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Palantir’s Valuation Question
00:27:54
When a stock trades at 600x trailing earnings and 90x sales, its investors want to see a flawless growth story.
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- [00:00]
Ricky Mulvey
Foreign, 600 times trailing earnings. Well, you got a high bar. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined today by Sandmeet Dea Sanmeat. Thanks for being here. Good to see you.
- [00:25]
Sandmeet Dea
Hey, good seeing you, Rick.
- [00:27]
Ricky Mulvey
We've got some earnings to break down. The biggest story today is Palantir. And there are two stories with this company anytime you talk about it. One is the actual business. The second is the stock, because expectations for this company are absolutely incredible. Palantir, this is the company offering artificial intelligence platforms to the US Federal government and private enterprises. Some of its relationships with the federal government getting it into some controversial waters lately. Not that CEO Alex Karp really minds that. The other is the results. Let's talk about the results. Total revenue up almost 40% year on year. Majority of that growth coming from the United States. Net income up 24%. That net income number, not sounding like a number of a company trading. It's 600 times trailing earnings. But. All right. And here is where some investors and traders have noticed a little bit of pessimism, and that is international commercial revenue, which declined 5%. Sand meat, when you were breaking down the earnings here, what did you see in the actual business results?
- [01:30]
Sandmeet Dea
I actually liked it. I thought there was a ton of great growth here. One of the things I liked the most was that they just generated a bunch of cash flow. Their cash from operations were 310 million, representing a 35% margin. Adjusted free cash flow is 370 million, representing a 42% free cash flow margin. I mean, 42% free cash flow margin. Let that sink in a bit.
- [01:53]
Ricky Mulvey
Alex Karp's commentary noting, as you said, Palantir is on fire right now, the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. But when we looked at international, that's where Europe is going through, quote, a very structural change and doesn't quite get AI. Maybe in the near future, we'll get AI, end quote. So let's talk about that European story. That's what investors are really responding to here. You think this is a hiccup or is it a real problem for Palantir's growth story?
- [02:20]
Sandmeet Dea
Yeah. So just for some context here, you know, 72% of Palantir's business in the United States with about 10% in the UK and the rest of it being in the rest of the world. So Europe is not a huge portion of their business now. It could be a big opportunity for them for sure. And so while it's concerning, I'm not, I'm not. I'M not too concerned about it right now. I mean I've heard, I've also heard those rumblings of Europe not getting AI Europe doesn't, I may offend some people here, but Europe Main doesn't strike me as always having being on the innovative side of technology. They've, they've been a little bit behind and so it could improve. They might jump on quickly. But when you think of AI, you think of the United States and China.
- [03:04]
Ricky Mulvey
As an ASML shareholder. Count me offended. Sandmeat. All right, let's talk about valuation to the extent we can. Before earnings, this was a company trading at 600 times trailing earnings. Ish. Tough to tell when there's so much movement in the stock. But at the time I wrote this, Palantir valuation was about 560 times trailing earnings. So you know, even though it's, it's getting knocked down by the market, there is still a lot of growth priced into this company. And said meet. This is a software company that trades at more than 90 times 7 sales. So on that basis it's the most expensive company in the nasdaq with one exception and that is the now it's just called Strategy Inc. It's the Artist formerly known as Micro Strategy. And now that's more of a bitcoin holding company. Tough to make the comp there. So basically the market is saying that Palantir does not have a lot of competition. It has a really strong moat for its artificial intelligence platform. And maybe, just maybe, this is the next coming of Nvidia. This is the software version of Nvidia and it is going to places that are just unfathomable to any value investor. This is one I've, I've struggled with. I mean it's been on my watch list. But those numbers are, are pretty. No, that's a nosebleed valuation. Are you buying the story that the market is selling here?
- [04:27]
Sandmeet Dea
This is by no means a value investor darling, that's for sure. The market is expecting over the next few years, the market is expecting revenue growth of 31% plus and EPS growth north of 70%. I mean that's, that's very, very lofty indeed. Very, very high expectations. One of the reasons the stock was, is down today is actually down much, much more than even when they opened. But how do you meet those expectations? What is enough when they report, I mean their numbers, you look at them, forget the stock price, forget the valuation. Just the fundamentals are strong. I mean 71% US commercial revenue growth, that's, that's huge. And they're, they're gaining more commercial customers, are gaining more prominence in that area. There's a lot of people that believe Palantir is just a government contractor type software company. But they're expanding and they're expanding fast, as you can see. So difficult to purchase these valuations for anyone that does not have the, the stomach to bear what will eventually be a correction in its price. I mean, we had, we were talking about Cloudflare once and they had hit, I think it was a hundred times sales or something and they flamed out. The thing I see with Palantir versus some other very, very lofty valuations, that this has the potential to be a company that will be a standard when it comes to AI, almost like an AI operating system of sorts for companies. Anecdotal evidence I've seen tells me that when people get into this software, they're keeping it and they're keeping it for a long time and they're using it and they're gaining a lot of value from it. So we're, while it's tough with the valuation, that's really the only thing that holds me back from buying more of this thing.
- [06:06]
Ricky Mulvey
Yeah, if you look at the call, there's customer examples. I think it was Walgreens citing basically hundreds of billions of human decisions that are now going to Palantir's artificial intelligence platform. That, you know, there's going to be a large scale commercialization of this. But man, it's, there's, there's gotta be a lot of it for this valuation to make sense. Let's, let's move on to Celsius. And this is one we enjoy talking about. I'm a shareholder. I know you're a shareholder, but this is one that I'm starting to put on a shorter leash. Sand Meat International sales up more than 40%. But this former growth darling is posting overall sales declines. Sales declines in North America. That's its biggest market. Earnings per share almost cut in half from the prior year. You know, I remember was it six months, a year ago we, we were talking about inventory issues with PepsiCo coming in as a distributor. It's been a while, man. They've been in that relationship for a while. I don't know if we can keep blaming that. So what is happening here with Celsius?
- [07:10]
Sandmeet Dea
A lot of discounting. They're, they're having to use promos to, to sell. The Pepsi issue is still an issue. I, why it hasn't been resolved, why it's not, you know, Pepsi Overstocking, what's going on with that? Didn't really say too much. Even more on the quarter, you know, in terms of earnings, you know they had SGNA costs that were up about 21 while their revenues were down 7% for the quarter. So that's not the kind of of of math that you want for a strong earnings growth. So I was pretty disappointed by this quarter as well. I'm a huge fan of the, the company and the drink too actually. But they did point some tailwinds coming up when it comes to resets in their stocking shelf resets, some new products Alani new coming on the summer season and kind of this is starting to be like more easy comps going forward. So they've cited the tailwinds are coming and so let's see in the next couple quarters if though if they're they're true to their word.
- [08:12]
Ricky Mulvey
Maybe this goes against the, the health promise that it offers but it needs a mixed drink. You've got the Red Bull vodka. I think you need a Celsius cocktail for the summer to get these sales going. But when you were digging through the business results there's a lot of reasons to be pessimistic. You know, you can tell me all you want that you're driving category share growth but if you're losing money that doesn't make me happy as an investor in your company. Any green shoots or anything stand out here that you think is worth talking about?
- [08:40]
Sandmeet Dea
Yeah, I mean like look like if you, if you think about Lonnie new acquisition was, was, was a good acquisition in terms of owning now a another brand in the portfolio whether it's, it's masking the, the weakness in Celsius core brand is another thing. But combined they have a 16.2% dollar share in the energy drink market. So they're still like the number three company in that market. So while you know some of the revenue growth has been weak, some of the sales and, and earnings have been weak, they're still, they're not going anywhere anytime soon. So that keeps gives me some comfort and I think over, over time they are looking to build out and broaden out a portfolio of brands. So I'd be interested to see how they kind of do that as well. And International is growing fast and growing well and I think that could continue.
- [09:34]
Ricky Mulvey
To, to perform the optimistic side of the Alani new acquisition which Aulani Nu is a female focused energy drink that they purchased last quarter. The positive spin is that this makes sense for their category. It's kind of a healthy ish energy drink that fits well within their portfolio of brands. The more pessimistic take is that here is a company struggling to find growth within its core product and now it is maybe overpaying for growth by acquiring another brand in order to become a growth story again. They've had a few months to settle out. This Aulani new acquisition. What needs to happen for this to be a good idea, A good buy for Celsius.
- [10:12]
Sandmeet Dea
You know, Align news. You know they report retail sales growing about 88%. You know, so I'd like to see them continue to, to grow. I mean I, I've been notic. Maybe it's because of this acquisition. I've been noticing a line of new a lot more in, in, in my social feeds and ads and, and whatnot. But it is a very, very popular brand and I think buying the, buying the company really stemmed the serious threat that they posed to Celsius. So I'd like to see more like synergies where it comes to know will Alani news growth be able to help kind of bring that Celsius core brand growth up? Because while there is overlap with, with the demographics, there is still some differences and it could broaden out the distribution and the, the channel synergy. So I'd like to see some of that happening and the share growth to continue.
- [11:00]
Ricky Mulvey
And as we wrap up on this Celsius topic, if you have an open line of communication to CEO John Fieldley, you know, he's still telling investors a growth story, but the results are showing. Maybe this is more of a mature company. Do you think it's time for Celsius maybe to settle down into a more mature place, Start telling investors a cash cow story, start paying a dividend. We're going to focus on buybacks if we think our stock is undervalued. Should it really be settling into life as a mature company or does it still got a growth story left in it?
- [11:33]
Sandmeet Dea
I think it's a little early to, to call itself a cash cow story at this point. You know, they, they definitely probably don't want to do that right after buying a very high growth brand in Aulani New. So you know, they're, they're working really hard to turn around their Celsius core brand and get that, get that going again. So while it could help in the short term, I think they still have a lot more growth ahead of it in terms of like that platform that they're, they're developing and continue to pursue that.
- [12:03]
Ricky Mulvey
We'll wrap up with DoorDash, which also reported swinging to a net income profit. But investors are responding to two acquisitions. We'll look at those in a sec. Right now, the business of DoorDash looking pretty strong. Orders and revenues up about 20% each. And when I look at this company said me, something that's interesting is this could very easily have become sort of a fallen angel from COVID and yet it's still continuing to see orders, revenue and profit rise. What's happening at DoorDash?
- [12:34]
Sandmeet Dea
Yeah, you know, it's a great point because, you know, DoorDash was heavily used during, during COVID and. But the habit is stuck. I mean, there's many of those fallen angels where the habit didn't stick. And I think of peloton as the primary culprit there. But, you know, the convenience and the, the reliability of DoorDash has stuck and more and more people are using it. I mean, teenagers are using. I have my, I have to stop my kids from, from getting on my, my phone and, and ordering cookies from door from DoorDash. So it's become, you know, a staple of our lives now.
- [13:12]
Ricky Mulvey
And the things that investors are responding to are these acquisitions. There's been two of them totaling about $5 billion. You have deliver Roof, which is a delivery service in Europe, in the Middle east, they purchased that or looking to purchase that for about $4 billion. And then a, or like a restaurant tech, restaurant reservation service called 7Rooms for 1.2 billion. That one makes a little bit less sense. But what do you think of these acquisitions? The, the investment community seems to think, you know, you've posted good results, you're swinging to a profit, you're building sales, but maybe you're bringing in some diwersification.
- [13:48]
Sandmeet Dea
With these companies with Deliveroo, they're expanding into their geographic reach. They're getting, you know, nine new markets in, you know, uk, Europe, Middle East, Singapore. I think they're really trying to take on Uber Eats and just E Takeaway. And look, you. There's so many delivery. There were more before, but there's so many delivery apps. And I think it's going to fall out to having a few. And those few are going to be the ones that have scale. Those are the ones that have kind of that customer stickiness that, that habit that's formed by, by using them. You know, just from my own personal experience, I now tend to go to DoorDash more than I go to other apps or Uber Eats. I don't go to some of the older ones or the other ones one because they're gone and two because I just don't see them as a place to go. So I think they're really taking an aggressive push to scale and compete hard with, with the likes of like UberEats and others and gaining that local expertise and, and becoming multi category with delivering not just food but groceries and other things. The 7Rooms acquisition though, yeah that, that makes a little less sense to me. You know some of that the, the reasoning behind that is all right, well now we can, we can, you know, help restaurants with not just delivery but managing on premise and enhancing their content commerce platform, supporting their in restaurant operations. Sounds a little bit more like what Toast is doing. I don't know if they want to get into that. I can see how there's some, some client or segments that they can get into with seven rooms, but do they really need to make a 1.2 billion dollar acquisition to do that? I think that one is a little less reasonable and I don't think that was necessary per se, but we'll see how it goes.
- [15:33]
Ricky Mulvey
We'll leave it there. Sam, mate, Dao, appreciate your time and your insight. Thanks for joining us on Motley Fool Money.
- [15:37]
Sandmeet Dea
Thanks Tricky.
- [15:44]
Cynthia Stewart
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- [16:53]
Ricky Mulvey
Today's show is brought to you by the Range Rover Sport. The old adage goes, it isn't what you say, it's how you say it. Because to truly make an impact, you need to set an example. You need to take the lead and adapt to whatever comes your way. And when you're that driven, you drive an equally determined vehicle, the Range Rover Sport. Blending power, poise and performance, like you, it was designed to make an impact. The vehicle combines dynamic sporting personality, elegance and agility to deliver a truly instinctive drive, a force inside and out. The Range Rover Sport was created with a choice of powerful engines, including a plug in hybrid with an estimated range of 53 miles and with seven terrain modes to choose from. Terrain response Two fine tunes the vehicle to take on challenging roads ahead. Free from unnecessary details. Raw power and agility shine in the Range Rover Sport. Build your Range rover sport@range rover.com ussport up next, we're taking a look at scams. Cynthia Stewart is the executive director and founder of dart, a nonprofit that uses gamification to help people recognize online scammers. She joined Robert Brockamp to discuss which scams are on the rise and how to protect yourself and loved ones from losing money.
- [18:27]
Robert Brockamp
When people think of victims of scams, I think they often think of an older person who falls for something like a, you know, a fake email or a text. So is it generally the case that senior citizens are more likely to fall prey to scams?
- [18:39]
Unnamed Expert
Actually, no. The latest research shows that younger generations taken as a group are more vulnerable to scams. Millennials and Gen Z are the are the highest rates of victimization. Older adults lose more money to scams than any other generation because they are more targeted and they have more to lose. So scammers are disproportionately targeting them because they have greater potential to get larger amounts of money from them. But they are not, in fact, more vulnerable than anyone else I like to that's a myth I like to debunk.
- [19:15]
Robert Brockamp
So let's talk about some of the biggest scams. What would you say are maybe three or so of the most common that you see?
- [19:22]
Unnamed Expert
Well, we just the FBI just put out this year's Internet crime report. If you go by number of dollars lost investment scams and a lot of is fake, cryptocurrency investments, tech support scams and romance scams would be your top three. If you go by number of victims, phishing is always number one and then tech support and then extortion. Those investment scams I find particularly alarming because crypto ATMs are going in all over the world. There are I went and looked and there are 12 within walking distance of my house, which just makes it huge easier for people to fall for those scams. I think crypto is the new gift cards people have learned not to buy gift cards, but now they can just send them to the crypto ATM and their money is just as gone and just as hard to recover.
- [20:15]
Robert Brockamp
I think one aspect of these scams is there's often a certain amount of emotion involved and a certain amount of urgency. Right. It either makes you feel very good because some someone's reaching out to you and saying, oh, you're so handsome, we should be friends, or someone saying, you know, I'm your, I'm your granddaughter and if I don't get some money soon, I'm going to lose my house. So there's, you either feel very good or very bad or very scared and there's urgency to it. You need to act very quickly to prevent or get something.
- [20:47]
Unnamed Expert
Yes, those are two of the hallmarks, especially the emotion part that is really the scammer's trick. They get you not to think. People will all the time tell me, oh, I'm too smart to be scammed, I know what to do. And they're not wrong. They probably do know what to do. But then I've heard hundreds of stories that end with and then I hung up the phone and then I thought, and it's they, they get you into feelings so that you don't think. And yes, it's either. Anytime anybody's trying to make you feel a strong emotion, that's the time to step back, take some time and think about it. If it really is a problem, that if it's a real problem and money can fix it, you have time to check it out. So don't let anybody rush you by making you feel some sort of way.
- [21:39]
Robert Brockamp
I think a lot of people think, well, I would never fall prey to something from a stranger. But these days people can impersonate people who are not strangers very quickly. Often using AI to impersonate voices or just gathering information about you from social media. Your Facebook TikTok provide some information and they go, okay, this really is my granddaughter or this really is my bank because they know so much about me.
- [22:04]
Unnamed Expert
It only takes 3 seconds of audio to produce a pretty good copy of a person's voice and make them say anything you want. So it can sound exactly like your favorite grandchild. And it only takes small video clips now and completely publicly available software. You can make really realistic looking video calls now. So it is getting to the point where not only is hearing, not believing, seeing is not. You just have to check everything out. One thing I am constantly advising people to do and I will advise your listeners if you want, take One thing from this talk to your friends and family. Use this podcast as your reason why. We need a plan. The next time there's some sort of a disaster or one of us is in trouble and we need help, how are we going to confirm that we are talking to the person we think we're talking to? If you have a plan, then scammers can't. You know a code word or some way you're going to acknowledge each other. That stops scammers from being able to rip you off. And it means if you know, if somebody's putting pressure on you that it's not the person you think it is because you already have the plan in place. If it really was your grandchild, they'd know what to say.
- [23:21]
Robert Brockamp
In our family, our kids knew to use terms related to Star wars as the, as the code words. Yeah, so, so that's one very concrete step. What are some other concrete things people can do to protect themselves?
- [23:34]
Unnamed Expert
I think talking about it is a huge thing, especially talk about it with the older adults in your life. They are particularly targeted. They're also particularly prone to being embarrassed if they fall victim to a scam or to feel like somehow they've done something wrong, if they're even targeted. They're not. Scammers target everybody. Technology allows them to target thousands of people at a time, but the embarrassment keeps them from talking about it. Fear that if they admit that they fell for something, they're going to lose. Their independence will keep them from talking about it and isolation makes them more vulnerable. So let them know, hey, I almost fell for this scam the other day. Hey, have you seen that toll booth thing that's going around talk about it. Secrecy helps the scammers.
- [24:22]
Robert Brockamp
What about, you're talking about older folks. Many of us have grandparents, parents getting up there in years. They may be struggling with some cognitive decline or something like that. So how, how do we help them stay on top of this? And I, I say this because I do. We, we have all have stories of things that have happened to people we know. My father in law was basically participating in a fake lottery until my wife figured it out, cut off the source of funds and they actually sent a taxi to his house to try to get more money. It's pretty scary.
- [25:02]
Unnamed Expert
Yeah, those are the ones that, that, that frighten me. The when people's like they know where you live. The level of, of maliciousness is just out of this world. There are tools that can help like flag potential scam calls that can filter those out. Older adults may need help installing those sorts of things on their devices. So maybe offering to put those in. It's a delicate balance because people, you don't want to take away too much, you don't want to be condescending or take away their independence. On the other hand, you're trying to keep them safe. Open communication, I think, is really the biggest, the biggest tool. And making use of those tools, but letting them know what you're doing and why you're doing it. And so they know what that means if it comes, you know, suspected spam pops up or just talking about the techniques, what spoofing is. The fact that the caller ID is a number you recognize doesn't mean that it's the person it says. And then there's also a delicate balance of not scaring people so much that they then won't answer their phone at all. We run into that as well. People need to know what they can do safely. You know, that it is. It is always safe to look at your email. It is always safe to look at your text messages. That doesn't mean, you know, opening attachments. You know, where is the level where it becomes dangerous. Lots of important conversations to have with, with folks.
- [26:32]
Robert Brockamp
What are some of the things you should do once you realize you or someone you know has actually already fallen for a scam?
- [26:39]
Unnamed Expert
Change your passwords right away. I recommend just change your passwords. Even if you think you didn't give that up because you're never sure how much they got that you didn't, don't realize you've given up and report it. Report it to the FBI or the ftc, that's the Federal Trade Commission. They may not be able to get your money back. In fact, it's very probable they can't. But what they are looking at, scammers are very organized now. It is international organized crime. And if they can see the patterns, you know, if they, if you were, if they made you, got you to pay in crypto and you have the number of the crypto wallet you sent it to, if they can see, oh, hey, this is showing up again and again and again, then they can build the case to put federal resources towards closing a ring down or working with international partners. So even if it doesn't, you don't think it will benefit at you. It's still worth reporting.
- [27:43]
Ricky Mulvey
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about in the Motley fool, may have formal recommendations for or against. So 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. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. Motley FO only picks products that we personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.