Motley Fool Money - Self-Driving Surprises

Episode Date: August 4, 2017

Apple shines. Take Two Interactive scores. Teva Pharmaceutical gets crushed. And Yelp surprises Wall Street while Under Armour stumbles. Plus, veteran auto industry journalist Paul Lienert talks about the mood in Detroit and shares a surprising prediction about self-driving cars. Thanks to Bombfell for supporting The Motley Fool. Get $25 off you first purchase at http://bombfell.com/fool .  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. Sel and joining me in studio this week from Million Dollar portfolio, Jason Moser, from Supernova, David Kretzman, and from Total Income Ron Gross. Good to see you, as always, gentlemen. Hey, Chris. We've got the latest earnings on healthcare, restaurants, retail, and more. We will head to Detroit to check in with the automotive industry. And as always, we'll give you an inside look

at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with the biggest company in the public markets. Apple's third quarter revenue came in north of $45 billion. And I know they're all about the iPhone, David. But Apple is doing a good job of growing that services division. Yeah, services grew 22% to a record $7.3 billion for the quarter. But this really is still the iPhone story. They sold 41 million iPhones this quarter. The iPad also is finally making a comeback.

It was up 15% this quarter. They launched the iPhone, obviously, 10 years ago, around the anniversary a year, and they've sold a cumulative 1.2 billion iPhones over that time. So that installed base just continues to grow. They did see some currency headwinds in Europe and China, but I think, like you mentioned, Chris, the bright spot really is that services business. The App Store brings in twice the revenue of Google Play. They have 185 million paid subscribers across all their different services like music, ICloud,

the App Store. So a lot of things like with that services segment. Yeah, I like seeing the boost in iPad sales. I mean, for a long time, we've been kind of wondering how far can that really go. And I think... Remember Baba Booie said it was a bit of a stumble? a bit of a stumble. Not quite a stumble, I would say. It's a multi-billion-dollar stumble, and we'd all kill to have one of those. But I do feel like, I mean, it's, the TV is being

redefined, right? I mean, your TV is now either your phone or your tablet. And so certainly they've been able to, I think, drive sales in delivering more a variety in sizes of iPads, for example. I think that's helped. The iPad Pro, I think, is playing into a demographic there that uses it for professional services. But I still kind of wonder if maybe the the tablet, not the iPad in particular, but just the tablet's best days are not behind us. I mean, it does seem like it's sort of a raise to the bottom. And Amazon has obviously gotten in there and introduced a tremendous line of Kindle fires and whatnot. Now, they've got this Echo Show device, and we know that Facebook is going to be trying to make some

sort of visual-based device like that as well. So, nice to see this quarter. I'm not sure how sustainable that is. Is it going to really matter? No, because like David said, this still really is a phone company. Remember the good old days of the iPhone subsidy where you didn't feel like you were paying an arm and a leg? Now they're talking about the iPhone 8 being $1,000 plus, perhaps. Did they address that at all in the call? Not a lot. I mean, these are big numbers.

Apple keeps the product launches close to the vest. It certainly seems like with all the rumors and buzz around that sometimes September or October, we will see some new iPhone come out, whether it's called iPhone 8 or iPhone X, remains to be seen. But I would guess a new iPhones is on the way this year. Well, it was interesting to see the headline, particularly around the services, because going into this quarterly report, and this seems odd to say about a company this big, but there was a lot of talk on Wall Street of essentially just ignoring this quarter because I think there's a lot of excitement about what will come this fall and what will be the next iteration

of the iPhone. So, nice to know they can still surprise people. The amazing thing about the services business is right now, the quarterly revenue of the services business is really on par with what Facebook was bringing in. in terms of revenue each quarter last year. And that's still just a fraction of Apple's total revenue. And it's still not an expensive stock, in my opinion. It still remains relatively inexpensive compared to the rest of the market. Teva Pharmaceuticals is the largest maker of generic drugs in the world, and this week it got a lot smaller. Second quarter results were low. They cut their dividend by 75 percent. And in just one week, Ron, Teva has lost

one-third of its market cap. I don't know where to begin. It's a perfect store. dorm of badness. Nothing good coming here. As you said, so earnings fell short. They cut their guidance. They cut their dividend. They announced they may breach debt covenants. Their debt is pretty large as a result of an acquisition. They do not have a CEO. They're having trouble finding a CEO. They're losing patent protection on their biggest branded drug, which is a Kappa. Yeah, you know how to pronounce that, right? Kappa zone. No, I lead that to experts like you.

And there's an activist that is kind of saying they should be splitting the business into two different divisions, one focused on generic, the other on specialty medicine. There's really almost nothing going well here, and it's obviously reflected in the stock price. Last half full guy here. You know, it's a, the pricing environment in generics is tough right now. The competition is tough, and they really can't get out of their own way. And without a strong CEO at the helm, this is not going to turn anytime. soon as an investor, I would stay away. There's too much uncertainty, even though the stock

has been pretty much destroyed. They need to get a really strong CEO there, and they're going to have to pay up, unfortunately, to get that because no one seems interested right now. But given the head wins, I mean, you have to agree that cutting that dividend, even though it was a very large cut at 75 percent, that's got to be the right move, right? That's a prudent play, because you can always push that thing back up once you get this thing turned around. Yeah. While painful, if cutting the dividend is the right move, then the right move, cutting the dividend is the right move. And especially if you have a lot of debt and cash fill problems, you need to make that painful move. And you count on a strong management team, of which they have no one at the helm right now,

unfortunately, to make those tough decisions, even if it's painful in the short term. Shares of Under Armour hit a new low this week, a loss in the second quarter, combined with lowered guidance, combined with the announcement of layoffs. And Under Armour's stock has been cut in half in just one year's time, Jason. Yes, it has not been a very good stretch here for Under Armour. It went from one quarter just about a year ago where it seemed like they could do no wrong to literally a point out where it seems like they can do no right. And I think at least, I'd like to believe, we've hit this point where founder and CEO, Kevin Plank, has hit a point where perhaps he recognizes

that he needs help. I think he has gotten to a point where he's just a little bit in over his head maybe at this point, because he's got to figure out a way to take this business. business to the next level, to take that next step. And so on the bright side, I mean, he does have an executive team in there with him now with new CFO, new C.O. New C.O. That I think help sort of make some more measured decisions, some deliberate growth without having to feel like you've got to make these big sort of splashy sort of acquisitions and whatnot to really keep in the headlines. I mean, let's be clear, Under Armour to this point had it really seemingly pretty easy. I mean, every quarter it was just lobbing up 20 plus

revenue growth, and everybody was loving, and it was the next Nike, and they could do no wrong. And now they've run into this buzzsaw where the top-line growth is slowing down, and they need to figure out what to do to help get that back going against. I mean, the bright side, the international business is performing very well, and that continues to be a source of excellent growth here in the coming years. Direct-to-consumer grew 20 percent for the quarter. It's now 35 percent of total revenues. The downside there, I think that they still haven't gotten out in front of this Connected Fitness

acquisition that they made a while back. I think we're going to see a big write down here by the end of the year, if not early next year, on that acquisition. They continue to frame it like it gives them a lot of data for their customers and whatnot, and they paid a lot of money for those apps that I don't think are really bearing the fruit that they were hoping for. So there's plenty of reason to be optimistic, and just to frame it here for you, Coach, which you've been ragging on for about the past five years, Eric Griss. Coach has now double the market

cap of Under Armour. So think about that for a second. That's how bad it really is for Under Armour and how well coaches really turn their business around. I think Under Armour holds a very powerful brand and a very big market opportunity. So I think that as long as Kevin Plank can keep this executive team with him, there will be brighter days ahead, but it's going to take a little while. Yeah, I think the one bright spot with Under Armour going through these troubles is that they do have to become more disciplined and focus and focus on what they're really good at. And I think bringing on new leadership in the form of a new CEO last month, that'll help Plank stay focused on what he does do good at with the brand. But man, that connective fitness dilemma just really hurts right now when I was at CES in January.

That was pretty much all Kevin Plank talked about in his keynote presentation was how great these connected fitness apps were. But boy, yeah, I think a write-down is coming. Well, and we were talking last year about Nike and how they just decided to get out of the golf equipment business altogether. And it wasn't like they were pouring money down a hole there over at Nike. And it wasn't like they couldn't afford it, but they just decided, you know what? This isn't where we want to focus our energy. And I'm wondering how quickly Under Armour may come to the same realization where they say, you know what? We're in this one particular part of business and it's not going as well as we want.

And we just need to cut bait. Yeah, and my hope is that they'll recognize that sooner rather than later. I feel like Plank is bandied about that connected fitness line. It's lost all meaning. It's like in Fletch when he says it's all ball bearings. I mean, you're like, you say connected fitness, but you're not connecting the dots on how it monetizes. And I think the reason why they're not connecting those dots is because it's clearly

far more difficult than they thought it would be. And they're suffering from brand identity. Are they performance? Are they connected? Are they a full-athleisure company? What are they now? What are they focused on? And I think they need to figure that out. Macada Libre's second quarter profits fell 18 percent, and the Wall Street darling fell out of favor,

if only for one day. Shares of Macautea down more than 10 percent on Friday. Although you back it out over the past year, David, it's had quite a run. It's had a good year. It's had a good three, five, ten years. So I don't think this is anything to worry about too much. I mean, when you take a high-level look at the business, things are still going really well. Items sold grew a record 41 percent for the quarter. They're payment transactions through their payments platform, Mercado Pago, grew 63%. Total users on the platform up 21%. And almost 200 million users now.

Revenue up 59%. Venezuela, though, continues to be a sore thumb area for them. They had to do a write-off with their business in Venezuela. This summer, the Venezuelan Central Bank instituted a new foreign exchange mechanism, which devalued the currency by 73% compared to the US dollars. That hurts. That stings a bit. So Mercado Libre is taking a $25 million loss this quarter.

The one bright side there is that the more you write down the business, the smaller it gets. So in general things still going well, their gross margin is seeing pressure as they roll out a loyalty program and free shipping in Brazil and Mexico and a few other markets there. But they have such a big market opportunity. I think those are wise investments. Coming up, a reminder that good food does not always result in tasty earnings. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money.

Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, David Kretzman, and Ron Gross. El Pollo Loco and Chewies, both serving second quarter results up, but investors were not biting. Both stocks falling 8% this week. And Jason, in the case of Chewies, it is the lowered guidance that's hurting them. Yeah, I think with both of these restaurants, really the question is how much can we expect them to grow? And then is that really an attractive prospect for investors? When it comes to both of my tendency is to say, no, there's not really that much of an attractive growth prospect there.

I mean, with Chewy's, yep, they guided down. Comps were down 1%, top line was up 7.5%. But what that means is that revenue is coming from opening new stores. They still have a very small store base. I think it's somewhere around 80, and they're only going to open a handful every year. Now, the flip side, there are some pretty attractive unit economics there. They said that in 2016, comp stores brought in around $4.6 million per year. store. So there are some attractive economics there. Again, I just don't know if there's the growth

that we'd be looking for. With Polio Loco, it's a bigger footprint somewhere in the neighborhood of 500, just under 500 stores today, and they do franchise. Again, that is a very competitive, quick-serve market where they're competing against the likes of McDonald's, of Bojangles, of all the young brand stores, Taco Bell, KFC, and whatnot. So that's a tricky one. I think Polio Loco does differentiate the products that they offer, but again, I'm not sure how far they can spread their wings and grow that footprint, so to speak. So I don't know that really investors should be all that up for either concept at this point. Shares of Texas Roadhouse flat this week, despite better than expected results in the second

quarter, CEO Kent Taylor, saying on the conference call, Ron, we're not doing delivery. Interesting, right? It was. So he's saying if most people are calling for delivery between 6 and 8 p.m., when their kitchen is the busiest and fully utilized, it would actually be a bad decision to offer up a port experience by delivering people lukewarm food, and he welcomes the competition to continue to do so. Right.

Which makes a little bit of sense there. He said, if there are companies out there that have kitchens that are not fully utilized, okay, that perhaps is a good move. But for us, it's not necessary. And they continue to put up really good numbers. They're carrying forward from Q1 right into Q2, especially you're in an environment where casual dining segment is hurting. Roadhouse and our man behind the glass favorite, Olive Garden, are two that are kind of bucking

the system for the most part. Com sales are up 4%. Deluded earnings per share are up 11%. Margin's got a little bit of pressure from wage rate inflation, but that was offset by lower food costs, so not too bad there. And they continue to grow. Open new stores, open their Bubba 33 concept, as well as their Texas Roadhouse concept. And they're doing a nice job. Yeah, but they haven't opened a Bubba's 33 near us. That's what I have. Wait, what's up with that. Pizza, burgers and beers. We're waiting. On to video game stocks. Activision Blizzard's strong second quarter profits were not enough to impress Wall Street, but Take 2 Interactive followed up a strong first quarter report with

raised guidance and shares of Take 2 up more than 10% this week, David. Yeah, Take 2 really doing really well, and that's without any major game launches this year. And Grand Theft Auto is their, really their hallmark franchise game, was last launched four years ago, and Grand Theft Auto Online had its best quarter ever this year. So four years later, still going on really strong. And a key metric to watch with Take 2 with a terrible name is recurrent consumer spending, which is the things a player buys within a game after they buy the actual game itself. And recurrent consumer spending was up 71% for the quarter and now makes up 58% of total sales.

That's very high margin revenue. And going over to Activision Blizzard, I mean, the company grew earnings more than 80% this quarter. Revenue grew up grew by a third. and they still have over 400 million monthly active users across their segments. And within their Blizzard segment in particular, I think it'll be really interesting to see how this Overwatch Global Professional Esports League goes. So they sold seven franchises in cities worldwide. The buying price was $20 million there. And that includes some owners like Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots, Jeff Wilpin of the New York Mets.

So you're bringing in some traditional sports into this e-sports category. Be interesting to watch. What is the name of that terrible metric again? Recurrent consumer spending. I have a solution here. It's really game addict spending. That's gas. It's the gas metric.

I like it. Travago's second quarter revenue rose more than 65 percent, but shares of the online hotel booking site taking a nosedive on Friday, Jason. Yeah, really attractive topline growth there. I think it didn't translate quite to the earnings that maybe the market was looking for. Travago is an interesting business. I think it's worth a look. But by the same token, you have to wonder, when it comes to this travel space,

Why is it better to invest in something like a Trivago versus just something like an Expedia or a price line? The big boys in the space, the OTAs. Because that's how Travago is making its money anyway, really, is coming from your OTAs at Expedia and Priceline.com. So, they're outspending companies like TripAdvisor on marketing hand over fist. And that's working for them right now. When they pull back on that, it'll be interesting to see how that affects the business. But they focus on doing one thing really well, and that's getting you into a hotel room. Getting you into a hotel room for a very reasonable price. So as long as they continue to feed that meta search engine, I think they'll continue to do okay.

The biggest winner on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday was Yelp. Yes, Yelp. Second quarter profits were just that. Actual profits. Wall Street was expecting a loss and shares of Yelp up nearly 30 percent in one day, Ron. One day, but for the year, basically flat, just slightly up, maybe 3 percent for the year. been struggling. It's a bit of a broken growth story in the sense that investors were worried that the growth they had been putting up was slowing and competition was strong. But this

quarter, an asset sale, a stock buyback, better than expected earnings. In fact, they had earnings, as you said, instead of a loss. They're selling their E-24 food service for double what they paid for it. They had double-digit increases in advertising and transaction revenue. Board approved a $200 million share of buyback. So some life out of Yelp, not dead yet. Do you use Yelp at all? I do. I don't like it. I don't like the experience of TripAdvisor either, though.

So I'm not a good guy that I necessarily ask. Again, glass half full. Speaking of the glass, let's go to our man behind the glass, Steve Broido. Steve, are you a Yelp? Are you a Yelper? Do you use it either for reviews or to post reviews of your own? Yes, they do use it from time to time. It is helpful if you're driving around and you're looking for something local that's good.

It's great. You're not looking at Yelp while you're driving, though, are you? Definitely not. You know what? It's interesting. You say that because the mobile app is on 22% more devices than a year ago, which is important for them. It's a big push. So good to see those numbers increasing, but not in the car. Be careful, folks. All right. Ryan Gross, Jason Moser, David Kressman, guys. We'll see you a little bit later in the show. Coming up, we are heading to the Motor City to take the pulse of the automotive industry. Don't touch that dial. This is Motley Fool Money.

All right, before we get into the automotive industry, I want to say thanks to Bonfell for supporting this episode of Motley Full Money. Bomfell is an online personal styling service for men that helps find the right clothes for you. It is an easier way to get better clothes, and I am all in favor of that because I am not even remotely a fan of going clothes shopping. That's why I like Bomfell, because it does all the work for me. They make it so easy. You just go to Bomfell.com slash fool, fill out a simple questionnaire, and then you're matched with a dedicated personal stylist who handpicks every piece.

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our dozens of listeners, we've got a special offer. You get $25 off your first purchase. Just go to bombfell.com slash fool. That's B-O-M-B-F-E-L-L dot com slash fool, and you get $25 off your first purchase. With that, let's go to Detroit. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. So much happening in the auto industry this week, and that's why we turn to Paul Linerd, who has spent his career covering the automotive industry, most recently with Thompson Reuters. He joins me now from Detroit. Paul, always good to talk to you. Chris, thanks for having me back. This week, this was one of those weeks where we were reminded of just how important the automotive industry is in the United States. General Motors sales for the month of July were down 15%. But in some

ways, you could look at AutoNation, which is the largest dealership group in America, and their latest quarterly results, which were pretty bad to say the least, and look at AutoNation's stock, which is hitting a five-year low this week. I guess my first question for you is, what is the mood right now in Detroit? Everybody sounds to me like they're whistling past the graveyard. That is, they're trying to stay upbeat and look for the silver lining, and we're hearing a lot of PR spin, but the numbers are the numbers. So is there a silver lining in these numbers, or is the silver lining simply for consumers who might be looking for a deal on their next automotive purchase? If you're an auto executive whose livelihood or compensation depends on put the up good numbers, or if you're investor, I would say, no, not really good news.

If you're a consumer, absolutely, because there are some killer deals out there right now. So let's go to one automotive stock that, for the moment anyway, is doing well, and that's Tesla. They came out with their latest numbers, and they moved forward with the Model 3, which has gotten almost across the board tremendous reviews. Is Tesla viewed differently today than it was, say, a year or two ago? Only in the sense that investors are even more upbeat and buoyant and optimistic, almost wildly so. I would say as the numbers get progressively worse for Tesla, investors seem to be racing in the opposite direction. And even Wall Street is divided. You have seriously the Bulls and the Bears on Wall Street, and they are wide apart on their projections for Tesla shares.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that all of the claims that Alon Musk is making in terms of production targets. And it seems like a goalpost that moves on a quarterly basis. But in some ways, he's getting more aggressive with his numbers, not less. If he actually hits those, what happens then with the Fords and the GMs of the world? because it seems like if he actually makes good on the production of these vehicles, and they really are rolling out 10,000 new vehicles a week by the end of 2018, that seems like a tidal wave for what we think of as the big three automakers. Chris, I mean no disrespect, but your question is moot to some extent in this sense.

Elon has missed so many targets that he himself has laid out that it's very difficult to take his latest projections at face value. For instance, a year ago, he flatly said, we're going to make 500,000 cars in 2018. Two nights ago, he said, well, we're going to hit 10,000 cars a week by the end of 2018 or somewhere in 2018. That's a far cry from building 500,000 cars and all of 2018. That's just one instance of many. So let's go to someone who's relatively new on the job then, and that's Jim Hackett. He has been the CEO of Ford Motor for less than three months. Is this a good time for someone new to be stepping into that job, or is, unfortunately, for Mr. Hackett,

has he picked the worst time to become the CEO of Ford Motor? It's a great question. I like Jim Hackett. I've met him a few times and had the chance to talk to him. I think he's well-regarded with him Ford, and I think he's brought some new positive energy into that company. But I'll tell you what. He reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with Ben, young Bill Ford, who is, I think, just coming back from Dearborn from an overseas assignment, maybe Switzerland or Venezuela. And I'm paraphrasing now, but I asked Bill a similar question.

This is a good or bad time. And he said, it's a great time because the company has been doing so, not poorly, but hasn't been doing that well, it'd be pretty hard for me to screw it up. And if I don't, if I actually do better, people are going to think I'm a hero. Now, Hackett probably is going to help turn that company around, but give him some time. As you say, it's less than 100 days in. Well, and as you indicated, you know, it seems like he has hit the ground running, certainly with employees, because, and this is something that we've seen with other new CEOs in other industries, particularly the food industry, where they come in and they begin to lay out their

plan. And you can have people within the industry argue whether or not that plan has merit. But whatever else you can say about Jim Hackett, I don't think anyone else you can say about Jim Hackett, I don't think anyone can criticize him for being unprepared? You know what? He was on the Ford Board of Directors, and he spent the last year running Ford's future mobility business called Ford Smart Mobility. So he knows the company, no question about that. He's not doing a couple things. He's not bringing in a whole bunch of new executives, nor is he firing a lot of veteran executives there. He also was taking his time. He said, I'm going to do a hundred-day review of all the operations. So he's looking at countries and regions where Ford's doing business, asking questions.

Do we need to be here? How deeply should we be here? How much should we invest? He's looking at their product line. He's looking at their technologies. He's even looking at stuff that he is very familiar with. For instance, Ford's move into autonomous vehicles and asking, are we going about this the right way? Do we want to invest more?

Do we want to invest less? How soon should we roll this stuff out? So he is asking the right questions without so far stepping on too many toes. One thing that we've seen so far in 2017, when you just go around the world in terms of automakers, we've seen more automakers rolling out electric vehicles. Volvo did so recently saying they're going to have a bunch of new all electric models on the road by, I believe it's 2021. They're also going to have some hybrids as well.

But is this a situation where Europe is sort of the leading edge in terms of electric vehicles for all the attention that Tesla gets when you look at the proposed ban on gas engines, you know, gas powered cars in Europe, it's hard not to think that Europe is actually the one leading here. I will tell you that from my vantage point in Detroit, Europe has done lots of work on electric vehicles over the years, but so is the U.S. I would say it's not Europe, but probably China that's in the vanguard right now, partly because the central government at Beijing

and local and regional governments have climbed all over this for a bunch of reasons, particularly the pollution, which is so ridiculous in China. China is actually going to force companies, including European and American companies who want to do business in China. They're going to force them to sell a certain number of electric vehicles starting within the next year or two.

Europe's proposed bans in different countries on gasoline engines, that's about around 2040. That's a long way away. Where are we now with self-driving cars? How much closer are we to them? And what should we be watching for in the United States? Because we had a guest on, recently on Motley Full Money, who actually made the point that it's probably not going to be the United States

that is leading the way when it comes to self-driving cars. It's going to be somewhere in Europe, probably a smaller country at that. But what should we be watching for next? You know, Chris, I actually disagree on that. And I've been in a number of these vehicles, talked to many, many automakers, suppliers, and even startups that are working on self-driving cars. My guess is you're going to see some of the first ones on the road that have full self-driving capability, at least within a specific area, what's called a geo-fenced area, probably starting around 2020. And you know what?

I think Tesla is probably going to be one of those companies. I would not be surprised if General Motors is one of those companies. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. The two candidates that you're laying out for self-driving cars in the United States are Tesla and General Motors? I would say they may very well be in the forefront right now.

Do not underestimate General Motors. Motors. Just as I would warn you, don't overestimate Tesla. I don't overestimate Tesla, but I am looking at the most recent sales figures from General Motors, so forgive me if I do underestimate them. They are, you know what? They're not in a good place right now. They're working hard on it, but they have way too many cars sitting in dealer stocks. Even their trucks are starting to slow down. So there's a lot to worry about if you're a General Motors executive these days. All right, last question, and then I'll let you go because I know it's a busy week for you. You said at the top, this is a good time to be buying a car because there are deals out there,

and all you have to do is look at the latest sales figures to recognize that. If you were in the market for a new car, what would you be kicking the tires on? Your timing is perfect. I just leased a new car about a month ago because my lease had expired on my old Hyundai, Tucson. I looked everywhere, and I looked, I shop deep. I shopped leases versus buying, and I wound up with a Chevrolet tracks. What am I getting in the Chevrolet tracks that I'm not getting in another vehicle? A heck of a good price.

I look for pretty much a basic vehicle. My wife and I drive many new vehicles a year. She's on the North American car of the year jury, so she is constantly rotating in and out of vehicles. So we see the best of them, we see the worst of them. I was very pleased with the tracks because it's a huge level of standard equipment on a car that starts out in the low 20s. Your wife is on the jury of the North American car of the year? One of the few females on that jury, as I might add. I mean, I'm not trying to pry into your marriage, Paul, but I'm assuming she has utter discretion and she's not leaking you advance information that is not available to other people in the media.

There is a strict separation of church and state. Her office is down the hall when she keeps the door closed. Paul Linerd covers the auto industry for Thompson Reuters. You can read his stuff. You can follow him on Twitter. If you want to know what's going on in the automotive industry, you should be doing both those things. Paul, it's always good to talk to you. It's a pleasure, Chris.

Thank you. Coming up, we'll dip into the fool mailbag and give you 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, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill, here in studio. Once again, with Jason Moser, David Kretzman, and Ron Gross. Save the date, guys. Wednesday, August 9th, we're going to be doing a live taping of our Marketfulery podcast at a restaurant in Washington,

D.C. called Chatter. It is on Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest D.C. Doors open at 1130 a.m. So if you want to come out and see us, we would love to see you come to chatter for our podcast taping. And if you want more details, just drop a note to Radio at Fool.com. Before we get to the stocks on our radar, a couple quick stories. Earlier in the week, standards and pores announced that a ban on companies, that it was enforcing a ban on companies with dual-clash share structures to join the S&P 500 index. And this is seen Jason very much as a shot across the bow at Snap. before Snap went public, they put out an S-1 that said, nobody gets any voting rights, period.

Yeah, I'm sure in the executive suite, they're probably looking around and thinking, hey, that's not fair, we're not the only ones. And I think there's a point to that, you know, for sure. But I think this was the straw that really broke the camel's back. And, I mean, they went into this IPO stating that, hey, this is the situation. And if you want to be a shareholder, that's great, but you're going to have zero say-so. And that typically runs counter to the notion of being a public company. It's not to say there aren't other companies out there that don't have those similar share structures,

but I think that Snap could have gone about their business a little bit more diplomatically, so to speak. And it seems like between Snap and Uber, Uber's not public yet, but these two companies are just in a race to see who can step and poop more often. And so far it seems like Snap's winning, but Uber's right on their tail. I feel like for the S&P's decision to have a lot of sting, they should kick out Google or Alphabet and their armament. Good luck, good luck, yeah. Probably not going to happen.

You're going to hold your breath on that? No, I don't think so. I think they would have Wall Street up in arms. Thank you to Jerry Villani of Cleveland, Ohio, for pointing on a story that Duncan Brands is testing a new concept by opening a few new locations of Dunkin' Donuts, but dropping the word donuts. So these new locations will just be called Duncan. How will people know what they sell?

That's, I think, what they're testing. Jerry writes, after seeing this story that they're considering shortening their name to Just Duncan and knowing other companies have done this successfully in the past, such as Apple computer, changing to just Apple, I looked at my own portfolio to see what other companies might consider. Under Armour could go to armor, meaning it's not just underwear anymore. General Mills could just be general, as in anything, and Johnson and Johnson could just be Johnson.

I thought you guys might have some fun coming up with some others. Real quick around the table. Ron Gross, you got a suggestion? Lula Lemon, Athletica could go to Lululamon because Athletica doesn't mean anything. Jason? Hey, Dave and Buster's entertainment? I mean, you take the entertainment off of there. Now you've got Dave and Busters mortgage banking. You've got Dave and Busters. More versatile. Crafts. I mean, they could really do anything.

Could be a cartoon also. I'm looking at Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage. I think, you know, you just pick one. Natural Grocers or Vitamin Cottage. I go with natural grocers. Yeah, because you know who wants to go to the vitamin cottage? Absolutely, no one. Well, that's unbarrable. Steve Broido, behind the glass. You got a suggestion here? Chubb, limited. You've got to lose the limited. If you're going to be chub, you don't want to be limited. You just want the chub. Let's get to the stocks on our radar, and we'll start with our man, Ron Gross. What are you looking at this week? I'm speechless after that. A recent total income recommendation, Cedar Fair, ticker symbol, Fun, FUNN, country's third largest amusement park

operator. Very hard to replicate those assets. Theme parks are basically local monopolies. They're solidly profitable, recurring cash flow. Five percent dividend yield for those people looking for income. They're able to raise prices faster than inflation and the return on investment. It looks really strong. You've got to like it when they have pricing power. You love pricing power. Steve Brodo, question about Cedar Fair? Any rides you won't go on. Yeah, well, truth be told, I am not a big roller coaster guy. It just freaks me out just a little too much. So I think it's most of them.

Yeah. I like the food, though. Jason Moser, what are you looking at this week? You're sticking in line with the travel discussion. TripAdvisor earnings are out next Tuesday, and ticker is TRIP. Very similar business to Trvago. I mean, they do have this meta-search engine, which is supposed to get you into a hotel for a good price.

And they try to take this business to another level with the instant booking platform that is not delivered, I think, the results they were hoping for. said, I mean, the pessimism has really been on this company for the past year because results, the growth engine essentially stalled. Yet, when you look at the platform, it's very engaging, users are growing, reviews are growing. It offers travelers a lot of value, not only in hotels, but all sorts of different things that you may do wherever you're traveling around the world. So my hope is that we've seen maybe some green shoots here in these next couple of quarters, and TripAdvisor can kind of get that growth engine started back again. If they can, I think

Today's stock price is going to be seen as a pretty cheap one, but that's a big if at this point. Steve Brodo, question about TripAdvisor? Sure. Would hotels ever benefit by advertising something? We're like, hey, skip TripAdvisor, call us directly. Well, I think that's one of the big questions with TripAdvisor, with Expedia, Priceline, and all of the others. I mean, instead of going through an OTA, why wouldn't you just go through the hotel directly? Big hotel concepts like Marriott really taking advantage of that and developing very robust loyalty programs. David Kretzman, what are you looking at this week?

I'm going with Chipotle Mexican Grill, ticker CMG. It's all about that. Koso. They're rolling out Koso in some markets in California and Colorado. In Koli Free since 2016? Hey, listen, I had a beretable last night. I'm still feeling all right. Hey, me too. But they are looking to roll Koso out nationally, possibly in September.

So I think that'll be the new menu item that will really bring people back into the stores. Aquaritan Management. That's the most requested item for the menu that isn't already on the menu. menu. So I think that'll help bring new people into the stores. And I think they're definitely ready for more people to come into the stores, especially as they roll out this digital strategy. They have a mobile app coming, a new mobile app coming out later this year. And they're taking the first steps to a loyalty program. And they have that second line in the back of the stores to focus on those digital online orders. Plus, the company has a strong

balance sheet, $570 million in cash, no debt. So I think they can work through these issues. Steve? Has the market been unfair to Chivalty regarding food safety? I mean, I, I, I, There's restaurants everywhere. I'm sure people get sick pretty much everywhere. Yeah, I mean, norovirus is relatively common in the U.S. and other restaurants, but when your earnings are falling off a cliff and you just went through a major crisis like E. coli, it makes sense for them to be under more of a microscope. Steve, three stocks. You've got one you want to add to your watch list? I think I might go with TripAdvisor. All right.

I was hoping you and Ron, we're going to go to an amusement park together. All right. David Cretzman, Jason Moser, Ron Gross. Guys, thanks for being here. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Full Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Mac Rear. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.