Motley Fool Money - Under the Hood at the Detroit Auto Show

Episode Date: January 13, 2017

Big banks report bigger profits. Apple moves into original television programming. Chipotle climbs on surprising sales. And Hasbro makes a big move with Monopoly. Plus, veteran auto industry reporter Paul Lienert talks Trump, trucks, and self-driving cars.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Baseball is back and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven-time all-star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Rafael Devers' San Francisco Giants. This season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB Opening Night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants live on Netflix. Wednesday, March 25th at 8 p.m. Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific. This episode of Motley Full Money is brought to you by Sure Payroll. If you're a small business owner, you know that payroll.

and payroll taxes can be a headache. Sure Payroll has simplified payroll services with just three easy steps online. To learn more, visit surepayroll.com slash fool and get a free quote. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Chris Hill and joining me in studio this week from Million Dollar portfolio, Jason Mozer,

from Hidden Gems, Seth Jason, and from Motley Fool One, Ron Gross. See you, as always, gentlemen. Hey, hey, you doing. We've got the latest on media, restaurants, gaming, and more. We will head to Detroit for the Big Auto Show. And as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with the Big Banks. Earning season officially started this week.

And the Big Banks reporting on Friday, starting with Bank of America, fourth quarter profits up 47 percent. And J.P. Morgan Chase, their fourth quarter profits, half as good, up 24 percent. Not surprisingly, Seth, Jason. Both stocks up a little bit on Friday on those reports. Up a little bit, but not up a lot of it because the big banks are up somewhere between like 50, 30, 20, 30, 50 percent since early November. Not sure why.

But this had people known this. You could have said this was why. We've got, you know, revenues increasing pretty much J.P. Morgan and Bank of America have similar both very good stories, net interest income up, other income across, you know, other banking like wealth management, all of these different things, trading, all of that up and costs down. They're not only managing their own kind of costs or expenses better, but they're having to set aside less money for bad loans. And so, of course, both CEOs taking credit for excellent performance, which I'm not going to take that away. I'm sure they're doing a very good job.

On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of performance you would expect to see in an environment of slightly increasing interest rates and a pretty good economy. Of course, remember that most people, these are November results. Most people were complaining that the economy was horrible. I won't say most people. Let's call it most people. We had a whole election about it. A bunch of people. And I think I even said in some fora, including here, that the economy was actually pretty good. I think this is more evidence. And it'll be interesting to see if Jamie Diamond's prediction holds true, which is he thinks the economy is just picking up steam. And I think he might be right. I think obviously the stocks have rallied in anticipation of perhaps lower regulation in the Trump

administration. And that would certainly help in a lot of ways. As an investor, my question is, did the stocks get ahead of themselves? And for me, it's always been, I've always said this, it's so hard to analyze individual banks and get a good handle on that from a valuation perspective, that the only way I know how to play them is through an ETF or some type. of fund, which I have recently done, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see a pullback before we see them. You take a breath and then you continue higher. I mean, it's hard to understand how banks could be up 30-some percent in just a couple of months when this record, a very impressive growth is on the order of 6 percent top line.

You can't keep getting 20 percent growth and earnings out of that kind of top line, probably. And of course, what Ron is talking about. about the complexity of analyzing these banks. You have to giggle a little bit. I'm going to hold this paper up to the microphone for everybody to see that shows. Everyone on the radio to say. This is the brief version of the results, and it's not only incredibly complex, but a lot of the numbers on here are really just accounting opinions. So when somebody tells you about their fortress principles and fortress balance sheet, yeah, but you also have that fall apart pretty quickly when you remember 2008. Not suggesting anything like that is,

is coming. But remember, a lot of earnings are just opinion. Shares of Pandora Media up on Friday after the online music service announced, fourth quarter revenue will come in higher than previously expected. Pandora is also cutting 7 percent of its workforce. I suppose, you know, these are encouraging signs, but this is still not a profitable company, right? That's why we focus on the revenue outperforming, right? No one said anything about the word profits or cash flow, which they do not have. It's a tough business. You know, really thin margins and obviously a lot of competition out there, whether you look at Spotify or Apple or Amazon, they do have an enviable listener base at 80 million folks,

but only four million of those are actually paying subscribers. And that's dwarfed by someone like Spotify. So they've really had trouble turning a profit. They actually, more than others, have struggled with the recording industry for years over music rights. And that seems to be abating somewhat, which I guess. will be good for them going forward. But I'm left to wonder, are they trying to clean up their house in order to perhaps sell? There is one activist investor, Corvex Management, who has

been asking the company to put themselves up for sale. Serious XM has been bandied about. It's potential suitor. So we could be seeing that here. Sirius XM's chairman said this week that they're still interested in buying Pandora Media, although he qualified it by saying, at the right price. Which I read that, I thought, well, come on. Isn't everything for sale at the right price? Of course. How much for that unprofitable thing? Unfortunately for them, the stock's actually up 28% over the last year from a very low base,

but still, you could have gotten it 28% cheaper a year ago. I think when you look at Pandora and then you compare it to something like Apple or Amazon, I mean, the music industry in general has always been a very difficult one as far as monetization goes. I mean, there are a lot of hands in that cookie jar. So you look at Amazon or Apple, the advantage is that there's a very difficult one as well as you that those businesses are far more than just the music industry, whereas Pandora really is placing all of their bets on the music industry. And we're seeing right now how difficult that is. So I just, I don't know that there is really the clear path forward for these guys without

being acquired and becoming part of something bigger where they can sort of leverage that property over a broader base of customers. I do want to say they did try to diversify a bit by acquiring the ticket business, ticket fly for $400 million and change, whether that's going to end up being a good use of capital. Remains to be seen. I'm going to say no for now. Yeah, I was going to say, giving your track record. AM radio. I think they should pick up some of these AM radio stations. The listener base would go way up.

Shares up this week after Chipotle announced that the overall drop for fourth quarter same store sales was smaller than expected. Jason, that seems a little bit like damning with faint praise. But, you know, given the year that Chipotle has had, I'd say, you know, this is welcome news. Take any good news you can get, right? But the flip side of that, I've seen some headlines. The recovery starts now. I mean, I would hold off this notion that this turnaround is official. I mean, I'm happy they're headed in the direction they're headed.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a shareholder, and we own shares a million-dollar portfolio still. This is a good sign and not a bad one. But, you know, one pre-announce doesn't seal the deal. here on an actual turnaround. I mean, this is just one sign of basically what we are hoping we can see from Chipotle. Essentially, the turnaround all begins with sales, right? I mean, if you're not bringing customers into the door, then none of this really matters. They're coming up on very easy comparables here in the coming quarters. And so the pre-announce showed

a very strong trend towards comps improving in through December. And I think it's going to be very interesting here. We know that for this quarter, comps are going to be down about 5% versus last year, where they were down close to 15%. But what's going to be really neat to see is in the first quarter, this current quarter that we're in now, if you look last year, those comps are down about 30%. So they have an easier hurdle to clear in this first quarter of the new year. That, I think, is going to be a very telltale sign, because once we can see the traffic is actually coming back on a more sustainable basis, then we have to see how they're going to bring this stuff back down to the bottom

line because the big question is, are they going to be able to maintain those restaurant operating margins in the 26, 27 percent range that they've historically been able to do? I think, at least in the near term, a lot of us are somewhat skeptical would be able to do that, just because they have to employ these new sorts of standards in preparing the food and sourcing the food. But it's still a very popular chain with a good offering and a lot of room to open new restaurants. But they also have to spend a lot more on marketing. I mean, I think if you're expecting profit margins, to remain fat, you're not paying attention because they almost have no choice but to spend more on marketing.

Yeah. The other, I think, big question is what is this company worth anymore? It used to be that people said, and I hope I wasn't one of them, I've been a fan of the chain on the stock, have made a lot of money, lost a lot of paper money. But everyone said, oh, well, they're going to do this. They could take the Chipotle model anywhere. They're like a fast food platform, a better eating fast food platform. They're going to do this Asian thing, and they're going to do this pizza thing.

Well, the Asian thing fell through. They're way behind the pizza, the fast-burgers are coming. Burgers are coming, and we have so many premium burgers. Now, the sad thing is, and as a shareholder pains me to say, they are a one-trick pony. So what are they really worth? You know, my family cut back on our Chipotle consumption, not because we're really afraid of getting sick, but just something, you know, in your mind, the bloom comes off the rows a bit. And New Year's Day, my son says, you know, let's get Chipotle for the first.

Come on, let's do it. I was like, all right, fine. Get in the car, go. It's closed. Really? Your location is closed. It's a good point to sort of look. I mean, where can they go beyond just the Chipotle namesake? I mean, we've looked at it. Anything in the burger realm or the pizza realm, that's just icing on the cake. You can't really assume any of that's going to happen. I mean, the burger joints are one-off. The pizza thing is really just being tested. We obviously know what happened to shophouse. So, yeah, I think if you're an investor and you are looking at this beyond just the namesake stores, you're probably thinking a little bit too far ahead.

The Wall Street Journal reporting this week that Apple is planning a major push into original TV programming. The shows will be available to subscribers of Apple's streaming music service, which is available for $10 a month. Ron, we figured this day would come. Right. Not a surprise. TV, I think, will be first.

Movies, I think, remains to be seen. It's interesting, though, is this a move to go after Spotify and get Apple Music more subscribers and therefore more recurring revenue? Yes. Okay. Or do they take it even further and go after Netflix? And that would be kind of a whole other thing, which would require significantly more capital, which they have, by the way, if they choose to do that.

I think that remains to be seen. But I do like the fact that as you stated that it is part of the Apple Music subscription. I think I pay more than that because I have a family subscription. Maybe it's 15 a month. whether that's a good value or not, we're constantly questioning as a family, to be honest. It depends how much you use it. But I do like the fact that this will increase the value proposition of Apple Music and make that $10 even better value. Yeah, it's an interesting play.

Netflix, I was always skeptical on their programming, their original programming, because it just seemed like, what? All that money and all those people and all that experience in Hollywood, they don't know what they're doing. Well, if you watch some of the Netflix or the Amazon stuff, you realize, They kind of didn't. They, the really good stuff that's on Netflix and on Amazon exists because the folks are bringing projects there that just were laughed out of the room by the networks. And so the networks give us a lot of formulaic junk. And over at Netflix and on Amazon, you get some really interesting, more cutting edge and funny stuff. So, I mean, there's opportunities there.

But the thing with Amazon or Netflix is they already have a huge user base. So this is just kind of something that keeps you in there, whereas somebody like me who doesn't have Apple hardware, and I think tons of people have Apple hardware, but they're not a part of the music service. They're not really going to get this bonus. Well, and Ron, you mentioned how much money Apple has on hand. They can throw a lot of cash at showrunners to bring in new programming. But what they don't have right now is any kind of bench. If you look at Netflix and Amazon, they have a lot of original programming already in the can,

which means, among other things, that they can afford. a couple of misses here or there. If anything, I feel like Apple really needs, for this to move the needle in terms of revenue for Apple, they need to have hits right out of the gate. Perhaps you're not remembering that they have carpool karaoke, which they actually do, and they're actually doing a documentary about Dr. Dre. But, you know, baby steps, and this is just where they start. I certainly hope we'll see them outsourcing from, you know, outside production studios rather than building an internal studio, which didn't Microsoft try to do that at one point or one of the guys. I hope we don't see that.

Coming up, we'll dip into the Fool mailbag. Stare it here. You're listening to Motley Full Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, Seth Jason, and Ron Gross. Our email address is Radio at Fool.com from Levi Waddell in South Dakota. I'm looking to invest in other countries to diversify a bit. Anybody have thoughts on the best way to do that? What do you think, Seth? take all your money and look for the most amazing China story you can find, right? Is that the right answer? And then do the opposite. It was kidding. The opposite. What a lot of us do here is we rely on fund managers who have experience and staff on the ground in foreign countries who look for the good investment opportunities, including many that you would never find because the markets are

just tougher to get to. So the place to start is with something like a Dodge and Cox international. fund for sure. If you're interested in going in individual equities, I think the place what to do then is to start look at what the holdings are of some of these international funds, start doing some reading on some of the individual companies, and get interested in the whole subject that way before you start, say, opening up a brokerage account, a global brokerage account, and buying individual equities. And you can also just go global. You can buy multinational companies that do business overseas there. So don't focus on where they're domiciled, but where their revenue and their profits come from.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think that it's as easier or as difficult as you want to make it. In today's world, so many of these businesses that we're investing in now are truly global stories in every sense of the word. So those are nice sort of low-risk ways. Starbucks, for example. I mean, just tremendous opportunity still in China. And I think it's going to be a much more attractive risk profile than investing in something like perhaps Alibaba or even Bidu.

This week, Mars, announced it is buying VCA, the veterinary, supply company in a deal worth just over $9 billion. Are there synergies here, Jason? We have a candy conglomerate that's loading up on veterinary supplies? Well, they do have an animal dynamic to the business, apparently. That's what you get with private companies is you don't get to see on a daily basis everything that they're doing because they're private. But I do like this move by Mars. I think pets can make for great investment opportunities. And they've essentially let VCA, do the heavy lifting here and building out this big network of hospitals somewhere in the

neighborhood of about 700 now around the U.S. And now, I mean, you know, as well as I do. I mean, anybody here who has pets, I mean, you pretty much are going to do whatever you need to do for your pet. And the nice part about that business, it's a fairly transparent business in the sense of where the cash is going. You're not dealing with insurance claims, perhaps, like you might with our health care system. Well, but that's coming up. Well, you can certainly take those insurance policies out there. I think the overwhelming majority of people today do not. And again, I think when you talk about the market opportunity

and how many people just domestically here have pets, I mean, there's 65% of U.S. households have at least one pet, many with dogs, many with cats. And it's interesting to see how so many of these opportunities are going private. I mean, PetSmart went private not too terribly long ago. There was a company MWI Veterinary Supply that I followed that was more. on the vaccine side. They went private recently. Still some opportunities for investors in Zoetas, I think, which was recently spun off from Pfizer. That's more on the medicine and

vaccine sides. But I think the pet and the livestock sort of the animal market is pretty reliable in whatever market conditions. I think this is a pretty neat move on Mars' part. Stunning news from the world of board games. Hasbro, owner of the classic game, Monopoly, has decided to replace all of the classic tokens and open up a poll to choose the new ones, what is being dubbed the Monopoly Token Madness Vote, lets fans choose eight tokens out of a field of 64. This is taking place online at VotMonopoly.com. You can still vote for the classic, Seth, like the top hat, the race car, the wheelbarrow. But the new ones include flip-flops, several different emojis, a penguin, a T-Rex, and a loaf

of bread. I think it's important that the traditionalists among us really start to do that. building bots to vote heavily for the old lame pieces because there's a button there to click to vote again. So you can vote as many times as you want. So, you know, 4chan, Reddit, hopefully they don't hear about this and ruin it for the rest of us. If you vote more than once, you have too much time on your hands. No, that's why you build the bot. See, you build the bot. I say vote loaf of bread. I like surfboard. There's bathtub is pretty good. Flip flops. Flip flop. Let's go to our man behind the glass, Steve Broido. Steve, you got anyone you're

looking to vote for? I think I want the shoe back. Can we hold on to the shoe? No. No, you're not? That's a horrible choice. Really? There is a total, there is so much opportunity here, particularly when you consider the nature of Monopoly the game. I mean, there should be strategic relationships with Amazon and Starbucks here. I want to see an echo piece. I want to see a Starbucks cup.

I mean, let's start monetizing this game. Mr. Monopoly, a.k.a.a. Rich Uncle Pennybags has got to be in there. Is that his name, Rich Uncle Pennybags? I bet it is. All right, guys, we'll see you later in the show. Up next, we are heading to the Motor City to check in on the auto industry. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money. All right, before we get to our interview this week, quick word about sure payroll, because if you're a small business owner, you know that payroll can be a headache. Small businesses pay hefty fines on a yearly basis due to payroll oversights, and now you can protect your business and remove the payroll tax complications with sure payroll.

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Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. The North American International Auto Show kicked off this week in Detroit with nearly one million people expected to attend. Paul Leinert has spent his career covering the automotive industry, most recently with Thompson Reuters. And he joins me now from the Motor City. Paul, always good to talk to you.

Same here, Chris. Good to be back. What is your headline for this year's show? The headline for this year's show. Probably look out for Donald Trump, the backseat driver-in-chief. Really? I'm only partly teasing. I mean, the man's name was the buzz across the show floor all week.

If you're asking me about vehicles, I would say the story this year is SUVs. So the low price of gas continues to be a boon for anyone who is producing trucks and minivans. You know, that seems to be the hot sellers in the past year. They've been rising every year for the last several years, and I think they're going to rise again in 2017, barring a huge spike in fuel prices. But, you know, that's where the car companies are putting their money right now because that's what people are buying. Well, I want to get to what the automakers are doing, but since you brought up the president-elect, he had a press conference on Wednesday. He's been very outspoken about the need for automakers

to build plants in the U.S. and not take those jobs overseas. And in the press conference, he went out of his way to praise Ford and Fiat Chrysler. And the people that you talk to, both at the show and just sort of in your day-to-day business life, is this? Is there a consensus on what a President Trump is going to mean for business? I'm sorry for laughing. There is no consensus whatsoever. I would say there is concern because the message has been mixed. I think the dialogue has already begun, certainly between Detroit and the president-elect.

And that dialogue includes, are you willing to do some negotiation perhaps over easing up future emissions and fuel economy standards, and in return, we'll put more effort in investment, perhaps, into safety, including self-driving cars. Let me get to something you had written earlier in the week about Google, which, and it still seems a little odd to be talking about Google in relationship to automotive automakers, But Google is working with Chrysler on an improved self-driving system. That in and of itself is not all that surprising to me. What is surprising, and this is what you wrote, Paul, is that we're talking about the Chrysler Pacifica, which the last time I checked is a minivan. As someone who owns

a minivan. Really? That's where we're going with self-driving cars. We're going right to the minivans. I can just hop in the backseat and watch a movie with my kids while the car's doing the driving? Can't you just visualize that? The kids yelling and screaming and nobody up front to control them? No. This was, Google has been shopping for a partner for at least the last year or two, partner or partners.

We've had some interest from Honda, but Chrysler was the first one who stepped up and said, yes, we'll sell you a batch of vehicles and we'll work with your engineers and technicians to convert them to self-driving. So this is still in the early stages. I think it's probably more of a Google project than it is a Chrysler project. But why not? I think one of the things that made the Pacific attractive for Google was the fact that it comes on a hybrid gasoline electric version, which really appeal to Google. So we'll see where they go from here. You know, they've been driving around this cute little bubble cars. Those Google bubble cars out in California, I think Google who likes to call them the fireflies.

And at some point, I think everybody figured they would move into a real live vehicle to adapt their new self-driving system. So they're building a lot of their hardware now themselves, or at least working with suppliers to do the hardware rather than buying off the shelf parts. Interesting development. Well, and that ties into something I wanted to get your thoughts on, which is we're starting to see two approaches to the self-driving cost. And one is companies like Tesla Motors, GM Ford, who are working on developing their own proprietary

systems. And then you see another group that is automakers teaming up with suppliers like NVIDIA, Delphi Automotive, MobileI, etc. Is one approach gaining more traction than the other? And related to that, is there one that you and the people you talk to think is going to be, has a greater chance of being successful? I would say it is beginning to gain more traction, and that is the shared or partnering approach. Before the Detroit Auto Show, I was in Las Vegas at this big CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. And if Detroit's the show about what's happening today, CES is the show about what's going to happen in the future. Lots of suppliers, car companies, lots of talk from executives and high-level managers about developments and self-driving.

That's where we began to hear lots of buzz about all the alliances that are forming right now between automakers and suppliers, suppliers and startups. So I think that probably is going to get more and popular. GM says it still wants to do its own work. self-driving. Ford says the same thing. Tesla says the same thing. A few other big car companies have the resources to do that. Most would prefer to share the energy, the resources, the investment. So that probably seems like a smart way to go, and I think it's going to speed up development. One of our analysts, David Kretzman, was out in Las Vegas last week at CES. One of the things

that he and I talked about was David's comment that this is the year of what he referred to as the realistic self-driving car, sort of the, you know, it's not kicking back in the back seat, but it is sort of the AI-assisted driving. Do you have a sense of when we're going to see a mainstream adoption of these types of cars? Let me break that into two pieces, Chris, and address that. We're already seeing driver assist systems. semi-automated systems, everything from adaptive cruise control, which has been around now for, oh gosh, almost 10 years, to lanekeeping assist and collision warning and things like that. Automatic emergency braking is coming on really quickly.

You're going to see wide adoption of that in the next year or so. Now, the government breaks these into categories, level one all the way up to level five, with level five being a car that needs no steering wheel, no brakes, no brakes, no No pedals of any kind. It can drive itself anywhere. That is a long way off. What we're starting to see right now is some really sophisticated driver assist systems, things like traffic jam assist. General Motors has one coming out in Cadillac this year called Super Cruise.

These are what are called Level 3 systems, not quite fully self-driving, but getting pretty close. Tesla says it it wants to offer a level 4. four system probably before anybody else. I'm not sure exactly when that will be ready, but a level four system is a vehicle that can drive itself in really specific situations and areas, for instance, in a specific area is of big cities like New York City. Ford, GM, and others, BMW, aren't going to have level four vehicles in production and on the road until 2021, probably. A lot of the big CEOs are in Detroit for the auto show.

One that is not is Volkswagen's CEO. The company said a week ago that he was not going to be coming to Detroit. And in between that announcement and this conversation that you and I are having right now, one of the U.S. executives for Volkswagen has been arrested by the FBI and charged with a little something we like to call. conspiracy to commit fraud. Is there any talk at the auto show of the state of Volkswagen in the wake of the emission scandal that they went through and the extent to which there will be any lasting brand damage to that company? Let me ask, I think it remains to be seen what sort of brand damage,

what sort of lasting brand damage Volkswagen will sustain. The talks, the settlement talks with government agencies from the EPA to the Department of Justice have been going on for a while. VW has been gradually settling some of the charges in this case, and just as we reached a big, a huge settlement with the Department of Justice. So I think Volkswagen is trying to do what it can do to settle the charges, get this behind it as quickly as possible. its top U.S. executive this week said, we're probably not going to be bringing diesels to the U.S. anymore. And I think they're probably going to de-emphasize them at Europe.

What was one of the surprises of the auto show was also one of the coolest concept cards at the show, something called the ID Blitz. And what it was was a recreation of the Volkswagen microbus from our childhood. Really? Powered by batteries. I sure hope they built.

It looks way cool. Not a diesel inside anywhere on their stand. Any chance they're going to roll out like a Scooby-Doo mystery machine version of that vehicle? I can't tell you about that, but I did see a big full-size concept car from the new Pixar, the latest version of cars, the movie. They had one on the floor at Detroit. You had mentioned trucks and SUVs earlier. when it comes to that part of the industry, where is the competition between Ford and GM right now?

It's really interesting. Ford spent billions of dollars to redesign its full-size pickup trucks about two years ago. And at the show this week, it's showing the facelifted 2018 F-150. It's still a hot seller. General Motors in the meantime is still, I think a year, year and a half away from a full ground-up redesign of its big pickup trucks, the Chevy Silverado and the GMC Sierra. But these trucks still have great features, great value, probably not as much advanced

technology as the Ford pickup trucks, but those two are selling well, and particularly because GM can price them very attractively. So the pickup wars go on, unabated, and they're still neck and neck with those. The wrinkle that GM introduced a couple years ago was the mid-size, the new mid-sized Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon, and that's really enhanced their dealers' portfolios, I would say. All right, before we wrap up with a rounded buy-seller hold, just like at CES, where you've got all these gadgets, some of which may seem a little absurd, some of which seem like, as you said, a real glimpse into tomorrow. With all you've seen at the auto show this year, what is a feature

on a vehicle that you've seen that you've thought, you know what? I want that in the next vehicle that I buy. Okay, I'm going to hedge and say, I'm not sure if I want it or not, but Ford is starting to introduce Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in vehicles where you push a button, you can speak your car, and your car talks back, and it does all kinds of cool stuff. You can, from your car, ask Alexa to turn on your air conditioning or your heat at home or open your garage door or turn on the outdoor light. So that sounds like a really cool development. It just, I don't know why I'm nervous about it.

I think it may be because if you study Amazon at all, there's probably a really easy way for you to buy stuff while you're driving your car. I'm sure that's the next step. All right. Let's wrap up with buy-seller hold, and we'll start with a private company that has a huge valuation, Buy-Seller Hold Uber. Why is that? Seriously, they're the kingpin right now, but I haven't seen them make a condition. convincing business case yet. We'll see. I think they're going to wind up being the Amazon or the transportation business. But until we see a little bit more in terms of return on

investment, I'd say hold. This company has a deal with major automakers, but as you just alluded to, it also faces increased competition. Buy-Seller Hold, Sirius XM satellite radio as a feature on new models. So far, they're the only game in town or pretty much the only game at town. I'd say... This will get you a huge fine in Canada. Buy seller hold a U.S. ban on texting while driving. Wow. You don't think we're going to look for a way to make money the way they do up in Canada?

Do you know what? You know what it's going to go to? It's going to go to all voice texting, so you don't have to take your eyes off the road. And finally, my producer, Matt Greer, hates the slider bar. technology that's used for things like volume control in newer model cars. So buy-seller-hold, knobs. I totally agree with Mac. I hate, hate, hate those slider bars. You have to take your eyes off the road, or you know, they just don't work really well. Paul Leiner covers the auto industry for Thompson Reuters. You can read his stuff online. You can follow him on Twitter. Paul, it's always

great to talk to you. Thanks. A pleasure, Chris. Thank you. Coming up next, we'll give me 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 yourself stocks based solely on what you're here. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, Chris Hill,

here in studio once again with Jason Moser, Seth, Jason, and Ron Gross. You can check out past episodes of Motley Fool Money, And all of our podcasts, you can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play. Click the subscribe button. Take the Motley Fool podcast with you wherever you go on demand all the time. Please. Please. Just click the subscribe button. It takes three seconds.

We're going to bring in our man, Steve Brodo, in from the other side of the glass for radar stocks, but also on the other side of the glass this week. Longtime listener Brian Reiki visiting us before he and his fiancé moved down to Florida. His fiancee's a baker, and he brought some delightful treats. Oh, awesome. So let's wrap up the show so we can get to that. All right, Ron Gross, you're up first. Steve will hit you with a question.

What's on your radar this week? I like our Income Investor Service's latest pick, Crown Castle International, CCI. They own and operate cell phone towers. They charge customers like Verizon and AT&T, monthly rent, for access to that infrastructure. It's actually a reed, a real estate investment trust, which means they have to pay out 90% of their profits as a dividend. So we have a 4.4% yield, upside potential of 28% to the stock, according to our folks over at Income Investor. Steve, question about Crown Castle?

Doesn't everyone sort of do that? I mean, American towers in the space. It seems like everyone's in the space of leasing out cell phone towers. There are a water towers in my neighborhood. It's very, very asset heavy. So it's hard for people to break into it, which is one of the competitive advantages. But you do have folks like American Tower and SBA communications in the space. No way. I'm taking them out with, I'm going to have you put a tower on every house.

Everybody can rent one. So, Jason, what are you looking at? You know, I was looking through my crummy performing stocks toward the end of the year, and I see poor Under Armour sitting down there, and their sales are still doing very well. The reason they're down is they went ahead and told the market, we're going to put the pedal to the metal and spend more on marketing and penetration and getting market share, especially overseas. And this was a couple months ago, and Wall Street didn't like it.

hearing that they want profits now dang it now and i think uh that gives you an opportunity to pick this one up if you have not yet and the ticker is ua ua they've changed things around recently we'll call it the c shares are the ua i think it's still it's hard to argue against and the c shares were were at a discount to the other ones so so look carefully steve question about under armor did the shoe thing ever really work out for them yeah yeah actually they they worked up very well. I mean, they sell football cleats, basketball cleats. The running shoes they've even picked up, even though I never see him at a race. But they sell plenty of them. Jason, Moser. We've got a minute left. What are you looking at?

Sure. Speaking of pets, I'm taking a look at IDX Laboratories, ticker IDX. This is similar to that company I mentioned earlier in MWI Veterinary Supply. These guys supply the diagnostic products and consumables that come with them. So a nice sort of razor and blade model there. Focusing on the companion and livestock markets. And again, these are really reliable businesses It just consistently performed. So, yep, looking at bringing this one over to the watch list on MDP and digging in a little deeper. Steve? What's the largest vet bill you've ever received? Man, now you're going to take me back to a disappointing time a couple of years ago. It was about $1,000 when we unfortunately had our dog who was sick and never recovered.

Way to bring the show down, Steve. Steve, three stocks. You got one you want to add to your watch list? To get away from that last topic. Maybe we'll go with the tower one, Ron. Crown Castle. The one you didn't like. Ron Gross, that's Jason. Jason Moser, guys, thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. That is going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Full Money.

Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.