The Market Cap Game Show: Episode 6
It's time once again for the game show that teaches you just how big a company might be.
In this episode of the Rule Breaker Investing podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner is joined by analyst Emily Flippen, who takes over the hot seat from the stalwart Matt Argersinger. But don't think that makes it any easier for you to earn your #IBeatEmily hashtag.
A full transcript follows the video.
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*Stock Advisor returns as of November 14, 2018The author(s) may have a position in any stocks mentioned.
This video was recorded on Dec. 12, 2018.
David Gardner: Once a quarter, companies in the United States of America report earnings. And that's important for investors. Once a quarter on this podcast, we do something else important for investors. Maybe not as important as whether your stock du jour beat its Wall Street estimates at the bell, but I would say almost as important. Once a quarter on Rule Breaker Investing, we play the Market Cap Game Show. Episode six is coming up.
Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing! I'm delighted to be playing our game! It's our game. It's the Market Cap Game Show. First played August 2017 on this podcast. We play it once a quarter. The first thing that you're going to notice is that I have a new guest. Say hello, guest.
Emily Flippen: Hi! I'm Emily Flippen. I am not Matt.
Gardner: For a lot of us who grew up around the fire as little kids listening to Matt Argersinger answer my questions on the Market Cap Game Show, this is a shock, Emily, that you're here.
Flippen: I am honored to be the first non-Matt to play this game.
Gardner: [laughs] You and I talked about this beforehand, I was honored that you were honored. All I wanted to say back to you is that I think you should feel honored. The real question is, how? I don't think you should feel that honored. How honored is the only real question, Emily.
Flippen: I think if I do well on this game, I'll be very honored. If I come out zero for 10, you might never see me again.
Gardner: [laughs] I'm so psyched to have Emily. Emily is on my team at Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Emily, you've been here. You were a summer intern in what year?
Flippen: 2016.
Gardner: 2016, and then we hired you somewhere earlier in 2018. You've been here at The Fool for how many months?
Flippen: Just over six months. I'm still new.
Gardner: It's been a great six months. Emily, it's a delight to have you at The Motley Fool. You haven't been the best luck for the stock market so far in your tenure here at The Motley Fool.
Flippen: It hasn't been. I love my Chinese stocks, and it's been a harsh year, to say the least.
Gardner: Yes. Well, we'll be talking about China a little bit later in this show. I wanted to get out front the where, the what, the why and the how before we start the game. The where was, where's Matt? Matt is away this week. We had to do the Market Cap Game Show this week. It was destined from the beginning of time. It was foreordained that we would do it this week. Matt is in Portland and Seattle on Fool business. So, I started casting about, saying, who do I want to have after Matt? And I thought, let's have Emily! That's the where.
The what, the why, and the how. The what, Emily's what, is market cap. I think it's always good for us to define our terms. Can you lay out briefly, for anybody who's just tuning in, wondering, what is market cap?
Flippen: The market cap is a way to measure the size of a business. All you're doing is taking the current stock price and multiplying it times the shares outstanding. A lot of people think about businesses in terms of how much they cost. Market cap gives you a more holistic picture about the size of a business vs. the size of its market or its competitors.
Gardner: Or its price per share. I think a lot of people, especially as new investors, lock in and they think, I want to buy a stock that would be below $10 a share. It sounds exciting, to think that you're buying shares of a company that's at $4.33. You think, if it just went to $8 or $9, I could double my money. I don't know how you were as an early investor, Emily, growing up, listening to the Market Cap Game Show as a little kid. Did you ever fall for the allure of low share prices?
Flippen: Of course, especially when you don't have a lot of money to invest. Growing up, $20 burned a hole in my pocket. Getting a stock for $10 or below felt like a great deal. But those single-digit stocks, a lot of times, they're single-digit for a reason. You can even have a single-digit stock that has a huge market cap and not a lot of room to double, despite the fact that the stock price looks like it could. A lot of things to consider other than just the price.
Gardner: Very well put. The market cap is really just the price tag that you would be paying to buy a company outright. There's a little bit of an asterisk there because there's an enterprise value factor, where you factor in the debt of a company, or how much cash it has. Those things can factor into how much they actually would be bought for. But, keeping it simple out there, basically, market cap is the value of a company.
So, when we heard that Apple became the first trillion-dollar market cap company, briefly, market cap became not just a geeky obsession of an investing podcast offered by The Motley Fool, but in fact it became national news, international news. The market cap of Apple or Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). I think we've done a good job -- thank you, Emily -- of defining the what. What is market cap?
Now, why do we play this? I have my own thought, my own answer. Emily, beyond just having fun with each other, which is a big point of this game show, why do you think we do this?
Flippen: I think it makes people think critically about these companies. When you think about a company that maybe you use every day, and you're very happy about, and you find out that they have a very small market cap, maybe you think, wow, I really thought that company was bigger, and it can go a lot of places. And, vice versa. If you find out a company that doesn't do much is worth a lot of money in the market, maybe they're priced out. So, it provides a different perspective when you look at a company's market cap.
Gardner: It does. And it's a fun way to compare different companies. You can take companies within the same industry. You can say, which is bigger, Wendy's or McDonald's (NYSE: MCD)? And it's kind of fun. Off the top of my head, I would have to guess McDonald's. It's probably not even close. But neither of those is within my purview or what we do here within Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor. The Supernova Universe, neither of those companies is there.
It's also fun to compare companies outside of their own industry. For example, now that I am looking up McDonald's market cap, I see it's at $143 billion as we tape here on Tuesday afternoon, 04:00 pm Eastern, December 10th. About $143 billion. And I'm looking across some of the stocks we do follow in the Supernova Universe, the 220 plus companies that represent all of the investment recommendations that are active for me across my two big services, and look at it! Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), the great biotech company. Thousand Oaks, California. Epogen, Neupogen. One of the best long-term American biotech companies not just of our time, but of any time, because this is a newer industry. Amgen is worth about the same as McDonald's! I just think that's pretty interesting.
Emily, I see you smiling. You also think that's interesting.
Flippen: I definitely do! I think it's interesting because you get an idea about the size of these sectors, too, which have nothing to do with each other. It's fun. I think knowing a company's market cap provides a lot of information beyond just the price and the number of shares.
Gardner: It's kind of funny to think that, over the course of biotechnology becoming an industry, during my lifetime -- I won't say yours, Emily, because you're younger than I am.
Flippen: I am. [laughs]
Gardner: I think it preceded you. But, I'll say, when I was your age, biotech was just starting! It's funny to think that the top dog of biotech at this point is about the same size as the top dog of fast food. The fast food industry took a long time to get to that. It's interesting to see Amgen right there at the same size as McDonald's.
Anyway, without getting too far down the hole here, that's why we like to play this game. As you mentioned, Emily, all of a sudden, you have a measuring stick that anybody can use, can just grab. You don't have to have studied finance or be a stock market junkie to understand that Amgen and McDonald's are roughly the same value. That's why we do this.
Before we move to the how and start our game, it's also helpful to remember that if you want a stock to go up five or 10 or 20X in value over the course of the time that you hold it, you probably should think about where it's valued today. What is the market cap? For example, how much would it take for McDonald's to go up 5X in value now? And the answer is, it would have to go from about $140 billion to about $700 billion. That's a lot of billions. That's hundreds of billions. It seems unlikely anytime soon that McDonald's will go 5X in value. But, for some companies with a market cap of, let's say, $2-3 billion, if they have an exciting technology, it is certainly possible that they could go up 5X in value. So, Emily, it's sometimes a good measure for us, thinking almost like venture capitalists and asking, what is the multiple I might be able to see off this investment over time?
Flippen: I think it's also great when you look at how much value companies have lost. Going back to my interest in Chinese stocks, a lot of great Chinese companies have lost billions of dollars in market cap value over the past year. Also looking at it in that framework is interesting.
Gardner: Yes, and that is particularly relevant, because the market has been so weak over the last couple of months, especially, that we're going to see some market caps that have come down.
Flippen: I'm going to be rounding all of my numbers down.
Gardner: OK, good. Now, that just leaves us with the how. I know many of us are regular listeners. You've heard at least one episode before. You may already be forgetting that Matt Argersinger used to be the guest star on the show at this point, because you've heard so many of our shows over the course of time. Now, with Emily here, I just want to make sure we're clear on the rules.
I'll be presenting 10 companies this podcast, as I always have. Emily, for each one of them, you have no idea what's coming.
Flippen: No idea, unfortunately.
Gardner: We haven't talked about it ahead of time. So, unfortunately, there was no opportunity for you to study ahead. Now, you might have done some homework. You might have looked up and down our long list of stocks and thought, hmm, maybe he'll ask me about that one.
Flippen: I tried. It was a tough thing to do. I mentioned this earlier, my best study technique was to get a general idea about the size of the company. How many hundreds of companies are on the Supernova scorecard?
Gardner: More than a couple of hundred.
Flippen: Virtually impossible to memorize all those.
Gardner: Yeah, that's probably true. And that's partly why the game works, I think. If we only had 15 stocks, we'd talk about the same 15 every time.
Flippen: Too easy!
Gardner: It'd be pretty easy, exactly. So, 10 companies. You don't know what they are. They come from different industries. There's going to be a mix of different market caps. In every case, Emily, you're going to give your best shot at guessing what the market cap of that company is. Then, if you're within 20% either way, you're going to get it right. While you are my main player, because I'm looking at you and playing the game with you, the truth is that we have thousands of people listening right now who are going to be playing by themselves at home or in their car or while they job, because that's the spirit of the Market Cap Game Show. We're all playing it.
Quick example, if a company's actual market cap is $10 billion, then within 20% either way, means $2 billion either way. If that were a company that we're playing the game with, if you guessed from $8-12 billion, anywhere in that range, you give yourself a checkmark, you get this sound.
[ding]
Yep, we'll play it in the podcast, but that should go off in your head, as well. We'll just be scoring Emily, but please be scoring yourself. And, yes, we use a little bit of baseball. Emily, I understand you're not a huge baseball fan.
Flippen: I'm not a huge baseball fan. I don't know much about sports in general, believe it or not. But I can play along.
Gardner: [laughs] Excellent! So, basically, we just do a batting average, and we see how many out of 10 you got. It's like shooting free throws in basketball. We found that in general, for an analyst at The Motley Fool of the caliber of somebody like Matt Argersinger, who outperforms most of the rest of us, you can get about half of them, maybe.
Flippen: So, no pressure! [laughs]
Gardner: As a new player, Emily, I would say that if you get three or more, you've gotten off to a good start.
Flippen: OK, I like a low bar. Hopefully I can reach that. If that's the low bar, I don't want to see what it's like if I walk away with less than that. But I will give it, like you mentioned, my best shot.
Gardner: Awesome! That's all we can ask Emily and you at home. Without further ado, let's get started.
Stock No. 1. It's fair to say that this is now the most famous stock in Market Cap Game Show history, because it's been asked more than any other and never, not once, did Matt ever guess the correct market cap. Emily, I understand you may have listened to some of the past shows.
Flippen: I did listen to the past shows, and I did prepare for this on the off chance it was happening. I did not expect for this to happen, but I do believe I know what stock you're talking about.
Gardner: [laughs] Excellent. It starts with an E. What's the second letter?
Flippen: T.
Gardner: Excellent. Then an S, then a Y. Say it with me at home, yep, it's Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY). Etsy is, of course, the e-commerce platform uniting sellers worldwide, handicrafts and other things, with people who want to buy. This time of year in particular, I think about all of the commerce around the holidays. In fact, I was watching television, some sports on TV over the weekend, and I saw an Etsy television commercial. I'm not sure that I've ever seen an Etsy television commercial. It's a little bit of a coming-of-age moment for this company.
Flippen: I've used Etsy for a lot of gifts. I like how personalized it makes it. If you go on Amazon, a lot of times, you're getting a lot of the same things. Everyone's seeing the same ads on Amazon. But when you get an Etsy gift, it makes it special, which is why I think this company has such a high market cap, and why maybe it was hard for Matt to guess. I think he went high once and then low once, and then he figured it out the third time but I think still missed by a little bit.
Gardner: You're exactly right.
Flippen: I'm pretty confident.
Gardner: Excellent. Well, with all that said, Emily Flippen, what is the market cap of Etsy, ticker ETSY?
Flippen: I'm going to guess that the market cap of Etsy is about $7 billion.
[ding]
Gardner: I'm getting a little emotional right now. That's the first time that this company has ever had its market cap guessed correctly.
Flippen: I'll have to thank Matt for it.
Gardner: [laughs] Emily, I don't want to say that you're better than Matt, but with one company, you are better than Matt.
Flippen: Well, I'm on the scoreboard. That's all I really care for.
Gardner: Great job. You're one for one. Yep, the market cap of Etsy as we do this taping is 6.7 billion. Guessing at home, if you were anywhere from $5.4 billion to $8 billion, you got it.
I think it's worth mentioning that we have a hashtag that you can use on social media to let us know how you're doing. In the past, it's always been #IBeatMatt or #ILostToMatt. Of course, now it's #IBeatEmily or #ILostToEmily or #ITiedEmily. Over the course of our game together, with our 10 stocks, score yourself against Emily and please feel free to use #IBeatEmily, #ILostToEmily. Of course, @RBIPodcast is our Twitter handle.
With all that said, outstanding start, Emily! Great job!
Flippen: Thank you!
Gardner: Did I shock you, that I lead with Etsy?
Flippen: You actually did. I listened to the first two, and I thought, "Ooh, he might bring up Etsy again." And by the time I listened to the third one, I was like, "OK, he's moved on from Etsy. He's surely moved on from Etsy."
Gardner: Don't tell our listeners, but I might, the next several times, always lead off with Etsy. See, to me, this has become a thing.
I will mention briefly, Etsy was first picked in Motley Fool Rule Breakers in November of 2016. The stock was at $13.12. It's tipping the scales at $55 today. It's been an outstanding four-bagger in just two years and one month so far. Spectacular!
And what's funny about that is that Etsy wasn't even that on fire when we first picked it. It just bounced around those first few months. And people were like, "Really? Etsy?" And the answer is, "Yeah, Etsy."
Alright, let's move to stock No. 2. Emily, what is your home state?
Flippen: Texas.
Gardner: Can you just tell me briefly, where did you come from in Texas, and a little bit about your life?
Flippen: I come from McKinney, Texas. That's going to sound like nothing to a lot of people because it's not much. It's a suburb of Dallas. It was a nice area to grow up. I do have a bit of that Texas loyalty, even though I was not born in the state, but, raised there. So, I do feel a bit of loyalty to my home state of Texas.
Gardner: Wonderful! How small is McKinney, Texas? It's not that small, right?
Flippen: It was much smaller when I lived there. I think now, it's huge. It's part of the Dallas Metroplex. I'm not sure if it's differentiable from Dallas itself.
Gardner: When I was going to Dallas 20 years ago, they used to make a big deal about the phrase "Metroplex." I heard you invoke it right there.
Flippen: They trained us well.
Gardner: Dallas and Fort Worth, taken together, is the Metroplex. Is that really a phrase that people who actually live in Dallas and/ or Fort Worth or McKinney use?
Flippen: Well, in Texas, if you don't have a car, you don't have legs. You have to drive everywhere. Unfortunately, because of that fact, Dallas just sprawls. So, it really is a Metroplex.
Gardner: Alright. Now, in your time growing up in Texas, did you ever find yourself going to fast food restaurants? Or, maybe, ever, to roadhouses?
Flippen: I think I know where this is going. I have been to Texas Roadhouse (NASDAQ: TXRH) many times in my life.
Gardner: You have?
Flippen: My best friend from Texas, it's her absolute favorite restaurant, for good reason.
Gardner: And what is the reason?
Flippen: They have great rolls. You start off with the cinnamon butter rolls. That's what was always my biggest selling point. For her, it's the steak. Steaks are healthy, in her opinion. I'm not sure how much better they cook it in. You get a good slice of meat. It's predictable everywhere you go. Good, friendly atmosphere. The peanuts on the floor round out the whole experience.
Gardner: Yep, except for those who have peanut allergies.
Flippen: Of course. [laughs]
Gardner: That's one of the reasons I haven't been, our son has one.
Flippen: Oh, no! I didn't know that!
Gardner: I always wish that they didn't do the peanuts thing, but I totally can appreciate it. I love the spirit of Texas Roadhouse, and the CEO, Kent Taylor.
Texas Roadhouse has been a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick. I first picked it in August of 2013. Emily, what is the market cap, within 20% either way, of Texas Roadhouse?
Flippen: This is a hard one. I want to think Texas Roadhouse is bigger than it is, because everything's bigger in Texas. But I'm starting to think that maybe Texas Roadhouse, even though they have hundreds of stores, might be smaller than I might give it credit for. I'm going to try to make a safe guess here of about $5 billion.
[ding]
Gardner: Excellent! $4.7 billion.
Flippen: Texas was going to be upset at me if I missed that one.
Gardner: [laughs] What's your friend's name?
Flippen: Caitlyn.
Gardner: Caitlyn. Shout out to Caitlyn, who probably helped, her passion for the rolls, it sounds like, just starting right there.
Flippen: Everyone's passion for the rolls.
Gardner: So, playing at home, the market cap of Texas Roadhouse is $4.7 billion. If you were anywhere from $3.8 billion -- that's right, we actually take it out to one decimal place for smaller companies -- $3.8 billion up to $5.6 billion, give yourself a checkmark.
Emily has started off two for two. I think that qualifies as officially on fire. Emily, you're on fire! Let's go to company No. 3.
Company No. 3 is a Chinese company. And I selected it, Emily, because I know a little bit about your background after you left, McKinney, Texas. No doubt a storied high school career, and it was time to go to college. And what college did you select?
Flippen: I went to New York University, but I went to their Shanghai campus.
Gardner: What were you intending to study when you went to New York University?
Flippen: You know, I didn't have my mind made up. But I loved business, I loved finance, and I wanted to study Chinese. So, I figured, "Let's go to China. If it doesn't work, I can always leave." I went, I loved it, it was a wonderful experience. Sad to say my Chinese is not as good as it should be. But, I think as a result, I have this special place in my heart for Chinese companies and Chinese stocks.
Gardner: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember from a coffee early on when you first joined us, did I learn that you were initially in an experimental campus, the Shanghai campus? And maybe you were thinking, "I'll be there for my freshman year. That's an interesting first year at NYU." But then, did you not stay all four years in Shanghai for your NYU experience?
Flippen: I did. I stayed all four years. We were part of the inaugural class at NYU Shanghai. It was an experiment. The first year, it was a bit of a mess. We stayed on a Chinese university's campus because our university campus hadn't been built yet. But we did develop a lot of camaraderie between the 300 or so of us that made that very questionable decision at 18 years old, to move across the world to a university that didn't exist.
Gardner: [laughs] I think it's pretty great, though. Good for you! What a Rule Breaker you are!
Flippen: I'm happy I did it!
Gardner: So, Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) is a company that has been probably our longest-standing, best-performing Chinese company. When you were over in Shanghai, did you have a sense of Baidu? Was it a big name that you were hearing people talk about a lot and use?
Flippen: It was probably the first Chinese stock that I ever spent a lot of time looking at. It was pervasive. A distinct memory I have of it is when I did a semester here in D.C., actually, studying at NYU's campus in D.C. My semester abroad, you could say. [laughs] I remember that a lot of the Chinese students that came with me for that semester, free access interest -- we had free access internet when we were in China, as well, but none of the Chinese students wanted to use Google. They were Baidu loyal. Baidu gave the best search results in Chinese. And that's when it occurred to me how sticky that was. Even with open and free internet, a lot of Chinese students still used Baidu, because Baidu had years and years of search history and algorithms for Chinese users. It's one of those stocks that, from the get-go, I was really interested in.
Gardner: You know what's cool about that? For a lot of us who've held the stock for a long time -- in fact, Baidu was first picked in 2006 for Rule Breakers. If you're a longtime Rule Breakers member, perhaps you've owned it for 12 years or so. For all of its success -- and it's up about 21X in value -- for many of us here in the U.S. and no doubt other places that aren't China, we don't really have any experience or any hands-on associations with Baidu, other than the ticker symbol, BIDU. And it's been an awesome "Chinese Google." It's a delight. One thing that I've appreciated about you is your Chinese experience and background. That gives you a perspective which, you add value to our team. Thank you very much!
Emily, since we're talking about Baidu, within 20% either way, what is the market cap of ticker symbol BIDU? What's the market cap?
Flippen: Well, if I didn't know Baidu, I should probably leave the studio now. What's interesting about Baidu is, there's a lot of really large Chinese companies and a lot of really small Chinese companies. Baidu is stuck there right in the middle. If my memory serves, which it could not, if it does, I think it's right around $60 billion.
[ding]
Gardner: Nailed it once again! In some ways, I was trying to give Emily a little bit of an on-ramp into her first game. I thought, "Etsy, we have to ask that." But then, Texas Roadhouse, I honestly didn't know that you'd ever spent any time in Texas Roadhouse, but I didn't know you were a Texan. I did think you'd probably get Baidu. But you've started out three of three. So, what I said earlier was just par. You've already scored par.
Flippen: Well, I still have plenty of room to throw this one away. Let's not speak too quickly!
Gardner: Company No. 4 is completely different. Earlier, you said something about Texans that I hadn't heard before. It was eloquent, though. It's something about, if you don't have a car...
Flippen: You don't have legs.
Gardner: You don't have legs. So, let's talk a little bit about cars. Do you have a car today?
Flippen: I do have a car, actually.
Gardner: You do have a car. Did you feel like you needed one? I know a lot of so-called millennials, a term that's a little bit threadbare at this point, but, I know a lot of younger people feel like they don't need cars in urban areas because they can just get around with subway, bikes, and Lyft. But that's not you.
Flippen: Well, it should be me. I really have no reason that I have a car other than I moved here from Connecticut, where I did need a car, when I was working up there. So, it came with me. I now live off a Metro stop. I could very easily Metro in to work and Metro around to see my friends and get groceries. But yet, I have this vestige left with me, my car. We'll see if I ever end up cutting the cord on that car. But for now, I have it. And for now, I enjoy it.
Gardner: I enjoy my car, too. I'm glad that we both have cars. Emily, I'm curious, did you buy that yourself? What was the process by which you bought that car?
Flippen: Well, I was very lucky to have some parents who were very supportive of me when I graduated college, who gave me their old Honda (NYSE: HMC)Civic.
Gardner: Wonderful!
Flippen: It's not a fancy car, but it gets me from A to B. And I do kind of love it.
Gardner: Could you imagine buying another car someday?
Flippen: It's hard for me to imagine right now. I think if I woke up tomorrow, my car was gone, there was nothing I could do about it, I probably wouldn't be in the market for a car, at least not immediately.
Gardner: But if, for some reason, you were just compelled to do so, to buy another car, what would be the process you would use to buy that car?
Flippen: That's such a hard question. I like to consider myself a frugal person, so I'd like to think I would probably go online and look for whatever good used car I could find online. I like my Honda Civic, so maybe I would be looking out for a Honda Civic that's a few years old, nearby and not too expensive.
Gardner: Well, this sounds a little bit like the TrueCar (NASDAQ: TRUE) buying experience. TrueCar is a pretty bad Rule Breaker stock pick so far. I first picked it in January of 2015. We've led off with some big winners. It's wonderful to talk about making 21X our money in Baidu. TrueCar has gone from $17.93 when I picked it, almost four years ago now, down to $9.88. It's down 46%.
It's an online buying platform where you're aggregating information. If you're in the greater D.C. area, you could basically say, "Hey, everybody, I want to buy the next Honda Civic." "Everybody" would be all the local Honda dealers. And all of a sudden, within about three seconds of you typing your information into that platform -- this was the literal experience that I recently had -- you're going to get mail bombed and phone calls from all of the dealers with Civics that want to sell you a Civic.
What's impressive about it is that's all transparent. That's why the promise of the TrueCar platform is, "Never overpay for another car again." That's how the company markets itself.
TrueCar, ticker symbol TRUE. Emily, what is the market cap of TrueCar, within 20% either way.
Flippen: I don't think I know this one. I know that it's smaller than, say, CarMax or a company like that.
Gardner: Definitely. And it's a lot smaller than it was four years ago when I picked it.
Flippen: Exactly, so that was a little bit of a hint.
Gardner: It's about half as small.
Flippen: I'm guessing that this is in the billions, but in the very small billions. I'm just going to take a shot in the dark here. $1.5 billion.
[buzz]
Oh, no! [laughs]
Gardner: That was incredibly close, though. I almost feel bad. The company is worth $1.1 billion.
Flippen: Oh, that 20% margin!
Gardner: [laughs] Right! Playing at home, if you said anywhere from $900 million up to $1.3 billion, you got it right. Emily, you were extremely close. I almost feel bad saying that you got that wrong. But you did get that wrong.
Flippen: I did.
Gardner: We've got to play by the game. You're three for four. I feel like I may have disincentivized you from using the TrueCar platform if you are one day going to buy another car, which it sounds like you may never.
Flippen: Well, if I did, I can't say after this experience, I'd go there first.
Gardner: [laughs] Alright, let's get to company No. 5. We're going to keep it with cars because automobiles is a huge industry. One of the things often said by those who talk about the oncoming revolution of autonomous vehicles is that we may not need as many cars in the future. It's pointed out that if you and I don't necessarily own vehicles as much in a future where they just autonomously come and pick us up and drop us off different places, you don't need as many cars on the road. You don't have cars sitting in people's driveways anymore. It's just more efficient.
Flippen: That sounds wonderful! I think a world like that, if it exists, I hope it's coming soon. Our environment could definitely use it. I could definitely use it. [laughs]
Gardner: Another aspect of the world that could change is that if we don't have as many companies, there won't be as much of a market for aftermarket parts. There won't be as much maintenance needed. There are actually a lot of profound changes that could happen to our civilization. Things like, we don't need parking lots. So many parking lots downtown. Maybe your autonomous vehicle drops you off at the party and then goes half an hour away and just parks itself somewhere, then comes back and gets you later. It's very comprehensive and profound, how the world might change.
This company could arguably get a little bit hurt. The reason I wanted to play the game with this company is because one of the things I love about it is that it's the least known, least branded company of all. In some ways, because I can already tell you're a ringer, Emily, I'm glad that I'm bringing this company out, because I think a lot of us are already intimidated by your performance. So, let's see if you can keep it up with LKQ Corporation (NASDAQ: LKQ).
This is a company that, hilariously to me, just has three letters in its name. It's not even Acme Aftermarket Parts, it's just LKQ Corporation. But this is a leader for looking for aftermarket parts. If you are somebody who wants to fix up your own car, or you're professionals that are constantly servicing other people's cars, foreign cars, etc. LKQ is a leader.
It's an interesting stock. I first picked it in May of 2012. It was at $18 back then. Today it's at $25.50. That sounds pretty good, $18 to $25.50. Here's the problem. That was about six and a half years ago, and the market over that time is actually up 128%. LKQ Corporation, even though it's made money for Stock Advisor members and it's a company that I like and admire, it's a company that's 86% behind the S&P 500.
That's a little bit about LKQ. Emily, do you have any experience at all with any LKQ aftermarket parts?
Flippen: Did you say it's LKQ? [laughs] I have no experience with LKQ. And unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be making a very accurate guess here in a minute.
Gardner: They list themselves on their website -- which is, by the way, lqkcorp.com.
Flippen: I'm shocked.
Gardner: They list themselves as a global leader in aftermarket parts, as we've been talking about. You can search their inventory. You can tap in your zip code and get directions to an LKQ location if you're looking to pick up some parts for your Honda Civic. It's a very impressive company, but much more under the radar than companies that we typically feature on the Market Cap Game Show.
Emily Flippen, I'm guessing that you're guessing. We'll see.
Flippen: That's a safe guess.
Gardner: What's the market cap, within 20% either way, of LKQ Corp, ticker symbol LKQ?
Flippen: I'm going to start off by trying to figure out if it's a small cap, a mid-cap, or a large cap. I think that's a safe bet. A company like this, it might be a sleeper giant. Shot in the dark, $18 billion.
[buzz]
Gardner: Nice try. I don't think I would have done great myself. This is not one of our more talked about companies at The Motley Fool. Usually, in our discussion boards, and when we write updates, our members want us to update them on companies that are much better known. So, these sleepier, quiet, under-the-radar companies, are really harder to keep up with.
Further, I love it when we find ones that do really well. A company like Middleby, which my brother Tom found first, was a very quiet, sleepy company, and yet a tremendous stock over the course of the last decade or so. LKQ Corporation's market cap is $8.4 billion.
Flippen: I was way over!
Gardner: You were about double. But, I think a lot of us were guessing on this one.
Flippen: Can't people buy more car parts? Shouldn't I be bringing my car there?
Gardner: We would love them to. And now you know where to go if you have any problems with needing extra parts for your Civic. If you're playing at home, if you guessed anywhere from $6.7 billion up to $10.1 billion, that's 20% either side of that $8.4 billion, which is the right answer for LKQ Corp, give yourself a checkmark
Emily, you're three for five, batting 600. That is above Matt Argersinger's lifetime batting average. Good job!
Flippen: Halfway there!
Gardner: Emily, let's go to company No. 6. I didn't intend any real flow to this, but I'm seeing some flow in how we're going through these companies. Let's stay with e-commerce companies. Let's stay with companies that, like Etsy, in some ways, this company has its own online platform. But, kind of like LKQ, it's a little bit of a stretch, bigger, more expensive stuff than you're going to be buying on Etsy. I'm curious, do you live in an apartment? A house? How are you rolling here in Washington D.C.?
Flippen: I am rolling here in an apartment.
Gardner: Excellent! Did it come pre-furnished?
Flippen: It did not come pre-furnished, but luckily, going back to anecdotal parents' experience, they did hand me down an old mattress, an old couch. And I went to IKEA for everything else. So, I was relatively set up when I made the move.
Gardner: Great! What wonderful parents you have! That's always so good to hear. So, you went to IKEA?
Flippen: I did go to IKEA.
Gardner: You didn't think about maybe just going online and checking out one of our favorite Rule Breaker stocks, Wayfair (NYSE: W) and its website, which is all set up to sell you a bed, sell you a couch.
Flippen: There might be trendier young people out there who know how to use the internet. I know how to use my car, so I went ahead and made the drive. Using more anecdotal experiences, my mother is a huge fan of Wayfair. Got a lot of our furniture off the website. She said she ordered it online, it was there in two days. Set everything up herself. So, to me, it felt like a more expensive IKEA delivery. But they've done wonderfully.
Gardner: It's a really interesting company. I know many of us listening will have bought from Wayfair, but many of us, especially international listeners, may not be aware. This is a company competing pretty successfully with Amazon, which is hard to do, in part because these are really big, really bulky things. When you buy a couch and it gets delivered to you, that's not as easy for Amazon to do with Amazon Prime, let's say. All of these bigger-ticket items, really where Wayfair lives and breathes as a company, even though it's still not profitable today, it's a company that's been an outstanding grower.
First picked in August of 2015. The stock was at about $43 then. It's more than doubled. It's been an outstanding selection for Rule Breaker members. Another fun thing about Wayfair is that it's one of those 26 or fewer companies that has a one-letter ticker symbol. I guess nobody else was using W. Weyerhaeuser could have taken it, or Wendy's could have it. Walt Disney could have used W. But, nope, Wayfair somehow scored the single-letter ticker symbol, W.
So, it sounds like the Flippen family has had some experience with this brand, this e-commerce experience.
Flippen: They have. The Flippen family has been set up by Wayfair before. If I miss this one, maybe my mom will come out for me.
Gardner: [laughs] Alright, Emily, what is the market cap of Wayfair, within 20% either way?
Flippen: I'm thinking back to... was it LKQ?
Gardner: It was LKQ.
Flippen: And I'm seeing how ridiculous that guess is now.
Gardner: Really?
Flippen: Yes, because I'm thinking Wayfair has to be bigger than LKQ, but definitely not as big as $18 billion, which I think was my guess for LKQ. So, I'm going to go a decimal place on this. Let's say $10.5 billion.
[ding]
Ooh, solid!
Gardner: Wow! Emily, when you get it, you get it almost dead-on.
Flippen: I feel like I'm either way off, I have it right, or I'm just in the stars somewhere.
Gardner: As we tape, Wayfair is at almost exactly $10 billion. Playing at home, if you guessed anywhere from $8 billion to $12 billion, you along with Emily can give yourself a checkmark. You got on base, to use our baseball parlance. Great job!
Emily, you are now four for six.
Flippen: Not terrible!
Gardner: Not terrible at all! Do you feel inspired, maybe, to click in to the wayfair.com site and think about maybe a gift for some of your fellow Fools for Christmas, sending furniture to some of the people that you work with? Podcast hosts?
Flippen: The investing team is doing a gift exchange, so somebody might get a couch.
Gardner: [laughs] That'll be a great surprise!
Flippen: Oh, I'm sure they'll be very happy.
Gardner: As the truck pulls up in front of Matt Argersinger's home, I'm sure that Matt will be shocked.
Alright, company No. 7. The flow continues, we just talked about this company -- it's Amazon. While Wayfair has certainly carved out its own niche, Amazon remains the great e-commerce company of our time. The reason I wanted to select this as company No. 7, Emily, is because Amazon, in a much-vaunted headline that we talked about earlier in the show, crossed the trillion-dollar market cap mark recently. And yet, if you've been following along, and I'm sure you've been following along at least a little bit, it's no longer over a trillion. In fact, some might be shocked just how far Amazon has fallen, and how quickly, from that trillion-dollar market cap, of just seemingly weeks ago.
Flippen: I'm second guessing my guess now.
Gardner: Well, I'm not trying to tilt you too much either way. I'm also speaking to our listeners every time I speak to Emily. It's been a fascinating ride for Amazon's stock. Not just the company, which we first picked in September of 2002 at $15.31 for Stock Advisor. It's gone up over 10,000% since then.
Flippen: Just a little bit.
Gardner: One of our best picks ever. 106-bagger at market close this Tuesday. It's been a completely awesome stock. Years before that, we picked it online back when we had an AOL site, when The Motley Fool was early days. We've had a longtime love affair with Amazon the stock, Amazon the business, certainly, for me, appreciating so much how much convenience has been added to my life as somebody who doesn't like to shop. But, at the same time, wow, what a drop the stock has experienced since hitting that trillion-dollar market cap.
Players at home and Emily Flippen, within 20% either way, what is the market cap of Amazon?
Flippen: Earlier, we were talking about market cap and how it's fun to look at how much market cap can be lost. I remember reading a headline not too long ago that Amazon had lost, I think it was $200 billion in market cap. I have a lot of error of margin here, so I'm hopefully not overshooting or undershooting it. I'm going to say $800 billion for Amazon.
[ding]
Gardner: And, indeed, very close once again, Emily. Well done! $788 billion as we tape. That means, playing at home, if you're anywhere from $630 billion up to $946 billion. If you'd said $1 trillion, you could no longer get it right anymore.
Flippen: One day they'll get there again.
Gardner: Yes, I do trust that day will happen, perhaps even in 2019. We'll see whether Amazon and stock snap back next year or not. But it's been an incredible stock for the long-term, but it is kind of breathtaking how much market cap has been shaved off of Amazon in just a matter of weeks.
Flippen: Yeah. $200 billion. Think about all the stocks we just talked about. Some together probably don't even reach that point.
Gardner: You're right. In fact, without giving any spoilers, I think if you took all of the market caps of everything in this podcast and added it together, it wouldn't equal Amazon.
Flippen: So, you don't have Apple coming next, then.
Gardner: Good job, you've inferred correctly. Alright, we're in the homestretch. Emily, you are five of seven.
Flippen: I'm happy with that performance! The pressure's off now.
Gardner: I'm really impressed. I think a lot of us are impressed. I don't want to put too much more pressure on you, but you have an opportunity to maybe do something that's never been done in this game's history, if you could get seven.
Flippen: Oh, Matt's never gotten seven?
Gardner: I believe Matt's highs have been six out of 10 a few times.
Flippen: Matt better watch his back!
Gardner: Indeed, he must. Let's go to company No. 8.
This is a Rule Breaker stock pick. It was first picked in May of 2008. That means it's about 10 years old or so. At the time, I picked it along with my team. We were saying, "Computers are being virtualized. There's an opportunity." You don't have to use all of the hard drive space on your computer, at home, or at work. You can actually start using software and more effectively use your hard drive storage through virtualization. You can actually have more than one operating system on a computer. VMware (NYSE: VMW) was the company that really brought that to the world.
Since then, the whole cloud computing revolution has come. It's not gone. It's going to be around for a long time. VMware has been a company behind that. One of the early players. Initially owned outright by EMC and spun off, became a public company. Here's a fun fact before I ask you about VMW, that's the ticker symbol, VMW's market cap. Fun fact, 2017, Glassdoor printed that VMware is the third highest paying U.S. company. That's just interesting. I'm sorry to say that you don't work for a company that's in the top five.
But if you leave us, I hope you work for VMware, where you could probably make more money there if you had the skills.
Flippen: I doubt they would hire me! [laughs]
Gardner: [laughs] If you say so! OK, without further ado, Emily, what is the market cap for VMware?
Flippen: First, I want to say, I cannot believe you recommended it in 2008. That's very ahead of its time. My awareness of virtual machines is probably two years old, maybe. And I know, since it's been such a longtime rec, it has to be huge. I don't think it's up in the hundreds of billions.
Gardner: I will mention, before you make your guess, that it's been a good stock, but not a great stock. It's kind of funny. I do feel like we got ahead of the world on this one, but it was a larger company at the time. We picked the stock at $65 back in 2008. Today, it's at $162. It's up 144%, but here's the thing, the S&P 500 is up 138%. We're beating the market 10 years later by 6% right now. So, it's been more like an index fund than not. Still, it's more tax efficient than an index fund, because we've just been buying and holding. We haven't been paying any distributions or any taxes as mutual fund holders have to do.
Anyway, Emily, what do you think about the market cap here?
Flippen: I'm going to guess it's around $60 billion.
[ding]
Lucky guess!
Gardner: Well, if you say so. I'm starting to wonder how much luck is in there, and really, how much virtualization of your own hard drive is going on, Emily.
Flippen: Absolutely none!
Gardner: I think up there in the gray matter, you've got a lot of swimming up there. You're making very efficient use of your brain. Well done. I'm not going to say you memorized the entire Supernova universe -- no, that was really good. Good job!
$66 billion is VMware's market cap. Players at home, anywhere from $53 billion to $79 billion, give yourself, along with Emily, a checkmark. Don't forget, there's that hashtag, #IBeatEmily. I think that hashtag's not going to be used as much this particular week or so. #ILostToEmily, also a legit use out there on social media, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, wherever you do hashtags. Emily, great job! You're now six of eight, and there are two more to go. Let's get to it.
It sounds like you're not a big sports fan. Do you watch the Super Bowl?
Flippen: I eat lots of food during the Super Bowl, and I put an interested face on. So, in some ways, I watch the Super Bowl.
Gardner: Is it fair to say that you're there watching it each year? Kind of?
Flippen: In some ways. If I was on my own, I would not be watching it. But for the most part, it's a social event. I get invited places and I go every year.
Gardner: And when you watch the Super Bowl, are you doing what many people do and watch the ads more than the game? Or would you be watching the game more than the ads?
Flippen: Oh, I love the ads! The ads get so much hype. The ads and the halftime show are the cherry on top of the Super Bowl for me.
Gardner: So, when I say the phrase GoDaddy, does that mean anything to you? When we talk about Super Bowl ads?
Flippen: Didn't they have all the very inappropriate Super Bowl ads a few years back?
Gardner: [laughs] This is a company that seemingly every year goes big with its Super Bowl ad, and often a little risqué.
Flippen: Hey, they build a brand.
Gardner: This is a business where they're just basically selling URLs. If you wanted to get your own domain name -- do you have emilyflippen.com, by the way?
Flippen: I do not have emilyflippen.com.
Gardner: Does anybody?
Flippen: There's one other Emily Flippen out there. I've googled myself. She seems very nice. She added me on Facebook. She might have the domain emilyflippen.com. I'll have to check it out.
Gardner: You could. In fact, I think it's a quite a delightful experience. I would recommend anybody who's interested in getting a URL, whether it's your name, or an intended new business or idea, check out godaddy.com. That's where you can register it. It's an experience, just like buying something at Amazon. First, you search for it. You find that it's available. Then you put it in your cart, you add it to cart, then you use PayPal and buy it for like $10, and you've got a URL. It's a pretty great business that GoDaddy has. This is a company that came public pretty recently, even though it's pretty well known as a company. Buying and selling addresses on the internet, which I don't think are ever going to go out of style.
Emily, before I ask you about GoDaddy's market cap, do you own any URLs?
Flippen: Not anymore. At one point, I did. I had a blog. I meal prepped all my food, so I got a blog and I was posting photos there. Unfortunately, there's so much free food here at The Fool that it actually made meal prepping my lunches inefficient, in terms of my use of money. I'm still making all my dinners now, but unfortunately, I did not see a reason to keep the blog up and running. But, at one point, I did own an URL.
Gardner: Though we may not be among the U.S. top 10 highest paying companies, we're pretty good at giving free food, maybe top 25 for The Motley Fool.
Flippen: It's the small things that count.
Gardner: Good. Emily and everybody playing at home, what is the market cap GoDaddy?
Flippen: Well, this is going to be embarrassing because I'm pretty sure this is in Rule Breakers, which is the service in which I work. So, it's something that I should know, out of all these stocks. And it's an old company, but it's also recently IPO-ed. Domain names... I mean, they're not going anywhere, right? It has to have a high value. I'm going to take a shot, $32 billion.
[buzz]
Gardner: You and I talked a little bit ahead of time about how it would be fun if you badly missed one.
Flippen: Oh, no! Is it a $2 billion company?
Gardner: It'd be so much more fun. I think a lot of listeners playing at home want Matt or Emily to really miss one.
Flippen: They really want us to tank.
Gardner: Yeah. And you did.
Flippen: Oh, wonderful!
Gardner: I think there's a silver lining, which we'll talk about in a sec. The market cap of GoDaddy is $11.4 billion. Players at home, if you were anywhere from $9.1 billion right up to $13.7 billion, then you got this one. Emily finally missed one and really missed it badly on this one. You thought the company was worth three times more than it's worth. But that's the silver lining, Emily. We probably talked about this before, I've certainly talked about it with Matt. If you think a company is worth $32 billion, that's only worth $11 billion, add that to your watchlist.
Flippen: I should be buying some GoDaddy, I suppose.
Gardner: Right! Don't you think? You probably couldn't even imagine that you would have said that. Seeing yourself two years ago, saying that now. It was funny, when Matt first badly missed Etsy a few years ago, I think he guessed the market cap was like $5 billion. I think it was like $1.6 billion. And I said to him at the time, "Matt, maybe you should take a look at Etsy and add that to your watchlist, because you thought it was worth 3X more than it's actually worth, so it's really undervalued." And Emily, I'm going to say the same thing to you right now. You should probably add GoDaddy to your watchlist. Tipping the scales at $11 billion today. I will mention, this is a recent pick of ours in Rule Breakers. It's particularly painful for me, since I made the pick, to note that I picked it at $83.20 a share three months ago, and today, it's down to $64.50. In other words, the stock is down almost 25%. Now, the market over that time, the S&P 500, is down 9%. It's not been a good market. And a volatile company, a Rule Breaker like GoDaddy, is usually going to do worse than the market does when the market goes down. These are more volatile.
Anyway, this company is now almost a quarter less valuable than it was when we picked it a few months ago. I'm not going to pound the table too hard. We all make our own decisions. But Emily, I think you should definitely add GDDY, that is the ticker symbol for this company, to your watchlist.
Flippen: Consider it added.
Gardner: Alright, let's get the company No. 10, close it out. Emily, you are six of nine right now. That is an enviable batting average. A remarkable performance. Great job! This has been so much fun. Because it's that time of year, I just have commerce on the brain, e-commerce just keeps coming back to me. I think about companies like Etsy or Amazon. Sure, why not by emilyflippen.com? Give yourself a gift this holiday season, for $10. There are a lot of places that you can spend money these days on the internet.
One company has made that, maybe more than any other company I can think of, possible, for anybody to open up their own shop online and sell and do business. In some ways, Etsy has formalized what you or I could do if we just wanted to be our own enterprising entrepreneur, just run our own handicrafts shop. And if we did, if we wanted to create our own shop online, what would we probably use?
Flippen: I suppose we could use a company like Shopify (NYSE: SHOP).
Gardner: I think that that would be a good choice. Not only is that the global leader for that type of business, although, we'll talk about a Chinese Shopify before we close here. But, I think that Shopify would be a good selection for us. It's been a great stock selection, as well. We picked it in February of 2016. Here we are, just about the three-year anniversary. The stock was at $21 back then. It's $150 today, so this is a seven-bagger. One of the best Motley Fool picks in the last few years. We picked it in February 2016 for Rule Breakers, and then, right away, we rerecommended it the very next month. It had gone from $21 to $26. Whether you bought at $21 or $26, you're pretty happy today with the stock around $150.
Emily Flippen, what is the market cap, 20% either way, of Shopify?
Flippen: I spent a lot of time looking at Baozun (NASDAQ: BZUN), which a lot of people consider the Chinese Shopify. In trying to figure out a good value for that company, I spent a lot of time looking at Shopify, as well, and considering the market caps of those two companies. When we talk about market caps and the size of the market, and obviously, operating in China. Inherently, that market's less developed but arguably larger. So, I know, with a decent 20% margin of error, what the market cap of Shopify is. I'm going to guess that is $16 billion.
[ding]
Gardner: Yeah, $16.8 billion. To put a fine point on it, Emily, wow! You absolutely destroyed it!
Flippen: Hopefully Baozun will get there one day, as well.
Gardner: Baozun has not been a great performer for us in Rule Breakers.
Flippen: It has not.
Gardner: But it's a company that today, I think, if our data is right, and it usually is on our website, I'm seeing it at about $2 billion.
Flippen: Yeah, that's where it is.
Gardner: So, the company is basically worth about one-eighth of what Shopify is today. Baozun's ticker symbol is BZUN. Between Baozun and Shopify, do you own either of those stocks personally?
Flippen: I own Baozun. I don't own any Shopify, but that's not because I dislike the business. I honestly just never got around to it. I like the idea of both businesses. And I like the idea that, hopefully, Baozun could one day grow 8X to reach the market cap of Shopify.
Gardner: Alright. In her rookie appearance on the Market Cap Game Show, Emily Flippen just turned in a seven out of 10. When Tiger Woods first came to the golfing world as a professional and played his first tournament, do you know what he said at his very first interview?
Flippen: I have no clue!
Gardner: It's a famous phrase. The very first thing he said as a professional to those that were gathered at the press conference was, "Hello, world!" Because the world didn't really know Tiger back then. Emily, I feel like there's a little bit of a, "Hello, world!" moment for you here on this podcast.
Flippen: Or beginner's luck!
Gardner: Could you indulge me and just say that phrase?
Flippen: Sure. Hello, world!
Gardner: Awesome! You definitely earned that!
Flippen: Not as iconic, but I have it out there now.
Gardner: [laughs] Alright, that was really fun. Great job! While I'm patting Emily on the back and saying great job, I hope for all of our listeners, A, that you did at least as well as Emily. If you did, wow, we'd love to have you consider joining us here at The Motley Fool as an analyst, because you're really good. If you didn't do as well as Emily, that's OK. I don't think I would have. Few people would. But I hope you learned something. Whether you learned that GoDaddy, as Emily has, is worth a lot less than you would have thought, or you just learned what market cap was, you didn't even know, this is the first time that you've heard Rule Breaker Investing as a podcast, I hope you took something away that made you smarter.
In fact, our new purpose statement at The Motley Fool, to make the world smarter, happier and richer, in some ways, the Market Cap Game Show really brings all three of those elements together. That's why it's just about my favorite podcast to do every 90 days. Emily, thank you very much!
Flippen: Thanks for having me!
--
Gardner: Alright, coming up next week, you know how I pick five stocks and I do it about every 10 podcasts or so? Well, I'm not going to be offering my next five stock sampler next week, because darn it, I did one just last month. If you didn't get a chance to see Five Stocks That Got Trouble, please go ahead and listen to that, and check out those stock picks from last November.
But one thing that we do when we make picks, we do this at The Motley Fool in every context, but especially on this podcast -- we check back in and see how we did. We hold ourselves accountable. We love to see, how did those picks perform, and what can we learn from it? I have two five-stock samplers to check in on. That's the primary thing we'll be doing next week. Yep, two years ago, it was December 7th, 2016. I gave you five stocks to put under the tree. I'll be curious to see how well those presents have turned out in the intervening two years. And then, last November, I picked five stocks that will let you eat cake. We'll be reviewing both of those -- one, two years later; one, one year later -- on next week's podcast.
And then, we're going to do mailbag the week after. However, here's a special announcement: I'm taping both of those podcasts later this week so that my producer Rick Engdahl and I can have a happy holiday and not have to come into the office. With that said, then, we're doing our mailbag taping later this week. So, as soon as you hear this, you have two bits of homework. The first is, right away, let us know on social media whether you #IBeatEmily or #ILostToEmily. That's step one. Step two is drop us a line, rbi@fool.com is our email address. You can certainly tweet us @RBIPodcast. If you have a mailbag item, you might have a question, you might have a thought or a suggestion, love to feature you. Yep, it's going to be on Christmas Day. We'll be publishing 12/ 25 the December mailbag for this month.
Well, I hope you had as much fun as I did. I think Emily had even more fun than any of us. In the meantime, have a great week! Fool on!
As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing at rbi.fool.com.
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. David Gardner owns shares of GOOGL, GOOG, Amazon, AAPL, Baidu, FB, MIDD, and DIS. Emily Flippen owns shares of Baozun. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOGL, GOOG, Amazon, AAPL, Baidu, Baozun, KMX, Etsy, FB, LKQ, MIDD, PYPL, Shopify, Texas Roadhouse, TWTR, DIS, and Wayfair. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on AAPL, short January 2020 $155 calls on AAPL, and short January 2019 $82 calls on PYPL. The Motley Fool recommends Amgen, GDDY, TrueCar, and VMware. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.