Motley Fool Money - Dirty Words: Election, Tariffs, Spatchcock

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

It’s our annual Thanksgiving multi-course financial meal – we’re serving up humble pie, talking about the topics we’re skipping this year at the dinner table, and answering the questions you��ve sent our way to say thanks! (00:33) Ron Gross and Jason Moser discuss: - The market’s strong returns over the past two years, but how they aren’t being enjoyed by all investors or consumers. - Why Target and Outset Medical helped serve up some humble pie this year, and why they’re thankful for Costco and Axon.  - The topics they don’t want to touch at the Thanksgiving table: the election and tariffs.  (19:03) We offer our thanks to listeners by fielding questions from our listeners about the paths to managing money, factoring your sleep number, what to make of retailer earnings, and how to spatchcock a turkey. A reminder, you can reach us at: [phone], [e-mail], or @MotleyFoolMoney on X.  (34:13) Ron and Matt break down the holiday box office slate and two stocks on their radar: Garrett Motion and Samsara. Visit our sponsor: Learn more about the Range Rover Sport at www.landroverusa.com Stocks discussed: TGT, OM, COST, AXON, GTX, IOT. Host: Dylan Lewis Guests: Ron Gross, Jason Moser Engineers: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed sponsored jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate C. According to Indeed data, sponsor jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

We're giving thanks and maybe airing a grievance or two. This week's Motleyful Money Radio Show starts now. That's why they call it money. 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 analyst Ron Gross and Jason Moser. Fools, great to have you both here.

Happy holidays, everyone. I'm doing well, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe we have a special holiday guest with us this week. Gets me every time. Every year. Long time fans of the show know him as Tom Turkey, aka Mr. Gobbler. He is truly Rick Engdahl behind the scenes, keeping us honest with the Thanksgiving talk.

We have our annual Thanksgiving multi-course financial meal for you. We'll be serving up humble pie talking about the topics. We are skipping this year at the dinner table and answering questions that you have sent our way as our way of saying thanks. To get us rolling, we are in late November. and investors seemingly know more than they've known in a while. Inflation is moderated. The Fed has begun cutting rates.

We know who the next president of the United States will be. A lot of the big questions have been answered for investors. Jason, how are you feeling about the market as we head into the holidays? Well, I'm feeling a lot better, I think, than we were probably feeling maybe a couple of months ago. And I think a lot of it just keys into what you were just saying there. You just gave us a lot of certainty there, Zell. I mean, there's a lot of certainty you just gave us. And we, of course, know that the market does like certainty a lot.

I do think it's interesting to think about the interest rate policy, though, right? Absolutely, we're seeing inflation start to moderate, and that's all fine and dandy. There are a lot of questions, I think, that have yet to be answered in regard to exactly how the new administration is going to pursue economic policy in the coming years once they take office. here in January. And, you know, I think it's interesting to know, in regard to interest rate policy, right? We've got a Fed meeting here in December, and it wasn't all that long ago. Just a few weeks ago, pretty much it was a guarantee that we were going to see another rate cut. Now it seems like that certainty has pulled back a little bit. Well, actually, rather a lot. Right now, it's kind of a coin flip. Seems that the market is kind of saying, hey, maybe they'll come

cuts rates, maybe they won't. Now, I think a lot of that just, again, goes back to how they're going to pursue economic policy in this new administration. Inflation, while it has moderated, it's improved clearly. I wouldn't consider that battle won yet, because as we know, historically, I mean, it can come in waves and it can resurface. So that's one question, I think it's still worth keeping in mind. Is, you know, will, is inflation fully? fully beaten and if so, how is that going to impact interest rate policy? But again, going back to your points there earlier, there is a lot of certainty, which I think that has investors feeling really good about the near term, at least. Yeah, I agree with that. Soft landing has been achieved.

I think it's fair to say. It's official. Not an easy thing to have achieved. And I will take it. You give me a year where the S&P 500 is up 26%, Dylan. I'll take it. Not too shabby. NASDAQ up 27%, not too shabby. Pretty exciting. A couple of things when you look at the market as a whole that I think are interesting. We've been waiting for small cap stocks to kind of come back.

They've perpetually been undervalued relative to large caps. And everyone was like, it's got to happen sometime. It's got to happen sometime. I think we're seeing some of that. The Russell 2000 up only, in quotes, only 20% for the year, but up 10% for the last month. It's coming up on the outside. And the Russell 2000 has been very strong, even recently, the last several days. The second thing everyone has been waiting for is a broadening of the stock market, away from large tech, away from Mag 7 to the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500.

I think we're seeing that as well. The equal weight index of the S&P, ticker symbol RSP, is up only 18% for the year, still good. But for the last month, it's up 4.6% versus the SMP, which was up 3.3%. So it's starting to overtake the S&P a little bit as we see a rotation out of big tech companies and into more widely mid-caps, small-cap, and other industries as well. You mentioned the year-to-date returns, 20 plus percent for the NASDAQ and the S&P 500. That is on the back of a very good 2023 for the market as well. You go to the two-year, and S&P 500s of about 60% on a total return basis, NASDAQ, up over 80%.

Jason, all while we've had one of the most anticipated recessions of all time. Maybe the market needs to eat a little bit of humble pie here. Maybe the investing community needs to eat a little bit of humble pie here. Well, I think we're going to eat some humble pie here shortly. We'll get into that in a bit. But I think it's very, to me, it's interesting to talk about sort of this juxtaposition between sort of the market's performance versus how consumers are feeling, because I think there is a big difference there, right?

It certainly feels like we are in a more risk-on environment here recently. That's understandable. But, you know, the market's performance, this tremendous performance we've seen, we're feeling it, we love it, that's what we do. But I think it's worth remembering. Not all people feel it. Not all consumers feel it. You know, I was looking at some data here from a recent Gallup.

poll. And they asked a question, do you personally or jointly with a spouse have any money invested in the stock market right now, either in individual stocks, a mutual fund or some sort of self-directed 401k or whatnot? And if you look today, I mean, the numbers are very encouraging. It's about 62% today are invested. But when you dig into those numbers a little bit, it's not all equal. You've got the wealthiest 1% that hold 50% of stocks. That's worth around $21,000. billion in equity. Now, if you expand that out to the top 10 percent, that group holds 87 percent of stocks. That's a value of around $32 trillion. The bottom 50 percent of U.S. adults only hold 1 percent of stocks worth around 430 billion. So, again, I think it's worth noting when we talk

about the economy versus the market, they are two very different things. While we love to see the market performing well, it's not necessarily indicative of where the consumer feels like like they are today. Yeah, I think that's fair. One quick comment about the market as a whole and the great returns we've had over the last two years, Dylan, 23 times forward earnings right now, the S&P 500. That's not cheap. The equal weight is a little better than that, maybe 2021 times, still not cheap.

We will mark my words, get a correction. If you expect it, it shouldn't come as a shock. We just don't know when. Don't time the market. Stay in the market. Ride out the corrections. The stock market always comes back and always. always goes higher. It has 100% of the time. So don't worry about the coming correction. We don't

know what it's happening. It will, but we're going to be okay. I appreciate you both serving up a little bit of sobriety there as we talk about those market returns. I'm also going to ask you to serve up a little bit of Humble Pie. We are net buyers of stocks, and so we have enjoyed those great runs, but we haven't gotten everything right as we've looked out over the last year. Ron, checking in, what is your piece of Humble Pie? I think I've got to go with target. I'm a fan as a consumer and also as an investor kind of. That's where the humble comes in a little bit. I first bought it back and bought it in 2020. It was one of the big boxes, stores that were open during the pandemic. Those shares, those cost basis is fine. Everything is going well.

But very recently, the shares got whacked down 20% in one day because it's really continuing to struggle to get its inventory problems fixed. They've been misinventoryed, if that's a word, for quite some time. Target is much more reliant on discretionary purchases, whereas Walmart is more essentials. And that part of the market, the consumer is not really focused on discretionary items at this juncture, still concerned about higher prices and other things going on in the economy. So the stock got whacked 20% in one day. I did buy more, full full disclosure there, and I still think we're going to be okay, but they do not have their act together. It's a competitive world out there between Walmart, Target, Costco, and the like. So I think at 14 times forward

earnings with a 3.6% dividend yield, it's worth the risk reward kind of tradeoff there, but it's not working out for me so well so far. Ron, you managed to do kind of a radar stock, kind of a piece of humble pie with that pitch right there for Target. It was very well done. Jason, what's on your plate for dessert? Well, I think outset medical stands out as one this year that has been terribly disappointing and fits this segment here. I mean, you go back to October of 2023. I actually put outset medical on hold here in our service. I mean, the concerns there in regard to GLP drugs, raising questions in regard to the company's market opportunity. Management had failed to file

a letter for FDA clearance for their Tableau cart. And remember, outset is this home dialysis system, right? This is tremendous technology, but I think it's just been led somewhat poorly. And ultimately, the stock has just gotten pummeled here. I mean, you're essentially looking like a penny stock at this point right now. You fast forward to this year, it seemed like management had addressed a lot of these questions. The Tableau card had received that FDA clearance. Management has struck a partnership with the largest privately held dialysis provider in the U.S.

restructuring efforts, paving the way towards profitability and everything look good. Then the next quarter, I mean, they just completely flip-flopped again. So to me, this was one where management just continued to let us down. I think it's a case where you've got an interesting business with tremendous and proven technology, but it's been led very poorly. And ultimately, that has reflected in just an awful share performance. For me, I'm going to go outside of the world investing on this. one. I'm going to say, I thought an Aaron Rogers-led Jets team would make the playoffs. Clearly,

that did not materialize. I remain hopeful. And you're a Jets fan, too. I got to feel for you. You got to believe. The bills are tough. We all thought that was really a lot of potential there. I'll be rooting for good football on the couch this holiday weekend. All right, after the break, we've got stocks we're thankful for and the topics we're steering clear of this year at the dinner table. Stay right here. This is Motleyful Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. I'm Dylan Lewis here on air with Ron Gross and Jason Mozer. It's our annual Thanksgiving show and we're saying thanks all around. What better way to do it than to look inward at our portfolios and the stocks that we are thankful for?

Ron, when you check your holdings, what makes your heart gobble, gobble with gratitude? That was actually Ron, by the way. You know, I have probably used Costco in previous Thanksgiving shows, but it is one of my all-time best investments, up 1,300% for me over the years. That's a lot of percent, Dylan, for a value investor. I don't often get those 14, 13, 14 baggers. So I'm going to give it some love this time around two. Quick anecdote, I've been a Costco member for 15 years, but I've only shopped there like three or four times,

which is power of the business model because I keep paying my annual fee. Two weekends ago, I said to my wife, we're going to Costco. We're going to make a day of it. we're going to take our time. 64 rolls of toilet paper later. We succeeded and we actually had a fun time doing it. But I do love Costco. Great business model.

They keep us renewing year after year because of the great value proposition, great retention rates, great corporate culture, still has room to expand, especially internationally. 1,300% later, it's not a cheap stock by any means. It's probably more expensive than it's ever been, but it's one that I continue to be thankful for and will continue to own. I'm guessing, Ron, by hour two in that shopping trip, you were also very thankful for the samples that they give out in the store. They had this little mini pancakes?

Excellent. Keeping you fueled up as you're shopping. Jason, what about you? What's a company you're thankful for? Ron, this is a no way of slight on Costco. But, you know, Amazon delivers toilet paper, if you didn't know. Just saying. So does Costco, by the way.

Dylan, I'm going to go with one that I personally own, but really, for me, I'm thankful more because I feel like our members. Members have benefited so much from this one. Axon Enterprise. We talked about this company a lot over the year, over the last couple of years, and for a good reason. The stock is up better than 140% just this year alone, about 250% over the last three years. And again, I like in this company, I think it's just the Apple of Public Safety, right? They just make tremendous hardware. They've developed the software and services side of the business to support all of that hardware, and they just continue to iterate. and they serve a market that is in desperate need of what they're offering. And you look at the most recent quarter here, revenue was up 32% for a year ago. We saw annual recurring revenue, which I think is really encouraging here, up 36%, closing in on a billion dollars here. And future contracted revenue of $7.7 billion up from $5.8 billion a year ago. And I think this is a company, it's an AI play, it's kind of an under-the-radar AI play

with all of the stuff they're doing in regard to. this new AI era plan that they have, offering customers the ability to subscribe to just their expanding set of AI capabilities and features. It just leverages the relationship, right? And it gives, it gives their customers a reason to stick with them. And there's not really a big competitor out there that is pushing them too hard right now. Again, I think that changes at some point. I mean, you always have to be worried competition. But right now, Axon is just the clear market leader. and it just doesn't seem like they're slowing down. And then this drone is a first responder offering.

I mean, I think they're pursuing a whole new potential market opportunity in regard to that as well. So I think that the good time should continue with AXon. I, too, am grateful for AXon. It is my largest holding. It is my best performer. I'm looking at some slightly better returns than Ron is on his Costco position, but it's a growth stock. And it's taking me 15 years. I'm very thankful that you're in that boat.

with us still. I mean, that's just that's terrific. Didn't happen overnight. 10 year time horizon on a lot of those returns. But a good reminder, it takes a while to get there. All right, over to one of my favorite segments, not at the table. These are the topics. We are all hoping to avoid at this year's holiday celebrations. No shortage of things in the zeitgeist this year. What will be off the menu at the Moser household this year, Jason? I mean, I can't think of one thing that would make me get up from the table and go eat my dinner in front of the TV. more than someone bringing up the election, right? I mean, listen, I, nothing against elections. I'm a USA, a election fan,

and through and through. Thumbs up on the elections. But listen, we've been dealing with us for, we've been talking about it for a year. The results are in. Talk about certainty. We understand the results. Everything.

We just, let's move forward, right? I mean, I don't know that there's a whole heck of a lot to talk about there. And it just, it seems like we are just in a very polarized, a polarizing environment right now and to bring something like that up at the table, you know, think about something. Bring something else to the table, please.

Ron, what are you hoping stays off the table this year? A little tangential to what Jason said. That's a pretty big word for this show. Tangential. I'm going to have to ask for no talking about tariffs at the table. And the main reason is that no one truly understands

how they work, kind of including me. Who bears the cost? Does it hurt consumers? Is it a good negotiating tool? Does it help domestic manufacturers? What about the deficit? Unless you're an economist and really seems maybe even not then. No one really understand this stuff. So I think we skip it this year. Skip the whole conversation. Let's move on. I can see it. Someone asks Ron about tariffs and just under the table. He's like hitting his iPhone, Googling like tariff history. It'd be a good opportunity for chat GPT to shine there. There you go. We're not going to talk about at the table, but we're going to talk about it now, briefly, for investors. There are things that pop up that are in the political realm. Tariffs are obviously creating some concerns for companies. And we're seeing some headlines that are affecting the market short term. It's hard to know what is noise there and what becomes more meaningful. Ron, as you look at some of that stuff, you're trying to process it, at what point do those things become important and relevant to the thesis for business?

I would start to think about them now. The headlines as of the last day or two, 25% tariffs on Canada, Mexico, additional 10% on China. You get some clues, but you don't know actually what will truly end up happening. So you can start to think about it. But if they actually happen,

that's when I think you start adjusting your models because they will have serious impacts. It's just I can't figure out what they are. Jason, I'm going to flip this one around. What is something you'd rather be talking about this year at the Thanksgiving table? Oh, Lordy. Let's talk about how I made my turkey, right? I mean, I think that's going to be the topic of discussion there.

But hey, let's talk about football. I love college football in the NFL. And, hey, listen, I always love talking stocks. I mean, we don't have to talk, you know, all of this other nonsense. We can still talk stocks, although my wife might not appreciate them. More on Jason Moser's turkey recipe in just a little bit. We'll be back in a few minutes. Stay right here.

You're listening to Mountainful Mind. In a world full of noise, long-term thinking stands. out. On the Capital Ideas podcast, Capital Group leaders explore the decisions that matter most in investing, leadership, and life. It's a rare look inside a firm that's been helping people pursue their financial goals for more than 90 years. Listen to the Capital Ideas podcast from Capital Group, published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Welcome back to Motleyful Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Jason Moser and Ron Gross. Thanksgiving gives us the chance to express some gratitude, and I love taking the chance to appreciate the folks that allow us to do the show,

our partner stations all across the country that air the show each week on their radio stations, and you are listeners for tuning in the dial and on your podcast feeds. Ron, Jason, it's a bit hard for us to deliver a thank you to dozens, okay, maybe thousands of strangers all around the world. I think our best bet here for expressing gratitude might be to dip into the mailbag and answer some listener questions. How do you feel about that? I love it.

Something truly to be thankful for. All right. Our first one comes from the Motleyful Money hotline. That's right. We have a hotline. And it is from Alberto. I'll let our producer, Rick Engdahl, run the tape. Hi, this is Alberto from Long Beach again.

I'm just calling because I'm going through the CFP process, taking classes through their UCLA extension program. And this is going to take about two years to fully finish it, maybe get the designation. I was wondering if there are other licenses or designations. designations that one can go for so they can start capitalizing on offering services, either the insurance route, maybe managing somebody's money, something, maybe a series. If you could just kind of touch upon them and say what options somebody has and the timeline it takes and what one can do with those licenses would be a huge, huge help. I really appreciate everything you guys do.

Thank you very much. I hope to hear from you soon. Okay, so Alberto is looking to get into the business and wondering about the certifications that are helpful for setting the path to managing money. Ron, I'm going to let you start with this one. Sure, Alberto, great question. So insurance is licensed state by state. So there's not one uniform exam as far as I know. By the way, check me on all of this because I may get a little bit wrong, but I believe it's state by state. In terms of providing personalized investment advice or trading in securities for others or selling financial products, if you work

For a broker-dealer, you'll ultimately need a Series 7. Now, recently, they broke the Series 7 into two parts, the Securities Industry Essentials exam, the SIE. You can take that even if you're not affiliated with a broker-dealer, even if you're unemployed, you can get yourself all set up and study and take that. You will then need to be affiliated with a broker-dealer to actually take the Series 7 to become a registered representative, but you can get the first S-I-E part under your belt. The Series 65 is what lots of financial planners have. You say you're studying for the CFP. You'll need the Series 65 if you want to give individuals investment advice or become an investment advisor. And you do not need to be affiliated with a registered investment advisor or an RIA to sit for that license. So that might be something you want to do. CFP is a great idea. It's a very strong designation. It's chartered financial analysts. The FA is great if you're going to go into portfolio management or money management. Jason, I know you came to The Fool with kind of a different career shift and maybe not the

more traditional financial analyst route. It might be interesting to hear about that a little bit, too. Well, yeah, the only initials I ever had after my name were PGA. I was a PGA member as a club professional for a number of years. But everything kind of went back to. I graduated from Wofford College in 95 with an economics degree. So I've always had the interest in sort of finance and economics and money and whatnot. My dad piqued my interest in investing when I was just a kid. And it was funny. We were overseas for a stretch of time for my wife's work. We were in Astanaq Kazakhstan, of all places. And as you can imagine, it was quite chilly one day. And I was just inside surfing around the internet. And I ran across a fool article. And that's where I discovered

the Motley Fool. And from there, things just kind of snowballed me. It became very clear to me that I had found my tribe. This was just people that think the same way I kind of think, long-term investing, business-focused. And to me, it was just interesting and educational. So I started out as a member, plain and simple. I started out as a member. I was very active on the discussion boards and just learning more and made some connections within the company along the way and was able, ultimately, to parlay that into a position with the company in the analyst development program that we have. And frankly, the analyst development program that we have, which is a homegrown program that we administer, it was super educational. And really taught me a lot about,

investment analysis and ultimately what I've been so fortunate to continue to do to this day. All right. We've got another one from the hotline. And just a reminder, listeners, our number is 703-254-1445. This one comes from Spencer in Los Angeles. Rick, roll the tape. Hey, what's up, fellow pools? This is Spencer from Los Angeles. And I was always curious, when you're referring to percentage allocation of your portfolio, whether that's an initial investment, or a percentage that is a sleep number, if you will, where you know a certain number where you want to sell a stock. My question is, are you just looking at one brokerage account individually or a collection of a brokerage account at IRA? Is real estate that you might own considered another component of that?

If you own real estate, would that increase your pie number and thus 30% of Nvidia stock? would be less of a percentage of your pie if you have real estate incorporated in something like that or additional accounts. Long-winded question, but very curious. Thank you. Love that question. I don't think it's long-winded at all. I think there's perfect context in there. And Jason, I'm curious, when you are looking at the size of an individual position, are you looking at it within the context of your brokerage account? Are you looking at it within the context of your overall financial picture? Yes, an excellent question, Spencer, and thanks so much. For me, this basically boils down.

to a question of assets versus investments. So in short, I consider all of my portfolios, right? I mean, I've got 401k with work and I've got a traditional IRA and then I've got a discretionary portfolio that have been running for a while. So I do have a number of different equity portfolios, but I consider everything in the context of those in total. I don't consider real estate in that picture, right? Because our real estate, in this case, it's not primarily an investment. It's our shelter, it's where we live. Now, I do consider our equity that we own in our home an asset. Don't get me wrong. At some point when we decide to move and in our girls graduate college, I mean, hopefully we'll be able to use all of that equity to ultimately fund the purchase of our next home and take out little to no mortgage whatsoever. We can all hope across that bridge when we come to it. Now, I will say, if I owned investment real estate, I would definitely view it differently.

And we have owned investment real estate before. And so I think it just depends on that position. Your particular situation there. But that's how I view it, question of assets versus investments. I like your answer there, Jason. And I think one of the things that comes to mind when I think about money that is in real estate is liquidity as well. Yeah, that's a good point. You have a little bit more access to that money that's in the market or in funds than you might a home that you live in.

Yeah, real estate's liquid to the extent that you can borrow against it, but you're still borrowing. Ron, anything to add to that one? I agree with everything Jason said. I consolidate all of my various accounts to one so I can look at my Costco position across accounts and see what per allocation it is in total. I do not count hard assets like real estate as part of the allocation. And when we talk about allocation, let's say we say 5% allocation to Costco, that's where we either want to own it ourselves or have our members own it. But then not market will move that allocation around. Stocks go up and stocks go down, not only in that one company, but in all the companies you own, and that's going to go to four and a half percent, five and a half

percent, nine percent, ten percent, hopefully higher and higher if it's a good stock. And at some point you want to rebalance. Once this company becomes too big a piece of your portfolio and you either not sleeping at night because there's too much risk associated with it, or if you just don't love it as much for it to be 10 percent, but you're more comfortable with five, then there's nothing wrong with kind of rebalancing and selling some, or even if you think it's completely overvalued and not going to return anything worthy in the future selling it all. Ron, I think that trip to Costco has taken you from a fan that is thankful to full-on evangelist.

This is the second time it's come up on today's show. You are a change man. All right. This next one comes to us via email. Remindery, you can reach us radio at fool.com. Ed writes in, hey, fools, we're in the thick of holiday shopping season. I hear you guys talk about how it is retail's. big season. Do you weigh the results that retailers put up in the holidays more when you're looking

at a retailer and the management team's track record? Ron, you've been talking retail a lot on today's show. Target, Costco, does this factor in as you're looking at company results? Absolutely. And it's called Black Friday for a reason because it's historically the day that a retailer goes from losing money being in the red to making money and being in the black. It's not as important. as it used to be, but it's still pretty important. And the holiday season is where many retailers make the most of their money in any given year. So it is very important to their overall results. Companies are reporting all over the place. Coals not so good. Target not so good. Walmart just fine. Others are doing well. But it is a very important part of the revenue and earnings picture of

pretty much every retailer. The holiday season, very, very important. Jason, I know you follow some retailers as well. How does the holiday season factor for you. Yeah, I feel like we need to introduce some sort of a bet or gambling component to this, right? Like Black Friday over the years, right? It's expanded. It's extended far beyond just like this weekend that it used to be. Now Black Friday is like essentially right after Thanksgiving, up until Christmas Eve. At what point does Black Friday enter October? Now, I'm going to set the over under. I'm going to set the over under at 2030. By the year 2030, We will see Black Friday enter October.

Are you guessing before that or after that? I don't know. Just something to think about, because, yes, I agree. The holiday season is tremendous for these retailers. It's something that they're planning all year for, and rightly so, because that's when spending really happens. And so for me, you know, a lot of times when I'm looking at these retailers, particularly to see how they've done over the course of the holiday season,

I like to look at not only the top line growth, right? We want to see actually growth in that particular quarter, see how that reflects over the course of the whole year, but also I think another thing to keep in mind is looking at the margin picture, especially the gross margin, right? Because ultimately a lot of these companies, more and more, we're seeing these retailers, they resort to big-time sales, which is nothing new, right?

All of these companies do it for this Black Friday period of time. But that comes at a cost, right? It comes at a cost on that gross margin picture. And so I think it's interesting to look at how these retailers are performing in regard to that gross margin, to see how those pricing strategies are really working out. We know that the larger retailers are able to cope with that a little bit better, bringing those savings back down to the bottom line simply due to their scale. Holiday earnings in the aggregate are not expected to be very strong this season for a lot of reasons we've been talking about where the consumer in certain circumstances is hurting. So it will be very interesting to watch. If it's better than expected, then watch these retailers really perform.

If it's kind of as expected, we'll probably get some kind of a lackluster situation in terms of stocks. But it will be very interesting to see, as well as the forward guidance for the coming year. That's always kind of an important metric that we get around now as well. All right. Speaking of the holidays, we got a particularly fun question over on Twitter. This one comes to us from Neil in Rockville. Hey, Conviction Hold, that's Jason Moser on Twitter. Need to tap in one of your superpowers.

My wife wants to Spatchcock our turkey this year, and I just heard you on Motley Fool Money. Any recommended videos or info on sites to do this properly? Planning on convection roasting, not grilling. Jason, I think this is probably the question you've looked forward to most on today's show. Have at it. How are you cooking the turkey? Well, I just love Spatchcock because so many people think it's a bad word. actually one of the greatest ways to cook a bird.

You're essentially cutting out the backbone, flattening out the bird, whether it's a turkey or a chicken. And it just cooks more evenly and makes for a better dining experience. But yep, I'm going to be spash cocking our turkey on the Trigger this year, smoking that thing low and slow. And, you know, I think a lot of people ask this question, do you brine your turkey? Do you not brine your turkey?

You know what? I do brine it. But Dylan, I'm dry brining. I'm not going with the wet brine. The wet brine's too much work. You've got to have a big tub and all that water. Dry brine. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it.

You'll learn something. Or just reach out to him on Twitter. Easy enough. He is happy to answer all your culinary questions there. Ron, Neal and Rockville did not ask for your approach this Thanksgiving, but I will. You are known for your culinary feats as well. What are you cooking up this Thanksgiving? Neil's a buddy.

I think he can. We are trying. traveling this season. So I can't do too much of it, but I am in charge of the sweet potato pie. Now, in my family, the sweet potato pie is served hot with the meal, not cold as a dessert. Very important. Milted marshmallows on top. It takes the place of sweet potatoes or even a mashed potato, but we have those as well. So I'll be doing the sweet potato pies. And that with a little bit of stuffing kind of mixed in, a little bit of turkey, of course, on the fork. That's your perfect bite. Sounds absolutely delicious. Wish I was at the Gross household or the Moser household. You

guys are both putting out quite a feast. Rapping us up here, Mike B wrote us a note via the comments feature in Spotify, and I have to air this one because I've got you guys on the show with me. Ron Gross and J-Mo, this combo will yield a top 10 podcast. It is the winning formula, rinse and repeat. I'm guessing Mike will be a fan of this episode, and I am a fan of having both you guys here. Listeners, really appreciate you guys. Writing in, tuning in, doing all you can. We'll be right back in a little bit. We've got radar stocks coming up a second. Stay right here. You're listening to Motleyful money. Come on people now. Smile on your brother. Everybody get together. Try to love one.

As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about. And the Motley Fool may have four more recommendations for or against. So, don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Molly Fool Only Picture Products. It personally recommend a friends like you. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Ron Gross and Jason Moser. If you are a fan of movies, last year's Thanksgiving box office was a bit of a downer,

only pulled in around $125 million. But things are looking up this year, gents. Disney's Moana 2 projects to beat that total by itself. The sequel is hitting Theaters Wednesday and expecting a pull in somewhere north of $135 million. dollars, there will be some other heavy hitters in the lineup this year. We have musical slash book adaptation Wicked. We have the long-awaited sequel, Gladiator 2 hitting the big screens. Jason, are you seeing any of these movies with your family while everyone's home?

God admit, Dylan, I'm pretty uninspired here. I will give credit where credits do. I think with Wicked, listen, I had the good fortune of seeing that on Broadway, several years back with our girls. So that was a tremendous experience and wonderful production. I just don't understand how the movie can top that. frankly here it's like three hours long so hard pass gladiator hey listen i love that movie gladiator too looks like it's all they i out so i think maybe i would at least go see moana with the kids because that would just take me back to a day when they were just little girls and we had so much fun doing

all of those little things together but yeah any which way you cut it i guess it could be a better holiday season ron you grabbing any popcorn i actually don't think i am dylan but i feel like i've seen wicked because my daughter who's home for the holidays went and saw it two days ago and she will not stop singing the songs. In fact, I had to say I'm going on the radio show. I got to stop singing. It's going to get picked up in the mic. So I feel like I'm there. I don't need to go there for three hours. I have a feeling I will be there for three hours. I have a feeling that is in my future for Thanksgiving. All right, let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Rick Engdahl is going to hit you with a question. Ron, you're up first. What are you looking at

this week. Garrett Motion, GTX, is what my friend Bill Mann calls an orphaned spin-off operating in a dying industry with complex financials and a recent bankruptcy. So what is not to love, Dylan? It's fantastic. But our Value Hunter Service does think it's an interesting deep value candidate. They supply turbochargers and electric vehicle power trains for passenger cars, small trucks. It was spun out of Honeywell International. That's H-O-N. They did have to file bankruptcy because they were settled with asbestos liabilities as part of that spinoff. But now they're back. Now they're back public.

Things are looking better. They still have a lot of debt, but they're paying that down. They're making money. We've got a high-performing company with low expectations. Trades at only five times free cash flow. Could be interesting. I'm going to maybe take a nibble, but I've got some more work to do. Rick, a question about Garrett Motion.

Ron, you had me at Dying Industry. Is that something you look for as a value investor? I'm not a value investor myself. If you're going for deep value, it's sometimes you look for the ugly. Jason, you might have an easy hurdle to clear this week. What are you looking at? Yeah, one of my favorite tickers out there, Sam Sara, ticker is IoT. A company recommended back in February 2023, and it's rewarded our members up since then 240%.

Remember, this is a company that operate the connected operations cloud that connects all of the IoT devices that a company has in ultimately just a business that continues to perform very well. Most recent quarter saw revenue growth at 37 percent, annualized recurring revenue growth at 36 percent, and a 41 percent jump in large customers. So they have another earnings release coming out on December 5th. That's what I'm following. Rick, I think I can speak pretty comfortably here. Are you going with Sam Sarah as your radar stock? Sam Sarah has been JMO's radar stock so many times. I keep having to come up with questions for it, and I just wonder when it gets off the radar and onto your actual portfolio. ever happened? No questions needed. No questions needed. The ticker is just too good. It speaks for itself. Jason, Ron, appreciate you bringing radar stocks and thankful for Rick Engdahl behind the glass, putting the show together. That's going to do it for this week's Motleyful Money Radio Show.

The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. I'm Dylan Lewis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.