Motley Fool Money - Is Stagflation Creeping Into the Picture?

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

GDP data released this week shows an economy that slowed to a crawl in the fourth quarter of 2025 as inflation picked up. That’s not a good sign now that oil prices have nearly doubled this year and job cuts continue. We discuss what this data says about the economy and what we’re going as investors. Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jason Moser discuss: - Q4 2025 GDP data - Uber’s autonomous momentum - Adobe’s earnings - Executive free agents - Stocks on our radar Companies discussed: Alphabet (GOOG), Adobe (ADBE), Tesla (TSLA), Target (TGT), Costco (COST), Best Buy (BBY), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), NVIDIA (NVDA), Boeing (BA), 3M (MMM), Netflix (NFLX), Globus Medical (GMED), Aerovironment (AVAV). Host: Travis Hoium Guests: Lou Whiteman, Jason Moser Engineer: Dan Boyd Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We’re committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠megaphone.fm/adchoices⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are we headed for stagflation in 2026? Motley full money starts now. That's why they call it money. The best thing. Cool global headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money. I am Travis Hoyum, joined today by Jason Moser and Lou Whiteman. And guys, we've got to start with the topic of the day.

That is the economy. We got information about GDP growth in the fourth quarter this morning. That growth was 0.7 percent earlier estimates. it was 1.4%. The reason that this is notable is that the further we get away from the end of the fourth quarter, the better the data gets Lou. So where does your head go when you think about this? Because this is a sharp drop from, I believe it was 4% growth in the third quarter. We also have inflation, which was over 3% in January. So it seems like that stagflation word starts to come up when you have low growth and high inflation. That's not a great place to be from an economic standpoint.

Yeah, you're right. With each revision, not only do you get more better data because they've had time to digest it, but you also get this rare gift to see into the future compared to a few weeks ago and we didn't know what the first quarter of 2026 was going to look like. Now it's almost over so we can actually take that data from the fourth quarter and look at the world now. And look, it's not great, right? I wish we had a real uncertainty gauge the way we have the VIX for volatility and it's kind of the same. But it feels like what's going on here, this lack of activity, it isn't because just everything's terrible. It's because just for the last year, between tariffs, between war, between just so much uncertainty, it is causing companies, it's causing consumers to just do a little less or to kind of wait and see. The good news there is,

is that in theory, if we get more certainty, that's a quicker turnaround that it would be if just the economy is in the dumps. The bad news is, like I said, we've had time to see how things play out. Arguably, I think, you know, we weren't at war at the end of the, you know, at the end of the fourth quarter. We have oil. We have so much going on. If anything, things look worse now. than they did at the end of the year. So kind of combining the fact that things weren't growing in the fourth quarter with, wow, look at what's happened in the first quarter, I think there's a lot of reasons to be concerned right now. Yeah, Jason, Lou brought up the oil market. To put some numbers to that, January 2nd, West Texas Intermediate crude was $57 a barrel. Today, as we're recording,

it's 93. It has been over $100 a barrel in the past few days. So that's a big. That's a bit. piece of people's consumer spending. You know, if you're wanting, if you need to get to work, you need to take your kids to soccer practice, whatever you've got to do in your life, it's hard to cut back on spending for energy in particular, in particular gasoline. So maybe you've got to pull back in other ways. How are you thinking about that as an investor? And is this something that just sort of goes into your, the mix of data that you're pulling in? Or is there anything actionable here that you're actually doing when you get GDP data like this? Yeah, I think, I mean, Lou, I think, is right there. I mean, looking at things currently right now,

they probably look a little bit worse. The wildcard in here, right, is, of course, what's going on in Iran and how long this is ultimately going to last. So when you look at like energy prices, hopefully this is something that short-lived, right? When you look at oil and you think, okay, why is oil going up, right? Is oil going up because demand is going up, right, because of growth? Because then you can kind of support that. But if oil is going up as, in this case, because of geopolitical conflict, well, that's another problem altogether. And when you combine that with low growth, right, you combine that with inflation that really is still very sticky, right?

I certainly understand sort of the pessimism here in the near term. Again, kind of the wild card is how long does this go on? If it's something that is very short-lived, then maybe things start to look a little bit better. But yeah, for right now, I think what will be interesting in when we look at these first quarter numbers whenever we get them in, right? That's going to take into account the Supreme Court's decision to reverse the tariffs, right? So that could be kind of a tailwind, right? It also doesn't really incorporate higher energy prices and how persistent that may be. So, you know, the news is always in the revisions, of course, and we'll continue to get revisions as time goes on. But

it's very understandable for now, just sort of the near-term trepidation. So I'm not going to pretend to be an oil expert, but I am really worried about the idea that it could be temporary, the energy spike. And I'll tell you why. I do know a thing or two about logistics. And I think we are greatly underestimating, even if like, even at the drop of the hat right now, there's peace. I don't think we're going to see the flow resume. And I'll point to, look at the Red Sea. It has been at least, what, six months since we had headlines about attacks, you know, in the Red Sea from Yemen. Look at what's going on there. Shipping is still very, very depressed relative to averages. We're dealing with insurance markets. We're dealing with just the safety markets. Shippers are

going to be gun-shy well after the straight is open. I don't think we're just going to see an immediate flow. We need an oil expert in here, but I don't think some of these, you know, they've run out of storage capacity, so they're being forced to just shut down the wells. That's not a simple valve like your garden hose. I think even there, I am really worried that energy, it's almost too late for this to be quick with energy. And yeah, this is a major headwind heading into, at least for the first half of 2026. Yeah, and Lou, let's just kind of explain what you're talking about there. Oil is what you would call an inelastic market. So like we talked about going to work, if you need to fill your tank, you're going to fill it, whether the gasoline is $2 a gallon or $4.4.

a gallon. So about 20% of the world's oil goes through the straight of Hormuz, if my memory is correct. That is a huge, huge number. I mean, a 5% reduction in the supply of oil will send oil prices spiking. If this lasts for a while, a 20% reduction or impact in the supply of oil could have a dramatic impact on prices. Now, we're not trying to like fearmonger here, but this is the real potential economic impact if there is a prolonged, you know, a prolonged conflict there. And it's not just as simple as, well, the U.S. makes enough oil to provide energy for the U.S. This is a global market. So there's a lot of worms in this can that has been opened up. Real quick, a couple things. Yeah, we are advantaged to the extent that we are not going to

run out of oil, but we're not advantaged in terms of we're not going to feel the price shock. So, yeah, that's it exactly. We will. have oil, it will just be more expensive. The inelastic thing is kind of interesting and just a quick dive into that. Where it is elastic is, especially on the corporate side, trying to scale back, say, factories, so you use less. And then that really ripples through the economy in terms of jobs needed, employee at hours, and just all sorts of things. So there's a lot of ways this can ripple. Truth is, we don't know. And again, as you said, we don't want to fear monger, but just, it feels like there's enough has happened that it will reverberate for a while.

And I think we should acknowledge that as we try and figure out what's going on. Yeah, the U.S. did announce that they were going to release 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. To put that into context, that's about two days of global oil consumption. So it's a lot of oil, but it's going to be a band-aid on what could be a pretty big problem here. When we come back, we're going to talk about the future of autonomous driving and where Uber sits. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. The old adage goes, it isn't what you say, it's how you say it, because to truly make an impact, you need to set an example and take the lead. You have to adapt to whatever comes your way.

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to fine-tuned your vehicle for the roads ahead. The Range Rover event is on now. Explore enhance offers at Rangerover.com. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We have been waiting for Tesla to run away with autonomous driving for a decade, but it's actually Uber who is making deal after deal over the past few months. They're connecting riders with Waymo in some cities already. They're the kind of demand source for Waymo vehicles. They've announced a deal with Lucid and Nuro. They are going to be launching vehicles potentially later this year for commercial use. But this week, just this week alone, they announced a deal with Zooks, which is owned by Amazon, Wave in a partnership with Nissan. And then this morning, they came out with a deal with Motional, who is making the technology

for Hyundai vehicles. Lou, this is really interesting that we don't really think about. We don't really think about Uber as an autonomous vehicle company, but they may be the way that we actually access these vehicles, and it seems like everybody wants to work with Uber right now. Yeah, well, also, they don't have their own tech stack, so they have to be the ones out announcing partnership. So I think that's worth saying. I worry about almost like the press release war, because, you know, just because somebody is talking about it more doesn't mean they're the the only one's doing it. But yeah, Uber is set up pretty well, at least for now, as this gets more commoditized, as more people seem to be able to do that. Owning the customer is a pretty good

way to be an early winter. I don't know if that holds all the way through. I'm honestly not sure. I'm of two minds on that. Also, I will say, guys, I am ground zero for what Waymo is doing. I'm in Atlanta, and just yesterday, I watched a Waymo vehicle behind me get out of my lane, then realize they needed to get back into my lane and then leave my lane again. I, I wonder about how much we should think that this is just the future for everything right away. I know they're getting there, but I wonder if we're headed towards the disappointment part of the curve. But yeah, for now, Uber is pretty well positioned for the market as it is. Waymo is apparently testing in the Minneapolis area where I live in the snow.

And I haven't heard of any accidents or any sort of problems there. So hopefully that's a good sign for those of us in the North. the northern half of the country. You know, Jason, what's so interesting here is Lou used the word that I think we should probably be thinking about, which is commoditized. I mean, the auto industry has always had a problem making money because it's essentially a commodity. It's four wheels.

It has seats. And yes, there's differences between each vehicle. But the pricing power, unless your name is Ferrari, the pricing power is not super high. And you've got all these manufacturing costs, capacity costs. If you're an autonomous vehicle company and you're a lot of time, you're a lot of timeous vehicle company, you're not Tesla or Waymo or maybe Zooks, you've got to just find riders. And Uber seems to be the one going, hey, we'll provide them. And we're happy to be a partner with you.

And it seems like every automaker is kind of going, all right, I guess we got to go down this commodity road. That reminds me of the planes, trains, and automobiles line, right? Steve Martin, four bleeping wheels on a seat. I mean, that's ultimately what this is at the end of the day. And I think that's what a lot of us have talked about in regard to, AVs and just the general sort of commoditized nature of it. I mean, at the end of the day, that really ultimately is what it is. And so I would rather be in Uber's position, right?

Capital-like business that's able to really go any different direction at once. And I mean, you're already hearing companies like Tesla try to move past the vehicle narrative altogether, right? Tesla's no longer a car company. It's humanoid robots. So, yeah, I mean, I think that, I don't think this is something where we're going to see it all one way or the other, right? The future is not all EVs, or at least not for the rest of my life, I don't think. I think it's a little bit of both, right? I think it's important to remember, too, for some individuals, having a car and being able to drive represents freedom, right? So it depends on where you live if AVs even really make sense. Like where I live here in Northern Virginia, it's not necessarily an ideal solution.

We need to be able to drive to get where we need to go. But if you're in a city, like if you're in Washington, D.C. or San Francisco or Las Vegas, it absolutely can make more sense. And so either way, I like the idea that Uber can play this opportunity any number of ways. Just to play devil's advocate, because I honestly don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious, like, if we continue down this path of commoditization, where it just becomes every table stakes, how important then is the owner of the customer? You know, like, if you could almost get this anywhere from anything, how important is... You're saying you're going to talk to your AI agent

and they are going to disintermediate Uber? Isn't it possible if it's everywhere? If every taxi cab out there is an autonomous vehicle, do we need the middleman in the app? I mean, maybe, but I just wonder if Uber could end up commoditized as well. That's a long way off. I'm not really worried about that, but it's weird to think about how this ends.

I'm not sure if it ends well for anyone other than it. which I'm okay with that. Well, it will be interesting to see how this plays out because everyone is racing towards autonomy and I don't know that everybody has a phenomenal business model, but who those winners and losers are going to be is kind of fluid at this point. The fact that Uber is going so aggressively and partnering with seemingly everybody seems notable no matter where you're invested in the space. Let's get to Adobe.

They reported earnings this week and the stock plunged. It wasn't necessarily because they had terrible results, Lou, but it was because there's CEO said he was retiring, and it kind of caught everybody off guard. Was this something or kind of a nothing burger? I don't know. But it is funny because, yeah, he's been there 18 years. He's 62 years old. He's going to stay through and find the replacement. You know, I saw headlines. It was an abrupt resignation, but this is the sort of abrupt transition that I want in my companies, right? The weird thing is, is that a lot of investors have been criticizing him, too, for going too slow with this. And now that he's gone, look, there are times in the market where we're just looking for the narrative.

You know, we're looking for confirmation bias for the narrative. The narrative right now is Adobe is doomed because of AI. And so everything, good news or bad news, is sort of being viewed in that lens. That's not to say they aren't doomed. I don't know. The quarter looked great. The guidance looked great. But look, right now, the glass is half empty on a company like Adobe.

So, yeah, I think that that's the market reacting to any news as bad news. It's really interesting with Adobe, like the narrative, right, we keep on talking about this core and core wrath, that AI is going to just disrupt Adobe. It's no longer needed, right? AI is going to kill it. But then you go through the earnings call, for example, and all they're talking about is AI and how AI is making their business better. And so somebody's wrong here. And I tend to kind of, I tend to side with the company. company in this case, I mean, Adobe is certainly something, its tools are enmeshed in a lot of our workflows already. It's not to say that it is, you know, without competition. But I mean, when you

look at the actual numbers, I mean, again, I thought this was a really good looking quarter, the 13% increase in subscription revenue. And I mean, it's very highly subscription-style business. They continue to repurchase shares at a rapid pace. I mean, I was looking at this just over the the last five years, share counts down 13 percent, right? I mean, the company just generates. Ironically, they were buying shares at a much higher price than the country's been buying them today. And I think statistically, when you look at companies repurchasing shares, oftentimes they just aren't really nailing it. But, you know, that share price is also something that's beyond their control as well, right? I mean, there are other interests that may make that

share price go up or down. But the fact, the matter is, they see value in there. And those repurchases have resulted in a meaningful reduction. that share account outstanding. So I think that the bet that you're making today, if you believe in Adobe as a long-term story, is you know, you're looking at this company and saying, well, this is a company that's utilizing AI to make its business stronger. Time will tell whether that actually is the case. But, you know, geez, like I said, Adobe's tools are still enmeshed in a lot of our workflows on a daily basis. And that is, that's on a widespread scale. So I'm not, I'm not willing to give up on them yet, but it will certainly won't have to continue to follow the AI narrative.

To put their growth into a little bit of perspective, because you would think at this point with nanobanana and all these AI imaging apps, even all the applications, you know, Canva, things like that, their growth rate was higher in the most recent corner than it has been since any quarter since September 2022. Yeah. So it seems like they're doing okay. We've just got a minute left, but Lou, Lou, I'll start with you. is Adobe a value or a value trap for investors today? I mean, guys, 11 times future earnings. I feel like even if they are doomed, it's going to take a while. I am growing more and more curious about this.

I don't know. In the stock, I keep staring at it, though, as it keeps going down. I might bite eventually. I've owned a handful of shares for a while. Some willing to hang in there and just sort of watch this play out. I mean, they've got hiding for 13% revenue growth again this quarter. I mean, that's not nothing, right? So I would probably lean into the value as opposed to value trap, but it may take a little while.

They're going to have to figure out a way to really convince investors that they are utilizing AI for the better, for the betterment of their company as opposed to being disrupted by it. Definitely one that I'm putting on my watch list and watching very closely right now. When we come back, we're going to play executive free agency. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. And it seems like I'll be wearing the same old pain But good must conquer evil And fruit will set me free

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Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. In this segment, we'd like to have a little bit of fun. And so I thought with NFL free agency going on, we've got a bunch of executive changes at companies like Adobe. If we were going to have executive free agency, what would that look like? And here's the idea here, guys. I'm going to give you an executive, a founder, a CEO, somebody with a track record.

and I'm going to give you a few options for them. Let's say that they got offers from all of these companies to become their next CEO. Some of these jobs are available. Some of them are not. But it might be fun to see who would be, which job would they take? What would it take? Let's say that the compensation is the same, except you're getting stock options, all that kind of stuff. All right.

Let's start with somebody who doesn't have a full-time job right now, technically. Daniel Eck, founder of Spotify. He's kind of stepped away from that company, you know, still on the board, still involved. But let's say some big whales come after Daniel Eck. Alphabet, Adobe, and Tesla. If you are Daniel Eck, Lou, where are you going as a CEO? I am so uncreative here. All I can think of is well, Adobe needs a CEO, so therefore that's a natural.

But, you know, I think it kind of works. I mean, that has done a pretty good job adjusting to the AI world or kind of using AI to his company's advantage. I think that that fits nicely into kind of what we need, what we were just talking about with Adobe. And also, maybe the credibility to actually pull it off. You also, it's a turnaround story here at this point with the stock down, what, 40% of the last year. So if you're getting paid in stock, it's a great opportunity. Alphabet, I don't know, I love Alphabet's management.

So maybe I'm struggling to see how even a very talented manager kind of takes that one to be another level. and Tesla, you're going to have to show me the fine print about what Elon's role is going to be before I believe that any CEO is going to really make a bark. So, how about Adobe? Jason, what do you think? Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of baggage that comes to something like Tesla. So I'm going to take a pass on that one. Yeah, Lou's right.

Adobe, I think, is a turnaround. And so from that perspective, it could be cool to go in there and actually turn things around or at least just reshape the narrative so the market is more convinced. I mean, I don't think Adobe is a business in peril, right? The numbers we talked about before are still quite impressive. But for me, I think, honestly, I'd send it to alphabet. I think it's in line with kind of the, you know, the business that he built at Spotify. There's a lot of that dynamic that comes with Alphabet.

And Alphabet is just on fire right now. I think Alphabet has done a very good job of pushing back against that narrative that AI was going to ruin search or whatever it may be. So I think that Alphabet, that position comes with a lot of the skill set that he already possesses. And it would be neat to see how somebody takes Alphabet to the next level. And he might be the one to do it. Yeah. One of the reasons I thought that was an interesting option is if you're Danielek, you're not taking over another $30 billion company.

But if Alphabet comes calling one of the biggest companies in the world, you at least take the call and, you know, see, see what they, what they want to be doing. Let's go to the retail space. This is an area where there's been a lot of changes and a lot of challenges. One of the companies that's done extremely well over the past five or six years is Dix. Their CEO is Lauren Hobart. The stocks up about 240% since she took over. So I got three options for you.

Someone's going to try to poach her as CEO. Target, you know, that would be another turnaround play. Costco. Maybe more of a prestige play or Best Buy. Jason, if you're advising Lauren Horbart, where does she go? I like the prestige angle that you took there with Costco. And that's where I'd be sending Lauren Hobart, if that was the choice there. I think with Costco, you've got such a well-established and strong business.

And really, the main job there, I think, it's kind of member relations, right? I mean, you're just going in there, don't rock the boat. Make sure you keep on giving your customers the rock bottom lowest prices you can give them. Raise that membership fee every once in a while just to kind of keep in line with the cost of doing business. But it's such a well-established business already. I think going into something like a Costco would be exciting just to be able to continue just wanting to give your customers exactly that value proposition that they've come to know and love over the years. Yeah, I think that's probably right. So let's kind of have fun and go through the others, because I do think there's at least an interesting case we made.

You know, what's gone right at Dix is realizing what you are and what Amazon is going to just commoditize from you and focusing on what they can't. That's very similar to what Best Buy has done right. So in a way, if Best Buy needed a new CEO, it's probably a pretty good fit here. Because, again, I think just understanding your customer, understanding what you can give them that other. others can't and leaning into that. So, you know, I guess like for like, Best Buy Works, but really, if, if Target, I mean, this is what Target needs. I don't know if they're going to be able to find it. But if there's an opportunity there, if we could pitch to the Target board, here's how I see doing what we did at Dix at Target, that would probably be the most intriguing. My fear

what Target is, I don't know what that is, but maybe a good CEO. who's been at Dix and it was as proven that you can do this, maybe it's just the person they need to come up with an idea. I don't know. I think I'm dreamcasting here, but I thought I can at least make the argument for the others. I'd probably just go to Costco. That's the argument that I would have made.

It reminds me a little bit of Alan Malalley with Ford. You know, hey, this is going to be my last job. I'm going to take a big swing. Either the works or it doesn't. And if I, you know, turn the company around, I'm going to be a hero. I'm going to be a legend. But yeah, I think all of those would be such an interesting balance because Costco,

you're not going to get, you know, Buku bucks and stock-based compensation target. I mean, if you turn that business around, that stock could, you know, double, triple, but, or both. Here's the thing. The Malawi story, I know pretty well. He knew going in, like, we need to do A, B, and C really quickly, and that'll lead to D, E, and F. If Hover could go tell that story, then, yeah, that'd be great. My fear is, I don't know.

Maybe I'm not giving anyone. enough credit, but it seems like a much harder story to come up with going in. Can we just say, too, like, Alan Malalley, that is a story for the ages, I think. Like, what he did at Ford was just, I don't know, to my mind, it was unreal, given how on the ropes, not only for it, but really all of the automakers were at the time. And, you know, I just, I had the very good fortune to be able to interview him on the floor of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit several years back. and I mean, just what a nice guy. I mean, like, just he is as seen on TV, just super nice, really relatable.

But man, rock star CEO. So J-MOTA, you is something from your world. He wasn't just shooting par there. I think that that's what it comes down to. Yeah, that was a lot better. Yeah, yeah. My favorite was that he kept his house in San Diego and he just flew to Detroit every week. Those was a pretty long commute.

All right, let's go a little bit deeper here. I don't even know if you knew who this person is. Jeff Dean is arguably the kind of the person who turned Google's and alphabets, AI fortunes around over the past couple of years. He's been with the companies since the 90s, worked on search very early. One of the reasons that, you know, he comes to mind for me is he is also a gopher alum, like I am here at the University of Minnesota. But, you know, he's one of the bigger names that maybe doesn't get a lot of attention

outside of Silicon Valley. But if Apple were looking for a new CEO, he would absolutely be on the list if they were looking external. Amazon, Invidia, if you're Jeff Dean, and you have all three of those officers, Invidia, we're going a little bit off the board. We're assuming that Jensen Wong has, you know,

bought an island and decided that he's going to hang up running this, the Ferrari that he's built at Invidia, which is never going to happen. But let's say that those three jobs are available. Lou, which one are you taking it for Jeff Dean? So Apple is the knee jerk because the narrative is Apple has failed at AI. And this is a smart AI person. I'm giving Apple a lot of credit for that, though.

I think Apple knows exactly what they're doing. When AI is all commoditized, they will just pick it up and go with what they want. I'm going to go with Amazon here because Amazon, I think, is more of a collection of always moving pieces where maybe not just AI, it's consumer-facing front, but just kind of how does AI integrate into our business long term? There's both opportunity there and risks. It's not the kind of, I don't know, easy job than a video, although I'm very, very not giving Jetson long enough credit there.

But Amazon just feels like the middle for me, so I'll take that. Jason? Yeah, I like, Apple seems like, I think Lose Right. I think they're just kind of biding their time. They're not terribly worried over there about the AI conversation. It's in line with that philosophy. They don't have any interest in being first. They just want to be best.

They're watching everybody else kind of build this out and just sort of bring home the use cases and the real value that's going to be seen in AI. I think Apple, I would actually volunteer that is my recommendation. I think it's just because of that, right? I think that it's going to be really interesting to see kind of what they do with AI as the technology has built out. right, Apple does a very good job of partnering up. An alphabet, I think, is a great example, right? So I suspect we'll see more of that in the coming years. It was such a large, installed user base.

I mean, billions of devices active today in that Apple universe, it seems like they have a lot going for them. Yeah, given the things that he's done in AI and also the way that Google's products have gotten so much better in the AI space than I think a lot of us would have thought, I thought Apple would be interesting too. All right, let's do this one quickly. Mary Barra is actually a GM stock has outperformed Tesla for quite a while here.

Really turned that business around. This was supposed to be a CEO who was getting disrupted left and right. So if she's going to go on to a bigger and better job, Jason, Boeing 3M and Tesla have all come calling. Where should you go? Man, post-its, huh? Let me see here. Well, manufacturing. That's the angle here.

She's running a manufacturing company. they could use a little invigoration going off the board. Yeah, I like 3M is one of those sneaky businesses. Like, you don't really ever think about it, but it's everywhere, right? Again, at Tesla too much baggage, don't want to go there. Boeing, I actually kind of like 3M. I think it lines up with their skill set. And it could be an opportunity to sort of reinvigorate the brand,

at least kind of create the awareness to the consumer of all of the different things that that company does because it does a lot. and it does a lot of stuff very well. Yeah, again, I'm not going to Tesla until I get, I don't know, some reassurance about, you know, you won't have Howard Schultz leaning over your shoulder. So that one's out for me. I like the 3M idea, but what Barr has really done well at GM

is kind of just focus on what they do well and getting it to, they do everything well again. And Boeing, so much of it is just toe stubbing and self-inflicted wounds. I do think just a no-nonsense, let's get this right CEO. Hopefully they finally found that. And to their credit, they have a CEO, I think, is much better than the last two predecessors. So maybe they're already there, but I think Barra fits the mold, if not, of someone who can just kind of let's clean this up and make it work.

Yeah, it'll be interesting. She has done such a good job at GM. I think those of us who watch really respect her she's done. But there's a lot of companies that could use that similar skill set. When we come back, we're going to get to stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Full Money. These days, I'm all about quality over quantity, especially in my closet. If it's not well-made and versatile, it's just not worth it.

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Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. Let's get to one of the strange stories of the weeks. That is Netflix. Lou, they got a couple billion dollars. I know they probably don't have the cash yet from the Warner Brothers Discovery, acquisition that fell through, a Paramount is now buying. And they're using some of that money to buy Ben Affleck's AI company.

company, is this them just wanting to do something? Is this technology that they really need in-house? This is kind of a production AI tool. It's not, you know, like a nanobanana kind of a competitor. What in the world is going on here? Good question. And, you know, I'll be honest. This might be a me problem, but it's weird to me. And it just feels like we're seeing, it's like, I don't know, maybe I'm looking at the celebrity and underestimating the product. But like, this is, like you say, a post-production tool. It doesn't replace acting. It's for editing the scenes after their shot. Maybe, you know, it's just the best undisputed tool out there, although it's in stealth and Netflix just had to have it. But is it really worth $600 million to bring it in-house?

I don't want to be cynical, but yeah, it feels like, you know, they were in acquisition mode. Maybe it's worth the money just to come off as creator-friendly to signal to the community that, you know, we're doing post-production stuff. Maybe they just want a big deal. with Ben Affleck and it's a way to do it. I don't know what's going on here, but yeah, it's weird. Yeah, Jason, this reminded me of when Apple bought Beats by Dre, just so that Tim Cook could hang out with Dr. Dre and Jimmy, I mean, a few times. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but that was a big check for some headphones. It was like Dorsey buying title, right? It just was the weirdest acquisition, and I'm convinced it just because he wanted to saddle up with Jay-Z,

but whatever. Yeah, I'm with Lou. This just seems like they were an acquisition mode and they needed to do something, right? And I'm not a Netflix shareholder. I wish I was, but I am glad that that deal did not go through. I think that would have been just a, that would have been a troublesome acquisition. I don't think it would really resulted in the creation of a lot of shareholder value for Netflix. I think Netflix is going to be just fine on its own, but it does feel like, hey, this has found money from the breakup. They got to spend a little bit of it on an acquisition here with some post-production stuff. And maybe they feel like they're a little bit cooler because they can call Ben Affleck a partner.

I don't know. But we'll see. Yeah, be interesting to see how often he's in the Netflix office. For the record, I think I'd rather hang with Dr. Dre, but no offense, Ben. We like to end the show with stocks on our radar. We'll bring in Dan Boyd from behind the glass to get some thoughts. Jason, you're up first. What's on your radar this week?

Yes. Well, Dan, did you know that? There are more than 150 different diseases and conditions that can impair our musculoskeletal system, say that five times fast, resulting in pain, limited movement, and even worse. My radar stock this week, Globus Medical, ticker GMED, is a company dedicated to fighting those diseases and conditions. And it's a company that I've recommended in our services before, done very well through the years. but they are ultimately, they're devoted to developing the solutions for musculoskeletal disorders through the devices and surgical equipment, monitoring and technologies.

They are on a cutting edge when it comes to immersive technology, utilizing things like augmented reality and even virtual reality to train physicians on how to use their solutions. And it's a company just wrapped up a very strong 2025. Revenue growth is better than 16%. looks poised to continue here for the year to come. And it's a big market opportunity out there. This is a $50 billion or so market opportunity for a company that's still really just in the early innings. So I think a lot of market share to capture. And that's what I'm watching. Dan, can you say musculoskeletal five times fast? I cannot, Travis. Not even going to try.

You know, Jason, you made a good pitch. But what really is selling me is it seems like your dogs are really excited about it too. Well, they're excited every week just to have the opportunity to make an appearance on this show, and it seems like they nailed it again this week. Lou, what's your radar this week? I don't want to downplay my chances, but if Dan is really just leaning into going with the dogs, you can do a lot worse than that, right? Okay. So I'll say that at front. Dan, this week, I'm looking at Arrow Environment, ticker A-V-A-V, and frankly, I'll be honest. I'm not sure I like what I'm seeing. Air environment is the maker of mostly military drones. Its products have been a key part of the Ukrainian war effort. The company has gotten a lot of attention and a real

boost to the stock price because of it. Basically, it showed that the products are just as good as what the PowerPoint slide projected they'd be. But this week, Aeroveirement reported quarterly results that missed expectations. They lowered full year guidance to. Issue is a lost space contract and it was a significant part of air environment's backlog of future business. This was something they bought last year. It was most of the existing business of a company they bought last year. I do think this can just be a temporary setback. I don't think it's thesis busting, but to be honest, it removes a lot of the reasons for investors to be excited about air environment, at least in the short term. Stock is down 13% from the month, and I fear it could be hard to get

airborne again for now. I'm watching this one, but not. not for the good reasons. Dan, what do you think about the military drone business? Yeah, well, you know, I love it when somebody comes onto the show and brings us a stock that they're not excited about. That's not a cop out whatsoever, Lou. And I just want to say it stinks to hear that a company headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is not doing well at the moment.

Dan, I can only bring in the news. I can't make the news all good. That's fair. All right, Dan, what caught your attention, Globus Medical or Aerovemironment? Well, I'm curious as to who let the dogs out. Maybe somebody should put them back in, but I'm going to go with Clovis Medical this time around. All right. Congratulations, Jason. That's all the time we have for this week. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here tomorrow.