Motley Fool Money - Wall Street’s Wild Week to Start 2026

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

The stock market was all over the map this week but the biggest news was the U.S. government potential spending $1.5 trillion on defense. Of course, there are strings attached, which investors don’t like, but this could be an opportunity long-term. We also touched on Alphabet potentially becoming the most valuable company in the world and what moonshots we’re interested in. Travis Hoium, Jason Moser, and Lou Whiteman discuss: - Pulse of the market - $1.5 trillion for defense - Alphabet passes Apple - Crowdstrike’s acquisition Companies discussed: Crowdstrike (CRWD), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Joby Aviation (JOBY), Archer Aviation (ACHR), AST Spacemobile (ASTS), Rocket Lab (RKLB). Host: Travis Hoium Guests: Jason Moser, Lou Whiteman Engineer: Dan Boyd Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We’re committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2026 started off hot on the market. Where do we go from here? Motley Fool Money starts now. That's why they call it money. The best thing. Cool global headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Full Money.

I'm Travis Hoyam, joined today by Jason Moser and Lou Whiteman. Guys, this is the first recording, Friday recording that we've had in 2026. Last Friday, we had to record a little bit early because of New Year's. But I wanted to get your thoughts on where we are in the market to start the year. seemed like everything was on fire the first couple of days of the year. I saw people post about how, you know, if this continues, I'm going to have 10,000 percent returns for 2026. We maybe slowed down a little bit from there. But Lou, in the absence of kind of news, we're getting a little bit of economic news. But the vibes seem pretty good in the market. So is that good news to start the year?

Yeah, I hate to settle. But, guys, I'll be honest. I'll take half of a 10,000 percent return this year, wouldn't you? I mean, that's not bad at all. So, you know, Travis, it's funny because And I'm always wrong, but I was really curious how this week would go. And I was kind of worried. I was worried that there were a lot of positions leading into the end of year that were kind of window dressing. Because we've talked about all of these walls of worry. And I'm thinking that some of these money managers would just want to have these hot companies in their portfolio on December 31st. And then there might be some trimming of the sales on January 5th.

And boy, was I wrong. But we just kind of took off. I'll say, though, you know, there's. still a ton to worry about. There's always a lot to worry about. To me, the biggest thing I'm looking at for 2026 is there is this critical mass of spenders who are continuing to keep the economy going. I think things are still looking brighter on Wall Street. Do you mean that from consumer standpoint? Or are you talking about the AI spenders? No, no, no. AI spending is just kind of, in a way, is fueled by consumers. Because if any of these advertising companies,

to just make all the money in the world off advertising. If you really saw a pullback there, then they would have to rethink. But I'm talking about Main Street. I'm talking about the fact that just, you know, sales numbers keep coming in. There is, we talk about, you know, K-shaped or like as if it's two groups. Really, it's just there's everybody's kind of making decisions based on their own financial position. Right now we have a critical mass of people who are business as usual. The question for me is, you know, will that,

critical mass erode, and if so, how much is it erode, how fast, and what that does to the economy, I think that over time, what's going on in the economy has to affect Wall Street, but there's still just enough right in the world to offset all of the things worried about. And so, hey, may it continue? Jason, how are you thinking about the year? Because there is some worry that didn't really seem to impact the markets in 2025, but could that be peaking its head out in 26? It could be. I mean, if you look back at 2025, and if you remember, we got off to a little bit of a rough start in March going into April. We were all having the conversation of like, oh, man, this year could shape up to be a tough one. All of the tariff talk, I mean, we're trying to make sense of exactly how that was going to flow through the economy. And then, lo and behold, the rest of the year turned out quite nicely. And the markets had a great 2025, tariffs notwithstanding now, I think we have a couple of things coming on a pipe here in the front half of the year that I think will probably dictate to some degree sort of how things play out in the back half the year.

And we heard today that the Supreme Court has not yet going to rule on the way that, you know, the legality regarding how the tariffs are being implemented. That probably comes out by June. So that'll be an interesting decision there. I think that going money right now is based on some of the opinions that we've heard is that they likely will rule against the way the tariffs are being implemented. So that can have an interesting impact. And then obviously we have a new Fed chief coming in.

in May, I believe it is. And that Fed chief is coming in on a more or less a mandate to try to figure out how to bring rates down. Now, right, the Fed she can't just do that on his or her own, right? There is a democratic process and play there within the Fed, but they can carry a lot of sway in how those votes ultimately goes. So if we start to see rates come back down in the back half of the year, maybe that loosens up the housing market a little bit, maybe that gets consumers feeling a little bit better about things, and maybe the good times continue. Well, we also heard that President Trump has, I think, instructed, is it Fannie and Freddie, to buy $200 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities with the idea that that should bring

rates down. But Jason, is that the kind of, this is always, it seems like a hard question is like, we all want more affordable housing. We all want lower rates, but markets work the way that markets work for a reason. And, you know, these long mortgage rates in particular, and those are driven largely by the tenure, are not necessarily responding to, you know, what politicians want. They're responding to what are the risks in the market, what's going on with currencies, what's going on with the economy. And those rates have, the tenure in particular, has not come down at the rate that I think that a lot of people anticipated late in 2025. I mean, you could even make a scenario where they would go up, even if short-term rates go down.

So, how do you think about this mixed bag of rhetoric and then markets that ultimately are going to drive what's going to go on with our investments? Well, I think that's a very good observation, and you're right. I mean, just because the Fed brings interest rates down doesn't mean that mortgage rates will follow. Mortgage rates are going to respond more to market forces than anything else. We saw that play out a little bit toward the end of the year where rates started to come down and mortgage rates didn't really budge and kind of went up in some cases.

And so, I mean, that is sort of an interesting dynamic to it. kind of remains to be seen how ultimately, number one, how quickly the Fed tries to move. And then number two, how that shapes every, you know, all of the other market forces at play here. And that's why, I mean, like you could figure the market is probably baking in a little bit of that at some point right now, but probably not a lot because there's just still so much hanging out there right now. Yeah, the idea of buying mortgage bonds bring down rates sounds good. And even in the 200, 400 billion number they're talking about, that's back in the envelope. That's maybe good for a quarter percentage point. I don't think, I mean, that's great if it comes down,

but I don't think that would be how homebuyers are holding out for a 25 basis point drop in mortgage prices. So, you know, there's only so much you can do. Like you said, Travis, I think short-term rates, especially the topic we'll get to later, but maybe increasing government spending and what it means to the budget, that's going to impact long-term rates a lot more and anything the Fed tries to do. All of this, it's great in theory. It's hard to pull off in practice. And the good news is, is that inertia sometimes works to your favor. You know, again, as long as we can just have enough people feeling good enough to carry on, that will drive the economy. It's just making sure whatever that enough people number is,

that we keep it over that critical mass or else, we've seen what happened. It's called a recession. Yeah, Lou, you mentioned it. The spending is apparently going to go up. And defense was really the topic this week. President Trump said that he wants to increase defense spending from about a trillion dollars to a trillion and a half dollars. That seems phenomenal for defense stocks. The challenge is, on the flip side, he also said that he was going to be restricting

buybacks and paying dividends and also even how much executives could be paid, quote, until such a time problems are. rectified and gave some examples of what those problems are. But Lou, what in the world is going on? What is heads? What's tails in the defense space? Because this seems like it's incredibly complicated to follow right now. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on if only anyone knew? I mean, I think it's important to the focus on what we do know. It's a big difference between making declaration and setting policy. I am skeptical of both that $1.5 trillion number and some of the things we're talking about, like holding back the restrictions in terms of just as blanket statements.

I do think if you filter it all out, what I hear is defense spending is going to increase. And that should be long-term bullish for the sector. I'll note that a couple things of that. That 1.5 trillion numbers, so much of the Pentagon budget is soldiers, salaries, health care, support services, don't just do a like-for-like. Also, on big programs, it could take five, 10 years for it to hit the coffers. So I'm always nervous when these stocks, like, go to the moon on numbers like this. But, yeah, there's- And this follows increased spending in some countries in Europe as well. This is not just a U.S. story. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of the funny thing about the restrictions.

You know, like how you would do that. And also, the biggest problem the Pentagon faces right now is having, we let the industry consolidate after the Cold War end. And right now, the Pentagon is struggling to get enough qualified bidders for their big progress. programs to make sure they have innovation, competition, all those things we love. If you ratchet up the risk, especially in speculative forward-looking programs, where cost overruns seem to happen, I don't know if you're going to increase the number of bidders that are going in for this. So it's kind of be careful what you wish for. My bet, as someone who has a lot of defense stocks is, is that the bark will be a lot worse than the bite on that. And that 1.5 trillion number

won't really translate the way we hoped it did, but directionally, we are moving in a way that should be bullish for the whole sector. Jason, what do you think? Yeah, well, I feel like we could amend that old saying, right, death and taxes. It could be death taxes and defense spending, because defense spending is as sure as the sun's coming up. And I certainly understand that. And I wonder in regard to limiting buybacks and dividends, I mean, I'm no lawyer, but I'm not even sure to what extent he can actually go through with that. Now, if he's talking about doing it by saying, well, if you don't do this, then we'll take away your business. I don't know, good luck with that. Those contracts are set pretty, pretty solidly. And there's not like this huge pool of providers

that can just go in there and take that place. But it's also, it's not like these companies are spending absurd amounts on buybacks, for example. I mean, I'm looking at just over the last, right, since 2020. Rathian repurchase, maybe $20 billion in shares. Share accounts down 11%. Lockhees has repurchased more than that. Share accounts down about 17%. We saw general dynamics. They've repurchased around $7.5 billion. Counts down 5.5%. North are a bit over 10 billion. Their count is down just over 14%. So that's good stuff, right? We like to see when companies are repurchasing shares that the share count is actually coming down. These are massive businesses that make a lot of money. So if he's just trying to stoke him a little bit to say, like, hey, we want you to do more and do it faster.

I mean, listen, you know, I think I'm sure that there could be probably some efficiency squeezed out of that process. But I would imagine, like Lou said, probably the bark is a bit more worse than the bite in this case. You know, it's funny. You can write this as narrow as you want, so maybe they can do it. But you know who is a huge Pentagon contractor? Alphabet. Amazon. Yeah. United Health Care gets about $4.4.000. 40% of their revenue from the government. Now, a lot of that, a big part of that is Medicare, but TRICARE, which is what our military, it uses for health care, runs through private providers. There's just a quagmire here, if you really tried to go here. And again, just to say, I'm watching

it. I do think it'll, it's definitely gotten the attention, I think, of defense contractors, and they're watching closely. But if it happens, I think it's a short-term. firm thing, and I do worry about the ramifications for just kind of, you know, bidding on future projects, innovations, all those things are trying to solve for. My hunch is you figure out pretty quickly that the unintended consequences might be worse than whatever you solve by, I don't know, lighting a fire under them to work harder. Yeah, so sometimes these short-term discounts based on posts online are ultimately buying opportunities for investors.

So we'll see how this one plays out. When we come back, we're going to talk about Alphabet becoming the second most valuable company in the world. You're listening to Motley Full Money. These days, I'm all about quality over quantity, especially in my closet. If it's not well-made and versatile, it's just not worth it. That's honestly why I love Quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the cuts are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense. Quince makes high-quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics like 100% European linen, silk and organic cotton poplin.

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Now available in Canada, too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to QINCE.com slash motley for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash motley. Welcome back to Motley full money. Alphabet passed Apple this week to become the second most valuable company in the world behind NVIDIA. Jason, is this something? Is this nothing? Is this going to be the first $10 trillion company? What are you thinking?

I think it's something in the sense that for a few years now, Alphabet was kind of taking it on the chin in regard to what they were doing in AI and like chat, GPT and OpenAI basically taking over the market there. And lo and behold, it turns out that Alphabet was investing all along and is actually utilizing AI to make their business better. And if you look at the performance of Alphabet versus Apple, for example, just over the last one, three, and five years, Alphabet's outperformance is just kind of breathtaking, honestly. But why is that, right? I think it's for a number of reasons. I mean, it's the global, mobile operating system of choice, right? The dominant is on a global scale.

Cloud hit the inflection point. We've got clear leadership in the AI opportunity to date. Remember, Apple is going to be leaning on Alphabet's AI technology, right? We haven't heard really anything from Apple other than Apple AI. And I have an iPhone, Travis. I don't even know what that means, man. But I think it is, you know, one thing that really stands out to me also is you look at the leadership part of the equation here. Sergei coming back to play a big role within the company at Alphabet.

And you've got- The interviews about that, by the way, were fascinating. He was just kind of bored. Is that even spiraling? It just found this so fascinating from an intellectual perspective that, that may have been a trillion-dollar boredom in a coffee shop. Very well could have been. And I mean, I think getting him back and active is encouraging.

And by the same token, you know, we're hearing more and more talk about Tim Cook and how much longer he's going to be serving his role at Apple. And then, of course, if he steps aside, and he's done a tremendous job, make no mistake. I have all the respect in the world for him. But that is a big leadership boy that they're going to need to fill, whereas there's just a lot more certainty in regard to Alphabet today. The other thing to just bring into this, because I always find Apple's numbers fascinating to look at, over the past year, they have $109 billion in services revenue, $112 billion in net income.

So that services revenue, very, very high margin. A lot of that services revenue, somewhere between $20 and $30 billion, so basically pure profit, comes from Alphabet. So Alphabet is also feeding the company that it just passed. But Lou, what do you think? Is Nvidia next? Is this going to be a run that continues for Alphabet? Because like Jason said, they do seem to have a lot of momentum right now.

Gosh, is Nvidia next? Who knows? I mean, we were talking about this with Emily the other day. Just that, you know, that which it doesn't tend to, we don't tend to have too long where one company is on top. So maybe. But, you know, looking at Apple and Alphabet, the comparison, as investors, obviously, what we care about, most is what from here. And as Jason said, the leadership is more stable at Alphabet, just kind of with rumors. I feel like if we were doing strengths and weaknesses on the two companies,

it would almost be mirror images of each other. At Apple, they have this solid core, pardoned the pun, they have that installed base that's going to do, that is going to buy from them and is going to refresh over time. But the question over and over again, whether it's the car or the TV or whatever else is, what from here? What should we be excited about that's forward and wow? On alphabet, the question is about the core. It's still about what AI will do to search and how they adjust to that. But there is just so much potential from Waymo to AI to so many other things of just what the future could be. It almost feels like a value stock and a grow stock. maybe. I bet I hate to do that to Apple, but it does feel like that these are just two companies that

are almost mirror opposites of each other in terms of where from here based on what we know. Yeah, the other thing that's interesting with Alphabet is they have such a big investment arm that when you look at some of these hot companies, not Open AI, but Anthropic, SpaceX, who's the biggest shareholder or one of the biggest shareholders? It almost always ends up being Alphabet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's a great point. And, you know, the luxury that Alphabet has over something like an open AI, let's not forget, just massive profitability, massive profit. I mean, open AI, it's just not clear, right?

Exactly how well they're going to be able to monetize that business in the coming years. Well, there you get to it. The business model, too, seems much clear. As we look at everything that's going on in artificial intelligence, if you have to start to ask yourself, how much are we going to charge for this? Right. There's a, I mean, maybe somebody values it at $500 a month, but the next person values it at zero because I'm just playing around and doing things with my kids. Whereas, you know, Alphabet can build this ad model around this.

Yeah, I think the, I think the prices that these companies are going to be able to charge for their AI offerings for consumers is race. It's a race not to the bottom, but it's a race going lower. Right. And I mean, Alphabet right now, like Gemini is terrific. I don't pay for Gemini, but I use it frequently. end. I mean, you know, I don't pay a penny for it. Apple over the years has gotten so much credit for their ability to build based on the closed garden. And it's almost like a mindset of the company. But Travis, as you talk about like Google spreading its wings and everything they do,

wouldn't it be weird if in the long run what really mattered was like spreading out actually for the win? We'll be back in a moment. You're listening to Motley Fool a Monday. Let me run with you tonight. I'll take you. The old adage goes, it isn't what you say. It's how you say it, because to truly make an impact, you need to set an example and take the lead. You have to adapt to whatever comes your way. When you're that driven, you drive an equally determined vehicle, the Range Rover Sport. The Range Rover Sport blends power, poise, and performance. Its design is distinctly British and free from unnecessary details, allowing its raw agility to shine through. It combines a dynamic sporting personality with elegance to deliver

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In this segment, we usually like to have a little bit of fun. And I want to talk about some of the hot topics and big opportunities that we have to, maybe these are 100x, at least 10x opportunities for investors over the next 10, 20, 30 years. These are hopefully the things that we're going to be talking about, you know, as my kids get a little bit older. That's moon shots and moon flops. I want to know what Jason and Lou, think about some of these new industries and companies. And Lou, let's start with EV.

tolls, first of all, for people who are not familiar, can you just give us a elevator pitch on what these companies are and who the leaders are, what we should look for in 2026? So they want to call them flying cars, but if you watch the Jetsons, you're going to be really disappointed. These are basically sort of airplane helicopter hybrids. They can vertical take off landing like helicopters, but they have the stability of airplanes. So it's kind of the total addressable market, at least for now, is everything a helicopter would do, if helicopters were safer. Joby and Archer Aviation are both going to win certification this year.

So these are the big names to watch. Do we have a timeline on that, by the way? I'm going to say maybe we'll hear something first quarter, if not first half, from one of them. Probably Joby first. In terms of moonshots or moonflops, I do think that as a design, this is going to revolutionize what we use helicopters for. But, Javis, helicopters are a pretty small industry. And the stocks are very excited. I fear we're going to have a hard lesson on when there's

actually revenues, expenses, manufacturing, when you find out that it actually costs money to build aircraft too. I am more excited. Yeah, I'm more excited about, I think, the technology and the use cases than I am the stocks going to the moon from here. What do you think the right business model is going to be for these companies? We talked a lot about air taxis. plugging into networks like Uber. Is that going to be ultimately what they do is they own these aircraft and then fly them around and make $20, $50, $100 per person per flight? Or are they just going to end up selling these to a bunch of other companies who end up operating?

Well, the answer is both. And it kind of depending on the company, what they're planning on doing. Look, you know, traditionally Boeing doesn't, in fact, by law, Boeing can't run an airline. line. Very long story, but Boeing started United Airlines and then had to break it up. So, we don't normally have that model. This is somewhere in the middle. I think most of the market is going to be third-party operators over time, but there is, at least some of them are attempting to run their own services. Jason, are you excited to potentially fly in an EV toll let's say later this decade? Not particularly, but maybe.

Not an early adopter here. Well, I'm an early adopter when it comes to things that aren't really putting my life at risk. And this technology certainly exists. I think it's really cool. I think it's hard to see it probably gaining widespread adoption in the near term. But like you said, we watch as our kids grow up, all of the things that change as they get older. And I could see this becoming a market. And I think more of an Uber-style market would make sense to me in that regard.

I think it was just interesting to note Archer played its hand very well at CES this year, announcing a new partnership with Nvidia to integrate the IGX-T-T-X-T-T-Tor platform into its aircraft. So anytime, you know, the companies are just champing at the bit to announce a partnership with Nvidia. And so Archer got that done this year. That's encouraging news for sure. If any of these companies want us to do a live show and do some demos, I don't know. Maybe I could get Lou to go to that one.

I don't know if Jason. Jason. It's right around the corner from me, Archer's building. I'll just watch and smile politely. Let's talk a little bit about space, because this has gotten a lot of attention over the past year. You have Rocket Lab. You have AST Space Mobile. You potentially have the IPO of SpaceX. Lou, what's a moonshot worth paying attention to? What is potentially a moonflop? I'm a grumpy old man about all of this. And because of one thing, it's a concept called latency. And latency is the idea that if you're sending a signal from space versus sending it from a tower around the corner, you are never going to win in space, which, but Lou, there's a huge market, cruise ships, places where they don't have towers, all of that. Yeah, but there also aren't a lot of humans in those areas. That's why there's not towers. I believe in the technology. I think some of it, you know, ASDS to me, I think we're way ahead of ourselves in terms of just kind of improving it out.

But the valuations we've assigned to this and some of the assumptions we're making on this, I think bread and butter space, just kind of the companies that are building stuff that can be used by corporate users and governments in space, that is where I'm excited about space. These communication things, to some extent, look like a solution chasing a problem, or at least to the extent that the money's been flown into them, chasing a smaller pot at the end of the rainbow, I fear. Jason, is space an area that you're excited? Yeah, I love space.

I mean, just from a personal perspective, I'm just fascinated by it. So I think I'll lose right on the latency side of things. I think that that probably improves as these networks continue to grow. Now, you look at spacecoms. It's pretty well established already, right? You get Starlink in there with a pretty good lead. I think over 7,000 satellites in orbit today. They're aiming for over 12,000.

Don't forget about Amazon, right? have Amazon Leo, which was formerly Project Hyper, and that's aiming for a constellation of around 3,200 satellites. It has a FCC approval, and I believe they need to launch at least half of those satellites by the middle of this year with the remaining by 2029. So I think those are, they are one piece of the overall solution, right? I think it's kind of like energy policy. We need to use it all. And I think in regard to space comms, you know, I keep it simple. You can get exposure to these companies by owning companies like Amazon, for example. SpaceX goes public. Yeah, I'm going to be fascinated to follow it because I find all of that stuff to be really neat.

When you hear people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk talking about the industrialization of space, I mean, you can't poo-poo that idea. These guys have built empire businesses. I kind of feel like they know what they're talking about. One of the fascinating stories that I remember from business school about satellites being a huge impact on a business was Walmart. I don't know if you guys knew that Walmart has its own private satellite network. Do either of you know when Walmart's first satellite was launched? I've heard this. Is it the 80s to track parking lots or something like that?

It was 1987 enabling instant voice data and video communications. I always remember it being something. This is how they got their inventory so much more efficient than everybody else, was they could feed that information almost instantly from the store back to headquarters. So that application, you talked about this a little bit, Lou, but that application layer, you know, maybe not owning the satellites, but what are you doing with them? That's going to be really interesting to watch.

I'm sure there's a lot of companies that are. I think you also need to look beyond this and maybe the greatest opportunity, and this is not tongue-in-cheek, but the space junk companies, right? I mean, there is a lot of space junk building up out there. And the companies that are able to solve that, I think, stand to benefit greatly. Because you know, that is just a hard job. And so I think the companies who figure out how to solve that problem, stand to be well also. All right.

I need to do some research. Maybe we should do a future show on space junk. Let's talk a little bit about autonomy and robots. And I wanted to put this in the humanoid robot. We had CES this week. humanoid robots are once again a hot topic. Jason, is this an area where there are opportunities? Is this an area where you're waiting?

Is there going to be a bunch of flops? I just, I'm of so many minds about this, and I can't figure it out as an investor. Where are you at? Well, I've said it before. Like, you just, if you gave me one of those humanoid robots to keep in my house, I would just sell it. Like, I have just zero interest. And so, like, for me, I see these.

industrial applications so clearly because they already exist. I mean, modern warehouse technology, Amazon obviously, by the Kiva acquisition a long time ago, it just continues to play out on the industrialized side. And I think other opportunities. How do you think about humanoid robots, though, because this is what I really struggle with. I used to work in manufacturing. And this was 20 years ago. And there was robots driving around everywhere. There was robot arms all over the place. They did the same task over and over and over again. And the efficiency of manufacturing. is not making things something once, it's making something a million times. I just don't, I have a hard time getting to humanoids are going to replace these people because most of the humans that

are there are troubleshooting the robots. Right. And yeah, I don't know that humanoid robots, it feels like that's not necessarily a solution, right? I mean, the robot technology does not have to take humanoid form. And I think in most cases, it's probably more optimal that it doesn't in order to solve the problems that it's trying to solve in the industrial side. So, you know, I think that's where humanoid robots run into a little bit of a buzzsaw. You know, it was funny. I was reading this piece from CES recently, and Jeff Bernstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, you know, in that sort of that difference between the industrialized side and like the consumer home side.

You know, he made the point. He said, home is very unstructured. You can't plan for a child running into the robot or the robot running over a robot. a pet. And so it was just interesting to note those are just simple but very obvious challenges where I just don't know about the widespread adoption of these things in the home. And I don't know that they necessarily are the optimal solution in the industrial sector either. But it's amazing technology. I feel like it's an old Star Trek the next generation episode. Like, you know, just we're marveling at the arrogance of thinking the human form is the best tool for most jobs.

I am so bullish on robotics, and the humanoid robotics to me is the least. It's the funnest to see videos on, but it's the least interesting part of the story. Yeah, I mean, think about intuitive surgical and all of the stuff that they're doing with their technology in robotics surgery. But, I mean, we're not talking humanoid because. Right, Jason, would that be any better if they dressed up a robot in a doctor's room? To me, it would be scarier. I think it's not. So, yeah.

It would be a fun marketing trick, though. Yeah, that to me is, yeah. Well, we'll see how this plays out. I think I agree that this is potentially a lot of flaps waiting to happen. But I've been proven wrong than some of these things in the past. When we come back, we're going to get to stocks on our radar. You are listening to Money full of money. In a world full of noise, long-term thinking stands out.

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To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. Jason, this week we learned that CrowdStrike is going to buy SGNL for $740 million. What do we need to know? Yes, this is a not a small deal by any means. Obviously, they're going to be able to use the cash on the balance sheet to fund it. I think there was a little equity component to it, but mostly a cash deal. And I think that this is really a shot across the bow for companies like Octa that focus primarily on identity security, because that's what this acquisition is all about CrowdStrike, really wanting to pursue that identity security option, right? That market, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Octa's cooked here, but the agentic AI threat, you know, things like AI agents, non-human identities, or NIHs, I mean, that's a real concern, and it's something that's only going to grow in the company.

the year. So you look at CrowdStrike, their Falcon platform has proven to be a dominant force in the cybersecurity space. And there's a reason why revenue has grown 43% annually over the last five years. And I think this just gives them another attractive market opportunity to pursue. The other interesting announcement this week, Lou, came from General Motors. They said that they're going to write off another $6 billion, bringing total EV-related write-offs to about $7.6 billion. A few years ago, GM was really going all in on EVs. I think they were going to be a fully electric by 2030. Now, things look very different.

So what should we take from this announcement for not only GE, but also the rest of the industry? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's surprised anyone, right? We know everything going on with EVs. And, you know, I don't think the revolution is over. It's just going to take a lot longer than initially hoped to get there. A lot of people comparing this and rightly so to Ford, where Ford took, I think, and 19.5 billion dollar charge, kind of a similar late in the year. Yes, similar, but to me, the interesting thing is where it's different. Ford took a bigger charge, basically saying,

we are going all in on hybrids. We think that this transition is going to take a ton of time, and in the meantime, hybrids is the way to go. GM, largely keeping the EV lineup in place with some quote-unquote structural adjustments, you know, I think in reality, what they'll actually do is probably closer than that contrast I did, and I think it's the, the vast. value of these companies is they can continue to make ice cars, hybrid cars, EVs. And wasn't that the thing that GM was really investing in was these platforms where they could build, you know, a nice vehicle with a EV right behind it and a hybrid right after that? So it seemed like that was sort of built into their manufacturing was the flexibility.

Sort of, but you still need to put the resources to developing good vehicles with the different power trains. And clearly, Ford is more interested right now in hybrids than GM, just based on their rhetoric. Look, we don't know how fast battery tech innovation will happen. So maybe GM is right and we're right around the corner. But if for me, from my perspective, thinking that it's going to be a snail's pace this revolution for now, I like the Ford's aggressiveness on hybrids. I think that for the foreseeable future, that is where the growth will come from. Jason, are you a believer in hybrids? Yeah, I am. I mean, I just anecdotally. We're out looking to buy my wife a new car here in the next few months. And

EV, pure EV is just off the table. We're not going to do it. We want, she wants a hybrid. And we've been out already to test drive a number of different hybrids. It's just, it's excellent technology. You've got both fuel services. And yeah, I mean, who's right. Battery technology is going to advance and evolve quickly. And then the market, I think, adoption will continue. But it's just going to be a lot slower adoption than I think people thought initially. And we're seeing the numbers bear that out. Yeah, I think the cost curve maybe didn't come down the way that a lot of people thought. It's still pretty expensive to get into an all-electric vehicle, especially if you're looking at, I mean, we bought a three-row vehicle a couple of years ago, but I wasn't going to spend $90,000 on it.

The only option that was available. We like to end the show with stocks on our radar and get some comments from Dan Boyd behind the glass. Lou, you were first up. What's on your radar this week? All right, Dan, for years, I have held Cretos Defense and Security, ticker KT, POS patiently waiting for the Pentagon to order the company's loyal wingman, Valky drones. These aren't those cute little backpack drones that we're, you know, the model sets. Think of this as a miniaturized fighter jet that can react and coordinate real time with a piloted

fighter on the battlefield to overwhelm enemy defenses. This is really cool stuff. But for years, no announcement. That all changed this week. The Marines issued an award for the first batch of Valkyries. stock up 35% for the week. Dan, I think it could go higher because I suspect this is the first of many orders to come. A lot of risk here, high valuation based on the current business, but a ton of potential.

I'm holding steady. I'm really excited to see what from here. Dan, what do you think about fighter drones? I think that they're terrifying, Travis. That's a great question. Yeah, I mean, this seems really interesting here, Lou. Looks like there's a lot to look forward to with this stock. What are some headwinds?

So headwinds is these are complicated. They have to work on the battlefield. But look, you say terrifying. But if we could put fewer humans at risk and still have the firepower we need to defend themselves, ourselves, that's a great win. So I'm going to look at, I'm going to take glass half full on fighter drones. Jason, what's on your radar this week? Well, Dan, this is a company that I actually called out, I think,

back in 2024, July of 2024, companies named Rubrik, and the ticker is RBRK. Now, Rubrik is a cybersecurity company that's focused on making sure that customers can operate their businesses, even when they have a successful cyber attack or cyber breach. So, for example, think about a hospital that is able to continue admitting patients even when they've had a cyber attack, or schools that can remain open when they've had a cyber attack, or people, when they swipe their credit card, right, they can get their money out of their bank, even if the bank is impacted by a cyber attack. So it focuses on a specific sort of capability in the cyber security market, which I think is interesting. Since I first dug into it back in July

22, before, the stock has really had a, had a good run. I think a lot of that is just, you know, we're looking at this AI trade and sort of all of this excitement around AI. And Rubrik is a company that's certainly utilizing that to make their business better. It is a, a, I call it a $5.5 billion market cap back then. It's about a $15 billion market cap today, closing in on $1.2 billion in revenue. No profits, of course, but it is founder-led with a bit over 15% inside ownership.

So they do believe in the business. I think cybersecurity is just going to be a massive market opportunity in the coming years, and it's one that I'm getting personally interested in here for 2026. Dan, what do you think about Rubik? Yeah, so when Jason talked about it in July, 2024, It was about half of what it is now as far as stock price goes. So that's a double since then.

So, yeah, I like that. Day now. What's going on your watch list this week? Let's go Rubrik. We're out of time. Thanks for listening.