare disease, and because this is therefore a supplemental application, it doesn't require a user fee, and they should be able to submit that.

Starting point is 00:03:08 that on the normal schedule. So that's the sort of good news and bad news on that. And then, you know, I think the other biggest impact for the industry has been all the NIH budget cuts and grant issues. And again, that's sort of a good news, bad news story. I mean, the impact on it is really at the top of the funnel for research, which is that a tremendous number of ideas come from NIH research. And just to pick an example, you know, you can come up with these stupid sounding studies that NIH is doing. It's like, why are we paying taxpayer money so somebody can study the diet habits of the

Starting point is 00:03:49 GILA monster in the Southwest or something? But that's, in fact, where GLP1 drugs come from, is that kind of early, early research. And so you're hurting the top of the funnel when you do that. The good news, such as it is, is that the current budget, which is, not being passed because of the shutdown, but the current budget calls for basically, both the House and Senate versions call for restoration of most of NIH funding. This is one area in which House and Senate Republicans, for the most part, kind of push back against the White House and wants to, you know, they want to restore most of that funding.

Starting point is 00:04:28 So hopefully the impact will ultimately be less than it could have been. But it's still, you know, extremely disruptive and it's going to work through the funnel for years. Okay, so just a quick follow-up on this, and then we'll move on. I think what I'm hearing from you is that there are some short-term disruptions here, but we like early-stage rule break-we. We like early-stage biotechs in rule breakers. You're the one that brings us most of these. This does not sound like something that over the long-term should dissuade us from getting interested in emergent science in biotech. Like there's going to be maybe some short-term disruptions. There will be possibly some approval delays. But over the long term, we still should like emergent science, biotechs, because those are still necessary and will come to market. Yeah, I think that's right. And I do think there is an expectation that some of the sort of most radical moves made by the administration will be mitigated or

Starting point is 00:05:36 reversed at some point. Got it. Okay. We'll keep our eyes on this. Fools, let us know what you think and what emerging biotechs you're investing in. Up next, three broken breakers we still believe in. These days, I'm all about quality over quantity, especially in my closet. If it's not well made and versatile, it's just not worth it. That's honestly why I love Quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the cuts are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense. Quince makes high quality wardrobe, staples using premium fabrics like 100% European linen, silk, and organic cotton poplin. They work directly with safe ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you aren't paying for brand markups or fancy stores, just quality clothing. Everything they make is built

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Starting point is 00:06:58 All right, welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We like dark clouds. We can see through. And if you don't know what that principle means, I'd like to introduce you to David Gardner's new book on rulebreaker investing. Dark clouds we can see through means, and it's a long-held principle of David's in rule breakers. We aren't trying to buy the low, but we love it when a company that we really believe in that has significant rule breaker traits gets punished for reasons that maybe are temporary or maybe are unfair. And so we like these companies as rule breakers that may have kind of taken a backward step for reasons that are partially their own fault, but maybe not completely.

Starting point is 00:07:48 There are dark clouds. We can see through them and we're willing to stick it out and wait till the sunny skies return. And we're going to talk about three of them. And Rick, I'm going to start with you. We're going to start with the trade desk because, boy, has it been, I mean, is it just raining on their boardroom? What's going on here? Yeah, yeah. It's raining in their boardroom, and apparently it's like an open roof. It's a convertible boardroom because they're getting soaked. But yeah. So the trade desk is, it's a 15-bagger since becoming a rule breaker recommendation eight and a half years ago when Carl Teele and I coincidentally just approached David Gardner at the same month. and hey, we like this stock, and it was just a – Colin, I rarely have the same stock on our minds,

Starting point is 00:08:31 but we did that time. But it used to be a shinier star on our scorecard. The leader of programmatic advertising has fallen 63 percent since peaking 10 months ago. Obviously, that's more than rain. That's a deluge. The first hit came a few weeks after its all-time high, when after 33 quarters of breezing through guidance, it proved mortal. Two quarters later, it's its most recent quarter. It missed on the bottom line, and revenue failed to top 20 percent for the first time as a public company outside. out of the second quarter of 2020 when advertisers sort of took a mulligan. They took a quarter off early in the pandemic that time. But their fears there, there are fears that it's AI deployment,

Starting point is 00:09:06 having gone exactly as plan. There's fears of a competitive market, specifically in Connected TV, which is always seen as this big growth for them. Amazon is emerging as a force. The open internet, but here's the thing, the open internet. It's a $935 billion market opportunity for digital advertising. It's never going to be a one. It's all market. Connected TV is, is still powerful. Advertisers are willing to pay twice as much to reach a connected TV viewer where campaigns can be personalized and targeted than traditional advertising. The trade desk was once priced for perfection. Now it's only priced for imperfection, but it's also a price for infection. A lot of people just are doubting the trade desk. That's a good place to go

Starting point is 00:09:45 and be a contrarian, and I see that now. You can pick up the trade desk for less than 25 times forward earnings. I'll say this again, you can pick up the trade desk for less than 25 times forward earnings, which may be a high multiple in most cases, but if you know the trade desk, you know that it never trades as cheap. And yes, revenue growth is slowing, and analysts see it's slowing. Its guidance calls it to continue to go in the high teens in the current quarter. It'll analysts to continue to see in the high teens next year. There's still a lot of things happening here with the trade desk. But I think it's a steady growing company, still gaining market share because there's no way the advertising market is growing at a double-digit pace. And I think right now that it's priced actually reasonably,

Starting point is 00:10:22 despite warts and all, I believe it is a broken breaker that is mending itself. And to be honest, I don't think it was ever truly broken. I think it was just, you know, too much optimism. So cracks in the price, but not cracks in the business. Fair enough. I mean, look, I think connected TV has changed everything and logged in experiences for all entertainment is a big boon for companies like the trade desk. But let's go back. Let's go back to. to health care. And, you know, I mean, Carl, Bristol-Myers Squibb, this Bristol-Myers Squib is one of these companies, by the way,

Starting point is 00:11:03 that does not seem like, like, it's been around. I think people would be shocked about how long it has been around. Tell me what you think here. Why is this one a broken breaker? It's pretty clearly broken. I mean, you could. You could argue that it's not a breaker. And I would say that that's, you know, fair enough.

Starting point is 00:11:27 I mean, this is a drug company that's well over 100 years old. It came to us on our scorecard through cell gene. That's right. You know, Bristol acquired cell gene in a stock swap. Exactly. It swallowed a breaker and has, you know, continued to struggle since. And I would say that it is a broken breaker that I've come to believe in again. And that is basically a valuation argument.

Starting point is 00:11:53 So this is not usually where we're coming from for rule breakers, but I think it's a reasonably compelling case in which you have a company that's guided for earnings per share in the sort of $6, kind of $6.50 range there, a little bit to either side of that. Revenue is going to be around $47 billion this year. That gives them a P.E. multiple of less than seven. You know, I mean, I think that number alone tells you that there's some trouble at this company. But I think that trouble's pretty well recognized at this point. They have one of the worst patent cliffs in the industry.

Starting point is 00:12:34 And a patent cliff is when, you know, a drug that you've been selling for, you know, very high margin, lots of lots of money, suddenly goes off patent. Generic competition comes in and your market share tanks and, you know, pricing pressure goes way up. That's going to happen with Eloquists. That's going to happen in the sort of 2028 range with Opdivo. It's a challenge. And so this is a company where you're going to see both profits and revenue drop for a period of years. But I think that is more than priced in at this point. And the company is paying a dividend in the sort of 5.6% yield range.

Starting point is 00:13:14 And it's a dividend that I think you can count on. I mean, they have 93-year history of paying a dividend, 93 consecutive years. There's no reason they're going to stop doing that. They're not in danger of dropping out of profitability. In fact, they have their portfolio of new drugs is growing quite nicely and being offset by, you know, legacy drugs that are seeing declines. So I think it's a pretty surefire way to collect a very nice yield. And then I think eventually start to see some price appreciation as that very, very pessimistic multiple just kind of even comes back a little bit.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Is it possible that that multiple expands once we start to see? Because if I heard you correctly, and I think I did, the idea is that they, I mean, look, they're facing a giant patent cliff, but it's not like they've stopped innovating, and they are building a backlog of drugs. And so this is this is the old dog that. that's cooking up new, new drugs. Sorry, I made it sound way too much like Walter White there. I didn't mean to do that.

Starting point is 00:14:23 But you know what I mean? Like, there's a big backlog here. And if that backlog starts to show promise, that multiple could expand quite quickly. Yeah. And I think even just any sign that they're going to, you know, be able to return to growth will do that. And they've made some interesting, I mean, they have some fast-growing newer drugs that are relatively new introductions. and they've made some interesting acquisitions around Radio Pharma, for instance, and some next-gen oncology drugs.

Starting point is 00:14:53 So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think this is a point in which there are lots of reasons to be negative, but you're sort of at, you know, I don't want to say we're necessarily at peak negativity, but I would say that there's definitely a very dark cloud hanging over the company in any sign that that's lightening up could help with the actual stock price, even while you're just collecting the dividend. end. All right. So not just dark clouds, storm clouds. Fair enough. I'm going to take progeny and progeny, ticker PGNY. I've talked about this before. I own it. Ever since our full 24 interview with CEO Pete Inevsky, I've been interested in this company. And part of the reason

Starting point is 00:15:33 is that it has gotten so destroyed. On the rule breaker scorecard down 41% as of, you know, our taping down 99% versus the market. It is broken in terms of the price here since the IPO. But that does not mean that these are unnecessary services. In fact, I think they are growing in importance. And so they're not getting enough credit because I think the health care market is, and Carl, I'll be curious if you have a thought about this, but this is my view of it. Because the health care market is so Byzantine, there's so much debate about it, there's so much worry about prices, this kind of business and product, which is essentially aimed at those who self-insure, which is not a lot of companies. I mean, it's a growing number of companies that do self-insure. They kind of manage a bucket of money. They use an insurer on the front end, and then they pay benefits on the back end, and they get like discounted versions. and then they kind of build a menu. The Motley Fool is like this. This full-time employees,

Starting point is 00:16:44 this is what we have. We are a self-insured company when we have good benefits, and the company works within a structure in order to do this. It has been very successful at it for a lot of years, and we offer progeny as a benefit. And you know what? I mean, I think we are going to see a lot more of this. Now, revenue was only up nine and a half percent in the most recent quarter, but I will say this. gross profit increased 16%, so there's more efficiency here. It's a profitable company generating cash flow, and this is what I like the most, that despite all of this uncertainty around healthcare, the client base, so again, self-insured

Starting point is 00:17:25 companies expanded to 542 in the most recent quarter, and that was just about 6.75 million members, so these are covered individuals under progeny. that's up year over a year from 473 clients, which again, self-insured companies, that's a lot. That's fairly big growth. And the number of covered people underneath that was, you know, again, grew to $6.75 million, up from $6.47 million. So there's clearly a whole bunch of companies that are interested in progeny services because they do have some better indicators and results for helping those or having. trouble building a family, starting a family. They have, you know, they're well known. Their principal product is for infertility. And they tend to help those couples who are trying to

Starting point is 00:18:18 have, you know, trying to have a child. They tend to show clinically better results. And that does show up. They get chosen more often. And so this is another piece of this. They do have other things they're doing. One of them is they've introduced menopause support. And there's strong initial reception for this, 20% of existing clients and 40% of new clients are considering taking up progeny on that menopause support. And this is not the only extra service that they're working on. Last point on this. So, Anevsky and a lot of his leadership team, back when the stock was a little lower than it is today, it was still in the teens, but they were active buyers on the open market. They're not selling shares. They've been, if anything, accumulators of shares. And that's

Starting point is 00:19:06 That's another thing I like about this. But I don't know, Carl, I'll ask you to tell me I'm wrong. If you think I'm wrong, is just the generalized confusion and concern about the healthcare market, something that is a dark cloud that weighs over a service like progeny, especially since it's for those companies that are self-insured? Well, you know, let me, I'll put it back to you just a little bit, which is beyond that concern, which, you know, hard to say how people are regarding it. Do you think there's a concern just that, you know, the client base is, as you say, you know, mostly self-insured companies, that there's just a sort of simple, cyclical economic concern around layoffs and

Starting point is 00:19:51 sort of economic contraction around some of those companies. You know, that might be, that might be something that's holding the company down and also something that, you know, you presume we get passed. Yeah, could be. The other. The other thing, Another piece of it, though, is that as they introduce more services and the existing clients use progeny for more things, you would think that offsets. Rick, do you have a thing you want to add here? Oh, yeah, when you mentioned the buybacks. So, yeah, they've retired of almost 10% of their shares over the last year and a half. It was mostly done last year, but it's still one there. But to me, I see the point here again, and I'm just connecting the dots here, which I think is what

Starting point is 00:20:27 we do as rule breakers, but couples are settling down later in life than they used to. This means fertility treatment, surrogacy, adoption, all these things that Progeny helps out are going to become more popular. They're going to want that when it comes to coverage. And that's going to be great for Progeny, I would think. Yeah, I think that's right. So let us know what you think. What's your favorite broken breaker? Give us a comment. Wherever you consume your podcast, just leave us a comment and let us know. We'd love to hear it. Up next, we play the Yes And game again. Stay tuned. You're listening. Motley full money. What does leadership really look like? On the power of advice, a new podcast series from Capital Group, you'll hear from athletes, entrepreneurs, and executives who've led on the field

Starting point is 00:21:13 in the boardroom and in their communities. It's not about titles. It's about impact. Discover what drives them and the advice they carry forward. Subscribe and start listening today. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. All right. It's time for Yes And, which is our improv style game that Rick brought to us a while back. If you like this game, write me a note, T-Byers at Fool.com. Let us know because we'll keep bringing this bag. If you want something else, I'm going to keep playing faker breakers, faker breaker, and we're going to keep doing yes-and.

Starting point is 00:21:46 So as a reminder, the yes-and game is pretty simple. We start with a bullish statement about a stock, followed by another, and then followed by a concern. We go round the horn with three stocks taken from our rule breakers data. database and we make a, we just make a statement about stock and then it's yes and, yes, and, yes, but we raise a concern. And then we end the scene. We're going to do this for three stocks.

Starting point is 00:22:13 So when you are ready, Carl, we're going to start with you and your pick, which is Arginix. All right. So I'll test my ability to make compound sentences. Arginix, based in the Netherlands, is a very successful biopharmac. A company sells a drug called Vivegart, mostly for Myasthenia Gravis. Sales jumped 97% to $949 million in the second quarter. That's nearly a $4 billion run rate and still growing. Yes, and as strong as stateside sales have been, it's growing even faster outside of the U.S. market.

Starting point is 00:22:54 Yes, and it appears that... that Vyvegard is positioning to capture. Do I have this right? Carl, 50% market share in CIDP. That is an extraordinary number. You are right. Yes, but any market this good attracts a lot of competitors, and there are some very serious ones that could be better than Vivegard. Yes, but U.S. accounts for more than 80% of current product sales of the Netherlands-based company, that's a lot of the recipe of a foreign company relying largely on the U.S. market for sales. Yes, but it does look like in Q1, there was a bit of seasonal insurance re-verification delays and increased Medicare part de-utilization leading to higher discounts, missing investor expectations.

Starting point is 00:23:48 So the regulators aren't always friendly with this one. And seen. Excellent. Carl, you did it. There's your first. There's your first. Now we're going to go to the expert here. Rick, Celsius. Let's do it. Yeah. Celsius is a disruptive leader in the growing functional beverage market. Yes, and. And I see this every day, Rick. Every time I get on a bus or train to commute into the office, I see at least one Celsius drink, not only on the way, but in the office where I, end up going to work. Celsius, no matter what we say about its growth rates, it is everywhere. Yes, and it widened its footprint by acquiring Alani New and managing the Rockstar beverage and deepened its steak with Pepsi. Yes, and that Pepsi-Go deal, PepsiGo increases stake in Celsius from 8% to 11%, getting a great distribution partner even deeper in exchange for Celsius

Starting point is 00:24:51 taken over that Rockstar brand. Yes, and the company's International Division grew by 37% to 18.6 million. That's including expansion in Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and France. So a successful global market penetration is happening. Yes, but Cal Celsius risks cannibalizing its brands with this much larger portfolio of beverages. Yes, but after three years of revenue more than doubling, investors saw how fickle the energy drink market can be for Celsius last year. Yes, but U.S. revenue did plunge 33% year over a year to $247 million. So good foreign revenue, not as great on domestic shores. And seen. All right. Let's talk Salesforce. Salesforce has closed over 12,500 agent force deals since launch,

Starting point is 00:25:49 and more than 6,000 of those are being paid deals. Salesforce is really ramping up. It's AI. Yes, and in their Q2 for fiscal 2026, they raise their full-year revenue guidance to over $41 billion and are looking at improvements in operating margins and solid cash flow growth. Yes, and Salesforce.com has a strong track record of making shrewd acquisitions that it can amplify through its own ecosystem. Yes, but Salesforce is now trading for a premium that is going to be hard to justify as the AI hype starts to die down, even with all that free cash flow. Yes, but they confirmed 4,000 job cuts in 2025 and some hiring pauses, showing some

Starting point is 00:26:43 struggles underneath the hood. Yes, but after decades, and I mean two, three decades of annual double-digit growth sales consistently, revenue rose at a single digit clip in fiscal 2025. And seen. All right, fools, that's yes and. Let us know what you think about the yes and game. Let us know what you think about our broken breakers and which broken breakers make the most sense for you. Do check out when you want to hear more, if you want to hear more about dark clouds you can see through and all of the various rule breaker trades. Please check out David Gardner's new rule breaker investing. For those who want to learn the long-term benefits of compounding in high

Starting point is 00:27:28 growth, high-quality companies, it's a great place to start. Thanks to Rick and Carl for joining me today. As always, people of 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 yourself stocks based solely on what you're here. All personal finance content follows Motleyful. with full metadata standards and is not approved by advertisers, advertisements, our sponsor content, and provided for information only to see our full advertising disclosure. Please check out our show notes. Please also tune in tomorrow when Emily will have a bit more rule breakery content for you.

Starting point is 00:28:11 For Rick Munares, Carl Teal, our engineer is Dan Boyd, and our producer is Anand. Chakabaloo, I'm Tim Byers. Fools, see you again soon. Blan, everyone.

Motley Fool Money - 3 Broken Breakers Worth Buying

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