Motley Fool Money - Earnings, Eggnog, and Year-End Financial Advice

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Nike scores with its Jordan brand. IAC buys Care.com for $500 million. FedEx delivers disappointing earnings. Bed Bath & Beyond surges after its new CEO cleans house. And General Mills gets a big boost from Blue Buffalo. Motley Fool analysts Ron Gross and Jason Moser discuss those stories, weigh in on surprising earnings from Blackberry and Winnebago, and debate the relative merits of eggnog and mistletoe. And we talk about why American Tower and Cerence are two stocks to watch. Plus, Motley Fool retirement expert Robert Brokamp serves up some year-end financial advice and talks retirement and saving for college. GETQUIP.COM/fool to save on gift sets and to get your first refill FREE with a refill plan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And you can get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with an expert today, only available with TurboTax full service experts. Thanks to KIPP for supporting this week's Motley Fool Money. Join over 3 million healthy mouths and check everyone off your gift list right now with Quip. Just go to get quip.com slash fool to save on gift sets and get your first refill free with a refill plan. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Chris L joining me in studio this week's senior analyst Jason Moser and Ron Gross. Good to see you, as always. How are you doing? We've got the latest turnings from Wall Street, retirement expert. Robert Brokamp has got some year-end money tips. And as always, we'll give me an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with sports retail. Nike's second quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected. And Nike's Jordan brand had its first ever billion dollar quarter. And despite all that, Ron, all that goodness, shares of 9.

Nike down a little bit on Friday. You know, Nike almost always beats expectations, but the stock still sells off about a third of the time. So you never know. But this was a solid quarter. 10% up sales, despite tariff headwinds. North America, up 5%. Greater China, which is the fastest growing for a market for Nike, up 20%. So they're really doing a nice job. Direct sales up 17%. Net income up 32%. Is that enough numbers for you? The company is really executing quite well. And they've done a really nice job of growing that direct-to-consumer business, which was a very

important part of their kind of new strategy. So are we, I mean, we're a couple of years removed from Sports Authority declaring bankruptcy and the ripple effect of that. It seems like, at least for Nike anyway, they're free and clear of any damage from that. Oh, I think so. I mean, they've been investing in this direct-to-consumer business for quite a lot. sometime. I mean, Under Armour has, too. I tell you, the other company that really stood out this quarter, Lulu Lemon, which, I mean, they're tracking towards 30% of total sales now

being direct to consumers. So that really is just, that's the new model. It makes a lot of sense. It gives these companies the opportunity to control the experience from beginning to end. And when you can own your customer like that, understand their tastes, their preferences, you can start to build product offerings towards them specifically. And I mean, you're seeing, What's playing out with Nike Sneakers app is just, to me, nothing short of astonishing. The app is big. It's doing really well. It's resulted in a lot of sales, and a lot of that really is just because you can customize

stuff and really build something that you want as an individual. A couple of things that maybe investors are focusing on and is the reason for the stock selling off just a bit is gross margins did widen. They're 44 percent, pretty solid. I think actually expectations were just for a little bit higher than that, especially with the direct-to-consumer business being a good. growing piece of this business. Also, inventory levels are up 15 percent, which in certain cases can be troubling. My take is that it is not troubling in this case. They're building inventory

because the global business is just very strong. It's safe to assume as we head into 2020 and the Summer Olympics that Nike's marketing spend is going to ramp up in the next 12 months? I'd be shocked if it didn't. New CEO coming on board, right? John Donahoe of eBay, solid player right there. I'm sure marketing will be up. and the business looks strong. Last thing on the stock, despite the little bit of the drop on Friday, it's still up nearly 50% in the past year. Is this an expensive stock?

32 times is not cheap, but I love this business. I'm a shareholder. I'm not even thinking about selling it, so I think you're good. Interactive Corp is a holding company with dozens of online media and services platforms. Care.com is an online marketplace for caregivers. And apparently IAC needed one more brand under their umbrella, Jason, because on Friday, IAC bought Care.com for $15 a share. And you look at IAC's stock price ticking up a little bit. It says to me they got a good price. Yeah, I think they got a good price. I mean, I think it's important to understand how IAC views itself as a business, because that's ultimately what dictates their business strategy.

And they consistently say they are the anti-conglomerate. They are not empire builders. They aim to bring these types of businesses into their universe, grow them, nurture them, in some cases, turn them around a little bit, and then set them free. We're seeing an example of that here with Match.com, which is going to be spun out here very shortly. It doesn't always work, right? I mean, they brought Angie's List and Home Advisor under their umbrella, combine those two businesses. That is still a work in progress, though it's worth noting that Angie's List revenue in the most recent quarter

grew again for the first time since 2016. So, I mean, the business has a lot of experience doing this. A lot of the brands that they own are just not brands that come to the top of your mind when you think about some of the more popular or powerful internet brands out there. And maybe that's where investors have a little bit of a tough time really connecting the dots. But, I mean, the stock continues to perform very well because the business continues used to perform very well. And Barry Diller, as we've talked about before, has a lot of experience in the space. So I think that with care.com, they see the opportunity to take something that has a lot of secular tailwinds in home care, whether it's for children or seniors. They're going

to hopefully leverage that network, maybe bring in a pet dynamic, combine that with the home advisor business, and try to figure out ways to exploit that network and grow that network. But the Bottom line is that IAC has a good track record of doing this. There's no reason to doubt that they won't give this a good run. But if they're looking to create essentially a home version of what they have built with Match.com and how dominant that is, we're a few years away from that. Yeah, I think that's probably a bit of a tall order, I think that Match.com, given the nature of the market that that type of business serves, it's a bigger market opportunity. But, I mean, the Care business, the Care.com business and the Home Advisor Business, Agenies list, those are all important markets

that aren't going to be going away anytime soon. Shares of FedEx down more than 10% this week. Second quarter profits and revenue came in lower than expected. You tell me, Ron, how bad is it for FedEx? I don't think we can think of FedEx as a bellwether anymore. The dynamics of this industry and this business in particular are changing such that I don't think it's appropriate. This was a very weak quarter. They had to cut their 2020 profit forecast for a second time. They cited several factors that are hurting results. The integration of their European TNT Express acquisition was one big one. Loss of Amazon as a customer, obviously another.

They moved to year-round Sunday deliveries. That has cost them more than they expected. They even threw out the U.S. China trade war as a headwind. Then we go to the calendar. Of course, you've got to go to the timing, right? So the timing of Thanksgiving holiday resulted in shifting of Cyber Week into December, which hurt the results. They threw everything at this report. It's just very, very weak. And it doesn't really, you can't really see it turning anytime soon.

Well, you look at FedEx losing Amazon as a customer, and that would be one thing on its own, but this is not just a large customer. It's a large customer that has decided to go out and build its own competitive shipping service to FedEx. So it seems weird to say about a company with a strong brand and is worth nearly $40 billion, but FedEx actually seems like it might be in legitimate long-term trouble. Yeah, Amazon on pace to deliver $3.5 billion of its own packages to customers this year. And you see a lot of headlines. Amazon is actually forbidding its customers from using FedEx to ship their products to the end-user.

which sounds anti-competitive, and it's going to be interesting to see if that becomes anything in the courts. But Amazon's playing hard well here. They contract with more than 800 delivery service partners right now. Shipping and logistics is a really hard business. And I think you look at UPS and FedEx for a long time and enjoy more or less a duopoly because they're providing what's ultimately a commodity service, right? You don't care who delivers it. You just want it there on time. Amazon has built this business that has changed the commerce industry completely.

It's more about convenience. It's about making sure they control that experience. We're talking about Nike and retailers like that wanting to control that experience. Amazon wanting to do the same thing. And so now you see FedEx and UPS and the like, they don't get to enjoy just kind of sitting back and doing their own thing now. They've got to rethink this entire model and deal with some real competitors in the space. This is one of those value investment, value trap things as well, right?

13 times looks awfully cheap, but the business is just in trouble. And you're really taking your risk. That's a risky 13 times. It's probably a safe assumption. It's going to cost them a lot of money to keep competing, and that's going to play out on the financials, which leads me to think this is probably a value trap. That's why I don't know the shares. Normally, when six senior executives leave a business at the same time, that might be cause

for concern, but shares of bedbath and beyond roast 10% this week when you're going to new CEO, Mark Tritton, continued to make changes at the embattled retailer. Jason, this guy is one to watch. Hey, extensive problems require bold solutions. I think it's safe to say that Bed Bath and Beyond has been dealing with some very extensive problems. And this is a bold solution. I mean, whether they left of their own volition or some left and some were told to leave,

however that worked out. I mean, I think that, you know, ultimately, Mr. Tritton sees the need to bring this business up to the shopping experience on power of the 21st century. And you need to get rid of the old school thinking that put this company in the position that it's in today. And so I think this makes a lot of sense. To me, this is the do-or-die situation. I actually, I mean, I'm obviously been giving bedbath and being on a hard time on this show for a lot of years. I do think, I'm looking at this with some cautious optimism. I think if they can make this work, this is the chance. There's a little bit of debt to deal with on the balance sheet,

but I think there's some levers he can pull in the near term. I would have actually cut the dividend completely. I don't see any reason for a business like this to pay a dividend. I think the market would receive that positively. I would eliminate share repurchases altogether, and then just get down to brass tax, close underperforming stores. Again, bring the shopping experience up on par with what we're used to now with all of these other retailers. It's a tremendous market opportunity. Home furnishings and home goods. We're seeing Target and Wayfair and Amazon companies like that benefiting from it. There's no reason why Bed Bath and Beyond shouldn't either. It's tremendous branding for that space. They just needed some forward thinking.

And I think that Mark Tritton might be it. Yeah, Triton did a great job at Target as their chief merchandising officer. It's actually a loss for that business that he left, but it is a gain for Bedbath shareholders. I think there's something here. I kind of agree with you. And we might be wise to take a little nibble here. Because I think this isn't over yet. He took the job in November. He was named CEO. in early October. And from the time he was named CEO, this stock is up more than 70%. There's a lot of optimism behind his installment as CEO. A lot of the hard work is done, right?

They've got the footprint. They've got the market opportunity. It's really just a business that has not been managed in this newfangled retail environment that we're part of now. And I think that he aims to change that. He's got experience doing it. And I think he's going to bring that over to the job now. Coming up, if you're looking to take a road trip, we have got just the thing you need, my friends. So stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money.

Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser and Ron Gross. Blackberry used to be the dominant player in mobile phones, but that was before the iPhone came along. Now Blackberry is all about security software and services. And third quarter results, Ron, a little bit better than expected. Yeah, not too bad. It is important to understand that this isn't your father's BlackBerry. It's a completely different business. And as you said, they're focused on data security. And they're also a developer of software for driverless cars. In February, an important acquisition, they acquired Silanch, which is a cybersecurity business. As a result of that acquisition, you saw revenue up 23% this quarter, but it really was kind of because of that acquisition. Their revenue from their interest, net of things business is actually down 3%. So that acquisition lending a lot to this quarter. Excluding one-time events, Blackberry earned three cents a share. I mean, it's profitable.

You know, I've got to give them profitable is better than not profitable. But, you know, it's still a small business at this point. I think revenue is only about $280 million for the quarter, and they've got some things to do before this becomes any kind of a significant business. So, the internet of fewer things, I guess, is really what we're going to. Seriously question here about BlackBerry. Do they just need a new name? I'm not saying they don't have... Research in motion, maybe? I'm just saying if I'm running a business and I'm shopping around for data security software,

I am old enough that I don't think I'm going to be able to get the Blackberry phones out of my head. I think that's fair. You could even rename it Silence, which was the acquisition they just made, or there's a million other names too. I think that's a lot of that. That's fair. Let's get them on the horn. Second quarter profits for General Mills came in higher than expected, and once again, Jason, it was the pet food division driving the bus for General Mills. Well, I mean, it's plain as day to me, Chris. Blue Buffalo was the most important move this company made over the last decade.

Full stop. It's not even debatable. I mean, we could sit here to debate how much they paid for, whether that was fair or not. But you know what that did? It gave them some hope. It gave them some time. It gave them the opportunity to highlight. some growth on the call, because when you look at the business itself, organic sales relatively flat, I think up 1%. The business isn't moving, really, as a whole. But net sales up in pets, 16%. Operating profit up, 14%. We kind of like to see that flip-flop there, but we're not going to get too picky at this point. Mac was asking earlier before we started taping here,

where do we stand in the world of cereal? Is cereal on the way out? Well, let me tell you. The word pet was mentioned 53 times in the earnings call, Chris. Serial? Just 21. There's clearly more enthusiasm for the pet side of this business as opposed to the cereal. I think that makes a lot of sense, because for people, there are a lot more substitutes out there, as opposed to that space that cereal filled for us years and years ago. But there are some concerns with the business. I mean, they've spent close to $4 billion in share re-purchases since 2015. The share count's actually up. With the business like, That sounds like they're doing it wrong.

That's totally doing it wrong. And so, I mean, like, for me, I see that and I immediately question, what are you thinking? You got to go the other direction there. The stock yields 3.7 percent, and that's nice. It's had a wonderful year over the last five years. It's essentially flat. I don't know that I looked at this as one of those businesses that has this tremendous growth ahead, but there's no question that Blue Buffalo is buying them some time, and it's working

out for them. I know last quarter they were emphasizing their move into healthier. snacks, which is obviously a trend here. Any talk about that? Listen, when you go through the PowerPoint presentation, the earnings presentation, you see all of the old El Paso and then you play yoga or something, a lot of sugar, a lot of sodium still in that portfolio. They do love that old El Paso brand, though. It's tough to say that they're really capitalizing on this health food crazy. I hear what you're saying about the five-year chart of General Mills basically being flat,

but you go back five years. They didn't have this division. They didn't have Blue Buffalo, and I'm, I don't know. I look at it and I think that the fuck, no. next five years could be more profitable. I think it could be, but I think that they're going to have to probably make another acquisition of some sort. I mean, you know how I feel about the pet industry? I think it's a wonderful one. And frankly, I think it's probably more exciting than the people industry at this point, Chris. But I don't know that organically they're going to be able to get it done. They're going to have to make some other type of acquisition. And fortunately, for them, they have the size. They can do that.

And pick up a copy of stock buybacks for dummies. Get that right. Yeah. Shares of Winnebago hitting a 52-week high on Friday after strong first-quarter results, both profits and revenue coming in higher than expected for Winnebago, thanks to strong sales in their motor home segment. You do a little shopping there, Ron? Not quite yet. It's interesting. I was under the assumption incorrectly that the RV businesses were still hurting pretty badly. 2018 was real rough. 2019 has been pretty good for some of these companies, especially for Winnebago. Shares are up 120 percent almost this year, and I honestly didn't realize that. This is a very good for these companies. This is a lot of way.

a strong report beating expectations, revenue up 19 percent, and that includes 12 percent organic growth if we exclude the recent acquisition of Newmore that they just made. Newmar being a luxury motor home manufacturer. So 12 percent organic growth, pretty good there. Strong growth in their towable segment, not so much from their motor home business, toable kind of getting it done here for them. Gross margins down a bit, but that was a result of the acquisition and the product mix. Earnings up about 4 percent. Operating cash flow, actually, even better. It's much stronger, up 46%. That's a pretty big number. So, you know, this company continues to do well after an industry-wide, you know, debacle in 2018.

Do you see yourself at some point later on in life wanting to acquire one of these Winnebago's and drive around the country? I don't know. For me, I've got zippy desire to do that. So, I mean, it's difficult for me to really fully relate to this. But, I mean, to your point, the business performs well. I would travel in one. I just don't want to drive. it. I think I would hit things. You know what? If you buy it, I'll drive it. Because I'm not interested to buy it a deal. Let me get a little road trip going.

I like this. We'll see you guys later in the show. Up next, retirement expert, Robert Brokamp has some year-end financial tips that you are going to want to hear. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Earlier this week, producer Matt Greer sat down with the Motley Fool's resident retirement expert, Robert Brokamp. And it's safe to say that Robert was in a really good mood. Bro, how are you doing? I'm doing fabulous. It's my favorite time of year, Mac. It is one of my favorite times of the year.

I don't want to be so dismissive of the other times. The rest of the year. Yes, it's all good. Okay. Well, it is the end of the year. And so in light of the new tax law, what are a few things we should keep in mind as the year comes to a close? Well, so one thing I'll just point out, that's one of the great tax benefits that a lot of people have at work is their flexible spending account. And for a lot of those, you have to spend that money before the end of the year.

So I just want to highlight that right off the bat. The tricky thing about the new tax law was, in a good way, it made it easier to your taxes because you have a much higher standard deduction now. What that means is far fewer people are itemizing. So it's gone down from like 30-something percent of people itemized to just 10 percent. So there's not as many things to do nowadays as a year-end type of save some money on your taxes. One thing you still can do if you are itemizing or at least close to being that limit is to donate to charity. And if you're close to the limit, what you can do it this time of the year is just bunch your contributions, do two years basically worth of contributions to charity in one year.

This is the year you want that great tax break, do it now, or if you want that tax break next year, wait until January 1st and do two years of contributions to the charity then. Aha, because otherwise you're not going to be donating enough to get that deduction. Right, because the standard deduction for singles in this year, 2019, it's 12,200 for married 24,400. So you have to have itemized deductions that exceed that amount to get any value from additional contributions. Okay, and one great way to donate, we know, is to donate stock. A lot of people sitting on appreciated stock. It's been another good year for the stock market. Right.

So the great thing about donating appreciated stock is, so it has to be stock that's held outside of a retirement account, an IRA or 401K. Let's say you paid $10,000 for this stock, and it's gone up to $20,000, and you've held it for more than a year. If you sold that, you'd have to pay taxes on that $10,000 capital gain, and then donate the money, and you have less money left over because you've paid the tax. taxes, so even your deduction is worth less. If you donate appreciated stock, you donate it directly to the charity. You do not have to pay capital gains taxes on those gains. Plus, you get that higher deduction because you could deduct the whole full market value of the stock that you donate. And if you're interested in doing this, just contact the charity directly, and they'll help you with it.

And Robert, another creative way people are donating is through donor-advised funds. Now, what are donor-advised funds and who should be considering them? So this is another way of contributing, basically bunching one, two, three, four years worth of charitable contributions together in one year. Let's say you donate it all today. You get that full deduction. It goes into a fund. It's no longer your money anymore. But you do get to direct how the money is invested and when it gets distributed to the charity.

So you're basically running your own little minor philanthropy. So you can decide two, three, four, five years from now which charities get that money. But again, it's a way to get that deduction today. And Robert, let's switch gears here. Let's talk some retirement. Something that you and me are going to be, you know, we're getting closer to. We're in shouting distance. Yes, we're in shouting distance.

Yeah, I'm actually probably getting close. I'm almost in whispering distance. But when you're on the show this past summer, you said that 70 was the new. 65. Now, for anyone who did not hear that interview, what do you mean by that? Well, so the average retirement age these days in America is somewhere between 63 and 65. But there are two reasons why that's not a good idea. Number one, most people are not prepared for that. There's a study from the Center for Retirement Research from Boston College found that about 50% of people run the risk of running out of money or having to cut back on their

lifestyle in retirement if they retire at 65. We just haven't saved enough. But the other issue is we're living longer, and we may not be built for 20, 34 years of leisure. There are plenty of studies that have shown that retirement may not be healthy for a lot of people. So I think just for our own benefit, it probably makes sense to work well into our 70s, emotionally, physically, and financially. And that's such an interesting point because we talk so much about how much you need to retire. What's the number, right? What's the number? And we have the retirement calculator.

But we don't spend near as much time talking about how to retire and what retirement might look like. Yeah. Some of the disturbing stats about retirement is, first of all, the average retiree watches like four to seven hours of TV a day. Retirees have a 40% higher risk of depression. Your social network shrink once you retire, if you think about all the things you do that's part of your office, the people you know, the parties, the gatherings.

than when you retire, you're on your own. So you really have to think of all the things that your job provides besides money, and how are you going to replace those when you retire? And bringing it back to the financial piece, though, we're in a 10-year bull market, essentially. So going forward, when we think through retirement, we should assume lower returns from the market, right? We should assume so, but I've been saying that as other financial experts for like three or four years, and it just keeps going up. But certainly, as far as I'm concerned, I want to have some sort of indication of where the market is going, because I do love playing with my

retirement calculators. And I certainly think that over the next decade, we should not expect that historical 10% annual return. I think anyone with a diversified portfolio should expect five to six percent just to be safe. Whether it's retirement or any other research or any other things you've been writing about. What's the biggest eureka-a-a moment you've had in the past year? Well, I don't know if I would call it a eureka. I would just say it's a surprise. So first of all, let's get back to the market, right? The S&P 500 is up almost 30% this year. No one a year ago expected that. If you go look at like the predictions for the end of 2018 and what 2019 would be like, no one said we're going to have 30% returns. The other interesting thing that

happened this year is interest rates came down. So the Fed started really. raising rates at the end of 2015, I think we had nine hikes, and people expected that to keep going. And now we've had three cuts, and now interest rates are back down to where they were from a year or two ago. That has been surprising to us who think that these low rates can't go on forever. It seems like they can. Not to even mention the trillions of dollars of negative yielding rates from bonds from Germany and Japan. But that has meant that as rates go down, bonds go up. And this has actually been one of the best years for bonds this century.

They've been up almost 9% this year. So it's been a great year to be an investor in general. And as we wrap up, we've got to talk college because I know that you have a daughter who's a freshman this year. What wisdom can you give me? As someone who is going to be looking at the college decision in a few years for my two sons, what wisdom have you gleaned about paying for college, saving for college, the whole college chabang? Okay, so this is sort of unique to my situation and maybe unique to fools in general. but anyone who has a stock plan at work.

My college savings plan was four prongs. Number one, I contributed to a 529 savings gun as soon as kids were born. Number two, we have employee stock here at the Molly Fool, so I always figured that would be part of it, and I sold some of that stock along the way and put it in my kids 529. Three inheritances. My wife and I figured between our parents and some other relatives, we would inherit enough to pay for maybe two years worth of college

for one of our kids, and that's about worked out. And the other one is cash flow. When you reach your late 40s and early 50s, most people are in their peak earnings, but also when your kid leaves home, your expenses drop a bit. When we took my son off our auto insurance policy from being the primary driver to being a kid in college, our insurance dropped hundreds of dollars. We don't buy as much milk as we used to because he's out of the house and another one's out of the house. So your expenses do drop.

So you don't have to have every penny saved before you get to college. Your cash flow will drop so you'll have some extra money. And the final thing I'll say is fortunately for me, I was able to convince my kids to go in state, which is huge. Nice. Nice. I like it. Well, as we look at 2020, do you have a New Year's resolution or do you have some advice for anyone kind of contemplating what their New Year's resolution might be? So for me, I always need some sort of external accountability. I may have talked about this in the show in the years before, but I'm down about 20, 30 pounds for my peak. You look great. Well, thank you very much. Inspiration. Thank you very much. But it took me basically putting $200 on the line with our in-house personal trainer saying, like, I have to lose this weight in a certain amount of time or I owe you $200. So I need that external accountability.

Maybe that's what I need to do. And my wife and I recently joined a gym so that we could both sort of encourage each other to go when it was just like, if I just joined a gym and it was up to me where I decided to go, it didn't happen as often. But now we're both kind of pushing each other. And that's been helpful. Well, I started doing Spin Fusion. It is a game changer, although I skipped the spin this morning. But I did the fusion. Oh, the one here at the Mountain Pool. How outstanding. It's so great. Yes. Well, we're very fortunate to have Sam here in-house and have that part of it. There's a culture of wellness here at the Motley Fool. There's study after study shows that your weight is going to be something close to like the five people you're closest to.

So if you want to get in better physical shape and financial shape, hang out with people who are good. Keep it in shape and go with their money. Well, true story. We're doing the stretching, and I was obviously doing something wrong and in some sort of pain. And Sam says to me, I'm trying to get you not to make that face. So there you go. Robert Brokamp is a certified financial planner and our in-house retirement expert. Robert, happy new year.

Happy New Year. If you want to hear more from Robert Brokamp, just check out Motley Fool Answers. It's our weekly podcast hosted by Alison Southwick and Robert. It's free to subscribe, so check it out when you get a chance. Up next, something we haven't done in a very long time. We've got a round of buy-seller hold. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money.

All right, before we get to Robert Brokamp, quick shout out to Quip. This year's gift can start next year's good habit with Quip. Quip is something that is sure to put a smile on everyone's mouth because it is dental care. that they'll actually want to use every day. The electric toothbrush has sensitive sonic vibrations and a timer with 30-second pulses to guide your routine, and the floss dispenser has pre-marked strings so you always use the right amount.

Plus, Quip will deliver fresh brushheads, floss, and toothpaste refills every three months. We've got a lot of people here at Fool Global Headquarters who use Quip, and they love it. You can check it out at getquip.com slash fool, save on gift sets, and your first refill is free when you get a refill plan. That's your first refill free. Just go to getquip.com slash fool. G-E-T-K-U-I-P dot com slash fool. Get-Q-Q-P-com slash fool. All right, let's get to Robert ProCamp.

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy ourselves based solely on what you're here. Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill here in studio, once again with Jason Moser and Ron Gross. Before we get to the stocks on our radar, something we have not done in a very long time, and that's buy-seller hold. And figure, because of the season, it's going to be a holiday-themed buy-seller hold. So again, for those unfamiliar, we're not talking about stocks. We're talking about objects or concepts or things that we would treat if they were stocks. So, Ron, I'll start with

you. Please. If eggnog were a stock, are you buying, selling, or holding? Don't tweet me. Don't email me. But I have to be honest, I've never tasted eggnog in my entire life. It seems very thick, in not a good way, and yellowy. So I'm going to have to say sell because the thought of it makes me gag just a little bit. I'll just throw out there that radio at fool.com. It's our email address for anyone who wants to weigh on that. Jason, what about you? Yeah, feel free to add me because I'm selling that stuff. all day long. I hate it. I don't touch it

when it enters my fridge. I'm going to as well throw it out because I think it's gross. I'm also a strong sell on that, but let's go to our man behind the glass. Steve Gordo. Producer Matt Greer is buying all of the shares that we're selling, but Steve, what about you? I've never tasted it either, so I guess

it would be a hold. But there's alcohol and it's right, there's bruises. Yeah, I'll take the bourbon. Well, you've got to add the bourbon. I mean, you buy it just like... Mac loves it. You know what? It's a milk jug, right? I'll just, let's just separate the Take, Knock. I'll just take the bourbon. I like that thinking. Jason, buy-seller, hold the idea that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

All right. So this is probably going to piss somebody off. But I feel pretty strongly about this. It's not a Christmas movie. And I'm in line with Bruce Willis' thinking here, if I'm not mistaken, it is a movie that occurs during Christmas. Christmas is not integral to this story. And let me just say, I love this movie. I'll watch it anytime it's on. It's just not a Christmas movie. I have to agree. It's a fantastic movie. It holds up.

I'll watch it all day long. It's absolutely not a Christmas movie. I mean, is Gremlin's a Christmas movie, Chris? No, but it's also not a classic in the way that Die Hard is. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on. Steve Reuters, what do you think? You know, I didn't even know there was a relationship between Die Hard and Christmas.

Yeah, just didn't even know. Come on. The first guy that Bruce Willis offs and he writes on him, Now I have a machine gun too. Ho, ho, ho. Yes, it is a Christmas movie. You're both right. Taking the other side of the train.

Got to have some disagreement here. Ron, sweet potato lotkas. Oh, hello. Are you buying something or holding? So I love sweet potatoes, and I actually love sweet potato vodka. But if it's the holiday season, I have to be a traditionalist here. So if it's Hanukkah, I've got to go with just regular potato lotca. See, I'm a big fan of lotcas.

I've never had the sweet potato ones. I think I'm a hold on this. What about you? I think I'd have to go hold because like you, I mean, I've had regular vodka. I'm okay with sweet potatoes, but I really only eat them during Thanksgiving, and that's about it. So it's undecided. Steve? Must be living under a rock because I don't believe I've tasted one.

What am I doing with my freezing? The golden brand in the frozen food section is pretty good. I do like sweet potatoes. Steve, before Ron and I hit the road in the Winnebago for our road trip across America, Ron's going to host a party, and we'll make sure he cooks up some lotkas, because they're fabulous. Two more before we get to raid our stocks. Missletoe, Jason. Are we buying, selling, or holding mistletoe? Listen, man, I don't understand how this isn't a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

If I see mistletoe at a party, I'm running the other direction, and I'm happily selling. Ron? I'm selling. I do not like to kiss strangers nor acquaintances. So I have to stay away. It really seems like it is a product of a buyout. Agon era and is worth selling now. It's sort of decorative to look at. It's like a holiday spin the bottle. Steve?

Yeah, I'm selling. Just leave it there. Good, because I was really worried you were going to come to the table with. I'm unfamiliar with this mistletoe. Maybe this is a reflection of my age. I'm not going to put this on anyone else's. But, Ron, buy, sell or hold, staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve. This actually makes me a little sad. I have to sell it, I think, because I'm old. In the olden days, I would have easily stayed up and been very proud of it, and it would have been fun. And now it's difficult. It really does seem like one of those things that's age-dependent. I remember being a kid, and I wasn't allowed to stay up. And then I got to, at some point, it's like, you know what? You're old enough now. You can stay up. But now I'm sort of like, I'm a hold on this because if I happen to be up.

Okay. That's fair. Okay. All right. That's good. Yeah, I think for right now, it's still a buy because we get to stay up with our kids. They're 13 and going on 15. But I think in the next couple of years, they're going to start going out and, you know, cause in trouble, which isn't going to make me feel like I have to stay up too late. And that's going to make me probably take this a little bit of a different direction. But for now, I like being able to do it, so that's a buy.

Steve, does the fact that we're not just flipping a year, but we're flipping a decade, we're going to be kicking off the 2020s, does that move the needle at all for you on this one? I don't think so. And I think it's because every year I know exactly what's going to happen at midnight. Nothing. Nothing happens. Well, the ball drops in Times Square. All those people in Times Square, nothing happens. Wow. Drop us an email, Radio at Fool.com. And you know what? Bring the heat on eggnog, die hard as a Christmas movie, any of the things we've talked about. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. And Steve will hit you with the question. Ron, you're up first. What are you looking at?

As the year draws to a close, I'm going to go back one last time to American Tower, AMT, a real estate investment trust, one of the largest owners of multi-tenant communications towers, over 171,000 towers, providing a critical part of the country's digital infrastructure, strong unit economics, competitive advantages, 5G revolution, a really nice catalyst, raise their dividends for the last 30 consecutive quarters. Stocks up 40% this year, but there's still lots of upside. I'm sorry, I just got to make a comment about the 5G 3. I'm worried that 5G...

It's oversold. I'm just worried that it's the new buzz phrase that companies throw in there a few years ago. It was China. It's like, man, we're looking into China. And now it's just like... And also, our business, it's going to play a role with 5G. No, it's coming. Internet of things.

And Ron told you with Blackberry. It's the Internet of fewer things, apparently now. Steve, question about American Tower? So I'm embarrassed to say this. I own the company. Does American Tower just find tall objects to put things on? Is that the whole business? Well, they build the tower.

and put communications equipment on them. Yes, and I'm glad you own them. But they build the towers. It's not just finding a water tower and sticks on it. They don't own the land, but they own the tower. Jason Moser, what are you looking at? Yeah, a company called Serence. The ticker is CRNC.

And if you've not heard of this company, then that's okay because it's still relatively new to the public markets. It was a spinoff from nuanced communications back in October. So this is a small-cap company, and Serence builds automotive cognitive assistance solutions. Sounds pretty fancy. It really just plays into that augmented reality and AI, artificial intelligence market, that I continue to follow, and ultimately bringing that into automobiles. In the form of assistance, whether it's for information, communication, or entertainment, or safety or convenience, Serence is looking at ways to help change the automobile space.

And so I think this is an interesting business. Going to learn more about it from CES this year and got it on the radar on the AR service. Steve, question about Sarant? Self-driving cars. What year? I keep hearing it's coming. What year, fully automated? When's it happening? Oh, I think a decade at least. Got a stock you want to add to your watch list, Steve? Well, I think I may go with Sarin's. It sounds kind of interesting. I like the towers, though.

All right, Ron Gross, Jason Moser, guys. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Full Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.