We also check in on Target, AutoZone, Lowe’s and, of course, Nvidia.
In this podcast, Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis and analysts Jason Moser and Bill Mann discuss:
- Nvidia’s blowout quarter and upcoming stock split.
- Why buy now, pay later is going to start looking more like the credit card industry, and what Jamie Dimon has to say about the state of JPMorgan.
- Earnings updates from retailers Target, AutoZone, and Lowe’s.
- Two stocks worth watching: Sonos and Boston Beer.
We also dip into the mailbag to answer some questions about a red-hot legacy tech stock, how to handle a growing position, and how to break into the investing biz.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on May 24, 2024.
Dylan Lewis: The year of NVIDIA continues and we dig into the mailbag. This week’s Motley Fool Money radio show starts now.
It’s the Motley Fool Money radio show. I’m Dylan Lewis joining me over the airwaves, Motley Fool Senior Analysts, Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Fellows, great to have you both here.
Jason Moser: Hey.
Bill Mann: Good to see you, Dylan.
Dylan Lewis: We’ve got answers to your mailbag questions. The low-down on Target’s continued woes and of course, stocks and maybe something else on our radar this week. But we’re going to start with NVIDIA. This is perhaps the most anticipated release of earnings season, perhaps the most anticipated earnings release all year Jason, fresh results from the chipmaker out this week, expectations were high, results even higher. What jumped out to you in the results?
Jason Moser: Well, wash, rinse, repeat. Things continue to look very, very good for NVIDIA. It appears that it’s going to continue here, but at least for the next several quarters, the results, as you said, very impressive. revenue of $26 billion. That was up 262% from a year ago and beyond their outlook, even their internal outlook of $24 billion in revenue. Now, with NVIDIA, we talk about this a lot. The crux of this business really is the datacenter side. To put that into context of the $26 billion in revenue, datacenter represented $22.6 billion of that, up 427% from a year ago. If you see what the stock is doing and you wonder why all of that enthusiasm, well, when your accompanying you chalk up those types of top-line growth numbers and that’s going to do it because the other three core parts of the business in automotive and pro visualization in gaming. They’re there. Gaming is in the billions, at least. These other drivers of the business, they’re performing well but it’s the datacenter business that really has investors excited and given the investment that companies large and small are going to need to continue to make as we build out this AI infrastructure and we learn more about how companies are able to benefit from this AI investment. It feels like NVIDIA is right there where they need to be.
Dylan Lewis: Shares were up on the report and not too surprising market really like the earnings and revenue numbers. But I think the market was also paying attention to some of the other announcements. We got Bill, we have a ten for one stock split. We also have NVIDIA increasing their dividend. What do you make of that?
Bill Mann: I make nothing of the stock split. I know investors like them. It’s a nothing burger. NVIDIA has added $1 trillion to its market cap this year. It is now trading larger than the entire German stock market. It is larger than Tesla and Amazon combined. Really interestingly, there are some statements that the Jensen Wong made today at he’s talked about this before in the past about the chapters of the AI factory story where we’re in the training and inference component chapter, we’re going to move into enterprise and then heavy industry and then sovereign artificial intelligence. This is an area where NVIDIA beliefs it’s going to be able to play and lead for a long time. He was laying out a path for a long period of consistent growth in this market.
Dylan Lewis: I want to push back a little bit on the stock split take there Bill because the conspitory part of my brain says, Jason, we were checking in on the Dow last week. This is a conversation that we had. I have to imagine NVIDIA looks at an at $1,000 share price and says, there’s no way we’re getting into the Dow with a share price that high, given that it’s price-weighted. But maybe with the stock split, we could see ourselves getting included there at some point.
Bill Mann: How many additional chips do they sell doing that? That’s my question.
Dylan Lewis: It could have been the ulterior motive. We say it all the time. It’s the same size pizza just cut into more slices. It’s not something that really creates much more in the way of value. Interestingly, there is data out there that shows that the share splits like this where it changes the nominal price meaningfully. There is data out there that shows in the near-term over the course of the following year plus those shares do tend to outperform interesting data. I don’t make much of it because we tend to look through a longer lens. I think inclusion in the Dow is certainly something up there for consideration. I think that one thing to keep an eye on with NVIDIA and this is important because it’s two stories here, as the success of NVIDIA’s business. But then it’s also very much dependent on the success of its customers. They’re starting to demonstrate some ROI there. The customers are actually starting to be able to contextualize ROI on what they’re spending with NVIDIA. They called it out in the call here. They, they noted that for every one dollars spent on NVIDIA, AI infrastructure, cloud providers have an opportunity to earn $5 in GPU instant hosting revenue over the course of the next four years. Now, I want to make sure I reiterate opportunity. That point was made opportunity. That means it’s guaranteed but when you start to at least put some numbers around it and understand the ROI that customers can gain from spending their money within NVIDIA, it makes it a little bit of an easier leap for those customers to make. Obviously that would work very well for NVIDIA’s business.
Bill Mann: Read the stock splits, Jason, correlation is not causation.
Jason Moser: I fully agree.
Dylan Lewis: This week we also saw updates in the landscape of buy-now pay-later, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau putting out guidance for companies like Klarna, Affirm and PayPal that their customers will experience the same protections as credit card users. Jason, some people in the industry have been wondering if this would happen. What does it mean for the industry that it is?
Jason Moser: Well, I think in simplest terms, it’s a good thing for the industry in that it’s a sign that perhaps the industry is at least maturing. It has to this point, I think been a bit of a wild west of an offering in there haven’t been a lot of guidelines, there hasn’t been a lot of structure. There’s really not a lot of understanding still. Even today, it’s really unclear how many buy now pay later providers do or don’t comply with things like refund and dispute requirements. It’s good news in the sense that this really helps codify what’s been more or less a wild west offering at this point. It’s worth remembering though this is still debt. It’s essentially spending with a credit card just in a different form and it’s important for consumers to remember, this isn’t some silver bullet. This isn’t some alternative offering that makes it so much easier. You’re still spending via debt and that’s something to keep in mind.
Dylan Lewis: Bill, Jason mentioned refunds. We also I think have provisions like they must investigate merchant disputes, must provide bills with fee disclosures. When I hear some of these requirements, I hear more cost for the industry. Is that one safe way to look at it?
Bill Mann: Maybe. It’s important to note that one of the things that’s also happening is that a lot of the buy now pay later platforms don’t report loans and these are loans to the credit agencies, which means that we don’t even know what the full health of a bunch of American households are by virtue of not knowing what that level of debt is in the same way that we do credit card debt. When you hear regulatory changes that are going to cause these companies to have to report fully, I think that that’s a really important thing and it will be good news for the good actors in the space.
Dylan Lewis: Let’s stick with finance for our final story. This segment, we have JPMorgan’s annual meeting this week giving us some fresh thoughts from Jamie Dimon. Bill, we look to Jamie Dimon for thoughts on the market. We got some pretty direct thoughts from Dimon about his own stock this year.
Bill Mann: We sure did. Jamie Dimon has been asked forever how long he’s going to stay in the seat at JPMorgan and he’s always kinda said five-years. Well, he said this time maybe less than five years. The question then becomes, who’s going to follow a legends like Jamie Dimon. But he also has been asked about share buybacks and other forms of finance at JPMorgan. Currently the shares are trading at about two times book and he believes and I’m not sure that I fully agree with him that when you do a share back, you are providing money to exiting shareholders as opposed to existing shareholders. I think he was trying to temper enthusiasm just a little bit because obviously everyone would love a share buyback. It seems like something that you would like to do, but he is first and foremost a steward of capital at JPMorgan and he’s saying, we have plenty of better places to put our capital into than our own stock at current prices.
Dylan Lewis: Bill, I’m going to ask you for some reckless speculation here. Dimon is 68. He’s a far cry from Buffett, 93. But you mentioned succession. Is there anybody even on your radar for a Dimon successor?
Bill Mann: It’s a great question and they’ve kept it pretty close to the vest, but there have been some reshuffle that placed people like Tony Rorabaugh of very high into the mix. I think that’s probably where he may be going. We will see he’s not saying I’m leaving soon or even in five-years. He’s just saying that it is closer that he’s at his end then he is at his beginning. At 68 years of age, the actuarial tables, which suggests these probably right about that.
Dylan Lewis: Borrowing a line from Buffett there, Bill, I love it. Coming up after the break, we’ve got a rundown on retail earnings with updates from Target, Lowe’s and AutoZone. Stay right here. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.
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Dylan Lewis: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I’m Dylan Lewis, joined here on air by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. A big week for retail earnings, we have updates from Target, Lowe’s, and AutoZone. Jason, let’s start with Target. The woes continue. Shares down 7% after earnings this week, showing that revenues down 3% year over year. and to borrow a phrase from CEO, Brian Cornell, ”Continued soft trends in discretionary categories, showing up and hitting results.” When are things going to get better for Target, Jason?
Jason Moser: I think this was a noteworthy quarter, particularly when you consider Walmart‘s results which just came right before, a tale of two cities there. We see Walmart seeming to really benefit from this consumer, there’s been a bit more trepidation among the consumer. But Target obviously still dealing with some issues. Their comp sale is down, 3.7%, that was the fourth straight quarter of declines. Their total sales down 3.2%. Their traffic and transactions both down 1.9%. So those are the things you don’t want to see. You want to see the opposite, particularly in regard to the traffic and the tickets. It was noted in the call that business trends do continue to normalize a little bit. That pattern where consumers now are remixing their spending a little bit more back in the services and entertainment outside of the homes after not having done that over the last several years, and that is absolutely impacting Target’s business here. Now, there is somewhat of a silver lining. I mean, they did know the call that US consumers continues to exhibit what they call a high degree of resilience in the face of multiple challenges. We did see inventory levels continued downward 7% there, so that means they’re moving stuff off the shelves and growth margin expanding. Thanks to cost controls and less discounting. But I think Target, and particularly when we think about grocery, and that’s an area where I feel like they really need to pick it up here, because it’s around a fifth to a quarter of Target’s overall business, whereas with something like a Walmart, you’re talking about more along the lines of half of its business and not more. There’s a big opportunity, particularly in the face of a cost-sensitive consumer, but it does look like they’re making some progress, and that’s encouraging.
Dylan Lewis: On the note of grocery, we also had news this week that Target will be cutting prices on 5,000, what they call, everyday items in their stores, which do include a lot of grocery items, clearly taking aim at Walmart. I want to believe that it will work Bill, but I feel like Target has been that friend that said they’ll be there in 15 minutes for like the last hour and a half.
Bill Mann: This report was a disaster for them, because there’s something that’s not even really being reflected in the-3% comp. That is a -3% real dollar comp. We have been in a world where, I don’t know if you guys know this, but everything is much more expensive this year than it was last year.
Dylan Lewis: I have noticed that
Bill Mann: For them to have reported a negative comp, they haven’t even caught up with inflation. But with inflation built-in, that is a -6% or 7% comp. This is a disaster for Target, and as Jason pointed out, Walmart had an entirely different experience. They’ve got a lot to do, I think this is the friend who has not been particularly dependable as of late, and I’m not sure that price cutting is what’s going to get them there. I think that there is something else deeper, very wrong at Target that can’t be blamed on either the resiliency or non-resiliency of the consumer.
Dylan Lewis: Seeing consumer trends show up a little bit in results from AutoZone this week, shares down 5% on their earnings results. Bill, what are you seeing the report?
Bill Mann: One of the things I love about AutoZone is the fact that every time you look at their reports, and this goes to the exact opposite of what Jamie Dimon has said, this is a cannibal company. Charlie Munger is the one that called them this, he once said “Pay very close attention to cannibals. These are companies that are eating themselves by buying back their own stock.” AutoZone’s share count is dramatically lower than it was three, five, 10 years ago. In this last quarter, they repurchased almost $750 million in stock, and they have another 1.4 billion outstanding. This is a company that even if the results are lower, every share of stock that you own becomes a more and more concentrated component of the ownership of the overall business.
Dylan Lewis: Digging into some of the results quickly, Bill, quarterly net sales for the auto company rose 4%. Street was expecting numbers to be little bit higher. It doesn’t sound like you’re too discouraged by the results you saw.
Bill Mann: No. I think that you see with the auto industry that there is a trend that goes between our people tending to hold onto their cars longer, and you can measure it by the average age of rolling stock that has come down a little bit. That is a very much acyclical. AutoZone’s results may have been a little light, but ultimately, they were fine, and this is a steady as it goes business.
Dylan Lewis: Bringing us home in our retail round-up pun intended, we’re going look at numbers from Lowe’s. Jason, revenue and earnings down year over year, but ahead of expectations, love that we have Lowe’s numbers here, because we can stack them against the results from Home Depot‘s numbers last week. What’d you say?
Jason Moser: Well, I see two very similar stories. They absolutely rhyme, and that’s not terribly surprising. They’re very similar businesses. I think I’d give Home Depot maybe the edge here, this earnings season, but not by much. Comp sales down for Lowe’s. They are down 4.1% from a year ago. They did note continued consumer pressure, especially on things like DIY big ticket items, discretionary spending. It’s just something the consumers putting off for now. But still they brought home earnings per share of $3.60. We were talking about Target, and then that transactions and ticket data. Same principle applies here. We want to see those numbers in the positive and growing. Unfortunately, we saw transactions down 3.1% with ticket down 1%, and that just puts unneeded pressure on margins. But it’s exciting to see that they have rolled out their DIY loyalty program. MyLowe’s Rewards very excited about that and the potential it can bring. Maintaining guidance for the full year, and I think just an interesting side note here with this company, I don’t know if you realize, the share count is down 24.2% over the last five years, total return of the shares since then about 145%, well outpacing the market. Maybe this is a case of share repurchases gone well.
Dylan Lewis: Here I thought we were doing a retail round-up, turns out we were just doing a buyback bulletin. I see you Bill pumping his fist, that seems to be the theme of our first two segments today. Absolutely love it. Bill, Jason, stay right where you are, got a couple of questions for you in our next segment from our listeners. Listeners, you stay here too. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.
Dylan Lewis: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I’m Dylan Lewis with Motley Fool analysts Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Listeners you asked, we’re answering. We’re dipping into the mailbag ahead of the holiday weekend, pulling questions we got from listeners via podcasts @fool.com or sent to us on Twitter @motleyfoolmoney. Our first one I’m going to fire over to you Bill, comes from Martin via Twitter and he asks, I never hear you cover or talk about Dell which has been on a tear, would be interested to hear what’s happening with it? Thanks and Bill, this is a question that I think is probably brought on by some pretty stellar performance in recent history for Dell.
Bill Mann: Dell has been a rocket and you’re right, Martin, that we don’t talk about Dell very much. Part of that has to be, it has to be said. Dell went private in a leveraged buyout in 2013, but came back onto the public markets. I don’t want to call it a sneaky way, but in a super complex transaction when they bought out the tracking stock for a company called VMware. Suddenly Delta Technologies was back on the market and I can’t really claim that too many of us here at The Motley Fool has paid too much of attention to it in the interim. Which is a shame, because I think we are moving now into what may be a great upgrade cycle in the PC market. Because so many PCs, the installed base of PCs, do not have chipsets that are sufficiently fast or powerful enough to operate in an environment in which artificial intelligence and AI processes are going to be more and more of what is demanded upon them. I think that what is being talked about here, Jensen Huang is actually called out Dell by name, is that what we are about to see is a massive upgrade and recycling in the computer space. I think that’s probably where Dell is caught such a bid as it has and it is up 200% over the last year.
Dylan Lewis: AI lifting a lot of boats. Jason, I want to put this one over to you just as a follow-up. When you hear a major trend or major wave pushing some companies forward that you didn’t quite expect. What’s your process for processing that?
Jason Moser: We talk about this often and AI has been the term does your over these last several quarters. It brings all of these companies out from the woodwork. All of a sudden everything becomes an AI play from actual AI companies to quick-serve restaurants [laughs] and everywhere in between. Dell’s an interesting case study because we knew this company so long ago is one thing, and it comes back to the market as that thing but a little bit different. It seems like they do a lot of different things these days. I will say, I don’t follow the company very closely, so I don’t know the particulars of it. But what I do know is when I see something like this. I want to make sure that connecting the dots makes sense. Is this a company that is leading the way or really helping to develop this space like an AI for example. Or is it a company that this riding the coattails more or less? I can’t really say for certain what classification Dell falls into at this point. It feels more like they’re beneficiary, maybe that they’re riding the coattails. I don’t know for sure but but that’s certainly one way to look at it.
Dylan Lewis: If you’re a longtime Dell shareholder, you may be in a position similar to Jonathan who gave us our second question for this week’s mailbag. Jonathan writes in, hello Fools, I have a few investments in my retirement portfolio that have grown to significant percentages, such as Amazon to just under 10%. I like Amazon and I’m only 34, so i don’t necessarily want to sell it. But the performance does impact my portfolio quite a bit. I see two options, sell a little bit and redistribute the gains or two lower the percentage over time as I contribute to other positions. What do you think? Jason, I want to put this one over to you first. It makes sense. We see some of those big winning portfolio positions get bigger and bigger. It starts to get into that sleep number territory for us.
Jason Moser: I think it certainly different depending on the company. If Amazon is becoming a bigger part of your portfolio, that’s a little bit different than saying it’s something like a Cava and nothing against Cava. There’s plenty of opportunity there and I love their food, but there are two obviously very different companies with very different risk profiles. In Amazon, there’s a little bit more stability there, I think we could argue that perhaps something like Ecova at this point. It’s worth thinking about the company first and foremost. But then, you have to start assessing your comfort zone there. I think what he said it was 10%, I think at this point now. That’s not outrageous. For some folks, they may feel uncomfortable at that level, but I look at some of the guidance that will offer in a couple of the services that I work on today. We break it down between higher-risk, medium-risk and lower-risk. We would say what those lower-risk positions you might have 5%-6% in your portfolio for the middle, maybe it’s 3-4. For the high, it’s going to be 1-2. Now those positions hopefully grow over time and become a bigger part of your portfolio. But it’s up to that individual to figure out what their line is. I do like the other point that he made, particularly at that age, it’s 34 and you have to think of it from the perspective. Ideally, you’ll be contributing a lot of money to this account in the coming years. Just investing in other ideas is going to diversify you in, bring that weighting down over time. If you like the company, if it’s running and it’s done well and you know, you have a lot of time and a lot of money that you’re going to be investing over the course of the next several years. You may not need to worry about trimming that position right now. Maybe give it a little bit more time to run in, you find out where your line is ultimately.
Dylan Lewis: Bill, what’s your take on this one?
Bill Mann: Many professional investors would suggest that there the therapy position sizing skill is more important than their skill at picking securities. I’m not sure what that says about that industry. I really don’t agree with that at all. But your position sizing, we’re talking about a Cadillac probably, or you have a position that has become a very large portion of your portfolio. I salute you for that. One of the things that you need to keep in mind is that, the larger your largest position size is, the higher the risk of your being wrong is to you. Now, it sounds to me like you’ve got plenty of time, you’ve got plenty of earnings power in front of you. I would not suggest that you would reduce unless it is the situation where you think if you turned out to have been wrong, that it would have been too much for you to handle.
Dylan Lewis: If you’re a listener like Jonathan, one thing I’ll throw out there, if you’re thinking about selling those positions down to redistribute some of the gains. Just being mindful of your holding period and whether you’re looking at long-term or short-term gains. If you’re looking at short-term gains, might want to delay that, just so that you have a lower tax burden when the bill comes around. Jason, our final question comes in from Katherine. She is a fresh grad looking to do exactly what you guys are doing. Katherine rode into us at podcasts at fool.com. Hey Fools, I’m a 2024 graduate, still figuring out what’s next, but I want to get into the finance and investment industry. What tips do you have for applying for investment research jobs and ways to get noticed while applying. Jason, I’m going to kick this one over to you first.
Jason Moser: Boy, there are a lot of different ways you can go with this one. I come from a background where this was not my first profession. I had worked in the golf business and banking and insurance and worked for the state department. A little bit of history behind there. It actually has served me very well. Maybe it differentiated me a little bit as I came into the Fool and got the interview. I had a little bit of a different work history to fall back on there and talk about, which I think is a good thing. You hear David Gardner, say [laughs] all the time, lead a more interesting life. It sounds very simple. It’s probably a little bit more difficult at time to do in practice, but I do think it’s something to keep in mind. The more stuff you have to talk about that, the more experience you have. I think it just builds a bit of a broader worldview, a little bit more of a helpful worldview and makes you stand out. I’m going through this right now talking about this stuff with my older daughter. She just finished her freshman year. She’s an international business major, and talking about what she might do after. I think one key thing and we utilize this here at the Fool a lot throughout the years was seek internships. Even if you’ve graduated, internships are a sure-fire away to get your foot in the door with the company. Learn the inner workings of not only the company, but the industry in which they focus. Internships are typically fairly self-serving. It’s nice to be able to go work at that, but the company has alternative, but they’re, they’re looking for talent. We’ve hired a lot of talent from our internship program here at the Fool through the years. I think that’s something to keep in mind as well. Be flexible. Don’t don’t insist. Be flexible and listen. Even if you’re having trouble getting started. I think we live in a day and age, consider just starting something on your own as a first step, sell yourself. You could go out there and start a subs-tack or something like that, and build out your own investing shops that way and create a little bit of a brand on your own. It’s a bit of a living and breathing resume that can help you develop and show people what you’re capable of.
Dylan Lewis: On that last point, Jason, that was exactly my experience. Getting a job at the Fool was coming out of school, was a financing journalism student. Undergrad, wasn’t really sure what i was qualified to do, but it worked in the industry, capital F, finance with some co-op jobs, realized, i really didn’t like it, and wound up writing about the industry on the side, writing about stocks on the side and then use that as my portfolio for applying to jobs. The feedback I got interviewing Fool was you’re already doing the work. You’re already really interested in this. This is something that we think you’re going to step into and be able to contribute immediately. Bill, I know that you also have some college students in your life. What’s your advice maybe for them, but then also for Katherine who wrote into us.
Bill Mann: Katherine, I would like to harken the great financial analysts, Jelly Roll who said, I want to tell you that the [laughs] windshields is bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason.
Bill Mann: You have an advantage that Jason and I did not have in that you are in an environment in which you are very comfortable reaching out to people through social media, through any period, through a bunch of different channels through LinkedIn that did not exist when Jason and I were coming up. I would recommend highly that you do so, that you ask people to have conversations with you who are doing things that you would like to do, and some of them will answer. Then really importantly, have a pitch that is just no more than two minutes long of your best thinking in investing and you will do fine.
Dylan Lewis: All right, that’s a wrap on our mailbag segment, but listeners, we always love hearing from you, whether you catch us on the radio or in your podcast feeds. You can shoot us a note at [email protected]. You can reach us on Twitter at Motley Fool Money, or you can leave us a voice mail on our hotline and get your voice on the show. Our number is 703 254 1445. That’s 703 254 1445. Up next, we’ve got some stocks and some other things on our radar this memorial day weekend. Stay right here. You’re listening to 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 anything based solely on what you hear. I’m Dylan Lewis, joint again by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. We’re going to have radar stocks coming up in a second. But we always love a story that hits at the intersection of business and food. Boy, do we have one this week? Bill Red Lobster announcing bankruptcy and closing locations. Are the endless shrimp to blame?
Bill Mann: If you didn’t think that you needed a story about endless shrimp and capital stocks, this is a great story for you. Red Lobster is actually owned by a company called Thai Union, and Thai Union is their shrimp provider. Now, if Red Lobster has been in decline for a bunch of years and they owe a lot of money to creditors. What is one way that the equity holder can get ahead of the creditors? Well, for one, you could require them to do endless shrimp all the time if you are a shrimp merchant. Intrafish.com is telling me that right now, Thai Union, who’s the owner, is being investigated for dumping shrimp into Red Lobster and pushing Red Lobster into bankruptcy.
Dylan Lewis: It’s an unbelievable story. I cannot wait to see more details come out.
Bill Mann: But you didn’t think you are getting intrafish.com on the Motley Fool Money show, did you?
Dylan Lewis: No. The industry leader in all your fishing needs. Let’s get over to stocks on our radar. You guys bring the stocks, our man behind-the-glass, Dan Boyd is going to hit you with a question. Jason, you’re up first. What are you looking at this week?
Jason Moser: Sure. A little Memorial Day twist here. Let’s take a closer look at Boston Beer ticker is S-A-M, this is the company that’s known for brands like Sam Adams, Twisted Tea, Truly Hard, Seltzer, Angry Orchard, even Dogfish Head beer. They’ve got a new CEO and Michael Spillane, although Jim Koch still owns about 20% of the company and controls all voting interests. That hasn’t changed. If you look at the company’s most recent earnings report, I think this has been accompanied that’s been been witnessing some pressures lately. Depletions were flat, shipments were up modestly, net revenue up just about 4%. They did see a little margin expansion there, but they ended the first quarter with $205 million dollars in cash and no debt. The stock now trading at around 30 times full-year earnings estimates. This is always a stock that’s demanded a bit of a premium. It feels like maybe that Schein has worn off a little bit started made me wonder if there’s not an opportunity here.
Dylan Lewis: Dan, a question about Boston Beer ticker, S-A-M.
Dan Boyd: At all those properties you mentioned Jason, what’s your favorite?
Jason Moser: Honestly, Dan, I think I’m going to have to go basic here. I love the Sam Adams Summer Ale. That’s just a good refreshing one and from Memorial Day hoist, it’s a good recommendation.
Dylan Lewis: Just in time for summer season. Bill, what do you have on your radar this week?
Bill Mann: The one on my radar screen is Sonos, which is an audio company. They make speakers, etc. Last week they rolled out a new app and it has been widely panned, particularly for coming up with a new clunky UI that has taken out functionality for vision impaired people. They are getting a huge amount of flack. Now, their response was, Hey, an app is never finished. They are going to be putting out new fixes and functionality for the app. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the stock has dropped about 10% since this new app came out though, so they have some work to do to repair some damage.
Dylan Lewis: Dan, a question about Sonos ticker, S-O-N-O?
Dan Boyd: Yeah. Bill, there’s always the question of what are you doing bringing this crap stock of a sale here? I don’t have to ask that. Once you got the Sonos, you’ve got you’re out at the pool party Bill. What are you bumping in the Bluetooth speaker there?
Bill Mann: Man, I’ve been going heavy into Chris Stapleton lately and a band called Monophonic, which is one of my favorite new bands.
Dylan Lewis: Dan, I’m going to put this watch-list decision to you a little differently this week. You can have a party without music, or you can have a party without drinks. Which one are you taking?
Dan Boyd: What? Is it a party?
Jason Moser: You can always sing to yourself, Dan.
Dan Boyd: That’s a good point. Oh, man, I don’t know. I have a toddler, so we we do parties that don’t feature alcohol because that’s the thing now, but I don’t like them very much.
Dylan Lewis: It sounds like Sonos and SAM could be on your radar.
Bill Mann: I believe that we just heard synapses blow.
Dan Boyd: My mind is broken up now. That’s such a hard decision.
Dylan Lewis: All right, since it is memorial day weekend, we got a special little bonus Radar segment. We’re going to do a little bit of radar recipes. Jason, what’s something that listeners can keep in mind this grilling season?
Jason Moser: Well, I am all for the ribs, the burgers, the Pulled Pork. Get all that stuff going. But if you’re looking to change it up a little bit, you got to grill. You know, something, I really enjoy making a good carne asada, you side that up with some a elotes. The Mexican street corn. It’s a nice little twist on a Memorial Day cookout where I think people are used to the same old.
Dylan Lewis: Bill, what about you?
Bill Mann: Peaches are now ripe to go along with that carne asada and they are latte, I recommend a peach salad with it is peaches, a little bit of prosciutto, a little arugula, a little upper, and a little mozzarella mixed together, delightful.
Dylan Lewis: Love it. Appreciate your radar stocks and recipes. Appreciate Dan weighing in and mixing today’s show that’s going to this week’s Motley Fool Money radio show. I’m Dylan Lewis, will be back next week.