Motley Fool Money - Motley Fool Money: 02.04.2011

Episode Date: February 4, 2011

Best-selling author Michael Lewis talks about Wall Street's next big bet.  BP resumes its dividend.  Mattel reports big earnings.  And Netflix braces itself for some big competition.  Plus, we put you to the test with our Victoria's Secret quiz and share some stocks on our radar.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Dikes for being here. I'm your host, Chris Hill, and I'm joined by Motley Fool Senior Analyst, Seth Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross. Guys, good to see you. Good to see you. Best-selling author, Michael Lewis is our guest this week. We've got strong numbers from the world of retail,

and we'll look at whether the millions spent on Super Bowl ads are a good investment. Plus, as always, a look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with the big macro. Fed Chief Ben Bernanke said this week he sees increased evidence of an economic recovery. We had a massive winter storm that stretched from Dallas to New England affecting 100 million people. And on Friday, the government reported the economy added 36,000 jobs in January. Ron Gross, I'll start with you.

Not exactly great job numbers. What stood up for you this week? Yeah, not what economists were expecting. Normally when I hear weather being blamed for something, it kind of makes me go, ha. But in this case, I think I'm going to give it to him. Did you look out the window? The weather has been pretty severe. And so we saw pretty weak numbers in construction and transportation.

Factory employment was a highlight. Those numbers look pretty good. The bigger headline, perhaps, is that the unemployment rate was down to 9% from 9.4. but let's not get too excited. Once again, the labor force shrunk. More people are becoming discouraged each month and are dropping out of the job hunt, and that's making the numbers look better

than they actually are. Seth? Well, I was looking at the numbers. I like to look a little bit below the headline because that's the only way to differentiate yourself, right? And the number of employees employed part-time for economic reasons actually dropped a little bit. So that seems like a little bit of decent news to me.

And employment in retail trade, I noticed, rose, a bit. And that should start perhaps a virtuous cycle by which the retailers, if they're adding people, that suggests that they are seeing sales that are encouraging. And, you know, once people start spending money, they start getting jobs, that's how you get economies rolling again. So this actually looks like a decent report to me. Yeah, but also important to note that even though Bernanke sees evidence of a self-sustaining economy, he's not willing to ease up on the quantitative easing. And so he needs to see, and I think this is right, significantly lower unemployment before the government pulls back.

He's good to know that he is least aware. As my colleague Jason Moser read to me recently, and I guess read to me makes it sound more paternal than the exchange was. James was on his knee-bedtime story. A real recovery is going to require a job, so it's good to know he's master the obvious. But I guess it implies that the monetary policy has been some sort of a fake recovery, which I can't figure out.

Don't you think Bernanke needs to make some sort of bold pronouncement? Like if we get to 8% unemployment, he'll shave his beard? Yeah, something. He'll streak the quad, something. Some kind of incentive for the American people. We talked earlier in the week on Market Fullery, our new daily podcast. We were talking about the snow, and one of the winners that one of our colleagues identified is Compass Minerals, which is a company that makes rock salt, one of the few companies out there that makes rock salt.

When you look at the airlines canceling thousands upon thousands of flights, it's pretty obvious to see the losers in a massive snowstorm. Are there any other winners out there? that you guys look at or industries that you think have potential? I don't know. I mean, you cancel a bunch of flights. You've got the ticket money from these people and you don't have to fly them. That sounds like a pretty good deal with me.

Amazon. People are buying shovels. Really? The shovel manufacturers are cleaning up. They're buying stuff online. Actually, if you, while we're going to talk a little bit about retail numbers coming up, but if you look at some of the reports we're getting, the weather didn't keep as many people away as you might think,

and a lot of them had to run to the store and buy jacking. All right. The other story dominating headlines around the world is the ongoing situation in Egypt. James Early, this is a business show, and there are certainly some different storylines to pull from the importance of the Suez Canal, global food prices, the internet shut down as an investor when you see what's going on in Egypt. What are you focused on? Well, it is interesting, Chris. We see pictures of the unrest, but how many stories do we see about the global economic problems that this is causing? And that's partly because of not really causing a lot of economic problems, and that's why the Egyptians are upset.

Egypt has not been a big player economically, thanks in large part to Mabark, so it's understandable that they're upset. The stock market, I think, dropped 16 percent, and then has been closed for the past week or so, so we really don't know what's happened with Egyptian valuations, but the Egyptian economy really just depends on four things. The Suez Canal, remuneration from Egyptians working abroad, tourism, and U.S. AIDS. So the real risk, I would say, is it the unrest, excuse me, spreads to the Middle East, but if it's contained in Egypt, it probably won't be too big of a deal.

Seth? From the reports I'm seeing about Egyptians sort of taking out frustrations, at least some groups of thugs on journalists and foreigners, the Egyptians probably ought to be worried that they kill their tourism industry, at least in the short term, because if people are worried about that kind of thing, they are not going to go to Egypt, and that's a pretty big source of revenue from the country.

If you're killing your tourists, it might actually kill your... Yeah, ask Miami. Ron? And this seems to be fading into the woodwork just a little bit, But the geopolitical spreading of this problem, perhaps into Yemen or Jordan, if that were to happen, I think then this becomes a much bigger deal. And if the Mideast becomes destabilized more so than it already is, we could see a lot of uncertainty and weakness in the markets and in the economies around the world. You're saying buy oil futures, Ron? Could be.

Do you have a preferred country for it to spread to if you had to pick one? If I had to pick one. Canada. Canada is France, right? Like we're wishing it on someone? I don't know. Yeah, I'm with Seth. I think France.

France, yeah. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're going through some of the big headlines of the week. Seth, Jason, we had some strong retail numbers this week, led by limited brands and the gap. Have you been doing more shopping? Well, you can tell from my wardrobe and my haircut that I don't go to the mall nearly often enough. Not a stylish man. Your haircuts are only at the mall for you.

Yeah. Haircuts from here in the bathroom next to the bathtub with my wife wielding the shaver. I tried that it was my marriage. There's an image. Yeah. The numbers we got this week were based on an international council of shopping centers. Yes, there is an international council of shopping centers, and they are kind enough to add me to their report list. They have a lot of good information.

It's very interesting. But this is a survey of 32 stores. And in this case, it's a very strange situation. Numbers across the board at a lot of chain stores were pretty decent. But since it's a small survey, a couple of really large performances are big stores. can have an oversized effect on the overall index. And this month, that was true because Costco had a 9% gain in sales, and the limited had a 24% gain.

And those juiced the overall numbers by a couple of percent, just between the two of them. Overall, actually, there's some interesting takeaways for investors, and I think that that is that the two strongest segments, if you want to call them that you can find in there, are luxury on the one hand, up 6%. And then Wholesale Club, up 5.3%. once you get rid of gasoline.

So expensive and very cheap, those are the two places. And by 32 stores, you mean 32 companies. 32, yeah, 32 chains or companies, exactly. And within limited brands, wasn't Victoria's Secret a big driver of that? Didn't they have some just huge blah numbers for January? They did. And do you want to get ahead of ourselves? Should we get straight to Victoria's Secret now?

Because I've got all the details. Sure. Victoria's Secret, part of the increase they had there was because they moved to sale last year it was in December and this year it was in January, but the comparable store sales number was up 35 percent and only 10 percent of that they figured was because they moved it from one month to the other. They also managed to keep their merchandise margins and the amount of money they make on each item they sell either flat or improved across a lot of their businesses. They also did a good job at their bath product store. I love to look for the bad in these reports and there's not a lot of it to find.

in here. So Victoria's Secret, it's not just a pretty face. They're actually getting it done on the business. No, dirty underwear is really doing it for them. I'm talking about the kind of underwear that sends you to the confessional on Sunday, not the kind of underwear that James is usually where. Or that I hang from my car mirror. All right, coming up, some great earnings from Tupperware and Mattel, and I'm to blame for at least one of them. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Seth Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross, as we go through some of the companies making headlines this week. Tupperware's fourth quarter profits were lower due to some charges the company took, but the results were still better than expected, and the stock jumped

on the news. Ron, I'll be honest. I didn't even know Tupperware was a public company, so how are they getting it done? They're getting it done. As you said, it was a little bit of a confusing quarter because of some charges, but he stripped them out. Profit was actually up 13 percent, pretty good. Emerging markets were strong for them, specifically Brazil, India, Philippines. There was some declines in Australia, Germany, and Japan, interestingly enough. But Austria, surprisingly, was a big market for them for the quarter. People dig Tupperware parties in Austria. Yeah, you would be surprised. But they increased, they gave full year guidance, I should say, that was above expectations. They're putting a big increase in their stock buyback plan in

place, and companies doing a nice job. Does anybody here have Tupperware at home? Not the actual brand name, Tupperware, no. Me neither. In preparing and trying to find something bad to say since that's my job on the show. I went to their website and looked at the product and it looks maybe this is selling now because I'm madman, but it looks like the same exact stuff we had at my house in the mid-70s. And it also looks really overpriced, sort of four plastic Tupperware coffee mugs for $18. You can get those a target for four or the equivalent. So good for Tupperware. If they can sell a cheap product for much more money than it's worth, good for them. They're also got beauty products too. Right. That was pretty strong for them for the quarter.

Remember, in the U.S. is kind of invasive to invite somebody to a Tupperware party, but abroad, in a lot of emerging markets, sales are a relationship-based, so you can just add on some lipstick while you're selling your things. Selling your things? Selling your... It was on the tip of my tongue, but then it wasn't. Plastic pictures, you know, cups, plates, pick-mic-and-baskets. So here are some storage containers to put your leftovers in, and oh, by the way, would you

like some lipstick? Yeah, you'd look great in this color. It's true fits, baby. All right. Mattel's earnings were better than expected. Revenue up 9% for the quarter, thanks to say. of Barbie, American Girl, and Monster High. And Mattel shareholders can thank me for that last one.

I did purchase a Monster High doll over the holidays for one of my daughters. And Monster High, Chris, is the... The premise behind Monster High is that all of the classic monsters, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, etc., all have teenage kids, and they are all in high school together. So you buy the doll, and then there's this whole website component that just frankly suck your kid in. Is it a rip them off the monsters?

Is it a free website or they're charged? It's a free website, but it's sticky. In the same way that the Transformers program on TV was free, quote, unquote. Exactly. James, what did you make a Mattel's quarter? It's interesting. It was certainly a good quarter, and it's interesting that the girl stuff paid off, especially the branded girl stuff, and that's what I'll highlight is really the trend in the toy industries.

You see Barbie, you see American Girl. And with Hasbro also, the branded stuff is what's popular now. son is like this too like i give him fisher price stuff this is a metell product he's okay with that he wants elmo he wants the name brand he's only just turned two but that's what he knows like elmo potty elmo camera elmo camera down the toilet but elmo other things so he combined them it's all yeah so that's really what it's all about so the extent that that that that metel does that is the extent that they'll do well set we we should maybe apologize to our listeners for the monstrous noise that's coming they're doing construction above us and there's literally nothing we can

You can't avoid it. Yeah, a lot of construction going on here. At least we pass the savings on to you. Full global headquarters. All right, reports this week that Amazon is preparing to roll out an unlimited video streaming service to rival Netflix. Seth, Jason, shares of Netflix hit an all-time high this week, $218 a share. Bad news is good news for Netflix. So who's afraid of the big bad Amazon?

Apparently not Netflix shareholders, but I'm not sure they're all using all of their brains when they're buying this stock, because there are a lot of challenges coming up at Netflix. I've talked about them in the past, including the price of content, which is likely to increase a lot. This Amazon thing is very interesting. It came from a web shot, which could be bogus,

but it was sent to NGadget, and it showed that if you were on your Amazon Prime page, it showed that you were getting free streaming video. Now, they already offer paid streaming video on Amazon, but you're sort of watching it on your computer. I don't think anyone's really that interested in that, But if you bundle streaming video in with the $70 a year free shipping prime thing, which I already have, and then you put a few apps on your Windows phone, on your iPhone, on your TV, you just publish those gadgets.

Suddenly Amazon has a very big potential competitor. Remember, Amazon is already, what did they buy that? Love, what is it, love movies? Love film, I think. Love film in Europe. So they're getting into this business. So Netflix shareholders curb your enthusiasm a little bit. Right.

Amazon is probably going to have to start slow. It's said that maybe they'll have 5,000 titles versus Netflix is 20,000. But Amazon has plenty of time and plenty of cash flow to build this business out and really could take Netflix head on. James? Well, let me just say, first of all, the $70 prime thing seems like a cruel exploitation of American impatience or short-termism. But my wife does it and other people do. So obviously Amazon is a force to be reckoned with. But let me just ask Seth, it seems like for years we've heard this.

Netflix is dying any day now. Oh, no way's been saying that for years. Months. A video on demand, excuse me, is going to eclipse the DVD market, but it keeps going. Is that because the shareholders have just gotten more and more irrational? Or what is it? Well, it's a combination of two things. I don't think people have been saying it's going to die for a while.

The trick for shareholders, now the problem is that a lot of the streaming video content that Netflix has came through a sort of an ad-on deal through stars, and they got a really cheap rate on delivering that content. And in the future, the content makers, like the Hollywood Studios, they are not going to let Netflix purchase that content at that cheap rate. And that could really put a damper on the profitability at Netflix. There have been rumors in the past that Amazon is a candidate to buy Netflix out. Any chance this is a bluff? Any chance this is just a head fake by Amazon to sort of scare Netflix a little bit and maybe drive down the price?

My guess is no. I don't believe that's the case. Not when you've got a hammer big enough to squish the competitor. BP's earnings for the fourth quarter were up 30% over the same quarter a year ago. The company also announced it will resume paying a dividend. So James Early, I have to assume that you're just tap dancing over news like that. It is actually pretty good news. BP, despite recent bad results, has plenty of cash, like $20 billion or so,

and its Gulf oil spill liabilities are a little less than expected. So I think that's part of another thing is it just wants to get that identity back as a dividend in paying stock because it gets back into certain indices and it just gets on people's radar. The thing I would look for, if I were looking at BP's investment, is their production, which has not been that good. It goes back now to being just a regular oil company as it sort of moves away from the Gulf spill. And it's sort of okay. I don't see it as a top-tier company, though. Seth, you're a shareholder. What do you think? Yeah, it's definitely not as cheap as it was back a few months ago when I was pawing the table telling everyone to go ahead and buy.

But they're doing some interesting things. They're divesting of some of their, refining capacity, which hasn't been making them as much money as they would like. They're doing some of that to concentrate on finding growth markets going forward. And what's interesting to me about the dividend is that, you know, they never really needed to suspend it. Their cash flow is amazing. They had to do it for political reasons because, as I said, President, what did I call him, O Chavez, Obama, was looking to put a lien on BP's cash flow.

And so they had to kind of give in. And so even now they're bringing the dividend back. not at the same level it was. They need to kind of inch that up. But what other investors out there, or even people who think they don't own shares of BP ought to take a look at is that, you know, mutual funds and all sorts of retirement plans, they've got money in BP. So you really need that dividend coming in. It's not enough just to say, oh, to heck with BP, they spill that oil. I hope they get punished. Guys, in the time we have left, I want to spot you up with an investment idea. You tell me

what you think of this. It's $200 a share. It doesn't pay a dividend, and the stock will never go up. Are you in? Who's with me? Ron? No. James? Maybe. I don't think so. $200 a share, doesn't pay a dividend. Stock never goes up. You don't want this? It's the Green Bay Packers. Oh, that thing. Green Bay Packers are the only non-profit community-owned franchise in American pro sports. There are more shareholders than there are citizens in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We've got the Super Bowl this weekend, and we all love the ads. So here are a couple of stats to chew on. Fox is expected to bring in $200 million in ad revenue, a 30-second spot is going for as much as $3 million in some of the big advertisers, Pepsi, General Motors,

Anheiser-Busch. Is this what you want to see as an investor? Do you want to see your company spending money like this, or does it not matter to you, James? Last year, Pepsi backed out of Super Bowl ads and instead spent $20 million on social media. Instead, and apparently it works so well that they're back to doing Super Bowl last year. So, Ron? So last year, there was 106 million viewers to the Super Bowl. and if you add in social media viral videos that keep showing these ads after the Super Bowl,

you're getting really tremendous, tremendous exposure. So on the face of it, you want to say this sounds ridiculous, but actually the Nielsen stats show that it can be money well spent, not in every circumstance, but certainly in some. Seth, depends on the company and if they've got the money to blow. Coming up, a conversation with Michael Lewis, best-selling author of The Blind Side, The Big Short, and Moneyball. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money.

Welcome back to Motley Full Money. I'm Chris Hill. Michael Lewis is the author of such bestsellers as Liars Poker, Moneyball, The Blindside, and The Big Short, which was released this week in Paperback. He joins me from New York City. Michael, welcome back. Oh, well, thanks for having me. When we talked in March of last year, the Big Short was first released. Now, when you look at what has played out on Wall Street and the markets,

what has surprised you the most over this past year? year? Well, the obvious thing is how little has changed in the structure of the financial system. Wall Street was three years ago, but it's not changed in the way I would have hoped. I'm amazed, for example, that basically these big firms essentially, they're much, much more wary about what people think about. So it's evolved more extreme. Do you think that the financial reform law that was enacted last year is having any meaningful effect in the way Wall Street does business? It's really hard to say. Yes, I do. I guess I think that increased capital requirements are really important. I would like to have seen them be even higher.

Proprietary trading has had at least a surface effect because it's caused all the big firms to drop their proprietary trading desks. And if they're doing proprietary trading, they're going to do it under the guise of something else. It's just a little hard to see if that's happening. If they're hiding, if they're doing the same thing but hiding it, and I'm just, you know, I'm not equipped to tell. I don't even sure the regulators are. It's hard to know. I tell you, the test will be the next time there's a big convulsion in the market on the down. If we see like a crash in a bond market, it will be interesting to see what kind of loss, how exposed these firms are. You're listening to Motley Full Money. We're talking with Michael Lewis, his latest bestseller, the big short, is now out in paperback. Michael, you've got an article in the March issue of Vanity Fair entitled When Irish Eyes Are Crying.

For those who haven't followed the financial crisis in Ireland, how is it different from what has played out here in the United States? I did Iceland in Greece. The first thing is, no, collapses is the same. That cheap money flooded into the society. Loans were offered to people who should never have gotten loans on incredibly good terms. And so lots of bad loans were made. And now they're all these bad asses. Sort of like what temptation the society wanted to succumb to is differently.

dropped mainly, entirely a domestic event, I think that needed some work, and the commercial rule. The border pooling in the lobby, because $106 billion in losses, which have you $1 trillion. And now burdens of the Irish taxpayer. In the big short, you identify a few people who are able to see the financial crisis in the United States coming before it hits. In the same way, there are a couple of people in Ireland who see this coming. One of them is Morgan Kelly, a university professor in Dublin. How did he see it?

Morgan Kelly is like a pure academic papers on very obscure subjects. He's interested, for example, in the Little Ice Age. He's paying no attention whatsoever. But he starts seeing his former students from University College, Dublin, turning up on TV as financial experts, saying that this real estate bubble is not a bubble and there's going to be a soft lending and landing and so on and so forth. And he knows the Irish property market. And before he's finished, he's writing newspaper articles saying, oh, my God, we've created a calamity. That's great. That's like, hey, I remember grading that kid. He's an idiot.

On TV is the experts, and it alarmed him. Now, there's another professor who says the narrative shifted in early October 2008. Sort of the average Irish citizen thinks that everything's fine with the economy. And then in early October, Patrick Neary goes on TV. and Neri is Ireland's financial regulator. He goes on live national TV for an interview. What happened? You can get it on YouTube or on the website of RTE, the national station.

But he goes on the TV and is asked about all these banks. And everybody in Ireland now knows, oh, my God, look what we've done. I mean, they can see the empty skyscrapers. The evidence of the disaster is all around them. The bill banks are sound. As far as he's concerned, this is not a, this is the body language. He looks at he's a mole. He comes out of a hole.

And nobody's really seen that. Morgan Kelly's colleague, another professor put it, he said that, you know, everybody in Ireland thought there was a little old man who took the first time they saw the little old man. And they went, oh, my God, we're doomed. That's the guy? This is the guy who's taking care of our money? Yes. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

We're talking with bestselling author Michael Lewis. Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist who says that if the average person had their salary raised to $10 million a year, in relatively short order, they will start to believe that they actually deserve that money. When you look at how quickly the Irish banks abandon their principles, is this one of those situations where we're just hardwired to see this type of scenario play out over and over again? Think vetizia. Yes. Ireland is not going to go through.

It'll be a while before. But here, sure. I mean, look, it's still going on here. You've got guys on Wall Street who are working for firms that are too big to fail, that have been subsidized up the wazoo by the federal government, that are profitable because they're being subsidized, that are essentially socialistic institutions who are being paid millions of dollars, who would be outraged if you suggested to them they didn't deserve it.

What do you think that Wall Street is eyeing next? And certainly if we could, you know, hop on a time machine a few years ago, it was the housing market and credit default swaps and that sort of thing. Do you have a sense of what the big firms on Wall Street are eyeing next? A lot of money being made piecing through the rubble they created, you know, that there's money to be made in finding value in the crappy loans that were made. You know, if you ask me, what are they betting on that is going to get them in trouble? I don't know this, but if I had to guess, I would guess commodities. But I don't know. You're listening to Motley Full Money.

We're talking with bestselling author Michael Lewis. It's Super Bowl weekend. Let's delve into the business of football, which is certainly something you've written about in the blind side. Concussions are becoming more and more of an issue for the NFL. Do you think the risk of head injuries and concussions is going to change the way professional football? is played? Yes. Now that the issue's been raised, yes. I think eventually it will change. It's already the games are being refereed differently. What I find shocking, given the sort of the heightened awareness, for a longer season, you would have fought the natural conclusion for all this

would be play fewer of these games. So I think, I think, you know, something's going to give, whether it's they change the equipment, it means the rules and enforce them differently so that It waited from that. Or, you know, the real thing, the thing that the more players see what you become after you played this game, the more I bet they adapt their behavior. Not completely, but a bit. And before we wrap up with Buy-Seller Hold, the movie version of Moneyball is due out in September. How are you feeling about it? Good, but, you know, you're talking to the rider, and the writer's last ones, no. I visited the set twice, and Brad Pitt seemed to be giving a one. wonderful performance as Billy Bean, but I know no more than that. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. We're talking with bestselling author Michael Lewis. All right, let's wrap up with buy-seller hold.

We'll start with buy-seller hold, the future of the euro. You're that certain. You asked me to buy-seller-hold. You don't want to buy it. It gives me one option. Fair enough. You and I both have two young daughters, buy-seller-hold, Justin Bieber. Then they go. You're looking at the David Cassidy of the future. Wow. So, I mean, the Euro and Justin Bieber, any idea which one's going first?

The Euro. Duly noted. All right. Buy-seller hold, the future of Facebook. The idea or technology that people use are Facebook, the share price. The business. Sell. Despite the fact that it's got this 80 billion value. I mean, there are a lot of people betting on it right now. Why are you taking the other side? I'm taking easily jumped off of by the people who use it. The next idea of that sort of social networking.

And finally, Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her performance in the Blind Side. Buy seller hold an Oscar nomination for Brad Pitt's performance in Moneyball. If you were asked me to judge based just on what I saw, so it's a little hard to see. The paperback edition of the Big Short is now available everywhere. Michael Lewis, thanks so much for being here on Motley Full Money. Thanks for having me. Coming up, a Victoria's Secret quiz and a look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Full Money.

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. Don't buy ourselves stocks based on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill and back in the studio with me, our trio of senior analysts, Seth Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross. Guys, we were talking about some retail companies earlier in the show, and our man, Steve Broido, has a retail quiz for us. Steve Broido, what do you got? I have a quiz for you on Victoria's Secret. Yes.

Question number one, true or false? Victoria's Secret was started by a Stanford business student who felt embarrassed buying lingerie for his wife in department stores. Is that true or false? I'm going with false. True. True, I just saw the social network and that scummy guy tells the story of it. Oh, I haven't seen the movie.

Well, I'm going to go with Seth. I'm going true. Steve. The answer is indeed true. Victoria Secret was started in San Francisco in 1977 by Stanford alumni, alumnus rather, Roy Raymond, who felt embarrassed buying lingerie for his wife and wanted to create a comfortable environment for men. Well played.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't feel so comfortable in the Victoria's Secret Store. Question number two, Steve? Question number two, which one of the following countries does not have a Victoria's Secret Store? Is it Kuwait, France, or Canada? The obvious answer would be Kuwait, so that's what I'm going with. I'm going to say France, because Kuwait's the obvious answer.

Wow. I'm going to go with Kuwait. I'm going to stick with James on this one. I think France has probably got their own... No, no, no. It's Canada. It's Canada. It's Canada. I'm going France. They've probably got their own comfort level with buying lingerie. No, they have their own limited has a store concept in Canada. No fair. You did research. It's not Victoria. Well, congratulations, James Early and Chris.

Victoria's Secret does not have a store in France. Yes. Wow. They do have stores in Canada. And opened a store in Kuwait last year. The Kuwaiti store offers beauty products and cosmetics, but does not offer. It was a trick question. It's a little bait and switch if you're walking in the Victoria's Secret in Kuwait. Yeah, and the French probably outlawed it because it's not French.

Exactly. All right. Steve, final question? Final question. Finally, what costs more? One share of Johnson & Johnson stock or Victoria's Secret, sexy little things, apron baby doll lingerie. Ron? Well, I'll go Baby Doll. I'll go approximately equal. I don't know. And Ron's size, they might charge extra for that. So I'm going to go with the Johnson & Johnson share.

I'm going to stick with Ron in this one, go with the baby doll. What's the answer? Well, the share Johnson and Johnson is around $60. Victoria's Secret, sexy little apron, baby doll lingerie, is $48. Now, swish. That's a bargain. You got us all. Now, James Early, you're our dividend guy. Which one do you think pays a bigger dividend? Victoria's seat, well, limited is actually one of the few. No, no, I'm talking to Sheriff Johnson's... Oh, the baby doll. Oh, God, I'm trying to take your crusts seriously.

Funny you talking about. Are we... Yeah. Oh, sorry. Are we taping? We've actually gotten James to stutter. No comment. He's turning red.

I like to... I'm optimistic. I always like to believe that a baby doll will pay a bigger dividend, but that's just... Throw in a box of chocolates. It depends. Does getting punched in the face count? Well, if you're into that sort of thing. All right, time to talk about the stocks on our radar.

And Ron Gross, we will start with you. All right, Chris. I'm going to continue my theme of rising food prices. And I recently purchased the Market Vector's Agribusiness ETF, ticker symbol, moo. M-O-O-O. The ticker symbols moo? You bet. That's why I bought it.

Is it dairy-centric? If you buy into this ETF, you become an owner of companies like D.R. and Potash, Monsano, Archer Daniels. And it's a great way to play the theme of rising food prices. The ticker should be dirt, not move. That's a phenomenal ticker. That's right up there with Harley Davidson's hog. James Early, stock on your radar this week? Chris, I am not above stealing ideas,

so I'm going to mention one brought up to me by analyst Alex Pape, who's an income investor analyst and also MDP, I believe. It's Amco Pittsburgh. The ticker is AAP. This is a $265 million market cap company. It's very small. It pays a 2.8% yield that makes the equipment used for making cold-rolled steel, which is sort of a niche processing type of steel.

for higher-end construction and automotive applications. The thing is it sort of owns this niche or owns this part of the industry. So I'm still looking at it, but it's certainly on my radar. The ticker symbol is AP. AP? What are the odds that our colleague Alex Pape just likes it? You know, there could definitely be a bias there.

I'm considering that. I want to factor that into your thinking. Or these guys could have found that idea on the Hidden Jim's watch list a while ago. I'm just saying it. Oh, okay. I'm just saying. By all means, steal Alex Pape's credit.

So I stole it from you. I used to own it in my head. hedge fund, so I win. Oh, you win. I thought of it first. I used to listen to them before anybody else. All right. I'm just going to go back to limited brands. They produce good cash flow. They obviously know what they're doing right now at a time when many other stores are struggling a little bit in January. They're knocking the cover off the ball. I would say, go ahead and take a look at it. The stock isn't that cheap, but I think in the long run, they continue to do better. And as long as they're... LTT. As long as they're cranking out the products like the Victoria's Secret. What was it? A baby doll apron. What was that, Steve?

That's correct. As long as they're cranking out quality merchandise like that. It is for people, right? It is not for dolls. Yeah. Yeah. But you don't like a dress. Are you dead serious with that question?

I'm not so serious. Believe you don't want to fry bacon in this thing either. All right. After the show, we'll go to the Victoria's Secret website and we'll just type in the word baby doll. And then you'll... After, I'm getting... I'm on that right now.

It's a whole different kind of thing. All right. Seth Jason, James Shirley. Ron Gross. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks for our special guest this week, Michael Lewis. his latest bestseller of The Big Short is now out in paperback. Next week, Costco CEO Jim Senegal will be our guest, so tune in for that.

Our engineers are Steve Broido and Gail Anya Nuevo. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the Super Bowl, and we will see you next week.