Each week, Industry Focus: Financials host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, discuss one stock they're watching. In this week's installment, Matt makes his case for Synchrony Financial (SYF +0.59%), while Jason thinks Markel (MKL 0.33%) is worthy of a closer look.
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Nov. 5, 2018.
Jason Moser: Let's wrap up the week here, as we always do, with One to Watch. What's your One to Watch this week, Matt?
Matt Frankel: [laughs] My One to Watch is Synchrony, SYF, actually. Not only is it down about 10% after the lawsuit was announced, but, as I mentioned before, I love their high-yield business model. It's a very efficient company. I had a chance to meet with their management team. I think they have great leadership. There are a couple of really promising avenues they're taking their business. The CareCredit healthcare product has a lot of runway as more healthcare costs are being shifted to the consumer. They're starting to bundle a lot of their store card products together. All of their different home goods retailers, they're going to offer one credit card product that can be used across all of them. Same with auto parts. There's a lot of runway for growth here. As they're bringing in more and more retail deposits, their cost of capital is getting lower. I think it's a great time to get into this at a big discount. And, hopefully, I'll be able to shut up about Synchrony for a few days so I can buy some.
Moser: [laughs] Yeah, we have trading guidelines we have to adhere to here. If we talk about it, we can't buy it; and if we buy it, we have to shut up about it for a while. What's the ticker there for Synchrony, Matt?
Frankel: It's SYF. If I don't mention Synchrony next week, that might be why.
Moser: That's always a good thing to remember. I was trying to figure out, did I want to get Berkshire Hathaway as my One to Watch or Markel. I really love what both their quarters looked like. I'm going to go ahead with Markel, MKL. I'm really enthusiastic about where this company is headed. It's still a fairly small insurer, but they're building this business in that Berkshire Hathaway model. It's exciting from a number of different perspectives. I love the Markel Ventures side of the business. Again, I think Tom Gayner is doing a lot of great things with these guys. I think Markel should be on probably everybody's radar here at this point.
