Motley Fool Money - Motley Fool Money: 11.15.2013

Episode Date: November 15, 2013

Facebook gets rejected.  Potbelly reports tasty earnings.  And Amazon announces Sunday delivery.   Our analysts discuss those stories.  Plus,  Motley Fool retirement expert Robert Brokamp talks retirement surprises and shares some questions you should ask your financial advisor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host Chris L joining me in studio this week. From Motley Fool, One, Jason Moser, from Motley Fool Hidden Gems, Chief Investment Officer, Andy Cross, and from Million Dollar portfolio, Ron Gross. Good to see you guys. It's been the week.

We've got the latest on consumer goods, energy, the tech industry, and more. We've got retirement expert, Robert Brokamp. And as always, we'll share a few stock ideas to put on your watch list. But we begin this week with the retail industry. And guys, people who think retail is headed for a bad holiday quarter got some more ammunition this week. We got quarterly results from both Walmart and Coles that were disappointing. Same store sales, Andy, for both of them, were down. And even Nordstrom, third quarter profit was down. There are just a lot of retail companies that are hurting.

Yeah, the bright spot was actually Macy's. Macy's saw same store sales up around 3% and earnings beat and earnings above growth of 20%. So we are seeing a little bit of this high end is winning, low end is really struggling. I mean, Coles, Walmart, that side seems to be having a rough go of it as we've seen the economic recovery, mostly on the high end. So those companies like Macy's, Nordstrom was actually not so bad that they guided for 2.5% comp growth for the year. year. So those are where you're going to see a lot of the e-commerce wins, too. So the direct-to-consumer e-commerce wins. That all speaks to a higher type of clientele willing to spend in this kind of market, and we're not seeing that at the low-end. Ron, when you look at the retail industry writ large, what do you see?

Yeah. Well, same-so shows are projected. I saw, I think, a Morgan Stanley report, really only about 1.6% for this season versus maybe 3.5% last... This is the holiday quarter. This is the money quarter for this industry. week, but then you point out, listen, the stock market is going gangbusters. Home prices are strong. Gas prices are decent. I do think you'll see spending on the high end. The high end guys, I think, even Nordrum, I think you're going to see spending there. I think some of the mid-to-lower tier department stores will be hurting because I think some of the discount stores will steal from them, and I think e-commerce will continue to do well.

Yeah, I mean, you're seeing the bifurcation here really take hold. I mean, on the one side, you have your Macy's announcement the other day, which was pretty solid. Then Walmart and Coles obviously seeing the other side of that coin. And so I think we're starting to see that disparity between the lower income earners and the higher income earners really, really start to manifest itself. And I'm not sure that we should be looking necessarily at a very strong holiday quarter, because when you look back at just what we've seen recently in the increase in the Social

Security tax, we saw the government. government's shutdown. Now we're seeing the cut in food stamp benefits, which is going to tangibly affect Walmart in other sort of stores of that nature. I don't know that we have generally a reason to be so optimistic about the holiday quarter, except for your e-commerce specialists. And so Annie mentioned William Sonoma. I think that's going to be a big winner because they tend to attract those higher spenders anyway. I think Amazon's going to be pretty much a perpetual winner in that regard as well. The National Retail Federation is looking for growth of 4% to more than $600 billion of sales

for the quarter. Interesting, we do have fewer days in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yeah, this is the shortest in a decade in terms of the traditional holiday shopping season. Yeah, and I think that actually hurts on the ground, the bricks part to the retail space and really plays up to the e-commerce side. Well, I think what bottom line will end up seeing is the top end will be fine, the mid and lower end see a lot of discounting, a lot of promotional activity. So sales might come in okay, but look out for margins. I think they'll be weak. You know, the week started off with some interesting news, which was Amazon's partnership

with the U.S. Postal Service. Jason, I'll just turn to you. What did you make of that? The fact that Sunday delivery is coming, at least in a couple of major markets. You know what they say. When you control the mail, you control information, right? I think Bezos is really just exploiting the U.S.PS. They're discharges. distribution network, because really a product is only as good as its distribution. And retail at this point, it seems kind of like retail is basically a race to the bottom, just to try to be the lowest cost providers. I think that, you know, Bezos has certainly recognized that, and not only is he competing on pricing, but really he's focusing on the convenience

aspect for consumers. And that's what we all care about first and foremost. I mean, the surveys are very telling in that when folks are considering e-commerce, they're first and foremost looking at free shipping or very inexpensive shipping and then convenience. And so he is really playing into that trend. We've seen it with the prime relationship. He continues to grow that out. I think that when you look at, for all of its shortcomings, the United States Postal Service still has a tremendous distribution network around this country. And I think this potentially could be a very big win for them. No question. It's going to be a big win for consumers. Hey, credit the USPS on this one, because they're going where no one else is, no one else does Sunday delivery.

They decide, yeah, we're going to do it. They certainly need it. I mean, they're in financial trouble, although getting better, but they have 31,000 post offices around the country. They control that last mile of distribution. Amazon can play in that strength. They have dozens of fulfillment centers around the country. They spend a lot of money in technology. So I think this is actually a win-win for both players.

Part of Starbucks business is selling coffee in grocery stores and other retail shops. And for years, Starbucks had done that through a partnership with Kraft Foods. This week, an arbiter ruled that to break that agreement, Starbucks was going to have to pay up to the tune of $2.8 billion. Jason, that's certainly a lot more than the settlement offer that Starbucks offered a few years ago of $750 million. It's a little bit more. This is more than the annual profit at Starbucks. It is. But, you know, I mean, we've kicked this around a lot as to whether this was actually a good move for Starbucks to make.

And I believe that it is. I was going through some of the numbers here in the channel development segment of the business here to understand better really where those numbers are taking them. And so just if we look back here, this deal goes back to 1998. The channel development segment was about $15 million of business for them at that point. The deal was set to expire in March 2014. Now, if we look at this, the deal, they cut this deal off in 2010. Since that time, the channel development has made more than $1 billion in operating profit. And the growth in that segment is still accelerating.

very fast. If you fast forward to today, with that judgment of $2.8 billion, you know, if this contract went through 2014, Starbucks's channel development segment would have made about $1.6 billion based on the company's expectations as well as analysts' expectations. But here's the interesting thing. If you look over the course of the next seven years, go through to about 2020, just use some reasonable sales assumptions and margin expectations that we know that this channel segment is responsible for, this channel development segment is going to bring in about five and a half to six billion dollars in operating profit up through 2020. So really what this did, it could be argued that, yes, $2.9 billion is obviously a lot of money. But when

Starbucks did this in 2010, it really, they bought their freedom. It gave them the freedom to really pursue that channel development strategy, the way they wanted to, you know, unencumbered by any of craft's demands or having to fork over any of that money to craft. Bottom line is, Starbucks knows they can do this better than Kraft. Craft needs Starbucks more than Starbucks needs craft. Somebody did a little pre-show research. How are you going to make the rest of us look bad? A lot of data.

State the case as to why it was a good move. The numbers bear it out. Well, I own both stocks, and I think it's a good move for both companies. So I'm happy with that. It does get to the ownership issue in the CPG space. I think this is about, like Jason said, it's about controlling that space and being able to profit down the road for that. the CPG space is really exciting these days. I mean, I look for more and more companies. I'm just waiting for like Chipotle hot sauces to start showing up my Safeway. It's essentially double the

operating margins of the other side of the business. I mean, it brings in 30% plus operating margin. So it's a very profitable part of the business. And it's becoming a bigger part of the business and even more profitable. And there's a lot of operational efficiencies you can ring out of it, which is really important. On Friday, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that Warren Buffett picked up a few shares of ExxonMobil and by a few, Ron, I mean 40 million shares. He now owns somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% of the world's biggest energy company. Interesting move. Not so surprising because, hey, you know, big company, mature company, classic American company, pays a nice dividend, well-known brand, has bought back more than $200 billion worth of stock

over the last 10 years. Not so surprising in that sense. However, if you're a Buffett or a Berkshire follower, you'll know that he made quite a poor investment in Conoco Phillips, and he's since apologized and said it was a mistake, and they've sold off that position. So to move into this, into oil play this way is a bit interesting. They do own Phillips 66 and National Oil Varco. They do have some other oil investments, too. So a little bit surprising, a little bit not surprising, but, you know, $3 billion here, $3 billion. What are you going to do? I mean, it's a safe investment from the standpoint of ExxonMobil is so huge. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. And yet, when you look at shares of ExxonMobil, the stock really hasn't

done well, particularly against the backdrop of a rising market. It's trailed the market over the last few years. Which perhaps is something else Buffett liked in it, a bit of a laggard, but yet, you know, a quintessential blue-chip American company. Coming up, a company with no revenue turns down a billion-dollar offer. You're listening to Motley full money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Handy Cross, and Ron Gross. This week, Potbelly reported its first quarterly results as a public company.

The sandwich shop earned just over $2 million for the quarter, which apparently Jason was enough to send the stock up more than 15% for the week. Am I wrong to be stunned by this? Again, it is still just a sandwich shop, right? It is just a sandwich shop, and it also is a very strong market, so they're definitely taking advantage of a great IPO environment. I tend to agree with you. I mean, their sandwiches are okay. I mean, it's something to write home about. Top line growth of 12 percent was not bad, but I mean, when you look at something like Chipotle that just turned in 18 percent, I mean, that kind of gives you a little bit of context there. They have 286 or so stores today.

And I'm not really, I don't see the type of growth in front of them that you might see for something like Chipotle, which is aiming towards 3,000 stores, at least the Mexican stores. You know, for me, it all boils down to, when I look at potbelly, this is a, they need a lot of ingredients to keep that menu going. The operational efficiencies, I think, are going to be at least questionable when you compare them to something like Panera, for example. And so they're going to really have to struggle to get that operating margin up to like a Panera style, 13 and a half, 14%. To be fair, I mean, the stock at 30 times earnings today, it's not, you know, getting the same kind of credit Chipotle is, but Panera is a little bit cheaper, 25%.

It's not one where I feel like there are better options out there as opposed to this. It's just, like you say, at the end of the day, it's just a sandwich shop. Tech giant Cisco systems down more than 10% on Thursday after first quarter revenue came in light. They warned the second quarter will be even worse. Andy, the money quote from CEO, John Chambers, he said, I've never seen such a drop in orders. That is not what you want to hear from your CEO. Yeah, definitely not.

They have real, Cisco's really struggled here. I mean, the stock has been an underperformer for the last few years. I mean, they're seeing minimal sales growth. They expect to see orders declining on the 8 to 10 percent level on the quarter coming up, really struggling on the emerging market front. I just feel like this is a tech story that has kind of played. It's a $15 billion company, and they now pay this little dividend. They generate an enormous amount of cash, but I think the competitive pressures from the junipers, the other companies that are going after Cisco in pretty aggressive ways they're starting to have an impact.

John Chambers has been CEO for almost 20 years. Is he now, now that Steve Bomber has said he is leaving his corner office in 2014, is John Chambers now number one on the list of CEOs who are going to have pressure? I think so. I mean, he's been there since 1995, I think, as a CEO level. And he is just now facing this really robust kind of growth challenges to come up with new and innovative ways. And I just don't really feel it.

And while they generate $13 billion in operating profits or operating cash flow, and they have really high margins, it's a very steady business. You know, 12 times earnings a stock is probably going to do okay, but it's not really going to do super well and not really thump the market that you want to see from a tech company. Tile Shop Holdings shares are down around 40% this week after short-seller Gotham City Research said the home improvement company used fuzzy math to inflate earnings. And Ron, I think it's fair to say,

It's not the only thing that they are alleging in this report. Yeah, this is really unfortunate. It's been recommended in multiple places here at the Motley Fool, and we take this kind of information very seriously. Gotham Research is basically saying the company inflated earnings. There are counting regularities, and perhaps most importantly, they fail to disclose a material relationship with a Chinese export trading company, that ownership of that company potentially involving the CEO of Tile Shop or a relative of the CEO. Very strong allegations. The companies

come out and denied any allegations of accounting irregularities. They reiterated guidance. But their explanation of the relationship with this Chinese company left a little bit to be desired, in my opinion. They weren't as transparent as I would like. They said they've suspended relationships with that company and they're investigating. ownership structure. That gives me pause. We at a million dollar portfolio have moved the stock to hold until we get more information. I don't believe, although I can't be sure at this point, that the company is not producing the kind of profits and cash flow that they say they're producing. I do think that is the case, but I am a little bit worried about this

disclosure. Clearly, there were plenty of people worried about this disclosure because they just cut and run and they drop the stock. widening our gaze from just tile shop, when you encounter this as an investor, what is the tipping point for you? You say you've moved the stock to hold. Regardless of this stock, I'm just curious, when these type of red flag allegations come out about any company that you own, what is the thing you're looking for to help you decide whether to hold onto it or whether to cut and run? What I told my team last night is we're going to go where the information takes us,

whether that means going in and buying more or cutting and selling it. our position off completely, but we don't have enough information yet. We either want to speak with the company or wait for the company to investigate on their own and release some news, and then we'll make our move. Diversification is extremely important. Even though this is a disaster, even though this is a disastrous position for us, it's a two and a half percent position. It means 97.5 percent of the portfolio is not in tile shop, and it really does mitigate the damage in that respect, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I know a lot of people are hurting, and we take this very seriously.

Facebook shares up around 5% this week, and maybe that's because Wall Street is heartened by the news that the social network will get to keep the $3 billion it offered to buy Snapchat, a photo-sharing app that is all the rage with the kids. And I hasten to point out, Jason, Snapchat is not only a company with no profits, it is a company with no revenue. I hasten to reiterate what you just pointed out. I wouldn't agree with you more. This more, I know there are people on Wall Street saying, wow, this market is inflated. It's crazy. Look at these IPOs. This to me is more damning than any IPO we've seen this year. This is crazy. Three billion dollars for an app that has no revenue whatsoever? Yeah. I mean, who knows how these kinds of valuations are being reached? I mean, there's a lot of speculation, obviously, out there today. I think that for what we do know, at least, in regard to Facebook. I mean, to me, it's a bit concerning. Just when I look

at what Facebook has done here recently, you know, they tried to acquire Twitter at one point. And when they were, when Twitter actually turned them down, Zuckerberg was quoted at some point saying about Twitter, they drove a clown car that fell into a gold mine. And so, I mean, like, he's basically saying after he tried to buy them that Twitter sucks. That's just a little bit weird to me. But, yeah, Snapchat doesn't make any money. To me, the nature of this service, being that pictures disappear after 10 seconds. It just seems like it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. But I mean, $3 billion, it's, look, Facebook's got $10 billion on the balance sheet, so it's not insignificant. But it does raise the question of, does Facebook, are they looking

at their strategy here? Are they going to have to acquire growth? Because if that's the case, I think investors really need to think about that. Steve Brodo, are you a Snapchat user? Does any of this make sense to you? Very little. Except I will say that there has been this. As I read, this is not the only company looking to buy Snapchat, and there's clearly a market for it somewhere. I mean, you have to wonder, like, Yahoo's been pretty acquisition happy lately. I mean, there are a lot of different reasons why Facebook would have offered it and why Snapchat would have turned it down. The value guy gets the final word.

I'm concerned that we're getting into a little bit of bubble territory here with some of these valuations we're seeing. So, you know, putting your head in the sand, taking the ostrich strategy. I don't think makes sense. Let's keep an eye on these valuations. I think it's a very fair statement. Jason Moser, Andy Kraus, Ron Gross. We'll see you later in the show, guys. Up next, Robert Brokamp is going to help you rule your retirement.

This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. The next few weeks are not just the holiday season for a lot of people. The end of the year is a time to check up on their finances, do a little planning. So for these topics and more, we turn to the Motley Fool's resident retirement expert, Robert Brokamp. for being here, man. Always a pleasure. Let me start with this. And I don't want to jinx us,

but 2013 has been a great year for the stock market. But you recently wrote an article about how not only is that not the case for bonds, if things don't turn around very quickly in the next few weeks, 2013 is going to turn out to be an historically bad year for bonds. Right, right. So let's start with the stock market. The return from January to the end of October is the best return we've seen since 1997. The breadth of the market, meaning the number of stocks that have gone up versus the ones have gone down. Very high with the S&P 500. It's something like 446 stocks are up. If that number holds, that's the highest number, except for 2003 since 1980. So very broad, good year for the stock market.

bonds the other way around, as you said, one of the worst years possibly for bonds. If you look at intermediate government bonds, probably among the five worse since the 20s. What does that mean? They're down a whopping 1.75 percent. Of course, no one likes to lose money, but it's always important to remember that a bad year for bonds is nothing like a bad year for stocks. We've talked on this show before about some of these large dividend-paying stocks. companies like Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, others, that because they are not really

going anywhere as a business, meaning they're not going to disappear overnight. There's no real danger of that. And they are paying a steady dividend. Some of the analysts are on this show on a regular basis say, hey, look, these are better than bonds. Sell your bonds and think about these. You're someone who makes his living focusing on retirement planning. Is it a Is that actually a good strategy? Should people seriously consider maybe selling out of bonds, whether it's wholesale or partially, and look to replace them with big, safe dividend stocks? Well, first of all, it's very important to remember that stocks are different than bonds, whether the stocks pay dividends or not. So the dividends paid by the S&P 500 dropped about 20%

from 2008 to 2009. Those stocks, of course, went down as well. You think of like a great blue chip company like General Electric, it's still down significantly from where it was in 2000. So there's risk there. However, if it's a very diversified portfolio of dividend payers, you're probably okay for long-term money. Historically, dividends have grown faster than inflation. So that's a way to get inflation-adjusted income. So as long as you recognize the risks involved, I don't think it's a whole.

horrible idea for money you don't need in the next five to seven years. You run our Rule Your Retirement Service. You also work on Motley Fool One, which is our All Access Service. There's a financial planning component to that. And a lot of what you do is fielding questions from our members. I am curious, give me one or two of the most common question you're getting from members these days. Really breaks down to a certain degree by whether you're retired or not. For retirees, it's along lines of what you just said. How do I get yield? How am I going to get income off my investments?

One of the consequences of the stimulus is that it drove down interest rates. So people who are living off bonds and CDs and interest from their cash, they've seen their income drop significantly. So now they feel like they have to go in to stocks or higher yield bonds, aka junk bonds. They're taking on a lot more risk to pay for. for their expenses might be too much risk. What's going to happen the next time the stock market goes down? And it will go down. We just don't know when.

So that's a big question from retirees. For people who are not yet retired, the question is, will I be able to retire? What's interesting to me is the question they're not asking, and that is, give me a hard number. What do I need to save now to retire? What do I need to, what will I have to spend in retirement? Well, how will I pay for health care? People don't really think about that stuff, but it's crucial. And you need to sort of do the calculation, run the numbers.

An organization called the Employee Benefits Research Institute found out that about half of people who are just going to be relying on their 401Ks and IRAs to pay for retirement are not ready. However, if you look at the people who have actually calculated the numbers, hired a financial advisor to do it, 11 percentage point improvement. So about 61% of those people are going to be ready. Now, what about if they used an online calculator? Chris, do you think that number was better or worse compared to using a financial advisor?

I'm an optimistic guy at heart, so I like to believe that that number is higher. It is higher. So it's a 16 percentage point improvement over hiring someone to do it. Now, I caution people to know that a lot of retirement calculators aren't very good. You still have to know something about how to use

the retirement calculator. But even if you use a retirement calculator, you're going to improve the chances of having a secure and long-lasting retirement. Do you have one or two retirement calculators that you like, that you go to, or that you'd recommend to people? There's a site called the Motley Fool that I like quite a bit. Hold on a second. I'm writing this down. And we have something called the Am I Saving Enough calculator? And I think that's about as comprehensive a calculator as you'll find on the internet. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with retirement expert and shameless, Motley Fool Plugger, Robert Brokamp. We were talking earlier this week. You had shared something that you had written recently that I found pretty surprising. It was essentially

things you may not have known about retirement accounts. What surprised me was not that there were things I didn't know about retirement accounts, but the specific things that I didn't know, I wonder if you could just share a couple of them, including, as we talked about earlier in the week, the one that I think you're frankly just making up. So by retirement accounts, I mean IRAs and 401Ks, and I use 401K General. It could be a 403B or 457. But about 20% of 401Ks allow people to have a side brokerage account, allows you to go in there and buy stocks, bonds, ETFs, thousands of mutual funds.

And the good thing about that is many of the mutual funds in a 401K, they stink. They're chosen by the provider, the provider. the financial services firm, sometimes they're chosen because they generate more revenue for them. May have been someone in your company, but let's face it, not every company has investment experts. So it's a good option if you don't like your 401K funds. Another thing is if you take your money out of an IRA or 401K, you might pay taxes and are penalties, but there are lots of exceptions to that. It might be for buying a first-time home, paying for education.

Any contributions to a Roth IRA, not the earnings, but the contributions can be taken out tax and penalty-free. So it's something to keep in mind if you really need the money. money. Of course, you should leave it for retirement, but if you need the money, you have options. I want to go back to what you're saying about a lot of times people with their 401k plan at work or whatever the system is at their place of employment, a lot of times the funds just aren't that good. And I think that some people may be reluctant to go to whoever it is at their company who's responsible for that, to agitate for better funds or even just to review the options because they think, well, I don't want to bug anybody. I don't want to come off as selfish. When really, if

you get better funds at your place of employment, that benefits everybody. It does. It benefits the boss. It benefits everyone who works there. A 401k plan is not set in stone. If you have a lousy plan, bring it up, marshal your fellow employees and colleagues, see if you can advocate for a better plan. One of the items that I did not realize about retirement accounts, because I've all always held fast to this notion that you have to keep this money here. It's untouchable, except for extreme emergencies. But as you reveal to me, no, you can actually consider it a short-term loan.

Right. And of course, you have to be very careful with these types of things, because I think you should leave it for retirement. But you can actually take money out of an IRA, use it for whatever you need for 60 days, and put it back in with no penalties or taxes. If you don't get it back in, you will pay the penalties and taxes. Only do it if you need it. But If there's an emergency, you just need short-term cash, that's an option. And as I alluded to, you claim that IRA does not stand for individual retirement account. No, it stands for individual retirement arrangement. And if you doubt me, go to IRS publication 590, 113 pages of IRA goodness.

There's also an audiobook version read by Weird Al, parody of Sound of Music. No, that's not really true. How great would that be, though? That would be quite awesome. Would be quite awesome. Why do you think there's this widespread misinformation that it's not individual retirement account? I don't know, but the thing is if you Google individual retirement account, you'll find all kinds of articles from people who probably should know better calling it an account.

We recently had Chuck Chaffee, senior columnist for Marketwatch on the show. One of the things we talked about was selecting financial advisors, how you go through that process. One of the biggest mistake people make in that process is they just talk to one. Right. And that's because the number one source of an idea for who you should go with for a financial advisor is a referral from your uncle, a friend, a colleague. I got a guy. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So they just call up that person and hire that person. What you should really do is, number one, make sure someone is providing the services that you need.

Do you just need someone to manage your money? Or do you need these financial planning services like a retirement calculation? Do you have enough insurance? Any way to save taxes, estate planning? You want to look for someone who is going to provide the services you want, and you want to make sure that the way they get paid doesn't set up some sort of conflict of interest. If someone is getting paid by commissions, they might be recommending something that is better for them than what is better for you. So we recommend fee-only advisors, people get paid by the project hour, maybe assets under management, folks, like the advisor you could find, the Garrett Planning Network, or NAPFA, NAPFA. Those are good folks.

Are there any curveball questions to throw at a financial advisor when you're interviewing him or her? I'm thinking about if you're doing a job interview, you're interviewing a candidate. There are the standard questions that you would ask, but maybe you have a couple of curveballs just to see how they deal with it. Any like that when it comes to talking with a financial advisor? The tricky part is you don't know whether they're providing an accurate answer. But one thing I think you should ask about is, are you investing your money the same way that you are. are investing my money. If they are going to recommend an annuity, you ask, all right, do you have an annuity? Does your mother have an annuity if you're younger? Would you recommend it? So that's

important to know. And you also want to know whether they have any special deals with anyone who is providing a product. So annuity company, mutual fund company, a lot of mutual funds will pay to be on a firm's preferred list, what they're doing is really sharing the revenue. I think a question to ask them is, do you know what IRA stands for? That is a good one. And if they don't know, you just walk out. Exactly. Or I ask, are you Bernie Madoff? That's a good one to know to.

Before we wrap up, as I mentioned at the top, it is holiday season. And in the world of business, one of the things that means is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers are doing everything they can. to get you in the store. And once again, we see retailers coming out with new gimmicks. In the case of Coles, they're going with a Willy Wonka golden ticket model where they're going to select a few people at random and just pay their bill. In the case of Walmart, they're opening even earlier on Thanksgiving. They're going to be opening their doors at 6 o'clock. As someone who is interested in saving money but is also just a regular consumer, what's your

your reaction to something like that? Well, first of all, Black Friday means nothing. It's now Black Thursday, Black Turkey Day. So, and you just wonder, where is this going to end? I mean, is it going to start now where Black Friday is the day after Halloween and you get a ticket if you wear your costume? Wow, someone who works in the retail industry is jotting down this idea and they're going to claim it for themselves. That's right. Kmart opens at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving, and they've been doing that for a few years, but at least they would close so their employees could have dinner with their families. They're not doing that this year. They're going to stay open

for 41 hours straight, and people are actually frankly upset. So on the flip side, it does give you an excuse to leave the house if you don't like your family or who you're spending that day with. So there is an upside. Final question. Long time listeners know you and I have talked before about not just financial health, but personal health. I think it was about a year or so ago that you decided you were going to get in better shape, that sort of thing. As you approach Thanksgiving Day, and by the way, you're looking great. You've kept the weight off. Thank you very much. You're looking fantastic. That's because I'm wearing my clothes. One tip, one strategy for Thanksgiving Day. I don't need it because I'm just going to gorge myself.

I've already, I'm just throwing up my hands. That's what I do on Thanksgiving Day. That's my move. But for anyone listening who thinks, I need just a little help navigating all the food I'm going to encounter Thanksgiving Day or frankly over that weekend. What do you got? You know what? Honestly, one of the secrets for the way I've lost weight is give yourself a binge every once in a while. So I wouldn't tell anyone take it easy on Thanksgiving. That's a time to, you know what, let it all hang out or all go in, as the case may be. But then have a plan. Really, the biggest problem is parties and stuff like that. There's so much food out there that's not good for you. Take it easy on the parties.

He's a certified financial planner. He runs Rulier Retirement. He's our resident expert here at the Motley Fool. Robert Brokamp. Thanks for being here. Great to be here. Coming up, we'll give an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Fool money.

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about or the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you're here. I'm Chris Hill. Joining me in studio once again, Ron Gross, Andy Cross, and Jason Mose. Before we get to the stocks on our radar, you can follow us on Twitter at Motley Fool Money is our handle. Got a tweet from one of our listeners, Jamie Andresen, who tweeted after last week's show, I'm buying Zambief so I can be rich like Steve.

And it was hashtag Rich Like Steve. Nice. That was off of Tim Hanson's recommendation. Or I shouldn't say recommendation. His radar stock was the Zambian beef. Did you pick up any share, Steve, of Zambi beef? Not yet, but it's on the to-do list. All right. Ron Gross, you're up first. What is on your radar this week?

I'm going back to retail and I'm taking a look at Target. TGT. They report next Thursday. I do like the company quite a bit, but I'm even more interested to hear what they have to say about the upcoming holiday season. I think it will be very interesting. They're one of several retailers that have yet to report. But I will specifically be interested to hear if they give us any guidance. Steve, any questions about Target? Full disclosure, I own shares. A question is, what does Target look like 20 years from now? Wow.

Wow. Well, Steve, I'm sure. 20 years ago, it looked kind of like it does today. Yeah, I would imagine their e-commerce business will continue to improve, become more robust, become a bigger piece of the business. But I think it probably will look a lot similar to the way it does now. Like a different color sign or something? Now you've got to keep the red.

Andy, what do you go? I'm sticking with the retail, but going to high. end looking at William Sonoma. They report on the 20th of November right in time for the holiday season. Key things here are the gross margin. They got nicked down a little bit so there was some concerns on are they having to discount a little bit at this high end? So I'm looking for gross margins, healthy expansion. Also continue to acceleration on the same store sales with pottery barn and some signs of life from the William Sonoma brand. The retail concept, the bricks part of that has has not been growing, so we want to see that. And the ticker symbol? W.S.M.

Steve? How do you evaluate a business that you don't feel qualified to enter? I don't feel like I'm qualified to go into that store. To literally walk into a store. Literally, I don't think I meet the specifications. That's the beauty of the Montelifel community. Go online. You'll find plenty of analysts and people who shop there and love the stock. Or the business.

Or take a trip with Ron. He's handy in the kitchen. I do like some William Sonoma. All right. Jason, what do you got? Chris, you know, I'm a beer guy. And as fond as I am of Boston beer, it's a little bit bigger than I'd care to invest in today, which has got my eye on Craft Brew Alliance. The ticker symbol is B-R-E-W. This is a little small-cap company under $300 million market capitalization.

They're responsible for beers like Red Hook, Kona, and Widmer Brothers. Not to mention game-changer at your local Buffalo Wild Wings. But since 2006, domestic sales of craft brews have more than doubled to more than $10 billion. yet still represent only about 10% of the overall beer market. And when you look at brew, they have grown their sales at 17% annually over the last five years, strong insider ownership, and a great investment by Anheuser-Busch-InBev, which I think will really contribute to the distribution side. Steve?

With so many microbrews available, how am I able to go to a place that has all of them? It's called the Internet. You don't get those hard-hitting questions on the show. and thousands of microbrews. It's a very good observation. I think at some point, many of them become more or less, you know, redundant. And that, I think, is important for Kraft Brewing that they have this agreement with Anheuser-Busch and Bev.

It will help with the distribution side. If you go to your local total wine and beer, I bet you'll find all they have to offer. You're not getting questions like that on Bloomberg. All right. All right, Ron Gross, Andy Cross, Jason Moser. Thanks for being here. That's going to do it for this week's show. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl.

Our engineer is Steve Broito. Our producer is Mac Rear. I'm Chris Hell. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.