Motley Fool Money - Retail Surprises and Summer Movies
Episode Date: May 24, 2019Target hits the mark. Best Buy surprises. Intuit rises. And Coca-Cola gets a refresh. Analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser discuss those stories and discuss earnings from Autodesk, Home Depot, Lowes, a...nd Splunk. Plus, corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow talks Boeing, Disney, and summer movies. Thanks to Sprout Social for supporting The Motley Fool. To learn how your brand can create real connection, visit sproutsocial.com/fool today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money Radio Show.
I'm Chris Hale joining me in studio this week's senior analyst Jason Moser and Andy Cross.
Good to see you, as always, gentlemen.
Hey, Chris.
We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street.
We'll get a summer movie preview with our guests, Nell Minow.
And as always, we're giving an inside look at the stocks on our radar.
But we begin with retail, and up first is Target.
Same store sales looked good in the first quarter.
E-commerce sales looked really good, Jason, and shares have Target up 12% this week.
They did look very good.
In a world where Amazon and Walmart are really dominating a lot of the conversation,
I think Target is holding its own, and we should at least recognize that.
I mean, it's not been a straight lineup, of course, but I think a lot of the investments that CEO
Brian Cornell has been making are really working out.
You mentioned the comps, 4.8 percent.
That was strong, particularly when you tie it to the 4.3 percent growth in traffic.
I mean, anytime you see that growth in traffic, you know that's going to trickle down on the
bottom line.
And it did for Target.
Eighth consecutive quarter of comp growth.
And I think really, to me, the most interesting part is the way that they've been able
to evolve in this e-commerce world. They now put the stores at the center of fulfillment, and those
stores handled over 80 percent of the company's digital volume for the quarter. So that's just
really a sign that the investments they're making in e-commerce and Omni Channel are starting to really
pay off. We're going to talk a lot about this, I think, when we talk about retail and the success
that some of these stores and companies are having with the Omni Channel. Drive-Up at Target is now
available in more than 1,200 of all the 1800 stores. Jason Menz,
mentioned the 80% stat. That's just really impressive when a company is trying to position themselves
to compete, not just against Amazon, but all the other e-commerce players out there, a brand-like
target has to be able to be more and more relevant. And they certainly are doing that. And that
really is showing up not just in the comp store growth, but in the e-commerce growth as well.
They've made a lot of smart investments, although it is interesting when you compare them
to Walmart. Just from a consumer-facing standpoint, you look at the marketing messages from Walmart.
part over the past six months, first and foremost, have been about that pickup option.
Sure. We're not really seeing that yet from a marketing standpoint with Target, but clearly,
they've made the underlying investment.
Yeah, they have. I mean, same day fulfillment services where it's order, pick up, drive
up, get it from the store. Those really did perform. They drove over half of the company's
digital sales growth. But when we talk about that digital sales growth, it was up 42% for
the quarter. But when we look at it bigger picture, it's only about $5 to $6 billion of the overall
top line, which is, you know, $76, $78 billion. So, yeah, it's not that big of a deal today,
but by the same token, you can see there's a lot of opportunity for them to continue picking
that up in the coming quarters in years. I mean, I think you have to be at least encouraged by that.
Shares of Best Buy falling a bit this week, despite a solid second quarter report and expanding
the gross margins, Andy, which is not something you necessarily think of with a business like
Best Buy. Yeah, I think a lot of talk on the call has been about some of the tax issues as well.
some of the trade issues that are going on now.
But really, Best Buy continues to deliver.
We mentioned Omni Channel with Target.
They have done a fabulous job.
They acquired a great call, which offers technology for seniors, both phones as well
as health services.
That's helped boost their gross margins a little bit.
Comp sales for the quarter were up 1.1%.
That was at the high end of their guidance.
Revenues were basically about flat, but a little bit higher than some of the estimates there.
But thinking about where Best Buy is going, they've talked a lot about this Best Buy 2020 initiative
to be able to reduce costs, grow earnings, focus on Omni-Channel, make the right investments,
and that has been paying off.
And I expect going forward that it will continue to be a benefit for Best Buy and for Best Buy shareholders, too.
After seven years, as CEO, Ubert Jolie, is going to step down next month.
He's done a phenomenal job turning around this business when you think about seven years ago
and how challenged Best Buy was coming in, remodeling the stores, investing in high-margin things like the Geek Squad.
Corey Berry, who is currently the CFO, is going to replace him, going to be the first female CEO in-company history.
And she's been there since the late 90s.
But when you think about Best Buy, again, Chris, to that point, 40% of their online revenue now is done through in-store pickup.
So they're making those initiatives.
I expect those initiatives with Corey to continue.
Clearly, there's a lot of excitement.
She's the fifth Best Buy CEO in its history.
So a lot of excitement about transitioning over to her into the new management team there
and continue to make the investments that they have been making and that they will continue to make.
And as you mentioned, Hubert turns into the executive chairman to be able to stay involved
in overall strategy thinking with Best Buy.
From general retail to home improvement, Home Depot and Lowe's both out with first quarter reports this week.
Home Depot's profits came in higher than.
unexpected. Lowe's is dealing with higher costs and they cut guidance. Shares of Home Depot
basically flat this week, Jason, whereas Lowe is down about 12%.
Yeah, I mean, there are not many retailers that can say they've actually strengthened
their competitive position here in the age of Amazon, but I think Home Depot can definitely
say that because it really seems like they're doing nothing but getting better. I mean, the numbers
are all pointing in the right direction, but we look at specifically during the quarter, a couple
things that stood out. Big ticket comp sales, which are those sales of over $1,000, that metric
is up about 4%. That matters because that's about 20% of the overall business. Another thing that
really stands out is where Home Depot is executing on the pro customer. That pro customer
is turning into a very lucrative one for the company. It's becoming close to half of the overall
revenue stream for the company. And then what they're doing also on top of that is really building out
this rental business that several years ago, maybe one in 10 of those pros would rent tools from
Home Depot, where now that metric is about one and four. And that's important, because if
they're going back and just renting those tools as opposed to buying them, that's a pretty
reliable revenue stream. But then they're also buying stuff along the way, too, right? All of the
consumables that go with those tools that they're renting, when we look at Lowe's. I mean, Lowe's is like
the younger sibling, to the, you always compare to the older brother or sister.
that graduated med school and it's just saving the world. They can't ever quite nail it.
And even when they do okay, and the market really just takes it to task, and I think that's
what happened here, it was less about the quarter, I think, and more about the guidance
for the year. They did pull back on earnings guidance a little bit. But gross margin with
lows took a nice little thing of about 165 basis points. And a lot of that has to do with the
restructuring that CEO Marvin Ellison is doing on the merchandising side of the business. He's coming
up on his one-year anniversary, and the stock actually just dipped back below where it was when
he started. So that's got to hurt a little bit, given that he had kind of a nice first year.
But listen, when you're going up against Home Depot, I mean, you've got your work cut out for you.
In one place where they're not even coming close to executing is on that pro-customer. I think
that's where Home Depot has been able to really differentiate.
Small silver lining for Lowe's, their online sales seem to be going in the right direction.
That is no question. I mean, they are looking at.
at that as an opportunity. And that is, you're right. That is a point of the business is getting better.
So stepping back and looking at retail, sort of writ large, you look at the store closures
that have been announced so far when you look at companies like GAP, Victoria's Secret,
Payless Shoes. This week, we saw a scene of retail announced that they're shutting down all 650
dress barn locations. All told, that's more than 6,000 store closures that have been announced
in 2019. That's more than we saw for all store closures, for all of 2018. You combine that
with the fact that this week, we've seen Coles, Gap, Macy's, Nordstrom, Foot Lockard. They're
all hitting 52-week lows with the stocks. Where should investors be looking when it comes
to retail? Because I could see some investors looking at those companies I just mentioned,
hitting 52-week lows and thinking, well, maybe that's a value. Those seem like value
traps to me. You have to be careful about that, Chris.
because they can be value traps. The United States has been over-retail for a long time
where we have more retail locations and real estate per capita than in Europe or the rest of the
world as consumers continue to look to spend more money online. So you have to make sure
if you're investing into real estate, I think, you have to go to where the growth is going to go.
That's a commerce. And looking at these Omni-Channel players, those companies that are continuing
to make the right investments. We've talked about Walmart doing a great job with this,
into the e-commerce, connecting the physical retail locations with their e-commerce space.
And companies that do that well will continue to do well in the marketplace.
They say America loves a comeback.
We're just not sure America's going to love this particular comeback.
Details coming up. So stay right here.
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But I ain't no cure for the summertime.
Welcome back to Motley, Full Money, Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser and Andy Cross.
Shares of Intuit up this week after a strong third quarter report that was followed by the software company raising guidance for the full fiscal year.
Intuit's kind of getting it done, Andy.
Yeah, Chris, this was my radar stock from last week.
And if you recall, the things I was looking for were their small business ecosystem revenue growth continuing to thrive.
and they have a goal of making that more than 30%.
So that's really tied to QuickBooks Online for small businesses.
That was up 38%.
That matched what it was last quarter.
So overall, the business continues to do well.
Revenue is up 12%.
That was a little higher than the estimates.
That included 10% in the consumer group,
which is like you and me using QuickBooks or using TurboTax.
That was two-thirds.
That's total of two-thirds of sales.
19% growth in the small business category.
So across the board,
their turbotax business continues to do well.
Their ecosystems are growing.
They're getting more and more people to the platform.
They're managing their costs well.
They continue to generate high profit margins and lots of growth in there.
So overall, the TurboTax story, the QuickBooks story, the Intuit story continues to do well.
And I think going forward, this business, as it continues to evolve into more and more services for both corporate clients and individuals, will continue to do really well.
This is a $65 billion company. Do you see them making any sort of acquisition? They've
done such a good job of building these businesses. And as you said, managing smart growth.
It seems like if they wanted to, they could go out, make a tuck-in acquisition and just add
to their ecosystem.
Yeah, I think so, Chris. But I think overall continuing to build out that and get more and
more people into the platform, offering higher and higher revenue, higher and higher margin services
for all of those clients, different opportunities for them to connect into those ecosystems.
I mean, that continues to really show they have more than 14 million registered users on the platform.
That's up from 5 million on the TurboTax platform.
That's up more than up from 5 million last year.
And that allowed them to generate higher profits and raise a dividend 21% this quarter.
So overall, whether it's acquisitions or continue to grow the business organically into it, it's doing really well.
Not every software company having a great week.
First quarter results for Auto Desk were weak, and guidance was not exactly inspiring confidence either.
Shares have had a good 2019 so far, Jason. Do you look at this as a speed bump, or do you think they've got some legit problems on their hands?
Oh, I would say speed bump. I mean, I don't know that I would qualify the quarter as weak, but, I mean, we can talk about that after the show, Chris.
You can be forgiven if you really don't know about the business. I mean, it certainly does keep under the radar. It's not one we talk a whole lot about it, but I think that the market that it serves,
is becoming more and more relevant by the quarter.
And I've talked recently about the work I've done in the augmented reality space.
I will say that Autodesk is one that I have high on the list of great opportunities in that space.
And Autodesk makes and sells 3D design and engineering and entertainment software.
I mean, they help customers build virtually anything, whether it's a car or a building or a movie with cool special effects.
Now, recently, they did make a bit of a change to the business model.
They went from selling essentially perpetual license.
software to a subscription model. And, you know, we talk about subscriptions all the time.
On this show, we like them. I think it was a good move. It threw a little bit of a, you
threw a little bit of a wrinkle.
Yeah, maybe a wrinkle. A curveball? A curveball. That's a good one. Yeah. Through a curveball,
to analysts, I think. And it made the financials a little bit tough to model out there.
But ultimately, I do think it is the right move. A key metric they have in annualized recurring
revenue for the quarter was up 33 percent.
And management does recognize, I think, that the real competitive advantage for the business stems
from the suite of offerings that they have. So they continue to invest in that software and
bringing new products to their customers. If you look over the last five years, the stock has
absolutely pummeled the market. It's up over 200%. I think that given the size of the
company, around $36 billion today, similar to another competitor to Salt Systems, a recommendation
in stock advisor that's done very well also. It's a great market, I think, in a company that
investors should really have them on their radar. First quarter revenue for Splunk was higher than
expected, but shares of the data analytics company falling nearly 15% this week. Andy Splunk is not
profitable. Do they have a cash flow problem? No, they actually generate free cash flow,
Chris. So it's one of those companies that's not profitable. When you add back some of the
non-cash expenses, they actually make some money. To Jason's point about Autodes, there's been some
changing some of the billing techniques and some of the solutions that they're offering,
which has caused a little bit of questions about some of the cash flows and the expected for this
year. So I think some analysts are trying to make sense of that. Also, while they added 400 new
clients now have more than 18,000 in total, that's down a little bit from last quarter.
Now, Splunk is one of these. It's a kind of cool company, man. It takes all this data that
companies generate from all their apps, all technology, and helps those companies make sense of that
data and provide better solutions, internally, solutions for their customers. So it helps machine
data learning and helps their clients get smarter. So when you take in all those numbers,
adding clients maybe a little bit lower than last year, analysts kind of still a little bit
lukewarm on what this means for some of the cash though this year, even though the company
grew revenues more than 36%. Chris, that was higher than estimates this quarter, just some
concerns on maybe what the growth prospects for the year may mean. I think.
I think long term, it's a $20 billion business, generate some free cash flow, playing in a very
fun, dynamic market, and Splunk is taking market share and doing well.
Any concerns about the lack of profitability?
Obviously, they've grown the business to this point, but at some point, investors,
and particularly Wall Street, is going to want them to start generating a profit.
Yeah, and they also invest a lot in R&D, more than 25% of their revenues go into research
and development.
They are making progress on both gross margins and operating margins.
So they are getting there. I can see the profitability curve going in the right direction over the next couple of years.
So I'm not quite as worried about that. As long as they're continuing to add more clients,
I think that is a thing that we have to watch, is what are the client number additions looking like each quarter?
In July, Netflix unveils season three of Stranger Things. The show has been a hit,
in part because it is set in the 1980s and has a certain nostalgia factor going forward.
But season three is bringing back something that absolutely no one asked for.
New Coke.
The Coca-Cola company is producing half a million cans of New Coke to go along with this launch
of Season 3 of Stranger Things.
Do you think the people at Coke are unaware that New Coke was one of the all-time debacles
in terms of a new product, Jason?
It really feels like there's a lot more that can go wrong with this move that can go right.
just a personal opinion, and I'll leave it at that.
Well, and we were talking about this before the show, Andy.
I think this is long enough ago that people will be forgiven for not remembering that
Coca-Cola in 1985 didn't just roll out new Coke as an option.
They basically said, oh, this highly successful product we've been making since the late
1800s, we're stopping production of that altogether.
So there's no longer an option. Here's New Coke. You're welcome. And it was, I believe, less than
three months later, they had to just take it all back.
Yeah, I think 80 days it was basically on the market. I was a fan of New Coke. I actually liked
maybe I was the one person out there who still liked it. I was a fan. I had my parachute
pants on. Like, oh, yeah, it was great. So drinking my new Coke. I actually liked it,
but clearly a marketing and innovation mistake there for him.
Given Max's love of stranger things, I mean, I do feel like we're probably
missing out on a pretty sweet holiday gift if we don't get, you know, a case and put it aside,
you know, for him later. Put that order in right now, Jayne. Let's go to our man behind the glass.
Steve, do you remember the new Coke debacle? Vaguely. I vaguely remember it, yeah. And I think
didn't it come out in a different can? It can look different, if I recall, right?
It did. And you're going to, you'll have a chance to see that new can. I won't be buying it,
though. No, sir, E. Bob. All right, Andy Cross, Jason Moser, guys. We'll see you later in the show.
The summer movie season kicks off this weekend, but which ones are actually worth your money?
Nell Minow is next. So get the popcorn ready. This is Motley Full Money.
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Welcome back to Motley Fool Money.
I'm Chris Hill.
The summer movie season officially kicks off this weekend,
so of course we turn to Nell Minow.
She is the film critic known as the movie mom.
She is also an expert in corporate governance
and the vice chair of Value Edge Advisors.
She joins me now. Nell, always good to talk to you.
Thank you.
Before we get to the movies, let's talk some business, and we've got to start with Boeing.
The 737 Max remains grounded after the two crashes that killed more than 350 people.
We've seen reports now that Boeing was trying to get this new model certified as quickly as possible.
Engineers were under pressure from managers to limit safety testing to keep down costs.
And bizarrely, to me anyway, over the last 12 months, shares of Boeing are basically flat,
whereas this seems like the sort of thing that would really sink an airlines, or I should say,
an aircraft maker's stock.
Where is Boeing's board of directors in all this?
First of all, I'm going to say that I have some stock in Boeing, and I spoke to the person who bought it on my behalf,
and said, what is going on?
And I'll tell you what she said.
She said, where's the competition?
People don't like Boeing.
Where are they going to take their business?
Airbus?
You know, go to the back of the line, a very, very long line,
before you get your new plane.
The customers don't seem flustered,
and therefore the investors don't seem flustered.
I would expect, however,
we may see some real corporate governance changes there.
the board doesn't seem to be on top of this at all.
And the fact that they ignored the warning signs is very, very troubling.
The fact that safety doesn't seem to be factored into the incentive of compensation is also very troubling.
So I'm hoping that we see some changes there, but I don't anticipate any changes in the stock price for a while.
I get that this is basically a duopoly between Airbus and Boeing.
And yes, it's not an online advertising platform.
You can't just stand up a business like this.
But it also, by the same token, seems like the sort of thing.
Whereas, yeah, if you're Southwest Airlines and you're looking for new planes, you don't necessarily
want to get in the back of the line at Airbus.
But it also seems like the longer this drags out, the longer
are the ripple effects become? And so maybe Boeing stock isn't affected now, but as this continues
to slowly drag on, it could be troublesome down the line. Oh, I absolutely agree with you. However,
I also have confidence that there will be enough customer and investor pressure that they will make
some changes before that happens. Housing is obviously such a big industry, and D.R. Horton is the biggest
Home Builder in America, they've been making headlines recently for some deals, not necessarily
on the up and up. What is going on with the children of the chairman at D.R. Horton?
The children are doing fine. I'm not sure the shareholders are doing so well.
You know, it kind of reminds me. I grew up in Chicago under the original Mayor Daley,
the first Mayor Daley, who gave a lot of the company's insurance business to his son,
was just out of school. And he said famously, you know, if you can't do good things for your children,
what's the point of being mayor? And that's kind of how I feel about this. The problem is in a
public company, hello, you're supposed to be acting on behalf of the shareholders. And there seems
to be no evidence that that's the case here. What you want to see in any kind of insider transaction
is you want to see the company bending over backwards to show you that it was an arm's-length transaction
that they shopped it around,
they got the best price,
and that doesn't seem to be the case here.
There's all kinds of stuff going on
with sweetheart deals for the kids,
with guaranteed returns,
and personal loans from the dad.
And once again,
this is yet another company
that wants the access to capital
of a public company,
but they want the control
and the insider bennies of a private company,
and that can't sustain itself very long.
Shares of Disney recently hit an all-time high. The early reaction to the Disney Plus streaming service seems to be positive, especially when you consider it's not going to launch until sometime this fall.
CEO Bob Eiger is making $65 million a year, and Abigail Disney, who is the granddaughter of Walt Disney, is not at all happy about this. She called that amount of pay insane. I know you're a fan of Bob Eiger's leadership.
I'm curious what you think of his compensation.
Well, I'm a fan of both Bob Auger and Abigail Disney,
who herself is a very fine filmmaker,
has made some excellent documentaries.
And she also puts her money where her mouth is.
You know, I spend my time getting upset about people who get paid too much for doing a bad job.
I put people who get paid too much for doing a good job on another level.
And I also do own some Disney stock.
I want to point out that they've done quite well this year with a little movie called The Avengers
and buying the Fox content.
So, yeah, he is getting paid too much.
I do think it is bad for the employees as a whole.
I don't think it's good for the company to have the CEO get paid that much.
On the other hand, he's getting paid too much for doing a really good job.
Since you mentioned Avengers Endgame, which at this point has made more than $2.6 billion,
dollars worldwide. Are you at all surprised at the success either of this one film or the entire
package that Disney has put together under Kevin Feigey's leadership going back over the last
11 years, starting with Iron Man? I'm really happy that you mentioned Kevin Feigy because he
deserves to go down in Hollywood history with Irving Thalberg as some of the really great producers.
because everybody tried to make comic book movies before that.
There were some of the worst movies ever made
were people's attempts to make fantastic four movies.
And still, they haven't quite figured out how to make a fantastic four movie.
It was really Kevin Feigy who brought in the vision,
the love for these characters, the understanding of the kind of symbiotic relationship
between bringing all the characters together.
He had, this was real genius.
He had the wisdom to allow each of the franchises to develop their own personality.
You know, you've got something like Thor Ragnarok, which is hilarious.
You've got something like Winter Soldier, Captain America Winter Soldier, which was a throwback
to the 1970s movies of paranoia, political paranoia, and yet still make them all cohesive.
And if you're going to watch Avengers for the third or fourth time, you will be able to tell
that each of the individual musical themes for each of these characters come together just as the characters themselves do.
So I, yes, I was surprised, but very pleasantly surprised there has never been a franchise like this in the history of movies,
and I don't expect ever to see anything like it again.
Well, and add to Kevin Feige's list of accomplishments, and you touched on this with Thor Ragnar Rock,
his selection of directors, the fact that someone like Taiko Watiti, who's to that,
that point was known for just sort of these small, almost cult films, and then he gets handed
this enormous budget with Thor Ragnarok.
Yeah, yeah.
And that worked out really, really well.
Captain Marvel worked out very, very well.
It really is astonishing what he's been able to do, that he's been able to give these,
particularly these young directors, as you said, their own imprint and yet keep it as a cohesive
whole.
So, you know, imagine if they did the Harry Potter franchise, and Hermione had her own movie,
and Professor McGonicle had her own movie, and yet they kept bringing them back together.
It's just mind-blowing.
I want to go back to the Disney Plus service for just a second, because one of the things we're starting to see in the wake of, obviously, the rise of Netflix,
but also Disney rolling out their streaming service is almost a land grab among these different companies.
Comcast with NBC.
this week, reportedly looking to buy stars from Lionsgate Entertainment.
And Disney brought back its Hulu.
It's taking over Hulu, right?
So what do you think are the prospects for Disney Plus,
and how nervous should the brain trusted Netflix be?
Well, Netflix really surprised us all with the strength of their content.
And as long as they keep that up, they've really abandoned their original,
business playing completely, which is heartbreaking to me, because what I loved about them originally
was that the most obscure films that I wanted to see were always available on Netflix, and that's just
not true anymore, I guess, unless you want to do DVD. But they have more than made up for it with
creating original content. They've gone from being, you know, blockbuster to being MGM. And so they're going
a different way. Disney, of course, is now going in the opposite direction from being a content
creator to the streaming service. The thing that Disney has is the built-in perpetual audience.
They can just keep putting out, you know, the original Lion King, the original Cinderella,
and they're going to have a new generation every seven years. That's a really solid basis
for them. They're very, very good on content. So I'm pretty impressed with the way they're going.
All we need now is each of us, you know, an extra 40 hours a week to watch all this stuff.
Let's get to the summer movies, and I'm curious what you're looking forward to with all of the options this summer.
Well, as usual, we have a lot of sequels, a lot of blockbusters.
I have to say, the guilty pleasure I'm most looking forward to doesn't Hobbs and Shaw look amazing,
the spinoff of the Fast and Furious franchise?
That looks incredible.
I mean, anytime that you've got car chases, Jason Statham, The Rock, and Helen Mirren, you know, you're pretty much good.
So also, we've just talked about Thor Ragnarok.
The two stars of Thor Ragnarok are teaming up for another one of my favorite franchises, men in black.
The trailer looks absolutely amazing.
We've got Godzilla, Toy's Story 4 looks wonderful, so I'm very excited about that.
And then, you know, every summer, what I look forward to are the little surprising indies.
And we've already got one opening up this week.
It's called Book Smart.
It could not be more adorable.
It is about two very, very, very bright high school seniors.
It's the last night before graduation.
They've done everything right.
They have given up all fun and just, you know, done all their homework.
They've gotten into their dream schools.
And on that last night, they decided to go and make out for a last time.
and have some wild adventures, and they do.
If it sounds a little bit like Superbad,
then let me tell you that the star of Superbad,
Jonah Hill, his sister is the star of Booksmart.
But this is a much sweeter story,
and yes, it's very raunchy, but it's absolutely great.
So looking forward to having everybody see that.
Well, I was going to ask you if there was an under-the-radar movie
we should be looking for,
and sounds like you've already answered that.
I'm curious, of all the sort of big movies you mentioned, and certainly some of those are on my list.
One you didn't mention, I'm curious if you have any early sense of this movie, particularly in the wake of the Academy Awards.
Any buzz on Rocket Man, which is the Elton John movie?
Yeah, the buzz that I've heard so far is that it is not a straight kind of biopic, and that it goes off and uses kind of fantasy sequences, which sounds like.
appropriate for what it's doing. There is one other little neglected indie that I think everybody
will be talking about this summer. It's called The Farewell with last year's breakout star,
Aquafina, who stole the show in Oceans 8 and also in Crazy Rich Asians. This year, she plays
a young woman whose grandmother, to whom she's very close in China, is going to die,
but they decide they're not going to tell her that she's going to die.
They're just going to pretend that they're having a family wedding
so that give everybody excuse to come see her before she dies.
And it's about what happens then.
It's called The Farewell.
It is absolutely great.
So that's another one I want everybody to be on the lookout for.
I and all of our listeners will forever be indebted to you
for the conversation you and I had this time two years ago
when I asked you, is there a movie this summer that we can skip?
and you told us, yes, you don't need to go see Tom Cruise in the mummy. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. That's both time and money that I saved. And apparently, based on the box office receipts, time and money that lots of other people saved as well.
Everyone listened to me. Thank you. So with that in mind, this summer, they can't all be hits. What is something we're probably better off skipping?
I have not seen it yet. So take that under advisement. But I have to save a new elaborate.
Madden looks awful.
Wow.
After all of the hits.
I just said about Disney.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
I'm clearly shaken by this one, but not as shaken as the Disney people are going to be.
Last thing, and then I'll let you go.
Roughly 40 million Americans are going to have some type of road trip this Memorial Day weekend.
I know you're going to be traveling back home to Chicago.
With that in mind, what is a road trip movie or two that you enjoy?
Well, you cannot beat Midnight Run with Robert De Niro.
It is absolutely, you know, I always say that road trips are the oldest story of all, you know,
going back to Odysseus, and they always work because they take people out of their milieu
and they get to know each other, but Minut Run is a classic.
and then, of course, the greatest road trip movie of all time, The Wizard of Us.
One of the best reasons to be on Twitter is so you can follow Nell Minow and get her thoughts on movies and corporate governance and so much more.
Nell, have a wonderful time with your family this weekend.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Coming up, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar.
Stay right here. This is Motley Fool money.
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against.
So don't buy or sell stocks.
solely on what you're here. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, Chris Hill, here in studio once again
with Jason Moser and Andy Cross. It's Memorial Day weekend. We want to help you get ready for
your summer vacation, not just with the awesome summer theme music that our man behind the glass
Steve Broido has been playing, but also by encouraging you to check out the Motley Fool's podcast,
Swag Shop. You can get t-shirts, ball caps to keep the sun off your face, coffee mugs, and a lot more.
Go to shop.com. That's shop.com.
Time to get to the stocks on our radar this week. Our man behind the glass will hit you with the question.
And you know what? You can hit him back with one if you want. Jason Moser. You're up first.
What are you looking at this week?
Sure. Well, perhaps we have listeners tuning into this week's Motley full money via my radar stock Spotify, ticker SPOT.
Obviously, as we've discussed before, the economics of the music business are pretty brutal.
But when we get back to the whole content is king thing, let's also remember that distribution plays a very important role.
as well. And I think that's actually where Spotify is starting to show they have a leg up on everyone here.
Recent quarterly results came out. Monthly active users grew 26% to 217 million. Premium users grew 32% to 100 million.
Where I think they're starting to differentiate themselves is they're going beyond just music.
They're building out, I think, a platform of all sorts of different content. That includes podcasts.
So the acquisitions of Gimlet Media and Anchor will help them build out those offerings.
an interesting Samsung partnership, which is going to result in Spotify being preloaded on
all these new Samsung devices coming out. I just think there are a lot of opportunities in
the future here for Spotify to become that default operating system for folks' entertainment
on their mobile devices. Obviously, Apple Music will play a role, but when we look at Android's
position there, that's the dominating operating system. And that's where Spotify, I think,
can really exploit that advantage there. Steve, question about Spotify?
If you ask 10 people on the street, if they knew what Spotify really did, do you think they'd be able to answer correctly?
Sure, I think so. I mean, I can ask my daughters what Spotify does and they can answer it.
So I'd give credit to people just walk in the street. Most people have a Spotify account now, don't they, Steve?
Don't you?
I did, but I don't now. They all blend together. There's so many of them.
Yeah. Andy Cross, what are you looking at?
Workday, a human resources software company and provides finance solutions as well.
Reports earnings next week. It's a $46 billion dollar company.
companies are very large. It was founded by David Duffield and Anil Busry, who worked at PeopleSoft that
was acquired by Oracle years ago. It's a company that serves more than 2,600 clients, including
40% of the Fortune 500 and Chris half of the Fortune 50. So it's really a growth story. It's been
able to grow more than 30% per year. So I want to see if that growth is slowing. And what they are
seeing with the client additions, that's an important fact.
for them to be able to continue to grow the business.
So symbol is W-D-A-Y workday.
Steve?
How would a company like the Motley Fool use workday in our day-to-day?
Well, there's a lot of competitors.
So, like, how you interact, it does payroll.
It handles a lot of the things that their clients and their clients' employees need to be
able to interact with to basically just do their everyday work job.
So I think it's an important software solution for lots of different clients out there.
What do you think, Steve?
I think I'm going with Spotify.
I'll give it a show.
I don't know if I understand it, but I think I'll go with it.
All right, Andy Karras, Jason Moser, guys.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you.
That's going to do it for this week's show.
Our engineer is Steve Broido, our producer's Matt Greer.
I'm Chris Hill.
Thanks for listening.
Have a great Memorial Day weekend.
We'll see you next week.
