Motley Fool Money - 4 Big Deals

Episode Date: April 10, 2015

GE announces a $50 billion share buyback. Royal Dutch Shell agrees to buy BG for $70 billion. And LinkedIn buys online education site Lynda.com for $1.5 billion. Our analysts discuss those stories and share some stocks on their radar. And New York Times money columnist Ron Lieber talks about his new book, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can get them from Fool Global Headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money Radio Show. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Chris Hill, joining me in studio this week from Million Dollar portfolio, Jason Moser and Simon Erickson. And from Motley Fool Pro and Options, Jeff Fisher. Good to see you, gentlemen. Hello, Chris. Something's in the water because we have got a bunch of mergers and acquisitions to get to. New York Times columnist and bestselling author Ron Lieber is our guest this week.

And as always, we'll give me an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin this week with industrial giant general. General Electric. GE announced a major restructuring, which includes the sale of most of the assets in GE Capital, the company's financing arm. GE is going to take that money and institute a $50 billion stock buyback program. And Simon, that would be tied with Apple for the biggest stock buyback plan of all time. Shares up more than 10 percent this week. You're the former GE employee at the table. First, were you surprised by this announcement? No, I can't say that I was, Chris.

For years, GE has acted as a money tunnel, if you will, where you've got kind of at one side of this tunnel, the cash cow businesses. They're just continually churning out profits that are going to the growth drivers of this business. The growth drivers being health care, aircraft engines, stuff like that. And then the conduit between point A and B was GE Capital, which would loan these growth drivers of large capital expenditures for these businesses. you know, attractive interest rates so they could continue to grow. The problem was two parts with this strategy. One is 2008 comes, and there's a drying up of financing and borrowing across the market. So, GE, which was behaving as a bank basically.

That was a problem for a lot of companies. And GE stock price got pummeled for that. But then the other thing is, you know, when you're not investing in those cash cow businesses, they have a tough time competing and it turns into price wars. And GE ended up selling a lot of those off. They sold the plastics vision. They sold off the advanced materials business. So I wouldn't say I was surprised by this move.

It is a very large component of GE as their capital division. But I'm not as shocked as others might be. Do we have to rethink what GE is now, Jeff? Because for a long time, it was seen as this stable company. The stock certainly wasn't lighting the world on fire. But there are some people, including CEO Jeff Immolt, who say, this transformation is not just going to transform the business, it's going to transform the stock. He thinks it can get a little growthy.

And they should have done that years ago, Chris. The stock, the past 15 years is down 2.2% annualized, while the S&P has gained 4% annualized. So it's a long-term underperformer. It hasn't done anything particularly well. Over the last 10 years, Caterpillar, to use another industrial company, is up 80-some percent. Wells Fargo, to use the financial, is up 82%. GE is down 22%. So it hasn't, it's missed any sort of goals that it might have had for itself as a stock. Do you want to rethink GE? Yes, I think we have to. They need to, I agree with getting rid of the financial division, as giant as it is, focus on being a great manufacturing company.

Shares of FedEx up this week after the company bought TNT Express, a European package delivery company for $4.8 billion. dollars. Jeff Wall Street seems pretty bullish on this move. They're hoping that it goes through. FedEx, as you just said, Chris, 4.8 billion their bidding for TNT, which is a European company that delivers in 200 different countries. UPS bid nearly $7 billion for the same company in 2013, just a couple years ago, but they were blocked. So if FedEx can get this price, they're getting a great deal. Their timing is great. The euro is beaten down. TNT has had four straight years of losses, so the results result in a lower possible acquisition price. And UPS is restructuring right now, so competitor UPS has its hands full as well.

So if FedEx can buy TNT, it gives them a much stronger position in Europe, where they are currently smaller than UPS, even though overall FedEx is a stronger company than UPS worldwide, but not in Europe. So this will give them a leg up in Europe and be a really good thing for them. Yeah, it definitely expands FedEx's footprint. I do wonder about UPS, though. I have to believe they're just a little mift among other things that they tried to make this move a couple of years ago. They have to be rooting that it's going to get blocked. You would think so and hope so, but odds are lower that it will because FedEx is pretty

small in Europe right now. And so they can argue in front of the EU regulators better than UPS could a couple of years ago. But yeah, I'm sure UPS is hoping it gets blocked, partly because to build out organically a network in Europe the way FedEx wants to, would cost a lot more than what they're paying for TNT. LinkedIn is buying linda.com, a site offering tutorials and online courses for professional development. LinkedIn is paying $1.5 billion in cash and stock. Jason Moser, you like this move. I do. I think this is something that's right up LinkedIn's alley. I often say, look to a company's mission to understand really what they're trying to do. It's typically

that mission that is going to guide a lot of their decision-making, if not all of their decision-making, it really should. And LinkedIn's mission is to connect the world's professionals and make them more productive and successful. And it sounds like this is something that is going to help them do that. We talk all the time, sort of, you know, what's the Pepsi to the Coke? And when we look at LinkedIn, there isn't really the Pepsi out there. I mean, LinkedIn is just developing this tremendous professional network. And it wasn't something that really existed before. And so, you know, I think these notions that maybe Facebook will try to get in there and become a part of that. I think the more time that passes, the more difficult

that becomes, because LinkedIn continues to gain so much credibility as a place to go, to go, you know, not only find different types of employment opportunities, but also to develop yourself as a professional. And so with LinkedIn, I mean, the balance sheet that will take care of this, they have $2.5 billion in net cash. You know, this is something where I think they may be Maybe this will work on like a premium style of a model where some of that content will be available to any and all LinkedIn users, but perhaps they link this to their premium subscription side of the business, which makes up about 20 percent of overall sales today, so that if you are a premium subscriber with LinkedIn, then you have access to this vast library.

And just going by what our man behind the glass there, Steve Broido said yesterday in his email, he likes this deal too. The product really speaks for itself, and it sounds like something that's been very helpful to you all there as well, right, Steve? We use it all the time. Linda.com is terrific. I recommend it to all our listeners. If you're trying to learn about Photoshop or how Excel works or Gmail, they've got courses

and they've got experts from all around the world, really, really top-notch people teaching courses. I had an idea, which is that I think LinkedIn is going to use it as a platform to certify folks. So if you apply to be a graphic designer, you can go through LinkedIn. It'll say, hey, you've taken these courses, you've passed this exam. You're a certified in Photoshop, you're certified in Illustrator, and that could be a huge moneymaker for LinkedIn. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't like this deal now, after what you've just been told there,

that's great insight, I think, really coming from someone that uses the product. I think that's a tremendous testimony there. Although, when you look at the price of this acquisition, I have to believe it raised at least a couple of eyebrows inside LinkedIn. It is their biggest acquisition by a factor of 10. It is, but remember, they're using half of this, they're using stock to fund half of this acquisition, right? And the stock price, I think, it's reasonable to say it's fairly lofty.

definitely optimistic. So they're able to use shares, sort of a cheap form of currency today to fund this acquisition. Again, the balance sheet, they've got $2.5 billion in net cash. It's nothing for them to do this. It's a big acquisition. But this is going to be a big company. It's going to continue to become more and more relevant in the lives of professionals all around the world for many, many years to come. So you like this deal, but you're not crazy about the stock at this price? I'm not. I own shares of LinkedIn today. I think the valuation on a lot of these companies are robust, say the least. And so I keep these types of companies at the top of my watch list

so that when we do see pullbacks, we can be opportunistic. I'm very, very bullish on the long-term future of this company, though. The FedEx and LinkedIn deals are tiny compared to the one pulled off this week by Royal Dutch Shell, the oil and gas giant based in the Netherlands. Shell is buying PG Group, the oil and gas company based in the UK for, wait for it, Simon, 70 billion in CAC. and stock, and unlike the two deals we just discussed, Wall Street wasn't necessarily crazy about the price that Royal Dutch Shell is paying. $70 billion?

That's bound to raise some eyebrows, isn't it? Gosh. I applaud the long-term move by Shell on this. This is a play on LNG exporting from the United States to Asia. Now, you've still got to line up customers to take, you know, those LNG trains that are going to be leaving from the U.S. But BG has got the rights to export out of the Sabine Pass terminal in the West. Louisiana, a lot of that's going to be going to Asia. So they've got a long-term strategy in place for this.

Two questions, though, Chris. First of all, 50% premium almost to today's stock price for BG. Did they overpay on this acquisition? And then, two, you've also got a steady dividend investor group with Shell as well. 5% dividend, too. And this is quite an outlay of cash, too. So maybe some hesitation and questions from the investment community right now. Let me expand this a little bit, because when you look at this deal based in Europe, you take in the FedEx deal buying TNT Express based in Europe. You had some people this week being very quick to say, you know what, this is the sign we've been looking for that there is a turnaround in Europe. Should we look at it that way, Jeff?

Or as we were talking about earlier, does it seem like at least part of what's fueling this is things have been so beaten down for so long in Europe that the price of the deals was worth it. Yeah, you know, Chris, it may be a precursor to a turnaround because now the prices are low enough in Europe that companies are sniffing around looking for other companies to buy. And that suggests that they at least see value creation from these companies exceeding what the companies are worth right now. So that suggests a turnaround in the stock prices could be on the way. Speaking of BG Group, that 50% premium that we mentioned, it does look giant, But it just brings the stock back to a price that it traded last fall before oil really fell.

So maybe this is another opportunistic way to buy a company while energy prices are down sharply. Jason, do you agree with that? Or are you looking at Europe for stock opportunities? To me, there is going to be a point where the opportunities become a little bit more obvious. I think that when we look at so many of the holdings we have across all of our foolish services today, there's so much exposure to European economies. economies and other emerging economies, that's sort of where I really prefer to get that type of exposure. Simon, just before we wrap up, I want to go back to something Jason said about there being no Pepsi to LinkedIn's Coke.

Some people would say, given how big they are, given how much cash they have on hand, Facebook is potentially a Pepsi to their Coke. You agree with that? To Pepsi. Facebook is the Coke and LinkedIn is the Pepsi. Yeah, you know what I'm getting at. LinkedIn's the Coke. Facebook would be the Pepsi.

You know, this is a two-beard conversation probably. Absolutely, Chris. But in my mind, there is some core that LinkedIn has that Facebook will never achieve. They can get into Facebook at work. You can have Messenger kind of doing customer service for business-related activities. But still, there's that core of LinkedIn is a business network. Facebook is a social network. Those two paths, as much as we'd like them to, aren't necessarily going to cross in my mind. And, I mean, it's worth noting to, I mean, Facebook is something that appeals to the masses. I mean, LinkedIn is very much a professional network, right? It's not for every worker out there.

I mean, it is more geared towards professional development. So it is a bit more of a focused market. I think when you have companies that really focus on that specific market, you have to take that into account. I agree with what you two are saying. People tend to compartmentalize their lives. If they want a coffee, they think of Starbucks. It's very hard for a company to make that leap, but it'll be very hard for a face- to become a professional network, even though they'll pick off little bits of business-related

business here and there. And one last thing on that, just to close that out, you know, we always look at the growth rates and then total numbers and members and stuff like that. But it's really utility and engagement that makes these networks important. That's why MySpace, which used to be the largest social network out there, who's talking about them these days? No one. Well, when Facebook makes an acquisition that gets a glowing recommendation from our man behind

the glass, we'll all sit up and take notice. Coming up, a tasty IPO is coming your way. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Full may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Jeff Fisher, and Simon Erickson. Guys, fourth quarter revenue for Bedbath and Beyond came in lower than expected. And Jason, when you throw in some weak margins, it's kind of ugly. How ugly is it?

Well, I mean, it's, you know, I wouldn't say it's ugly. I think that, you know, Bedbath and Beyond, I just put in the pile of extremely uncompelling investment ideas. And, you know, you're seeing a picture. I think you mentioned margins getting squeezed there, gross margins down, about 200 basis points since 2010. Sales are slowing. You know, this business, they're doing a great job of repurchasing shares. And what that's doing, it's bringing the share count down considerably. The share counts down almost 30%, a little bit more than 30%, since 2010. But the point I'm making here is that when you look at sales, sales have grown over that time, about 50%. Earnings for share have grown over 100%, about 120%. And so, you know, buying back those

shares helps bump that EPS number up, right? And so you see some people making the argument that maybe Bed Bath & Beyond is cheap at 14 or 15 times sales. But you have to remember that's a bit of an artificial multiple because they're buying back those shares and inflating that earnings per share number. It's just not a business that is making that leap over towards mobile, towards digital e-commerce, and it's just not as efficient. So one of the metrics I love to look at in retail is just sales per employee. So you look at Bed Bath and Beyond, sales per employee comes in just under $200,000, $198,000.

But compare that to something like Amazon, $57,000. Wayfair, $560,000. Those are two, obviously, e-commerce plays. Wavefare, I think, is a bit more of a direct competitor, something like Bed Bath and Beyond. So when I'm looking at this space, I'm looking at your Amazon's and Wayfares of the world, and I'll politely pass on Bedbath and Beyond. Shares of Zingo falling this week, the maker of online games such as Farmville and Words with Friends, saw their CEO resign suddenly. After less than two years on the job, founder Mark Pinkus is coming back to lead the company. And at least in the short

term, Jeff, Wall Street doesn't appear to be very optimistic about the founder coming back to run things. No, indeed. The stock fell sharply. And this is not a company that I would want to invest in. In fact, we keep an eye on it in Pro as a possible short because they're up against... How much lower you think this thing's going to go? Well, the funny thing is, although it's a $2 dollar stock, it has a couple billion dollar

market cap, 2.2 billion dollar market value. So that's what we look at and it could still go much lower. It's funny though you mentioned Farmville, and that's how we refer to this company. Farmville came out in 2009. It just tells you how badly they need a new hit, something to exceed what that game did for the business. But I don't think they're going to have it any time soon. It's a surprise that the CEO stepped away. He was hired 18 months ago from Microsoft, where he headed up their entertainment division

and was involved on Xbox, and he was at Electronics Arts before then. so there was a lot of hope that he could get the business on the right track. And to be honest, their conference call last month hit a lot of high notes. He's done a lot in his time there. He's refocused the company. It was more optimistic than not. There was no hint to my eye that he was about to leave. So I think it's a surprise all around.

To have the founder come back, clearly the market is not optimistic that that's the right step. But we'll just have to see that their back up, their back is up against the wall. to come out with hits. And meanwhile, they keep losing money. And finally, guys, this week, Bojangles, the Chicken and Biscuits restaurant chain, filed the necessary paperwork to go public sometime in the first half of 2015. The company has around 600 locations, mostly in the southeastern United States. Jason, I know you're a fan of what they serve there. Are you a fan potentially of this stock? You know, I think this is a great example of Love the Product, probably going to steer clear

of the stock here. You know, growing up in South Carolina, they got to eat at the Jangler an awful lot. They have a great chicken biscuit, great sweet tea, love the season fries. You just can't get enough of that. It's fast food, though, Chris. And we know how challenging that industry is. Bojangles sees an opportunity of around 1,400 stores in the 10 states in which they operate today. It's mostly southeastern states. And they see a full national opportunity around 3,500 stores. I think that probably is a bit optimistic. It certainly could be achieved, but it is a franchise model. So it's not a something where you're going to see really copious amounts of sales coming in. I mean,

they're going to be benefiting from the royalties that they get from those stores. But, you know, that made up about 4 percent of their overall sales line last year. So, yeah, I'm torn here because I'd love to say, yes, it's a great opportunity, but I just don't see the market opportunity. Restaurants are so tricky. I'm not sure this translates all around the country. It's a great name, though. It is. It is. Love the brand. All right, thanks guys. Up next, bestselling author Ron Lieber on raising money savvy kids and how to be better at talking about money. Stay right here.

This is Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. I'm Chris Hill. Ron Lieber is the personal finance columnist for the New York Times. He is a bestselling author. And his latest book is The Opposite of Spoiled, Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. Ron, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

It is the old saw, the three things we never talk about in polite company, sex, politics, and money. It's 2015, Ron. Why do you think we are still relatively bad when it comes to talking about money? Oh, I would chalk it up to a couple of things. I mean, first of all, I would think about shame, right? People with a lot of money often feel shame. They feel shame because they inherited it and they didn't have to work for it. or they feel shame because of the way they earned it.

Maybe there were some nefarious feeling somewhere along the way. Or, you know, if you don't have as much as everybody else in your community, or if you have less than average, or if you've lost your job, or if you're struggling or if it's a bad year, you may have shame about that. Shame with your friends, shame with your kids, shame with your own family members, that you're not providing. You may have shame about your lack of knowledge,

or you may have shame about the fact that you're spending a lot, even though you shouldn't be. Maybe you earn a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, but you're actually spending more than you make. You are in debt. So, you know, it starts, I think, with shame, and probably all of us have felt it's one way or the other over the years. And I suppose the ripple effect of that is that parents end up being reluctant to talk to their kids about money. I think that's true. You know, even for parents who don't have much shame who have their heads screwed on straight,

sometimes they think of the very best things that they can do for their kids in this regard is to protect. them from all of this money stuff just a little bit longer or maybe keep them in the bubble their entire childhood, right? Because, you know, who wants their kids sizing up everybody else and the entire world on the basis is who has how much money, right? It's not how we want them to look at things, but the fact of the matter is that money is a source of great power and a source of mystery. It is a kid's job to figure out how the world works, and it's our job to help them, right? So, to me, the very best form of protection that we can provide to our kids is actually to arm them with as much information as we can about

money, about social class, about how this part of the world works so that they know what they are dealing with and they know what they are going to be dealing with. I want to get into a couple of the strategies that you lay out in your book in a second, but you know this and I know this and every parent knows that sometimes topics are raised in your family just because kids are curious. and it can be about maybe an uncomfortable topic that you don't want to discuss. How should parents handle it if their kids start asking questions about money? Well, here's what not to do.

You should not bark at them. That is none of your business. You know, it's factually inaccurate, first of all. If they're part of the family, they're part of the family business, right? And its revenues and expenses are absolutely their business because it directly affects their daily lives, right? But also, you know, if you shut kids down like that, they may very well come to the conclusion that their parents should not be the primary source of information about matters of great importance and controversy. But that's not what we want.

We don't want them not coming to us anymore about money or sex or drugs or other things that are really important. So to me, the best thing you can do is just look at them straight in the eye and say, oh, you know, why do you ask? because, you know, we want to get to the bottom of their inquiries, and the younger kids in particular, you know, if they're asking about some kind of big number, you know, your salary or the value of your home or something, they don't have the context for that. So quite often they're asking because they're scared

or because someone said something to them that's confusing or they overheard something that gave them a really mistaken impression about the family. And so the best it would do is to, you know, hit them right back with a question and say, oh, no, why did you ask that one? right? You know, so to convey that we honor their curiosity, that we respect it, that we want to answer their questions, but we really want to know where the curiosity came from in the first place. That makes a lot of sense, although I do like the very direct approach that Jerry Seinfeld took

with one of his kids when one of his children asked, are we rich? And he looked at his kid and said, you're not, but I am. So that's another way to go. The cover of your book features three clear jars with money in them, and the jars are labeled, one for saving, one for spending, one for giving. First, what do you have against piggy banks? Oh, you know, I think piggy banks are just, you know, it's an industrial design problem. It's a user experience problem, really, right? You know, they are small, they are opaque. They may be divided into three or four containers, but they're really small and it's hard to get the money in, let alone not to get the money out. You know, the kids can't dump things out and count it and then put it back in again very easily.

To me, it's just a usability issue. You're listening to Motley Full Money, talking with Ron Lieber, his new book is the opposite of spoiled, raising kids who are grounded, generous, and smart about money. Let's talk about allowance, which I think is an issue that a lot of parents grapple with. You have some parents who say, I'm going to set an allowance for my kids based on their age. You have other parents who say the best route is to make the allowance work-based. So I'm going to pay you for individual jobs that you're going to do around the house. Where do you come down when it comes to the issue of allowance?

I think money is a tool for learning, and I think allowance is a way to teach them things. You know, we should treat money the same way that we treat musical instruments or art supplies or books. These are not things that we take away when the kids don't do their chores. And so I don't think we should tie money to the completion of chores either. I think kids should do chores for free the same way parents do. And if you want leverage over your kids when they're not doing their chores, you can take away the privileges, the things that they like doing the most. That's going to mean more to them and give them more incentive and to give you more leverage

I'm taking away, you know, a handful of dollars each week. You know, I think the bottom line is this, right? I mean, if you do tie allowance to the completion of chores, there will almost certainly come a day when you're smart Alex child will look you in the eyes and say, you know what, I've got enough money this week. In fact, I've got enough money this month. So I'm not going to do any chores. And then you're in a real pickle, right?

Because then, you know, either your stuff doing the chores, which isn't any fun, or you're going to put your foot down and make them do them anyway. But then you've broken the terms of the deal. The three jars for saving, spending, and giving, it's a wonderful way to ingrain without necessarily lecturing your children. It's a wonderful way to get them to think about three very different but very basic ways to think about money. Should allowance be allocated accordingly? How do you encourage your children to not just fill up the spending jar, but also the saving and the giving jar? Well, I think you can dictate how they divide it.

Maybe it should go in equal thirds, right? Or maybe you should divide it however your family divides it. It's possible that your family is a family that signed the giving pledge, right? You're one of those families that intends to give away 50% of your network over the course of your lifetime. And if that's the case, maybe your kids ought to give up 50% of their income to the give jar and, you know, make decisions about what institutions they're deserving of their, uh... large up or maybe it's uh... you know saving fifty percent of the allowance because you know that the parents are not going to be able to afford to

send the kids to college that you want them to start right away uh... thinking about how to save for the long term so you know it kind of depends on your family and and what you stand for but you know i do like that those three jars uh... stand in for you know a lot of good values that we want to teach the kids right saving is about prudence and modesty and thrift and um about spending I mean, saving is about patience and delayed gratification, right? In a world that seems to conspire against waiting in children. And then the give jar is about generosity and ultimately about gratitude.

Do you ever veto a spending decision? I'm just thinking about my own children, and there are times when, you know, money either that they have earned or have been given as a birthday gift or something like that, a lot of times I'm okay with what they want to spend it on. Every once in a while, I just think, oh, gosh, this is not going to end well. Not necessarily from a safety standpoint, but just from the standpoint of, I know what's going to happen here. You're going to spend your money on X, and it's not going to work out the way you want, and then you're going to be really upset that you're out that money. Right, but that is exactly what you want to happen, right?

You know, as much as it may hurt to see them hurt, and as much as you want to kick them from hurting themselves in that way, The very best thing that can happen is that they make big, colossal mistakes while they are still under our watch, because then we can help them dissect and diagnose what went wrong in that decision-making process, and then they learn from them. You know, far better for that to happen than for them to make really big colossal mistakes when they're 24 or 28 or 32. Because by the time we hear about them, when the kids are that age, they're probably already done some real damage to their credit report or worse. We hear from time to time about the rate of inflation and various things in life keeping pace with that or maybe even being above that.

And it seems like in my experience anyway, the rate of inflation is a fraction of whatever the tooth fairy is getting on a regular basis these days. It just seems like that has just skyrocketed. I understand college education is expensive too, but it seems like the tooth fairy. That's really out of control. what do you recommend for parents when it comes to the tooth fairy? Well, the problem with the, you know, tooth fairy rumor mill anecdote chain, right, is that the stories that you hear are always the ones on the sort of outsized side of things, right? So, you know, I remember my wife and I were caught unaware when our daughter lost her first tooth,

and we asked on Facebook, and it was torrented messages poured forth, and there was a $20 bill in the north suburbs of Chicago and the $100 bill, and particularly Tony Westchester County suburb north of New York City. We were intimidated. But, you know, one thing you might consider doing it is taking this transaction, which always tended to be about money and who gets the most money, and taking that out of the realm of finance at all. You know, what if you did something creative?

I know some people that I wrote about in the book who live outside. San Francisco, and when their daughters lose teeth in exchange, they get an animal tooth. And it's a different animal tooth each time it comes suspended in a glitter bath, and it also comes with a note that's written backwards. They have to hold it up to a mirror to decoded, and the note has tips and hints on where or what animal that tooth might have come from. So you can do something creative like that to give kids something to talk about at school the next day.

but doesn't give them cause to rate or rank themselves on the basis of how many dollars their parents threw under their pillow. You've been writing about personal finance for a number of years, and I'm curious what you think of the topic of teaching finance in schools. Do you think that's a good idea? And if so, at what grade? Because that also seems to be a source of debate of when, not only should we be teaching money skills in schools, but at what age we should start yeah you know i have a lot of thought about that i get first of all you know i really

do believe there's a direct connection between talking about money and teaching kids values and i don't think any of us really want to outsource value education uh... to the schools at least not completely so you know i'd like to think that uh... you'd these conversations ought to start and and in the home uh... but i also recognize that there are a lot of families where these conversations just are not happening or where the parents are working to or three jobs and they don't get to have very many sit down, dinner table, you know, calm,

extended conversations with their kids on a regular basis, or maybe parents are not very good examples. So, you know, in that case, it may well be helpful for kids to get some of this in school. But what I don't see and what I wish I saw way more often in these economics classes that were personal finances taught is a really rigorous look for first semester high school seniors at the college financing system and how it works. It is intensely and insanely and absurdly complicated, and none of those classes ever really put the kids on like a 10-week mini-course to understanding the fac-form and financial aid offer letters in the student loan system and how the

repayment system works. That is what kids need, I think, more than anything when they're high school seniors. One more question, and I'll let you go. Once a year here at the Motley Fool, we have Financial Health Day, and it's a day during the week, and everyone at the company can essentially take a break from what they're doing to focus on their own personal finances. We have outside vendors come in, a lot of people who can answer questions. Robert Brokamp, who's our retirement expert here at the Motley Fool, is the person who pioneered this program at our company, and he says he got the idea from you. So I'm just curious, where did you get the idea for a financial health day?

You know, I was so thrilled to hear that that goes on at World Fool headquarters. I don't know why I hadn't heard about it sooner. I would have been glad to come and crash and do a day myself. I'm definitely going to try and come back next year. I wish I could tell you where I had the idea. You know, I know it came from a general frustration in my own life that there was this endless list. of niggling tasks, each of which was going to require, you know, 15 to 30 minutes waiting on the phone and working something out.

And, you know, it dawned on me, too, that, you know, we're all in the situation now where, you know, heaps of risk and responsibility have now been sort of dumped on us. And as that's happened, you know, as we've taken on way more financial responsibility and much less has done for us by the government or by our employers, there's been an explosion, of choice you know different companies many of whom wish to do us harm who do not have her best interest with our and so just trying to sort all of this stuff out to do the homework to do the research to get the tasks done is practically a full-time job I do in the very least we ought to take a fiscal

health day once a year you know I remember some of my friends who would take mental health days from high school and you know the concept may well have started there you know why not a day for physical health, in addition to it for mental health. We will make sure you get an invitation to our next financial health day at full headquarters. The book is The Opposite of Spoiled, Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. It's already a bestseller, so by all means, check it out. Ron Lieber, thank you so much for being here.

It was a pleasure and an honor. Thank you. Coming up, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Chris Hill back in studio once again with Jason Moser, Jeff Fisher, and Simon Erickson. Guys, April is Financial Literacy Month. So if you're a beginning investor out there or you know someone who wants to get started investing,

we have got just a thing. It is the Motley Fool Guide to Investing for Beginners. It is our brand new e-book available on Amazon for just $2.99. It's a great how-to guide to get started. 75 pages. You can give it as a gift. You can keep it for yourself. It's the Motleyful Guide to Investing for Beginners.

So check that out on Amazon. Let's get to the stocks on our radar this week. Jason Moser, what do you got? Sure thing. A company brought over to the watch list at MDP, company called Market Access. The ticker is MKTX. Market Access operates a global electronic trading platform for corporate bonds and other fixed income investments.

So they are introducing transparency and liquidity to an otherwise traditionally nebulous market. Network effects in play here. It gets better the more firms that use it. And a lot of firms are using it. Great leadership. Rick McVay, he's been with a company since CEO since 2000. He owns 3% of the shares outstanding. Keep in my eye on this one. Steve, Brodo? Question for Jason? Is this a good time to buy bonds? Interest rates are very low? I just don't see any reason to buy bonds, Steve, honestly. I mean, if you're older and you're looking to protect your wealth, I could see where that might make a little sense, but they're just really the returns are in the stock market these days.

Simon Erickson, what are you looking at this week? Chris, my company is called Universal Display, ticker O-L-E-D, which is appropriate because they are the developer of organic LEDs. These are the lighting elements behind the scenes of smartphones and wearable devices such as the upcoming Apple Watch. But the big thing that's on our radar

right now, which is why there's a rule breakers best buy now this month, is OLED televisions. The demand for TVs is expected to really shoot up in the next couple of years. To put that into context, there were 4,500 televisions that were OLED powered in 2013.

This year, LG is having a trouble, tough time keeping up with demand, expecting over 600,000 TVs from that one producer alone. Steve, question for Simon? Is there organic material in these televisions? Is there something alive in my television? I'm dead serious. Where's organic coming from? Organic is the chemistry behind the LED device itself.

So there's a difference between a regular LED and an organic LED in the chemistry of what's actually producing the light. Nothing alive necessarily behind your TV. Jeff Fisher, what are you looking at? It's good to patiently go where others are not, and we've talked about Europe during this show. I have my eye on the I shares MSCI Spain ETF, the ticker is EWP,

and this ETF yields more than 4% right now. Spanish stocks are predictably not expensive right now. The ETF is down not far from levels that it touched in the lows of 2009. So is Europe turning around? Remains to be seen, but I have my eye on Spain and an easy way to buy into that entire market should I want to.

Steve? Travel tips for going to Spain. Oh, man. Barcelona is great. Sechis right near Barcelona, a little beach town. You got to love, if you go to northern Spain, go into France at the same time. You're not going to hear that on Bloomberg. All right, Jason Moser, Simon Erickson, Jeff Fisher.

Guys, thanks for being here this week. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next week.