A Motley Fool Potluck of Financial News and Insight

In this podcast, Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis and analysts Ron Gross and Jason Moser discuss:

• The market’s strong returns over the past two years, and how they aren’t being enjoyed by all investors or consumers.
• Why Target and Outset Medical helped serve up some humble pie this year.
• Why they’re thankful for Costco and Axon.
• The topics they don’t want to touch at the Thanksgiving table: the election and tariffs.
• Two stocks worth watching: Garrett Motion and Samsara.
• Listener questions about managing money, factoring your sleep number, what to make of retailer earnings, and how to spatchcock a turkey.

You can reach the team at (703) 254-1445, [email protected], or @MotleyFoolMoney on X.

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To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner’s guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Nov. 29, 2024.

Dylan Lewis: We’re giving thanks and maybe airing a grievance or two. This week’s Motley 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 Ron Gross and Jason Moser. Fools, great to have you both here.

Ron Gross: Happy holiday.

Jason Moser: How are you doing Dylan?

Dylan Lewis: I’m doing well, and if I’m not mistaken, I believe we have a special holiday guest with us this week.

Jason Moser: Gets me every time. Every every year.

Dylan Lewis: Longtime fans of the show know him as Tom Turkey, AKA, Mr. Gobbler. He is truly Rick Engdahl behind the scenes, keeping us honest with the Thanksgiving talk. We have our annual Thanksgiving multi course financial meal for you. We’ll be serving up Humble Pie, talking about the topics we are skipping this year at the dinner table and answering questions that you have sent our way as our way of saying thanks. To get us rolling, we are in late November, and investors seemingly know more than they’ve known in a while. Inflation has moderated, the Fed has begun cutting rates. We know who the next president of the United States will be. A lot of the big questions have been answered for investors. Jason, how are you feeling about the market as we head into the holidays?

Jason Moser: Well I’m feeling a lot better, I think than we were probably feeling maybe a couple of months ago. I think a lot of it just keys in to what you were just saying there. You just gave us a lot of certainty there, Dylan. There’s a lot of certainty you just gave us. We of course know that the market does like certainty a lot. I do think it’s interesting to think about the interest rate policy, though. Absolutely we’re seeing inflation start to moderate, and that’s all fine, and Dylan. There are a lot of questions, I think, that have yet to be answered in regard to exactly how the new administration is going to pursue economic policy in the coming years once they take office here in January. I think it’s interesting to know in regard to interest rate policy. We’ve got a Fed meeting here in December, and it wasn’t all that long ago. Just a few weeks ago, there pretty much it was a guarantee that we were going to see another rate cut.

Now, it seems that certainty has pulled back a little bit well actually rather a lot. Right now it’s a coin flip. It seems that the market is saying maybe they’ll cut rates, maybe they won’t. Now I think a lot of that, again goes back to how they’re going to pursue economic policy in this new administration. Inflation, while it has moderated, it’s improved clearly, I wouldn’t consider that battle won yet, because as we know, historically it can come in waves, and it can resurface. That’s one question. I think it’s still worth keeping in mind is inflation fully beaten? If so how is that going to impact interest rate policy? But again, going back to your points there earlier, there is a lot of certainty, which I think that has investors feeling really good about the near term at least.

Ron Gross: I agree with that. Soft landing has been achieved. I think it’s fair to say, it’s official. Not an easy thing to have achieved, and I will take it. You give me a year where the S&P 500 is up 26% Dylan. I’ll take it. Not too shabby. NASDAQ up 27%, not too shabby. Pretty exciting. Couple of things when you look at the market as a whole that I think are interesting, we’ve been waiting for small cap stocks to come back. They’ve perpetually been undervalued relative to large caps, and everyone was it’s got to happen sometime, it’s got to happen sometime. I think we’re seeing some of that.

The Russell 2000 up “only” 20% for the year, but up 10% for the last month. It’s coming up on the outside, and Russell 2000 has been very strong even recently, the last several days. The second thing everyone has been waiting for is a broadening of the stock market, away from large tech, away from MAG-7 to the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500. I think we’re seeing that as well. The equal weight index of the S&P, ticker symbol RSP is up only 18% for the year still good. But for the last month, it’s up 4.6%. That’s versus the S&P, which was up 3.3%. It’s starting to overtake the S&P a little bit as we see a rotation out of big tech companies and into more widely mid cap, small cap, and other industries as well.

Dylan Lewis: You mentioned the year to date returns, 20 plus percent for the NASDAQ and the S&P 500. That is on the back of a very good 2023 for the market, as well. You go to the two year, and S&P 500 is up about 60% on a total return basis, NASDAQ up over 80%. Jason, all while we’ve had one of the most anticipated recessions of all time, maybe the market needs to eat a little bit of humble pie here. Maybe the investing community needs to eat a little bit of humble pie.

Jason Moser: I think we’re going to eat some humble pears shortly. We’ll get into that in a bit. But I think to me it’s interesting to talk about this juxtaposition between the market’s performance versus how consumers are feeling, because I think there is a big difference there. It certainly feels we are in a more risk on environment here recently. That’s understandable. But the market’s performance, this tremendous performance we’ve seen. We’re feeling it. We love it. That’s what we do. But I think it’s worth remembering, not all people feel it, not all consumers feel it. I was looking at some data here from a recent Gallup poll, and they asked a question, Do you personally or jointly with a spouse, have any money invested in the stock market right now, either in individual stocks, the mutual fund or some sort of self directed 401K or whatnot? If you look today the numbers are very encouraging. It’s about 62% today are invested.

But when you dig into those numbers a little bit, it’s not all equal. You’ve got the wealthiest 1% that hold 50% of stocks. That’s worth around $21 trillion in equity. Now if you expand that out to the top 10%, that group holds 87% of stocks. That’s a value of around $32 trillion. Bottom 50% of US adults only hold 1% of stocks worth around 430 billion. Again I think it’s worth noting when we talk about the economy versus the market, they are two very different things. While we love to see the market performing well, it’s not necessarily indicative of where the consumer feels they are today.

Ron Gross: I think that’s fair. One quick comment about the market as a whole and the great returns we’ve had over the last two years, Dylan, 23 times forward earnings right now, the S&P 500. That’s not cheap. The equal weight is a little better than that, maybe 2021 times, still not cheap. We will mark my words get a correction. If you expect it, it shouldn’t come as a shock. We just don’t know when. Don’t time the market. Stay in the market. Ride out the corrections. The stock market always comes back and always goes higher. It has 100% of the time. Don’t worry about the coming correction. We don’t know when it’s happening. It will but we’re going to be OK.

Dylan Lewis: Appreciate you both serving up a little bit of sobriety there as we talk about those market returns. I’m also going to ask you to serve up a little bit of Humble Pie. We are net buyers of stocks, and so we have enjoyed those great runs, but we haven’t gotten everything right as we’ve looked out over the last year. Ron checking in what is your piece of Humble Pie?

Ron Gross: I think I’ve got to go with Target. I’m a fan as a consumer and also as an investor. That’s where the humble comes in a little bit. I first bought it back and bought it in 2020. It was one of the big boxes stores that were opened during the pandemic. Those shares those cost basis is fine. Everything is going well. But very recently, the shares got whacked down 20% in one day because it’s really continuing to struggle to get its inventory problems fixed. They’ve been mis inventoried, if that’s a word, for quite some time. Target is much more reliant on discretionary purchases, whereas Walmart is more essentials and that part of the market, the consumer is not really focused on discretionary items at this juncture. Still concerned about higher prices and other things going on in the economy. The stock got whacked 20% in one day. I did buy more full disclosure there and I still think we’re going to be OK, but they do not have their act together. It’s a competitive world out there between Walmart, Target, Costco, and the like. I think at 14 times forward earnings with a 3.6% dividend yield, it’s worth the risk reward trade-off there, but it’s not working out for me so well so far.

Dylan Lewis: Ron you managed to do a Radarstock a piece of Humble Pie with that pitch right there for Target. It was very well done.

Ron Gross: Thank you.

Dylan Lewis: Jason what’s on your plate for dessert?

Jason Moser: Well, I think Outset Medical stands out as one this year that has been terribly disappointing and fits this segment here. You go back to October of 2023. I actually put Outset Medical on hold here in our service. The concerns there in regard to GLP drugs, raising questions in regard to the company’s market opportunity. Management had failed to file a letter for FDA clearance for their tableau cart. Remember, Outset is this home dialysis system. Is tremendous technology, but I think it’s just been led somewhat poorly. Ultimately the stock has just gotten pummeled. You’re looking like a penny stock at this point right now. You fast forward to this year, it seemed like management had addressed a lot of these questions.

The Tableau Card had received that FDA clearance. Management had struck a partnership with the largest privately held dialysis provider in the US, restructuring efforts, paving the way toward profitability, and everything looked good. Then the next quarter. I mean, they just completely flip flopped again. To me this was one where management just continued to let us down. Think it’s a case where you’ve got an interesting business with tremendous and proven technology, but it’s been led very poorly, and ultimately that is reflected in just an awful share performance.

Dylan Lewis: For me, I’m going to go outside of the world investing on this one. I’m going to say I thought an Aaron Rodgers led Jets team would make the playoffs. Clearly that did not materialize. I remain hopeful.

Ron Gross: You’re a Jets fan too. I got a feel for you.

Jason Moser: The doors are tough.

Dylan Lewis: We all thought there was really a lot of potential there. I’ll be rooting for good football on the couch this holiday weekend. After the break we’ve got stocks we’re thankful for, and the topics we’re steering clear of this year at the dinner table. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I’m Dylan Lewis, here on air with Ron Gross and Jason Moser. It’s our annual Thanksgiving show, and we’re saying thanks all around. What better way to do it than to look inward at our portfolios and the stocks that we are thankful for. Ron when you check your holdings what makes your heart go gobble gobble with gratitude?

MALE_3: Hi.

Jason Moser: Was actually Braun, by the way.

Ron Gross: I have probably used Costco in previous Thanksgiving shows, but it is one of my all time and best investments up 1,300% for me over the years. That’s a lot of percent, Dylan, for a value investor. I don’t often get those 13, 14 baggers. I’m going to give it some love this time around too. Quick anecdote. I’ve been a Costco member for 15 years, but I’ve only shopped there, three or four times. Which is power of the business model because I keep paying my annual fee. Two weekends ago, I said to my wife, we’re going to Costco. We’re going to make a day of it. We’re going to take our time, 64 rolls of toilet paper later we succeeded, and we actually had a fun time doing it. But I do love Costco. Great business model. They keep us renewing year after year because of the great value proposition, great retention rates, great corporate culture, still has room to expand, especially internationally, 1,300% later, it’s not a cheap stock by any means. It’s probably more expensive than it’s ever been, but it’s one that I continue to be thankful for and will continue to own.

Dylan Lewis: I’m guessing Ron by hour two in that shopping trip, you were also very thankful for the samples that they give out in the store.

MALE_3: They had these little mini pancakes? Excellent.

Dylan Lewis: Keeping you fueled up as you’re shopping. Jason, what about you? What’s a company you’re thankful for?

Jason Moser: Ron, this is in no way a slight on Costco, but, you know, Amazon delivers toilet paper, if you don’t.

Ron Gross: So does Costco, by the way.

Jason Moser: Dylan, I’m going to go with one that I personally own, but really, for me, I’m thankful more because I feel like our members have benefited so much from this one. Axon Enterprise, we talked about this company a lot over the year, over the last couple of years. For good reason, the stock is up better than 140% just this year alone, about 250% over the last three years. Again, I like in this company, I think it’s the Apple of public safety. They just make tremendous hardware. They developed the software and services side of the business to support all of that hardware, and they just continue to iterate. They serve a market that is in desperate need of what they’re offering.

You look at the most recent quarter here, revenue was up 32% from a year ago. We saw annual recurring revenue, which I think is really encouraging up 36%, closing in on $1 billion here in future contracted revenue of $7.7 billion up from $5.8 billion a year ago. I think this is a company. It’s an AI play. It’s an under the radar AI play with all of the stuff they’re doing in regard to this new AI era plan that they have offering customers the ability to subscribe to just their expanding set of AI capabilities and features. It just leverages the relationship, and it gives their customers a reason to stick with them. There’s not really a big competitor out there that is pushing them too hard right now. Again, I think that changes at some point. You always have to be wary of competition, but now, Axon is just the clear market leader, and it just doesn’t seem like they’re slowing down. This drone is a first responder offering. I think they’re pursuing a whole new potential market opportunity in regard to that, as well. I think that the good time should continue with Axon.

Dylan Lewis: I too, am grateful for Axon. It is my largest holding. It is my best performer. I’m looking at some slightly better returns than Ron is on his Costco position, it’s a growth stock.

Ron Gross: That’s taken me 15 years.

Jason Moser: I’m very thankful that you’re in that boat with us, Dylan, that’s terrific.

Dylan Lewis: Didn’t happen overnight. Ten year time horizon on a lot of those returns but a good reminder it takes a while to get there. Over to one of my favorite segments, not at the table. These are the topics we are all hoping to avoid at this year’s holiday celebrations. No shortage of things in the Zeitgeist this year. What will be off the menu at the Moser household this year, Jason?

Jason Moser: I can’t think of one thing that would make me get up from the table and go eat my dinner in front of the TV more than someone bringing up the election. Listen, nothing against elections. I’m a USA through and through on the process. But, listen, we’ve been dealing with this we’ve been talking about it for a year. The results are in talk about certainty. We understand the results. Everything let’s move forward. I don’t know that there’s a whole heck of a lot to talk about there, and it just it seems like we are just in a very polarizing environment right now, and to bring something like that up at the table, think about something. Bring something else to the table, please.

Dylan Lewis: Ron, what are you hoping stays off the table this year?

Ron Gross: A little tangential to what Jason said. That’s a pretty big word for this show. Tangential. I’m going to have to ask for no talking about tariffs at the table. The main reason is that no one truly understands how they work, including me. Like, who bears the cost? Does it hurt consumers? Is it a good negotiating tool? Does it help domestic manufacturers? What about the deficit? Unless you’re an economist and really seems maybe even not then, no one really understand this stuff. I think we skip it this year, skip the whole conversation. Let’s move on.

Jason Moser: I can see it. Someone asked Ron about tariffs and just under the table. He’s like, hitting his iPhone, Googling, like, tariff history.

Dylan Lewis: It’s a good opportunity for ChatGPT to shine there.

Jason Moser: There you go.

Dylan Lewis: We’re not going to talk about it at the table, but we’re going to talk about it now briefly for investors. There are things that pop up that are in the political realm, tariffs are obviously creating some concerns for companies and we’re seeing some headlines that are affecting the market short term. It’s hard to know what is noise there and what becomes more meaningful. Ron, as you look at some of that stuff, you’re trying to process it, at what point do those things become important and relevant to the thesis for business?

Ron Gross: I would start to think about them now. The headlines as of the last day or two, 25% tariffs on Canada, Mexico, additional 10% on China. You get some clues, but you don’t know actually what will truly end up happening. You can start to think about it but if they actually happen, that’s when I think you start adjusting your models because they will have serious impacts. It’s just I can’t figure out what they are.

Dylan Lewis: Jason, I’m going to flip this one around. What is something you’d rather be talking about this year at the Thanksgiving table?

Jason Moser: Lordy. Let’s talk about how I made my turkey, I think that’s going to be the topic of discussion there. But hey, let’s talk about football. I love college football in the NFL. Listen, I always love talking stocks. We don’t have to talk all of this other nonsense. We can still talk stocks. My wife might not appreciate that.

Dylan Lewis: More on Jason Moser’s turkey recipe in just a little bit. We’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay right here. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money.

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Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I’m Dylan Lewis, joined again by Jason Moser and Ron Gross. Thanksgiving gives us the chance to express some gratitude, and I love taking the chance to appreciate the folks that allow us to do the show, our partner stations all across the country that air the show each week on their radio stations, and you, our listeners for tuning in the dial and on your podcast feeds. Ron, Jason, it’s a bit hard for us to deliver a thank you to dozens, maybe thousands of strangers all around the world. I think our best bet here for expressing gratitude might be to dip into the mailbag and answer some listener questions. How do you feel about?

Jason Moser: I just love it something truly to be thankful for.

Dylan Lewis: Our first one comes from the Motley fool Money Hotline. That’s right. We have a hotline, and it is from Alberto. I’ll let our producer Rick Engdahl run the tape.

Alberto: Hi, this is Alberto from Long Beach again. I’m just calling because I’m going through the CFP process taking classes through their UCLA extension program. This is going to take about two years to fully finish it, maybe get the designation. I was wondering if there are other licenses or designations that one can go for so they can start capitalizing on offering services, either the insurance route, maybe managing somebody’s money, something, maybe a series. If you could just touch upon them and say what options somebody has and the timeline it takes and what one can do with those licenses would be a huge help. I really appreciate everything you guys do. Thank you very much. Hope to hear from me soon.

Dylan Lewis: Alberto is looking to get into the business and wondering about the certifications that are helpful for setting the path to managing money. Ron, I’m going to let you start with this one.

Ron Gross: Sure, Alberto, great question. Insurance is licensed state by state, so there’s not one uniform exam, as far as I know. By the way, check me on all of this, because I may get a little bit of it wrong, but I believe it’s state by state. In terms of providing personalized investment advice or trading in securities for others or selling financial products, if you work for a broker dealer, you’ll ultimately need a Series 7. Now, recently, they broke the Series 7 into two parts, the Securities Industry Essentials exam, the SIE. You can take that even if you’re not affiliated with a broker dealer, even if you’re unemployed, you can get yourself all set up and study and take that. You will then need to be affiliated with a broker dealer to actually take the Series 7 to become a registered representative, but you can get the first SIE part under your bell.

The Series 65 is what lots of financial planners have. You say you’re studying for the CFP. You’ll need the Series 65 if you want to give individuals investment advice or become an investment advisor, and you do not need to be affiliated with a registered investment advisor or an RIA to sit for that license, so that might be something you want to do. CFP is a great idea. It’s a very strong designation. Chartered financial analysts, CFA is great if you’re going to go into portfolio management or money management.

Dylan Lewis: Jason, I know you came to the fool with a different career shift and maybe not the more traditional financial analyst route. It might be interesting to hear about that a little bit too.

Jason Moser: Well, the only initials I ever had after my name were PGA. I was a PGA member as a club professional for a number of years but everything went back to I graduated from Watford College in 1995 with an economics degree. I’ve always had the interest in finance and economics and money and whatnot. My dad piqued my interest in investing when I was just a kid and it was funny. We were overseas for a stretch of time for my wife’s work, and we were in Kostanay Kazakhstan, of all places. As you can imagine, it was quite chilly one day and I was just inside surfing around the Internet, and I ran across a Fool article, and that’s where I discovered the Motley Fool. From there, things just snowballed to me. It became very clear to me that I had found my tribe. This was just people that think the same way I think long term investing, business focused. To me, it was just interesting and educational so I started out as a member, plain and simple. I started out as a member. I was very active on the discussion boards and just learning more and made some connections within the company along the way and was able, ultimately to parlay that into a position with the company and the analyst development program that we have. Frankly, the Analyst development program that we have, which is a homegrown program that we administer, it was super educational and really taught me a lot about investment analysis and ultimately what I’ve been so fortunate to continue to do to this day.

Dylan Lewis: We’ve got another one from the hotline, and just a reminder, listeners, our number is 703-254-1445. This one comes from Spencer in Los Angeles. Rick, roll the tape.

Spencer: Hey, what’s up, fellow Fools? This is Spencer from Los Angeles. I was always curious. When you’re referring to percentage allocation of your portfolio, whether that’s an initial investment or a percentage, that is a sleep number, if you will, where you know a certain number where you want to sell a stock. My question is, are you just looking at one brokerage account individually or a collection of a brokerage account, an IRA, is real estate that you might own considered another component of that? If you own real estate, would that increase your Pi number and thus, 30% of NVIDIA stock would be less of a percentage of your Pi if you have real estate incorporated in something like that or additional accounts. Long winded question, but very curious. Thank you.

Dylan Lewis: Love that question. I don’t think it’s long winded at all. I think there’s a perfect context in there. Jason, I’m curious when you are looking at the size of an individual position, are you looking at it within the context of your brokerage account? Are you looking at it within the context of your overall financial picture?

Jason Moser: Yes, an excellent question, Spencer and thanks so much. For me, this basically boils down to a question of assets versus investments. In short, I consider all of my portfolios. I’ve got 401(k) with work, and I’ve got a traditional IRA, and then I’ve got a discretionary portfolio that’ve been running for a while. I do have a number of different equity portfolios, but I consider everything in the context of those in total. I don’t consider real estate in that picture, because our real estate, in this case, it’s not primarily an investment. It’s our shelter, it’s where we live. Now, I do consider our equity that we own in our home, an asset. Don’t get me wrong. At some point when we decide to move and our girls graduate college, hopefully we’ll be able to use all of that equity to ultimately fund the purchase of our next home and take out little to no mortgage whatsoever. We can all hope. Cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, I will say, if I owned investment real estate, I would definitely view it differently and we have owned investment real estate before. I think it just depends on that position.

Jason Moser: Your particular situation there, but that’s how I view it, question of assets versus investments.

Dylan Lewis: I like your answer there, Jason, and I think one of the things that comes to mind when I think about money that is in real estate is liquidity, as well.

Jason Moser: Yeah, that’s the point.

Dylan Lewis: That’s a little bit more access to that money that’s in the market or in funds than you might a home that you live in.

Jason Moser: Yes, real estate’s liquid, to the extent that you can borrow against it, but you’re still borrowing.

Dylan Lewis: Ron, anything to add to that one?

Ron Gross: I agree with everything Jason said. I consolidate all of my various accounts to one so I can look at my Costco position across accounts and see what allocation it is in total. I do not count hard assets like real estate as part of the allocation. When we talk about allocation, let’s say we say 5% allocation to Costco, that’s where we either want to own it ourselves or have our members own it. But then the market will move that allocation around. Stocks go up and stocks go down not only in that one company, but in all the companies you own, and that’s going to go to 4.5%, 5.5%, 9%, 10%, hopefully, higher and higher if it’s a good stock, and at some point, you want to rebalance. Once this company becomes too big a piece of your portfolio and you either not sleeping at night because there’s too much risk associated with it, or if you just don’t love it as much for it to be 10%, but you’re more comfortable with five, then there’s nothing wrong with rebalancing and selling some, or even if you think it’s completely overvalued and not going to return anything worthy in the future, selling it all.

Dylan Lewis: Ron, I think that trip to Costco has taken you from a fan that is thankful to full on Evangelist. [laughs] This is the second time it’s come up on today’s show. You are a change man. This next one comes to us via email or maybe you can reach us radio at fool.com. Ed writes in. Hey, fools, we’re in the thick of holiday shopping season. I hear you guys talk about how it is Retail’s big season. Do you weigh the results that retailers put up in the holidays more when you’re looking at a retailer and the management team’s track record? Ron, you’ve been talking retail a lot on today’s show. Target, Costco. Does this factor in as you’re looking at company results?

Ron Gross: Absolutely. It’s called Black Friday for a reason because it’s historically the day that a retailer goes from losing money, being in the red to making money and being in the black. It’s not as important as it used to be, but it’s still pretty important and the holiday season is where many retailers make the most of their money in any given year. It is very important to their overall results. Companies are reporting all over the place. Call’s not so good, Target not so good, Walmart just fine. Others are doing well. But it is a very important part of the revenue and earnings picture of pretty much every retailer, the holiday season, very important.

Dylan Lewis: Jason, I know you follow some retailers as well. How does the holiday season factor in for you?

Jason Moser: Yes, I feel like we need to introduce some bed or gambling component to this. Like Black Friday over the years, it’s expanded. It’s extended far beyond just like this weekend that it used to be. Now Black Friday is essentially right after Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve. At what point does Black Friday enter October? Now, I’m going to set the over-under. I’m going to set we over under at 2030. By the year 2030, we will see Black Friday enter October. Are you guessing before that or after that? I don’t know. Just something to think about. Because, yes, I agree the holiday season is tremendous for these retailers. It’s something that they’re planning all year for, and rightly so, because that’s when spending really happens. For me, a lot of times when I’m looking at these retailers, particularly to see how they’ve done over the course of the holiday season, I like to look at not only the top-line growth, we want to see actually growth in that particular quarter, see how it reflects over the course of the whole year.

But also, I think another thing to keep in mind is looking at the margin picture, especially the gross margin, because ultimately, a lot of these companies, more and more, we’re seeing these retailers, they resort big time sales, which is nothing new, all of these companies do it for this Black Friday period of time. But that comes at a cost. It comes at a cost on that gross margin picture. I think it’s interesting to look at how these retailers are performing in regard to that gross margin, to see how those pricing strategies are really working out. We know that the larger retailers are able to cope with that a little bit better, bringing those savings back down to the bottom line simply due to their scale.

Ron Gross: Holiday earnings in the aggregate are not expected to be very strong this season for a lot of reasons we’ve been talking about where the consumer in certain circumstances is hurting. It will be very interesting to watch. If it’s better than expected, then watch these retailers really perform. If it’s as expected, we’ll probably get some a lackluster situation in terms of stocks, but it will be very interesting to see, as well as the forward guidance for the coming year. That’s always an important metric that we get around now, as well.

Dylan Lewis: Speaking of the holidays, we got a particularly fun question over on Twitter. This one comes to us from Neil in Rockville. Hey, Conviction Hold. That’s Jason Moser on Twitter. Need to tap in one of your superpowers. My wife wants to spatchcock our turkey this year, and I just heard you on Motley Fool Money. Any recommended videos or info on site to do this properly? Planning on convection roasting, not grilling. Jason, I think this is probably the question you’ve looked forward to most on today’s show. Have at it. How are you cooking the turkey today?

Jason Moser: Well, I just love spatchcocking, because so many people think it’s a bad word when actually, one of the greatest ways to cook a bird. You’re essentially cutting out the backbone, flattening out the bird, whether it’s a turkey or a chicken, and it just cooks more evenly. It makes for a better dining experience. But I’m going to be spatchcocking our turkey on the Trager this year, smoking that thing low and slow. I think a lot of people ask this question. Do you brine your turkey? Do you not brine your turkey? You know what? I do brine it, but Dylan, I’m dry brining. I’m not going with the wet bran. Wet brines too much work. You got to have a big tub and all that water. Dry, Brian. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it. You’ll learn something.

Dylan Lewis: Or just reach out to him on Twitter. Easy enough. He is happy to answer all your culinary questions there. Ron, Neil, and Rockville did not ask for your approach this Thanksgiving, but I will. You are known for your culinary feats, as well. What are you cooking up this Thanksgiving?

Ron Gross: Neil’s a buddy. I think he can. [laughs] We are traveling this season, so I can’t do too much of it, but I am in charge of the sweet potato pie. Now, in my family, the sweet potato pie is served hot with the meal, not cold as a dessert. Very important. Melted marshmallows on top. It takes the place of sweet potatoes or even a mashed potato, but we have those as well. I’ll be doing the sweet potato pies, and that with a little bit of stuffing mixed in, a little bit of turkey, of course, on the fork. That’s your perfect bite.

Dylan Lewis: Sounds absolutely delicious. Wish I was at the Gross Household or the Moser household. You guys are both putting out quite a feast. Wrapping us up here, Mike B wrote us a note via the comments feature in Spotify, and I have to air this one because I’ve got you guys on the show with me. Ron Gross and Jamo, this combo will yield a top 10 podcast. It is the winning formula, rinse and repeat. I’m guessing Mike will be a fan of this episode, and I am a fan of having both you guys here. Listeners really appreciate you guys writing in, tuning in, doing all you can. We’ll be right back in a little bit. We’ve got radar stocks coming up a second. Stay right here. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money

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I’m Dylan Lewis, joined again by Ron Gross and Jason Moser. If you are a fan of movies, last year’s Thanksgiving box office was a bit of a downer. Only pulled in around 125 million, but things are looking up this year, Gents. Disney’s Moana 2 projects to beat that total by itself. The sequel is hitting theaters Wednesday and expecting a poll in somewhere north of $135 million. There will be some other heavy hitters in the lineup this year. We have musical/Book Adaptation Wicked. We have the long awaited sequel Gladiator 2 hitting the big screens. Jason, are you seeing any of these movies with your family while everyone’s home?

Jason Moser: Got to admit it, and I’m pretty uninspired here. I will give credit where credit’s due. I think with Wikis. Listen, I had the good fortune of seeing that on Broadway several years back with our girls. That was a tremendous experience and a wonderful production. I just don’t understand how the movie can top that. Frankly, here it’s like three hours long, so hard pass. Gladiator. Hey, listen, I love that movie. Gladiator 2, looks like it’s all AI out. I think maybe I would at least go see Moana with the kids because that would just take me back to a day when they were just little girls, and we had so much fun doing all of those little things together. But any which way you cut it, I guess it could be a better holiday season.

Dylan Lewis: Ron, you grabbing any popcorn?

Ron Gross: I actually don’t think I am, Dylan, but I feel like I’ve seen wicked because my daughter who’s home for the holidays went and saw it two days ago, and she will not stop singing the songs. In fact, I had to say I’m going on the radio show. I got to stop singing. It’s going to get picked up in the mic. I feel like I’m there. I don’t need to go there for three hours.

Dylan Lewis: I have a feeling I will be there for three hours. I have a feeling that is in my future for Thanksgiving. Let’s get over to stocks on our radar. Or man behind the glass Rick Engdahl is going to hit you with a question. Ron, you’re up first. What are you looking at this week?

Ron Gross: Garrett Motion, GTX, is what my friend Bill Mann calls an orphaned spin off operating in a dying industry with complex financials and a recent bankruptcy. What is not to love, Dylan? It’s fantastic, but our value Hunters service does think it’s an interesting devalue candidate. They supply turbochargers and electric vehicle power trains for passenger cars, small trucks. It was spun out of Honeywell International. That’s HON. They did have to file bankruptcy because they were saddled with asbestos liabilities as part of that spin off. But now back, now they’re back public. Things are looking better. They still have a lot of debt, but they’re paying that down. They’re making money. We’ve got a high performing company with low expectations, trades at only five times free cash flow. Could be interesting. I’m going to maybe take a nibble, but I’ve got some more work to do.

Dylan Lewis: Rick, a question about Garrett Motion.

Rick Engdahl: Ron, you had me at Dying Industry. Is that something you look for as a value investor? I’m not a value investor myself.

Ron Gross: If you’re going for deep value, it’s sometimes you look for the ugly.

Dylan Lewis: Jason, you might have an easy hurdle to clear this week. What are you looking at?

Jason Moser: Yes, one of my favorite tickers out there, Samsara, ticker is IOT. Company recommended back in February 2023, and it’s rewarded our members up since then, 240%. Remember, this is a company they operate the connected Operations Cloud that connects all of the IoT devices that a company has, and ultimately just a business that continues to perform very well. Most recent quarter saw revenue growth at 37%, annualized recurring revenue growth at 36% and a 41% jump in large customers. They have another earnings release coming out on December 5th, that’s one I’m following.

Dylan Lewis: Rick, I think I can speak pretty comfortably here. Are you going with Samsara as your [inaudible]?

Rick Engdahl: Samsara has been Jmo’s radar stocks so many times. I keep having to come up with questions for it, and I just wonder when it gets off the radar and onto your actual portfolio. Does that ever happen?

Jason Moser: No questions needed.

Dylan Lewis: The tickers just too good. It speaks for itself. Jason, Ron, appreciate you bringing the radar stocks, and thankful for Rick Engdahl behind the glass, putting the show together. That’s going to do it for this week’s Motley Fool Money radio show. Show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. I’m Dylan Lewis. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.