Loading summary
Transcript76 lines
- [00:05]
A
Breaking news. The Supreme Court has struck down Trump's tariffs. So what's next, Molly? Fool Money starts now. Everybody needs money.
- [00:28]
B
That's why they call it money.
- [00:37]
C
From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money.
- [00:40]
A
Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Travis Hoy. I'm joined by Lou Whiteman and John Quast. Guys, we had a show planned in about three minutes. Before we started, we got news that the tariffs that Trump implemented last year have been overturned by the Supreme Court. We're still trying to process all this information. But, Lou, there was a lot of data that came out today. GDP came in a little bit worse than expected at 1.4% growth year over year. Inflation was a little bit hotter than expected with that core inflation number up 3% year over year. And now we get this tariff news. What in the world should we be thinking?
- [01:15]
C
Chaos. Right? And the best form of chaos. It's more complicated than you think, because it was only some of the tariffs that were struck down. They're the ones that were put in place due to kind of emergency situations where all of a sudden everything was an emergency. Look, let's break it down real. The tariff case. The Supreme Court said we don't know what to do about compensation. So that needs to play out. The administration claims they have other ways to do this. So I think that's just a big, who knows? You can't really break it down.
- [01:44]
A
Let's talk about that compensation part because that is interesting. This isn't going to be, hey, these are overturned. And here's your $175 billion or so back. May eventually happen, but we are kind of in limbo. So if you own a stock that has been paying tariffs, you may get a windfall in the future. You also may not. And it may just be like, sorry about that.
- [02:07]
C
And who even gets it? Cause if you own a stock and they passed half of that tariff cost along to the consumer, I don't think, I mean, are they gonna try and do that? So, yeah, it's a mess. We were kind of expecting this. I think we just kind of say, okay, this happened. We'll see from here. The inflation number, to me, that's sort of a nothing burger. We were expecting, I mean, we were basically expecting almost that. So look, the inflation, the big debate is, is this a one time thing? Can, can the economy deal with a one time thing or will it just continue? I think that that just plays out down the line. The interesting thing to me was the GDP number because that was about half of what we were expecting, it was the lowest number, I think, and at least in a few quarters, everyone's going to say ignore this because of the government shutdown. And indeed, federal spending was down 24%. That's the lowest, the biggest decline since the COVID quarter in 2020. Yes, some of that is going to be a bounce back, but let's kind of dig a little deeper. There was trade weakness, which is tied to all these tariffs. So maybe it'll turn around, but that's big. And consumer spending, Travis, the largest share of the economic activity decelerated to a 2.4% pace from 3.5% in the previous period. That, to me, is the most interesting part of this and the part. A lot of this looks like noise. A lot of this. There's a. Yeah, but I mean, I just gave you like 300 yeah buts here. But that consumer spending number, that's the one to watch. My hot take and without having time to go through all of this really big, is that, yes, there's going to be a lot of Chicken Littles out there. Yes, there's going to be the other side of it. People saying, this is a nothing burger. There is a here here. It's probably not the Chicken Little here here. It's not like everybody panic, but there is trends here that are not in the direction that we want to go.
- [04:07]
B
I love Lou's word choice of chaos. And I don't think that we can understate just how much chaos there is potential here. I mean, we're talking about $170 billion in tariffs, and we're trying to figure out where the money goes, where it comes from, who gets it. That. That's. That's chaotic. On top of that, the Supreme Court is saying the president exceeded his powers by doing this, but that does not preclude Congress from taking action. What does that mean? And that would actually be something that would be more permanent. So seems like it could impact the midterm elections. Definitely economic policy is going to be on the ballot. So that's very interesting. I would say, though, from an investment point of view, if you are invested in a company that was talking a lot about mitigating tariff headwinds, the immediate impact is that is no longer a headwind. Forget about what's already gone, the water that's already gone under the bridge. We're talking about starting today, there is a no longer that headwind blowing. I think that you think about somebody like Nike manufacturing in China and Vietnam, Lululemon, for example. There's another company that is going to feel a benefit from this. Even a retailer such five below which sources its products primarily from these Asian countries, it's going to feel no longer this wind blowing against it from the tariffs and adding that incremental cost. So I would say that immediately these companies do feel a benefit.
- [05:38]
C
I hope so. The one thing I'd say is that what plagued us last year was uncertainty. My fear here is that we've now prolonged the uncertainty. But one point John made I think is so good you're talking about, and this is not a political podcast, nor do we want it to be, but this is a midterm election year. If you're looking for a potential tailwind. I think we've already seen a shift from the White House in terms of economic stimulus or economic populism to try to help in the midterms. I do think that that could play into stocks if there is stimulus and actually propel things higher from here, even if it is short term. So it's just a very muddled picture right now.
- [06:23]
A
Lou, I wanted to get your thoughts on the market's reaction because initially when this came out and this came out while the market was open in the first few minutes of trading, stocks went from being down slightly to up slightly to down slightly again. And now we're up a little bit about 3.3percent for the NASDAQ, 02% for the S&P 500. It seems like there is sort of a little bit of confusion between the algorithms, the humans, whoever's making big trades. And you know, this isn't the if you remember back to April, when the, when the tariffs were first announced, it was just everything was down. We're not having the same bounce back effect. So it just seems like we're in this uncertainty mode where we don't even know what this really means. Is that the right way to think about it?
- [07:06]
C
I think it is. I mean, look, yes, we didn't get a bounce back from Liberation Day, but we already had gotten that. So I don't think we're the conventional wisdom was the Supreme Court would do exactly what it did. So I think, you know, I mean, the market tends to overreact to things it didn't see coming and kind of underreact, we call it. It's priced in. That's the way we sound smart there. I think. Look again, if the glass half empty here, which I think makes sense, is is that, you know, you couple all of this, you couple this just continued uncertainty. If you give a good CEO A playbook. They will run the playbook. If you tell them the rules of the game, they will figure out how to compete. Compete. We are back to where we were in April or May of last year where just nobody knew how to what the rules of the game were. That's not great for economic activity. That's not great for committing to a new project. That's not great for building a new warehouse. That's not great for hiring a consultant to plan out M and A or something like that. To the extent that the Supreme Court, right or wrong, has just added more uncertainty, that is a worry. Especially with these GDP numbers that suggest was already some vulnerability. And then again, again, just to contrast that against a government apparatus that might be focused on stimulus that might at least temporarily offset some of that lack of spending. It's just a big mess.
- [08:35]
A
Speaking of economic activity, John, we did get numbers from Walmart in the, the comments were really interesting. In their conference call they basically said Lou's been talking about the K shaped economy for months here on the show. And that was essentially what they said was hey, you know, people who are making over $100,000 a year are doing fine. They continue spending. But people who are making less than 50,000 or so are really pulling back. They're starting to feel higher costs from tariffs. What was your takeaway from Walmart's earnings? Because this is sort of the biggest indicator of what real consumers are doing. This is not, you know, GDP could be helped by that AI spend but they're, they're AI spend isn't, isn't making it to a lot of regular people's pockets.
- [09:17]
B
I don't know if I'd say that people making 100,000 annually are necessarily doing well. They're doing well for Walmart because they're shopping there more. So that's one thing.
- [09:27]
A
Yeah, maybe the fact that they're going to Walmart isn't the most bullish sign.
- [09:31]
B
Exactly. Now the people who are lower income, 50,000 annually or less, yes, they are feeling stretched for sure, but that's not necessarily new. Dollar General has been flagging this for, for quite a while over the past year. So we've seen this before. Normally I would say watch out for your kind of lower end discretionary spending categories. Maybe such like, such as casual dining. But it's kind of just still a weird economy because fast food prices have gone up so much that casual dining is actually pretty competitive and doing pretty well. You can just look at Chili's from Brinkers. It's got some pretty Decent deals out there and spending has been quite good. So I don't know where the cracks are necessarily in the economy, but certainly, yes, the consumer is stretched.
- [10:23]
C
Why the hate on Walmart? I mean, yeah, why, why shouldn't the affluent people go in there like glass half full There is. Is that the higher income shoppers or the consumer? The consumer is making adjustments as needed to continue spending and that is positive for the economy. That implies at the end of the day, we just want a critical number of people to keep spending. We don't care where they spend. And so Walmart is fine. Again, I keep going back to this, but it's just we need. The consumer is not one person. The consumer just doesn't decide to spend or not spend. We need a critical mass of consumers to feel good enough about their individual situations. They will continue to spend. It doesn't matter where they spend, it doesn't matter. You know, it does matter how many of them. But for now it's okay. But we're watching it and that's all we can determine.
- [11:14]
A
I think speaking of spending, when we come back, we're going to talk about people spending more and more, getting their food delivered at home. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
- [11:25]
D
As an investor, I know how easy it is to get lost deep in the woods doing research. Here's the thing. AI has absolutely supercharged my process, making me more productive and leading to better outcomes. But not all AI products are the same. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. It's not just a chatbot answering questions and telling me how great my questions are. Whether it's building interactive tools for data visualization without writing a single line of code, handling multiple complex tasks at once, and generating polished documents, spreadsheets or apps. Claude delivers. And because accuracy is non negotiable, Claude's deep research feature can give me the insights that I want, providing proper citations so I know it's not hallucinating the data. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude today at Claude AI Fool. That's Claude AI fool. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features, features mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI Fool.
- [12:31]
A
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. One of the interesting earnings reports this week was Doordash and John. They announced A huge jump in their gross order volume. The theory here is that this is one of those aggregators. They're pulling together all the demand for, you know, order deliveries. I use DoorDash all the time and once you get into their kind of pass plan, it makes sense to just keep using DoorDash. But this continues a trend of companies like DoorDash, Uber, Lyft are growing double digits and it doesn't seem like they're slowing down anytime soon.
- [13:04]
B
Yeah, it was a great quarter for DoorDash in particular. The order volume just increasing so much year over year. And I think this is really a testament for DoorDash but also for Lyft and the other marketplaces out there. They're building marketplaces that people actually like. And I know we don't think about these as two sided marketplaces, but they really are in particular DoorDash because there's a whole merchant side of getting onto this platform and getting out there to customers. It's almost like an E commerce portal in a way if you can just kind of wrap your mind around it that way. DoorDash is building something that people like using and I think that's really an underappreciated aspect of this business here. It's not just getting the stuff to your door. It's a platform that both merchant and customer appear to enjoy interacting with drivers as well, or dashers as they call them. And so yeah, it's, it's something that continues to gain momentum and it's something that we need to watch.
- [14:03]
A
Lou, one of the things that I always think about with these companies is a lot of the conversation about autonomy focuses on companies like Tesla. But if you look at Uber and Lyft in particular, they're thinking a lot about how the autonomous future looks. DoorDash hasn't quite talked about that quite as much, but it does seem like these two sided markets, if supply, you know, maybe these dashers become autonomous vehicles in the future, but have they just gotten to a scale where disrupting them with some sort of new technology is just going to be really, really difficult? Because there's so much momentum behind being in the Uber ecosystem or the Lyft EcoSystem or the DoorDash ecosystem? As John said, give DoorDash a little credit here.
- [14:45]
C
They have partnerships with server robotics and a few others. So they are exploring this too I think for now, definitely. And we've talked about this with Apple and AI that having access to consumer is so important. The customer list. I do think though, there's a world where kind of, you know, your question gets turned on its head. If we truly have autonomous everywhere, does the aggregator matter? If I can just have AI, if I can, you know, in a world where either Google search or AI saying I want to like bulb, bring me a light bulb, you know, and almost.
- [15:19]
A
So you're saying like the ultimate end point of agents is just you got an agent that goes out and it finds a retailer and it finds a delivery person.
- [15:28]
C
Or we do we need to go through a captive portal, which is what doordash or Uber sort of looks like in that if I want to ride somewhere, do I have to get on my Uber app? Or do I just. Whether it's Google or something else saying I need to get from point A to point B and some sort of just AI sends a car. So I don't think that they are necessarily set up to inherit the earth. And it's just, you know, they're going to win forever. I think in this current climate where the, you know, kind of being the gatekeepers is absolutely. And having that scale, that's where things fun to. I think it works real well for them and I think that will continue for now. But if we really get to a point where this stuff is everywhere, do we need doordash, do we need that middle ground? Or do I just say, hey, Kava, I want this, and Kava just finds some rando robot that can get it there. I, you know, I think that's possible at least. So I just, I think we have to wait and see on this. But for now, yes, I think the economics are all set up for he who has the customer, can get scale, can get margins.
- [16:33]
A
John, do you think that's right? Are these companies, do they have a durable moat or is AI maybe some new piece of hardware going to cause some disruption in these businesses?
- [16:45]
B
Well, I totally get what Lou's point is here, and it's well taken. I would say that competition is such an interesting thing. And even in a autonomous AI agent, future competition and competitive advantages are still going to matter. I think that partnerships are still going to be formed and so which company is creating the AI agent and, and how those partnerships are shaking out and which restaurant is using that autonomous vehicle company versus my competitor who's using the other one. I think these things are still going to happen behind the scenes. Maybe the consumer is going to be less aware of them, but I think it's still going to happen. And I think if you are an aggregator, if you are the company that has built the marketplace, it's Much easier to incorporate AI agents or autonomous vehicles, even robotics. I think it's much easier to incorporate that into your marketplace model than it is for the AV companies to build a marketplace. So maybe long term they can, but I think over the next five years or so, I think the aggregators still matter.
- [17:49]
A
Is this why we're seeing a lot of these companies? One of the things I've noticed, you know, especially with OpenAI, but we've seen some partnerships between companies like Zillow and Google. Even the AI companies, which you would think are kind of going it alone and saying, hey, we're going to disrupt everybody, we're going to take over the world, are suddenly going, okay, you know what? We also need to have partners. You know, Lou, that I think John's point sort of makes sense that in theory you could maybe change everything. We don't need this app infrastructure that we've spent the last 15 or 20 years building. But to get from here to there is maybe going to be a little bit bigger lift than any one company can. And also, you know, disrupting the status quo that so many of us are so used to.
- [18:35]
C
We should note there's a separate land grab going on among the AI companies. And yeah, again, in the current market, if you are going from no companies and maybe a commoditized model, I mean no customers, to trying to have customers, then yeah, trying to partner works. I just think that beyond all this, the middleman and John's probably right, there's a role for these companies in the back end. I don't know if that's as lucrative as investors might want to see. You know, if you just become the plumbing. I doubt if AI and autonomous evolve the way the optimists hope it will. I doubt there's the same need to use Uber to find a ride or for Doordash to find food. So I just think that, you know, and again this is might be ultra long term thinking, but I do think that it's things pendulums are real and things that seem like wow, this, this momentum will never end is normally those statements and age poorly. And I think in this case that if, if the technology develops the way we hope. I do wonder about the long term future for these guys.
- [19:40]
A
For now it appears that Doordash continues to be in a really good position with momentum. But we'll see if Lou is right here, the disruption is on the way. When we come back, we are going to see what technology disruptions are real and which ones are not real. You're listening to Motley fool money sitting in the morning sun. I'll be sitting when the evening comes, watching the ships roll in.
- [20:07]
C
Then I'll watch them roll away.
- [20:11]
E
Quince is all about elevated essentials that feel effortless. Designed for layering and mixing, each piece helps build a timeless wardrobe made to last. With versatile silhouettes and thoughtful details. They're the kind of styles you'll wear again and again. Quince uses the highest quality materials, like 100% European linen and organic cotton. Everything is built to hold up season after season. The stitching, the fit, the fabrics, these are pieces you'll reach for over and over again. I can tell you I'm not the only fan of Quince in my house. As much as I love my long sleeve cotton tees and their polos, my son is an even bigger fan of their 100% cotton joggers. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com motley for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
- [20:56]
D
Now available in Canada too.
- [20:57]
E
That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com motley to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com motley
- [21:09]
A
welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We like to have a little bit of fun in this section and I wanted to get Lou and John's thoughts on what sort of technology disruptions are real and what are not real. So there's a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, humanoid robots, Peptides and more. So let's start with humanoid robots, John. These have been the talk of the market, especially companies like Tesla. Nvidia has gotten into that in a really big way over the past couple of years. But the fun thing that I didn't know until this morning is you can actually buy a Unitree G1 humanoid robot for $18,000 on Amazon today. Are we closer to this humanoid future than a lot of us think?
- [21:50]
B
Well, Travis, let me tell you, if the 18 grand is a little bit inaccessible for you, you can just do buy now, pay later, split that into three payments of six grand.
- [21:59]
A
Oh good. Oh great. Great.
- [22:00]
B
Listed right there is one of the options. Joking aside. Listen, I think there is something here in robotics. It's been a couple of years since Tesla marched that guy out in the Optimus costume, right? And I thought that was the biggest joke. Boston Dynamics was a company that had been working in this extensively for many years and finally had gotten to the place of dancing robots. But still it was struggling to create something that was truly practical for the masses. Then Tesla does this move and lo and behold, what it's actually produced so far in the Optimus program I think is actually pretty impressive given the time it's been doing this. You look at all these other companies such as Unitree, it's kind of created this, this Sprint, this arms race amongst the robotics companies to really get a practical mass market household robot out there. I think there is something there. The competition is pushing the technology. I see these more in warehouses before apartments, personally, but we'll see.
- [23:04]
C
I'm really glad. I mean, yeah, I think John should buy one of those. Maybe use buy now, pay later. Because I'm really glad that these are coming and the Optimus, apparently they're going to be building them in Fremont before the end of the year.
- [23:18]
E
Right.
- [23:18]
C
Because I'm a big. We'll see here. I get the potential, but look, most technology looks better in demos than it does in real life. It seems to me this is likely to be that on steroids, you know, I mean, if you think if you were let down by Siri after watching the Apple commercials, I can only imagine how you're going to feel when your dancing robot won't dance for you. So let's get it out there. This is early generation technology. My bad bet here is that we're going to find these underwhelming when they're actually out here. That's not to say there's not great potential and version 2, 3, 4, 5 could do a lot better. I am still going to take the over. And John, as far as warehouses, I think you're 100% right. But the thing is, there's already a ton of robots there and for the most part the human form is, if anything, a hindrance in a factory setting or there are better forms to take. I don't know if robots that look like us are really the answer, the way we think they are, maybe for cleaning up after your pet, but I don't. Not, not in the warehouse, not assembling automobiles and things like that. So we'll see. We're definitely making progress here, but I don't know if a dancing robot is coming to my household.
- [24:33]
A
Okay, let's. Lou, I think I'm kind of falling on the side that there's something real here from a humanoid robot standpoint that, you know, we're seeing these robots now. Do you know kung fu or whatever karate stuff it was? It's really amazing what they're doing. But the other thing that you mentioned is there's no real sales yet. At least in a significant amount and there's already a ton of competition. So this would be a little bit like going back to, you know, let's say 2012 when Tesla was coming out with something like the, you know, the Model S. And instead of only being one electric vehicle where they could take all the market, they could have, you know, high profitability. Now you got dozens of competitors that from an investment standpoint seems like a challenge. And maybe this should be a wait and see thing. If you're, if you're, this is part of your investment thesis. Is that fair or is this one of those, hey, it's so evergreen that everybody's gonna be able to win.
- [25:30]
C
No, I, I don't think everyone's gonna be winning. For one thing, I would be very surprised even if someone has cracked this code already, that if everybody has cracked this code. So I do think it's, look, if you own these companies anyway and you want the upside, sure, that's great. If you're buying now on the idea that I think One of the CEOs said is projected, hey, if we sell a billion units at 30,000 a piece, that's a lot of money. I would take the under on that. Kung Fu, Travis. Yeah, they're really good at kung fu. All of the times in your household that you're like doing kung fu and you're like, man, I wish a robot could do this for me. See, there's your practical application right there.
- [26:09]
A
You haven't seen my kids playing. It looks a little bit like Kung Fu. They'd probably love to be hanging out with one of these robots. All right, John, let's, let's talk a little bit about autonomous driving. A whole bunch of players here. You have Google with Waymo. I wanted to bring lucid into this. We don't talk about a lot about Lucid, but they have a partnership with Neuro. There are only three companies, three companies in the state of California who are actually licensed to commercially operate. Neuro is one of them. So that, that puts a company like Lucid, an interesting position. You have Mobileye more of a horizontal business model with partnerships with Volkswagen and another unnamed US manufacturer. Is this a real technology that we're going to be using in the future? And I'll get to the investment angle in just a second. But how real is this? Let's say in the next five years.
- [26:57]
B
There's something so interesting about all of this as far as human psychology that I think is really going to limit how quickly this becomes a thing that is the cars are Driving everybody, everywhere. The thing is that autonomous vehicles still do make mistakes. And yes, maybe the argument is they make way fewer mistakes than a human driver. But I think that the human psychology issue is we'd like to hold someone accountable when something goes wrong. And I can hold a human driver accountable, but who do I hold accountable when the autonomous vehicle makes a mistake? And I think that is one of the things that is just from a psychology perspective, limiting widespread adoption is going to keep it from being a thing as quickly as many people think it's going to be a thing.
- [27:44]
C
Yeah, I mean, look, it's already a thing. I mean, I'm in Atlanta. I see Waymo, although Waymo had a bad week, I don't know what happened, but I was out earlier in the week, saw three different waymos being driven by humans. So I, I don't know what was going on there. Maybe I said, but, but look, it's here, I think I, and Waymo has surprised me at how quickly they're expanding. So maybe it's more here than we know. I, I, I don't think that the steering wheel is going away from most of us for a long time. I still think edge cases are very, very scary. But look, and I don't think, just look to some extent maybe on dancing robots, if one company could figure out, maybe everyone could figure out something. I don't think it works that way here. I don't think just because Waymo's doing it, that means everybody's will work as well because there is still so much into this. But it's, do you think that there's
- [28:35]
A
going to be a platform that they can use, like a. I use Neuro and Lucid as an example. So if Neuro's is applicable to any vehicle, you just got to stick the right sensors on it. Is that not potentially a way that this could become more accessible for more automakers over time?
- [28:51]
C
Yes. And, and again, I do wonder about commoditization and if everybody gets good at this, that's going to take time. It's both here and it's going to be limited for now, I think it is the takeaway.
- [29:02]
A
So from an investment perspective, I'll start with you, Lou. Is this something that we should be watching, watching from the sidelines, trying to figure out who is going to be the ultimate winner? Is it really the Uber's lifts and doordashes of the world who are the ultimate winners? How are you thinking about this from an investment perspective?
- [29:20]
C
I think for now, I don't think there's Any company where I want to buy it because of their autonomous driving period. But I do think that it is real enough that it can be part of an investment thesis and it can be like, definitely the potential upside there. Again, this is not universal. It's not enough to say we are into autonomous. Okay. You have to actually demonstrate it. Or like you say, at least for now, the aggregators who can take advantage of those who can do it. Look, Waymo is still very, very small part of Uber's business in Atlanta. So I do think even like on an Uber, which does seem to be a natural beneficiary, I think that it's likely to be an overblown part of an investment thesis. But it's definitely there as potential upside. I just don't think it's core to any company right now.
- [30:13]
B
I couldn't agree more, Lou. That's what I'm getting at here as far as yes, it is here, but I think that it's not going to be everything is autonomous as quickly as some people think.
- [30:23]
A
All right, let's go to an interesting one. I called it the Moon economy. We were talking about going to Mars a few years ago. Apparently we've changed that. Lou, from SpaceX is talking about going to the Moon as opposed to going to Mars.
- [30:36]
C
Mars is really hard. Hard.
- [30:37]
A
Mars is, is really hard. The Moon is hard. But easier is. Is there going to be some sort of economy there? Is there going to be an investment payoff? You know, this has always been kind of a exploration. There's, there's outputs, you know, from NASA going to Mars or go, sorry, going to the Moon, you know, decades ago, but it wasn't a business that they were in. So is there really a business there?
- [31:02]
C
I look, there are fringe businesses there. I think the projections are overstated and I mean, again, I'm not the first to say this, but there are a lot more mineral resources, there's a lot more potential for cooling, AI center, data centers and all that by just sticking it deep in the ocean. Our seabeds have a lot of the same characteristics. We can't figure that out. And again, it's high pressure versus low pressure. But there are easier ways to do this that we've kind of given up on because, wow, that's cost prohibitive and hard. I think that at least that backdrop should be a filter for all of this moon talk. Yes, we need to get back to the Moon. Yes, we should explore what we can do there. Are we going to. Is the Moon going to be covered with data centers? And mining operations in my lifetime, I doubt it. I think we might as well actually figure out how to mine in Antarctica and Greenland and in the bottom of the ocean if those are easier problems to solve that we haven't been able to do cost effectively. So yeah, the moon sounds neat, but we'll see.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, I agree with Lou 100%. I'm not sure how self sustaining the space economy is. It's very reliant on government spending, which is good right now because NASA is a priority for the current administration. But political priorities can change quickly. And so that is something to keep in mind. But what a fun time for the astronaut kid and all of us, isn't it? I mean Artemis 2 is on schedule for launch next month. They did their, their wet dress rehearsal today. So they tested the fuel systems. It sounds like that went good. This mission is going to take astronauts around the far side of the moon moon and it's going to be the furthest that we've had people away from Earth. So that's really, really cool. Space X's pivot, they're prepping for a IPO later this year. Potentially their pivot from Mars to the moon does make sense because to lose point Mars is extremely hard. It's going to be very hard to show its shareholders, hey, we actually making progress towards something. Whereas the moon, it's going to be able to put something up there a lot quicker than it can put something on the red planet. And so it makes sense why they made the switch.
- [33:22]
C
Yeah.
- [33:22]
A
Interesting little side story. When my first year of engineering school in 2000, we did a project for NASA where we were trying to figure out how to mine stuff on the moon. And it was cool that they actually go to these colleges because the 18 year old kids don't know what's not possible. So we'll see if, if any of that stuff, you know, then we're now 26 years later. But if any of the things that we were talking about back then ever come to reality. Let's talk a little bit about peptides. This is one of the things I'm trying to learn a lot more about. But John, GLP1s are actually a peptide. We don't really talk about that. So they are already a huge, huge business. We know that Eli Lilly is testing retatrutide, which is so effective that people are dropping out of the trial because they have lost so much weight. Is peptides a real big thing in the future? A disruption, if you will, of medicine? Or is this a lot of hocus pocus.
- [34:21]
B
Well, I 100 believe the hype in this domain, Travis, and I'm not an expert by any means, but I do want to compare this peptide conversation to something that's related in my mind and that is protein folding. And so apparently proteins can fold in different ways and when we have medical issues, they can be addressed by how proteins fold. And in the past, basically the scientists have been trying to figure out how proteins fold manually and they're really smart and they're working very hard. But then something out there from Google and I'd encourage listeners to check it out, it's called AlphaFold. AlphaFold uses AI to find new ways, new protein structures, and it's finding in hours what would have taken a researcher manually months to discover. And so I think that as AI pushes forward this medical discovery, in this case protein structures, how they fold, this can lead to medical breakthroughs that just simply weren't possible before we had artificial intelligence really figuring some of this stuff out. So I think that this does trickle down to real life applications. I would say this applies to peptides as well.
- [35:42]
C
Yeah, I think that's right. The question is, as an investor, what do you do with it though? Because for one these things take forever to play out. And again, I even think about with the GLP1s, there are examples of medicines that have really been revolutionary and huge markets, for the most part, they did not lead to sustained oversized profits. Look at statins. Statins are a miracle. There are people alive today because of statins that wouldn't have been alive 50 years ago. It's also been generic and competed down to the point where it's not real. I mean, Pfizer is not a quadrillion dollar company because of Lipitor. So I do think between the time it takes, the complications and then the fact that if something's really revolutionary, it will be not copied and it will be kind of just competed to death. It's really hard for investors. There's going to be home runs, it's great for humanity, but as an investment thesis, it's really hard.
- [36:39]
A
Fair enough. If it's good for humanity, maybe it's good for all of us. Even if we're not going to necessarily be find easy ways to make money off of it. When we come back, we're going to get to stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool.
- [36:51]
B
Money.
- [37:12]
F
Residence Day savings are happening now at the Home Depot with up to 40% off select appliances. Looking to upgrade your fridge? Check out LG's newest model serving up ice in all kinds of styles, cubed crushed craft ice and now new mini craft ice straight from the dispenser. From cold brew to fizzy favorites, these refrigerators will have you entertaining like a pro. Shop President's day savings and get up to 40% off plus free delivery on select appliances like LG at the home Depot. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $1,498 or more offer valid February 5th through the 25th US only. See store online for details.
- [37:49]
A
As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about in the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows the Motley Fool's editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. See our full advertising disclosure. Please check out our Show Notes. We like to end the show with our radar segment. We're going to bring in Dan Boyd from behind the glass for his thoughts. John, you're up first. What's on your radar this week?
- [38:19]
B
Well, on my radar this week is Wingstop, ticker symbol W I N G. This is a chicken wing restaurant chain, although it does sell more than just chicken wings. It has over 3,000 global locations. It opened nearly 500 in 2025 alone. There are some restaurant chains that don't even have 500 locations. That's what it opened up just this past year. What I like about this company is that it takes most of its orders through the app and they're mostly takeout and delivery. So it really means that Wingstop has a lot of oper creating leverage in the model itself. It can scale very good. In 2025, it installed smart kitchens to help it scale more efficiently as well. Here's the bad news. Wingstop just reported the first drop in same store sales in 20 years. Stock is down about 40% from the all time high. But the good news is it's still incredibly strong shooting for 10,000 locations. Long term, it has a dividend that's growing fast, trading at its cheapest valuation almost ever at 40 times earnings. So I think there's a lot to like here.
- [39:17]
A
Dan, what do you think about takeout chicken wings?
- [39:19]
G
Yeah, there's a wing stop down the street from me and I've never been.
- [39:25]
B
Sounds like you have an assignment today.
- [39:28]
A
It's called research. Dan, this is your job for the weekend. Lou, what's on your radar this week?
- [39:35]
C
All right, Dan, since the Beginning ebay has basically been about turning trash into treasure, or more politely, taking something that someone else can't use, doesn't want to use, or whatever and putting it in the hands of someone who can use it or wants to use it. With that in mind, I see great logic in ebay announcing it will buy Gen Z clothing Marketplace Depop from Etsy for 1.2 billion. This is in some ways Etsy's trash. It was something that Etsy didn't use effectively. But ebay, just like all of its pez customers, I think ebay can find value here. Deal makes sense to both the buyer and the seller. For Etsy, they tried to diversify, but it never took off. For ebay, this is their core business. They are adding a brand that kids see as cool. Depop is really small, only 7 million or so active buyers. Ebay should be able to apply its tech, its infrastructure, and its know how to grow the business while using this brand that kids like. And by the way, Dan, eBay's earnings came in pretty good too. This is kind of an unappreciated, forgotten company, but a really solid business and I like this move for them.
- [40:40]
A
Dan, can Depop make eBay cool again?
- [40:44]
G
Well, I don't. Listen, don't ask me to arbitrate what is cool and what is not because I can't do that whatsoever.
- [40:49]
A
That comes from Lou.
- [40:51]
G
But I do actually use ebay quite a bit. And it's not just the random crap that people are trying to get rid of. You can actually find a lot of premium products at a discount on ebay. It's a very good marketplace.
- [41:03]
A
All right, Dan, which stock is going on your radar?
- [41:05]
G
I gotta go with what I know, and I'm gonna go with ebay or
- [41:09]
A
Louis Whiteman, John Quast, and Dan Boyd behind the glass, I'm Travis Hoyam. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here tomorrow.