Jason Moser (3:40)

I think that makes sense. I think it definitely, it's in line with what Meta has been trying to do, particularly you look at their AI strategy, for example. I mean what they've been doing with their llama models and whatnot. I mean they're trying to kind of be the underlying software to, for people to create, whereas Apple operates in a little bit more of a walled garden, so to speak. A lot of this, the bigger opportunity here, A lot of this just reminds me of what Elon Musk said on Tesla's recent call here. He was talking about he thinks there's a path for Tesla to become worth more than the next top five companies combined. Now he qualified that with saying, you know, this is a very difficult path. It's not, you know, a done deal, but he could see it. But the key to that path was through autonomous vehicles and autonomous humanoid robots. And so it doesn't surprise me to see Meta and Apple wanting to sort of pivot in that same direction now in regard to that Apple device, that sort of robot iPad thing. I think you're right. I mean I, I look at that and I think this is really neat technology. It's amazing. Most of this technology, to me it's all magic, it's just phenomenal, but doesn't seem like it really solves a problem. And it's like much of what they do these days, it's Just amazing technology, but it doesn't really solve a problem. It gives us a different way to do things, but that's not always necessarily so convenient. And I think that's where Apple and others have been kind of spinning their wheels for a bit now. On the flip side, I do think there are potential massive industrial applications here. And so I think about all of the work I've done over the past five, six years in regard to immersive technology, for example, and I think with immersive technology a lot of the focus was on how is this going to impact the consumer, us as the mass consumer. And we're not quite there yet. Right. The headset battles are still going on, we're still trying to figure out exactly how we're supposed to use these things on a day to day basis. And the answer is not clear at all. But there are a lot of industrial implications, applications that are already playing out right now. And so I think it's fair for investors to say, look, there is a consumer side to this, but there's also an industrial side to this. And kind of reminds me of the fire phone that Amazon put out a while back. It seemed like a dud from the get go but you know, they're going to learn some lessons from it. And so maybe with Apple and this sort of robot iPad device, maybe it's not something that really keys in on the mass consumer but, but maybe they take some lessons from this and it gives them some industrial opportunities that, that, that can make a difference down the road.

Ricky Mulvey (6:27)

I think that's going to be the most clear with Meta, at least right now as they're looking into immersive tech. And a lot of investors have wondered why are you spending so much on reality labs and in studying how human hands move, they're spending billions of dollars on reality labs for this immersive tech for humans. But if you're studying it that close, can apply it to robotics for the software, maybe eventually even the hardware of building humanoid robots. This might be the kind of thing where 10, 10 years from now, Jason, we're looking at a case study of how a mistake became a billion dollar opportunity or whatever for Meta.

Jason Moser (7:02)

I think that's a great point. And I mean there's no accident that all of these great companies are studying all of these phenomenal technologies. Right? It's no accident that they're studying this stuff. So I mean you have to take that into consideration as well. There's something that will come from all of this. Granted it might little time but, but my Suspicion is there will be some world changing stuff that eventually comes.

Ricky Mulvey (7:23)

What's it going to take for you to get a humanoid robot in the Moser household? What's, what's your bar? What's your bar for that?

Jason Moser (7:29)

I don't even have a bar. I thought about this before. I love technology. Remember I was one of the first to get an Alexa. I was just excited to see that technology kind of going back to that, like, what problem does it really solve? I just don't have any interest in some creepy robots skulking around my house at all hours. Ricky. I have a hard enough time trusting our cat isn't going to off me in middle of the night while I'm sleeping. Now, with that said, that's just me, right? I don't consider myself a proxy for what most people want. In fact, often I think I'm probably the opposite. But these are big ticket items and I think that's something to keep in mind as well.

Ricky Mulvey (8:05)

You love cooking. Let's say there's something you don't love in the kitchen. Maybe it's, maybe it's peeling garlic. It gets stuck everywhere as you're trying to chop it and mince it. You can outsource that now or soon to your humanoid robot showing up to your house.

Jason Moser (8:18)

I mean, it's compelling. It's compelling.

Ricky Mulvey (8:21)

Let's get into Adyen. So we're coming off this wave of a big earnings week. Do you look at the war on cash? You think about payments companies and I wanted to look at a company that I own for selfish reasons, and that's Adyen, which is a behind the scenes payment processor for big companies. Think Intuit in Adobe. They're using audience technology to do their payment solutions. They report every half year is a European company. And what they found is that revenue and processed volume grew by more than 20%. Audience investors sure were happy with these results. Results a lot happier than PayPal's investors were with PayPal's results. But as you dug into the earnings this morning, jmo, what'd you find?

Jason Moser (9:00)

It seems to be on the right track in, in what is clearly a very competitive space. I mean, I like what Adyen does in, in focusing on trying to, to bring this, this sort of singular solution to the payments industry. I like the fact that they focus on these big ticket customers because there's a lot of money that can be made there. Of course you sacrifice a little bit there on pricing, but we'll have to see how that plays out. There's been a big question in regard to, over the recent past years, just in regard to margins and intake rates. But I think the numbers as you said for the, for the second half, 2024, very encouraging. Net revenue up 22% from a year ago. Process volume up 22%. And they noted that was actually 28% excluding a single large volume customer. But we're going to go with 22%. Ricky thought it was really great to see ebitda close to 570 million euros up 35% from a year ago. And I thought this was to me what stood out because this has been a big question over the last several quarters just in regard to that EBITDA margin. Even a margin came in there at 53%. That was compared to 48% from a year ago. Now that was due to basically two things. We saw some strong top line growth with a scalable business coupled with less hiring than they've seen in previous periods. So they're becoming a little bit more efficient and, and they're making a little bit more with the money that they're making, which I think is encourag.

Ricky Mulvey (10:25)

There's one metric I want to get into because not all companies report this. I thought it was interesting to brag about this, Jason, but the shareholder letter is promoting that Adyen has a net promoter score of 66. And essentially net promoter score is how likely are you to recommend this business to a friend? If you think of companies like Amazon prime high net promoter score or even Chewy when they've reported that has been a pretty high net promoter score, Jason, 66 seems. Is that low. 66 seems low.

Jason Moser (10:57)

I know everybody asks like is that good? Is that bad? I mean it requires you to kind of dig in there and understand a little bit about what the net promoter score actually is. And so to clarify, you know this net promoter score, the nps, you're calculating this based on the answer to one key question. And it's using a 0 to 10 scale. How likely is that you would recommend this particular brand to a friend or a colleague? And you can score it in one of three groups. Promoters are considered scoring 9 to 10, passives score 7 to 8, detractors score 0 to 6. And then ultimately the calculation is subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters that ultimately yields the net promoter score. Now that, that can range from a low, an absolute low of minus 100 to a perfect score of 100, which is really unheard of. But I just, I thought it was interesting to look this up that the creators of the net promoter score, It's Bain & Co. And they suggest this framework where they say a score above 0 is good, a score above 20 is favorable, a score above 50 is excellent, and then a score above 80 is world class. So we can see where Adyen is concerned. It seems like based on the numbers, they're not doing too bad.

Ricky Mulvey (12:22)

Okay, so we're going to negative. See, that's, we're going to negative 100. You think it'd be 0 to 100, but you start working in those negative numbers, it can get a little tricky. 66, it's actually, it's actually good. Let's move on to our final story, which is another one from last week that we're picking up in this post President's Day a segment. And that's Berkshire. They released their buys and sells. In the latest 13F statement. A closely watched SEC filing to see what Warren Buffett and his lieutenants Ted Wexler and Todd Combs are up to. And Jason, this is what they're up to over the past quarter. They seem to be trimming. Not seem to be, they are trimming their big banks holdings. Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup. And meanwhile, looks like Buffett's throwing an outdoor barbecue. He's getting Domino's Pizza. He's getting some beer with Constellation Brands. And what's a barbecue without a pool? He's grabbing some Pool Corp, Pool Corp, which does a lot of like maintenance and services for pools. Let's start with the banks though. What's going on with these banks numbers? Seems like Buffett's getting a little pessimistic on that.

Jason Moser (13:27)

That could be the case. I mean he's, he's done very well with these holdings for the most part. And I think that's something to keep in mind. This could be a testament that maybe they feel like the, the economy in the near term might be a little bit more challenged in the interest rate environment. May a little bit, a little bit higher than perhaps they were thinking previously before. But, but I mean it's, it's worth noting too. I mean he's held bank of America for some time and has done very well with it. So, so trying to sort of take some of those gains and be a little bit more productive with them makes, makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't read too much into it, but I mean it is, it is something to think about for sure.

Ricky Mulvey (14:04)

I mean, I want to, I want to look into these tea leaves. He wants to throw a party. He's Doing pizza, beer and pools. What's going on here?

Jason Moser (14:11)

I love, I love pizza and beer. Right? It's a great combo. I, I absolutely see the love for adding to Domino's. I mean, it's really a tremendous operator in its space. I mean, we know obviously, pizza, what Domino's does so well. I mean, they, they really, they execute so well, not only on the delivery side, but on the pickup side as well. And, and I mean, being an international business, and I think generally speaking, when you have sort of that brand identity and you have the control over that company that they do, you can maintain some quality in regard to the end product. And that matters a lot. In regard to Constellation, I think that really, to me, that strikes me as a big value play given how the company is performed over the last year or so. When you look at the results, it's been very encouraging. They've been able to capitalize on Bud Light's misfortunes. Modelo Especial has been performing very well. They noted they grew depletions there with that franchise over 3% last quarter. And it's upheld its position as the top sharing gainer in the U.S. both companies pay very nice, nice dividends, which I think is encouraging. And then Pool Corp. Another interesting one. I mean, it's, it seems like a very Buffett style investment. Hey, everybody loves pools, right? It's, it's big business. They're the leader in the space. The stock has had a very tough year. And while it's worth noting, this is not one that lights the world on fire. A lot of of the challenges we've seen have been in discretionary spend here recently. We'll just have to see how that plays out. But, but, yeah, interesting picks.

Ricky Mulvey (15:42)

And for the stock investors looking at that, maybe looking to follow in Buffett's lead a little bit, are there any overall retail lessons for investors like you and me who are looking at what Berkshire is doing?

Jason Moser (15:54)

For me, the perpetual lesson here is that it's always fascinating to see what smart and prudent investors are doing, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily be doing it too. There is a very big difference between what I'm personally trying to accomplish versus what they are. And of course, we're all trying to make money at the end of the day, but we're in very different boats and we have very different goals. And so I think that's always just something to keep in mind is their actions, while interesting, doesn't necessarily mean we need to mimic them because we need to take into consideration our ultimate goal as individual investors as well.

Ricky Mulvey (16:34)

Jason Moser, your action is always interesting to me. Thanks for being here. Appreciate your time and your insight.

Jason Moser (16:39)

Thank you.

Allison Southwick (16:43)

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Ricky Mulvey (17:19)

All right, up next, Allison Southwick and Robert Brocamp take on your questions about saving for kids and starting a 401k at your workplace.

Robert Brocamp (17:35)

Our first question comes from Vinny. Hi Allison and bro, thank you for your always excellent advice and perspective on preparing for retirement. Aw, thanks Vinnie. Bro's gonna go take a victory lap. All right, he's back. All right, Vinnie writes, My wife and I welcomed our first child and future fool into our family over the weekend. Wow. Congrats, Vinn. Awesome. And we want to start investing on his behalf as soon as we can. We want to use the money for education and to set him up for the long term. You've covered at length the 529 and brokerage account options, but we have issues with all of them. We want to control our investments. We don't trust that if the 529 funds convert into Roth IRA will stick. We don't want to give over control of a custodial account at 18 and would prefer if we could make the account tax advantaged somehow. All that to say we don't love our options. Can you please compare and contrast the plans and maybe jump into any plans accounts that I'm missing here. Thanks.

Unnamed Speaker (18:31)

Well, Vinnie, first of all, congrats on the newborn child and the new adventure. It's going to be a lot of fun. Secondly, you say you want to use the money for education and to set your son up for the long term. Those are somewhat different goals depending on how you define setting the kid up for the long term. But maybe we'll talk a little bit about that. And thirdly, frankly, none of these options are going to satisfy all your criteria. So let's just do a really quick lightning round of your options and pros and cons and you can decide which has the pros that most outweigh the cons for your situation. So for saving for college, by far the most popular option is the 529 plan. The pros money grows tax free if used for qualified education accounts very high contribution limits. It varies by state, but we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly a deduction on the state income tax return if it's opened and owned by the parent or grandparent, it's considered their asset, not the kids. And that's beneficial when it comes to applying for financial aid. And any unused money can be transferred to any other eligible relative to a Roth IRA if certain conditions are met. Now you say you don't think that's going to last. I've not heard that it's going to be eliminated, but sure, it could possibly happen. And you definitely do have to meet the criteria. The account has to be open for 15 years. You can't move over money that's been contributed over the last five years. So there are definitely a lot of rules around that. Now, there are really only two main cons to the 529, and that is you can only invest in mutual funds. So if you love stocks, you can't do that. And the investments can only be changed twice a year. You know, if you're a long term investor, that's no big deal. But you don't have a lot of flexibility. But if you don't like that or if you're looking for other options, another option is the Coverdell Education Savings Account. The pro of the Coverdell is that you can invest in stocks. And like the 529, the withdrawals are tax free if used for qualified education expenses. The downside is very low annual contribution limit, just $2,000, although there's still time to make a contribution for 2024, you have until April 15th and you can't contribute if you earn above a certain amount of money. That starts to phase out at $95,000. For singles, 100,000 do $90,000. If you're married, though, you can get around that by gifting the money to somebody else and then they make the contribution. And with the Coverdell, the money must be used by age 30. It can be transferred to another relative, not to a Roth ira. All right, so let's talk about some other options that you touched on as well. So you could open a brokerage account owned by the kid. This is an UTMA or an ugma. The main advantage is there's some tax advantages. There's a certain level of interest in capital gains and investment income that is tax free to kids or taxed at a low rate. The downside as you touched on, is the kid does get control at the age of majority. It depends on your state, but eventually they do get it and you have to hope that they're responsible with it and it is considered an asset of the kid, which will have a more harmful effect on financial aid eligibility when they go to college. Now you could instead have a brokerage account that's owned by the parents. That way you maintain control and then you just gift the investments to your son when you think he's ready. And you could do it all at once or just gradually over time. And it's your asset asset of the parent. So it does not have assets much of an effect on financial eligibility. The downside is you will owe all the taxes on the investment income, capital gains, or whatever else is going on in that account for as long as you own it. And then the last thing I will highlight is the Roth ira. So this is the thing, like if you really want to set your son up for being financially secure in the long run, do a Roth IRA. It grows tax free if left alone until age 59 and a half. And you can take some money tax and penalty free out beforehand for qualified higher education expenses. You can always take out the contributions tax and penalty free for any reason. And then the withdrawals for higher education expenses will be free of the 10% early distribution penalty. The downside is the kid has to have earned income, right? So unless your newborn is already working, they're probably not earning money. There are people who try to get creative with this, so maybe they have a business, they take a picture of their kid, they put it on their business website, and then they pay their kid a modeling fee. There's all kinds of funny ways that people try to get around it, but they do have to have earned income. And like the regular brokerage account, it is their money so they can control at the age of majority. So all this to say there's no perfect solution. But it's also not an either or decision. You could choose two or three or more of these options. And regardless of which you choose, your son is very lucky that you and your spouse are already thinking about his financial future. Just know that everything I discussed here is just the basics. To learn more about all these options, especially when it comes to paying for college, visit savingforcollege.com Our next question comes from Brett.

Robert Brocamp (22:53)

My question is about valuations, the price to earnings ratio or pe. To be specific, I read an article some years back about investors being price anchored to PE when they first started investing. If you look back 100 years or so, you'll see spikes above 20 were rare until the 90s. And from then on, PE ratios continue to climb steadily. My question is, can PE ratios be affected by inflation like every other good whose price climbs? Why wouldn't valuations be more expensive over time? Does that correlation stick?

Unnamed Speaker (23:25)

Well, Brett, I would say that the E in the pe, the earnings are definitely affected by inflation. Right? Earnings are profits. Right. And profits are what you charge for revenue minus the cost of doing whatever you do to make a business. And if inflation is higher, the inputs into your business are higher, which could reduce earnings. On the other hand, if a company can increase the prices above the rate of inflation, then earnings will benefit. But inflation doesn't really explain why people are willing to pay more for earnings over the past few decades, which is the P and the P E ratio. But there are a few theories for why over the last 20 to 30 years, P Es have risen. One is that it's because interest rates have been really low, which can be good for stocks because loans are cheaper to the business and there's not as much competition from cash and bonds. Interest rates have gone up over the past year or so, but they're still very low compared to what they were in the 80s and 70s. Another possible reason suggested by Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel is that investing is now easier and cheaper. You can invest with the click of a button, and you don't have to work with a stockbroker. Siegel says that commissions and bid ask spreads used to reduce the returns. Someone earned by 1 to 2% a year, whereas now transaction costs are virtually nothing. Plus, tax rates are lower now, so stocks deserve a higher premium, according to Siegel. And finally, there's just more demand for stocks, largely thanks to the popularization of 401 s and IRAs over the past 40 years. According to the Federal Reserve, less than 10% of households owned stocks in the early 1980s compared to more than 50% today. So plenty of possible reasons for why PEs have mostly been higher in the 2000s, but it's not likely due to inflation.

Robert Brocamp (25:03)

Kat writes. Does a stock's price go down proportionately to cover a dividend payment, or is it just a reaction from the investing community?

Unnamed Speaker (25:11)

Well, Kat, I think the answer is both. The price does go down proportionately, but it's due to a reasonable price adjustment that is basically demanded by the investment community. So when a company pays a dividend, it's essentially distributing one of its assets, in this case cash. And after the company distributes an asset worth millions of dollars and in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, the price of the stock should adjust because the company is no longer worth as much. Here's generally when you'll see it happen. When a company declares a dividend, they will also declare a record date, which is when you have to be a shareholder of record to get the dividend. And in most cases the record date will also be the ex dividend date. Though sometimes ex dividend date is a before you have to own the stock before the ex dividend date to get the dividend. So that ex dividend date is generally when you'll see most of the adjustment to the stock price, because anyone who buys it on that date or later won't get the dividend. If the dividend is small, it may be hard to tell whether any of the price movements are due to payout or just regular market noise. But it's a higher yielding stock you're looking at or a higher yielding fund such as a bond fund, you'll see a much more noticeable price adjustment on that ex dividend date.

Robert Brocamp (26:21)

Our next question comes from Jonathan. Hi Allison and bro. I've been a longtime listener. Back when you had your own show, I even sent you a postcard at one point. Oh, Jonathan, I still have that postcard somewhere.

Unnamed Speaker (26:31)

I'm sure it is somewhere.

Robert Brocamp (26:32)

Yeah, we have hundreds and hundreds of them from listeners. Thank you. All right. Jonathan writes, my mom passed away in 2023 and we, my sister and I sold her house in Arlington, Virginia in 2024. We hired a CPA to handle the taxes for the trust and the estate. And they told us that as the beneficiaries we should expect to receive a form from both the estate and trust. What exactly is the K1 form and how will that affect my personal income taxes?

Unnamed Speaker (26:58)

There are a couple of versions of the K1. A couple of those versions are for businesses. So that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the K1 that is specifically for estates and trusts. And you can pull the form up on the Internet and you'll see basically you have, especially with the trust, you'll have a share of any of the income that is distributed by the trust. And the K1 will say how much of it is yours and how it should be categorized. So if you look at the K1 form, you'll see different lines for interest income, ordinary dividends, qualified dividends, short term gains, long term gains, and then you basically take that information and put it on your income tax return when you file your taxes. Generally speaking, there aren't that many taxes related to the estate because one of the jobs of an executor is to pay the estate's taxes before the money is distributed. But since your CPA said you might get something, keep an eye out for it. I would just say, you know, since you have any cpa, you might want to get help from that CPA to know where to enter the information on your tax return. And if you use any sort of tax prep software, you probably could do an online search for how they handle information you receive from a K1 next.

Robert Brocamp (28:06)

Question comes from Mason My workplace, a nonprofit does not offer a 401k. How have you seen workers effectively advocate for one? Who should I tell the director to go to in order to start one?

Unnamed Speaker (28:17)

Well, like I said, I would say the first thing to do is talk to the director about why they don't offer one. You want to understand what the limitation is. It might be just that they're not particularly savvy about investments or retirement or anything like that, or benefits. A lot of small companies, a lot of small nonprofits are very good people who started their companies or nonprofits for good reasons, but they're actually not that aware of how to do all this. So just find out why they don't and then explain why you want 1. Why it's good for the organization. Right. It's a retention tool. It keeps employees, attracts employees. And it's good for the director too, if the director works for the nonprofit. And then knowing that criteria, maybe help doing some of the research. Nonprofits are generally associated with 403s, but a few changes over the past couple of years have made it easier for nonprofits to have a 401k. So you don't have to limit yourself to the 403. If it comes down to cost and administrative overhead, perhaps the easiest choice might be what's called a nonprofit non ERISA 403. ERISA is ERISA. It's referencing a law that was passed in 1974 that basically regulates retirement plans by making it a non ERISA 403. That'll be easier and cheaper to operate, but it has some drawbacks, such as there is not as much protections for the workers and the employer can't offer a match. But it might be better than offering nothing.

Ricky Mulvey (29:41)

If you've got a question for the show, email us@podcastsitfull.com that is podcasts with an S@fool.com as always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about. And the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So, no buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley fool only picks products that would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.