Retail and Entertainment News on Wall Street

Target (TGT 0.50%) and Walmart (WMT -0.20%) rise on strong sales growth. Home Depot (HD 0.55%) and Lowe's (LOW 0.72%) slide. Bitcoin (BTC -1.03%) tumbles during a volatile week. AT&T's (T 1.30%) WarnerMedia agrees to merge with Discovery (DISCA) (DISCK) to make a new entertainment juggernaut. Twilio (TWLO 1.51%) and Snap (SNAP 24.91%) rise after each makes a big acquisition. Oatly (OTLY 11.46%) surges in its Wall Street debut. In this episode of Motley Fool Money, Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser, with host Chris Hill, discuss those stories and share two stocks on their radar.

Plus, Motley Fool analyst Maria Gallagher talks with Beyond Capital Co-Founder and CEO Eva Yazhari, author of The Good Your Money Can Do: Becoming a Conscious Investor. 

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on May 21, 2021.

Chris Hill: We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We'll talk impact investing with CEO Eva Yazhari. As always, we've got a couple of stocks on our radar, but we begin with a big week for retail. Shares of Target hit a new all-time high this week after first quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected. Same-store sales rose 23%, Andy. This was a fantastic quarter.

Andy Cross: Yeah, it really was, Chris. That comp growth you mentioned, comparable sales of 23% was versus about a 12% estimate and versus 11% for the prior year. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of 20% or more on the comparable growth, that's looking at stores that were opened a year ago and how those stores performed. They saw a 17% growth in traffic and 5% growth in the average ticket size. In-store comps, just forgetting about digital, Chris, which is also doing great, but just the in-store was up 18% and almost all of that was from foot traffic. We've got more and more people coming into the Target stores as you expected, but digital comp growth was up 50%, which is an impressive number, but that's half of last year's growth of 141%. So their EPS, their earnings per share just exploded up 500% to $3.69 versus a $2.25 estimate. All around, Target continues to deliver the vaccine rollouts. The stores opening continue to drive more and more growth. The apparel business is really a bright spot. That was up in the quarter 60%, the comparable store sales were up 60% in apparel alone. Same-day services are now half of the digital sales. Continuing all the innovations that they've made over the last couple of years is really starting to show up for Target and add some nice comp growth of mid to high in the single digits. Now, again, we're not going to see what we've seen this quarter going forward, but I don't think Wall Street expected that. The stock reacted very positively and Target looked really good, really owning sales of less than 20 times earnings for a market cap of $100 billion. That's a pretty good deal I think.

Hill: Walmart shares didn't hit an all-time high, but shares were up after first quarter profits came in higher than expected. Walmart also raised guidance for the full fiscal year. Jason, interesting to see Walmart driving comps growth with higher ticket items.

Jason Moser: Yeah. I think you look at Walmart, it will clearly remain very relevant in the years to come as an omni-channel retailer. They've made that pivot very, very well, but I think it's really going to come down to the investments the company is making in its digital presence and whether or not they pay off. I'm referring to a couple of acquisitions here recently. They're acquiring a company called Zeekit, which is virtual fitting room technology. They continue to focus on big investments in apparel. They see that as a big market opportunity that they want to own. Then another interesting acquisition recently, a little start-up called MeMD. That's to gain a foothold in telemedicine, which I don't know if you've heard, Chris, but telemedicine is having a moment.

Hill: I think I've heard that before.

Moser: It was really interesting in the call to hear how the excitement over those two little acquisitions counter what was maybe a bit more of a subdued attitude with Walmart+. They're going to continue to focus on building out the value proposition there, but the language on the call shows that it's just clearly one of many things the company has going on. All things said, it's resulting in a business that's performing very well given its size and its age, topline up over 2% excluding currency effects, U.S. comps up 6%. U.S. e-commerce sales grew 37%, and that's half the growth rate from a year ago, but globally, commerce was up 43%, and now, that global e-commerce penetration represents over 12% of the company's total sales. Again, I think they're making a lot of smart investments in digital. It's going to be worth keeping an eye on those new little acquisitions to see if they create that engagement that they're looking to create there. Is it a stock worth owning? [...] The longer you stretch it out, the more sense it makes. Five-year return, it's almost 130% including dividends, and that's outpacing the market, so not too bad.

Hill: Don't you think Walmart is going to do what Amazon did? Amazon kept that number of people who are in the Prime service really close to the vest until it got big enough before they said, "Yeah, we're going to put this out there." It seems like that's probably the move for Walmart with Walmart+.

Moser: I totally agree and it makes perfect sense. You don't want to divulge any more than you really have to with such a major strategic initiative so early on in the game.

Hill: Home Depot's revenue grew 33% in the first quarter. Profits were higher than expected. Global same-store sales are up 31%, and despite all that, Andy, shares of Home Depot are down a little bit this week.

Cross: Call it the curse of well-performing over the past year, because I think that just looking forward, you're not going to see that growth coming from Home Depot as a $340 billion company, but still a very impressive performance for the quarter. Average comparable ticket size was up more than 10%. Comparable transactions, Chris, was up 19%. Here is what I found very interesting. They said that the inflation from the core commodity categories like lumber drove 375 basis points during the quarter of that comparable growth. That's about a third of the overall growth coming from inflation that they're being able to pass off to the do-it-yourself, into their pro customers. You are seeing that inflation impact, and obviously, lots of conversations around inflation. Is it transitory? Is it long lasting? I think some investors may be looking at Home Depot and saying, oh, maybe over the next year or so, they're not going to be able to get that growth, which I expect that to be the case. But continuing performance, they're paying their dividend. That's 137 consecutive quarters. That's more than 34 years of performance from dividends from Home Depot, a $20 billion share repurchase, digital sales was up 27% and is now fulfilling 55%, all those digital sales are fulfilled in the store. The top 40 markets had comp growth of greater than 10%, so overall, a really nice quarter from Home Depot. Growth in their do-it-yourself, growth in their pro market, you got a $340 billion company earning $15 billion, that's a profit, price earnings were about 23 times with a yield of 2%. So I think you're going to do OK with Home Depot making money over the next couple of years.

Hill: As is often the case, Lowe's results were similar to Home Depot's. First quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected. They had double-digit comps growth. Jason, shares of Lowe's down 3% this week.

Moser: Well, the market's always very rational, right? Personally, I think the days of Lowe's playing second fiddle to Home Depot are done. I think Marvin Ellison and his focus on the Pro customer are a big reason why. If you look at the fact he took over in July of 2018, so he's coming up on three years, interestingly, the three-year chart shows Lowe's outperforming Home Depot 134% to 81%, so take that as you will. But again, making big investments in the pro customer, investing in new customer relationship management program to better serve those pro customers, focus on a more holistic relationship in the pro comps, outpaced the do-it-yourself for comps with over 30% in the quarter, and the new pro loyalty program I think will help keep those Pro customers coming back for more. They've revamped the store layouts even to accommodate for more parking of those pro customers. Really big focus there resulting in strong numbers. Topline up 24%, comps up 26%, U.S. comps up 24.4%, and earnings-per-share growth of 81%, operating margin improving. Much like Walmart, much like Home Depot, they have made a wonderful pivot to serving as an omni-channel retailer. Speaking of lumber, like Andy was saying, they are seeing some pressure from that lumber inflation, calling for a little margin compression in the coming quarters based on the performance from last year, but still on track for expansion from pre-pandemic level. I think that Lowe's has really set itself up in a good position here for the coming years to perform much more on par with Home Depot than perhaps we've seen historically. 

Hill: I know we focus on stocks on this show, Andy, but it was a crazy week for Bitcoin investors. Bitcoin fell 30% on Wednesday; it bounced back from that. But what do you make of Bitcoin these days?

Cross: I think, Chris, if you're going to be a Bitcoin investor, you really have to take that long term perspective. We say it again and again because it is one of the more volatile assets out there. We saw Elon Musk starting things off with a tweet about Tesla no longer accepting Bitcoin payments, then put a tweet out saying that they're going to continue to hold their Bitcoin holdings that Tesla has on their balance sheet. But then we saw that the People's Bank of China warned to Chinese institutions not to accept cryptocurrencies as payment. That really put the pressure on. You saw this massive volatility. You saw actually a lot of exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini, and some others having trouble with their clients accessing their portfolios to make those trades. A lot of leverage in this system. So I think we just want to emphasize, if you are investing in Bitcoin, please don't use leverage and really think about that as a long-term holding because in between, you'll see lots and lots of things that will move that asset over a very short amount of time, and you cannot think about trading, you really have to think about holding that.

Hill: Netflix and Disney+ are going to be facing a new competitor, and it won't be a small one. On Monday, AT&T announced it will be combining its entertainment assets with those of Discovery. The combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery will include HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Food Network, HGTV, I could keep going, Jason, but we don't have that amount of time. It was just three years ago that AT&T was touting the synergies of having all that media content, and now they're getting it off their balance sheet.

Moser: Yes, they are. It seems like it's better late than never, I guess. But I do think this really boils down to just one word, if I can be so blunt, and that is connectivity. It's really about AT&T needing to focus on what they do best, and that is connecting people and businesses using that wireless infrastructure that they have, as we see this 5G rollout continue. Probably a little bit of trying to have its cake and eat it too over the last few years here, but I think the writing was on the wall; they've recognized that. So again, better late than never. It's astounding to think about a company like AT&T that's so important to our communications infrastructure. Over the last five years, while the market has essentially doubled, AT&T's total return including dividends, it's around 5%. Just insane underperformance there. If you look at this market opportunity again, GSMA is forecasting a total of $337 billion in North American operator capital expenditures from the time period of 2019 to 2025. That's investments in this infrastructure; the 5G rollout. $337 billion, put that in context, AT&T spent around $35 billion total for 2019 and 2020. They've got some big bills coming up, some big investments they need to make. That's why I think they went ahead and finally just ripped the band-aid off, so to speak. In regards to the combined entity with Discovery, I think this is really what you need to compete in this space; a lot of great media brands and very deep pockets, and a singular focus on just making that content. Now they just have to figure out exactly how they're going to distribute it. But all in all, I think this is the right move at the end of the day.

Hill: They also have to figure out what the name is going to be, but I'm assuming it's going to have a "+" symbol at the end of it. 

Moser: Probably spot on there. 

Hill: A couple of tech acquisitions in the news this week. We'll start with Twilio. The Cloud computing platform bought Zipwhip, a business text messaging company for $850 million in cash and stock, and shares of Twilio were up more than 5% this weekend. It seems like Wall Street likes this deal.

Cross: It's a little smaller than some of Twilio's recently bigger ones with SendGrid and Segment which they bought for more than $3 billion. Interestingly, they're going to pay stock for this because they have the cash on the balance sheet to be able to pay for this pretty easily. But they think their stock is worth more for those kinds of acquisitions. Zipwhip is an interesting business. Serves more than 30,000 business clients to help them turn their phone numbers, land base lines, toll free lines, into text-based, enabling them to communicate versus text. Of course, I think so many of us understand that text is the preferred method of communication for so many. This allows their clients to turn those phone numbers into text enabled. That's going to plug right into Twilio's ecosystem. From that perspective, Twilio has a lot of success of integrating these applications they buy into their platform and getting more growth on that. They expect a little bit of growth from this acquisition on the revenue side eventually, once they make the acquisition and complete the acquisition later this year. Overall, a pretty nice acquisition for Twilio and Twilio shareholders. I do have to note, Chris, that the CEO, John Lauer of Zipwhip is a graduate of the University of Michigan, as is the CEO and Founder, Jeff Lawson, of Twilio, as am I. 

Hill: Well, then it's got to bode well.

Cross: It's got to work well. 

Hill: Snap is buying WaveOptics, a company that creates lenses and other parts used in augmented reality glasses. Snap is paying $500 million in cash and stock. Jason, just like Twilio, shares of Snap are down from their high for the year, but up more than 7% this week.

Moser: Yeah. It's not really a surprise that we've seen for a while now that Snap, the company, is placing its bets on an immersive, tech-driven future. I think really one of the bigger questions just remains, what consumers can do with it all, and will it result in Snap making meaningfully more money. That remains to be seen. It is no question though that investments like these can result in more engagement in improved sales for retailers. Looking at companies like Wayfair, Home Depot another one, it goes on and on, these companies are making investments and bringing immersive technology, augmented reality into their universe. Walmart another one with that acquisition. Snap, I think there's a bit of a retail angle here. Trying to diversify its revenue stream also serves as a more valuable marketing partner in that regard. You've got a lot of companies out there doing the same thing though; a little tiny one like Vuzix that builds these lenses that [inaudible] focus primarily on industrial applications, to giants like Qualcomm, which is collaborating with 50 of the world's leading operators to deliver extended reality viewers to consumers and enterprises all over the world within the next year. So it's a big market with a lot of folks that they're trying to crack that nut. 

The bigger question, we know the industrial applications, it's really a matter of trying to figure out how the consumers are going to use this en masse. We haven't quite come up with any answer yet, but Snap seems to be making these investments to try to come up with a good answer. A lot of good, talented young minds there; I bet you they come up with something good.

Hill: This week, Oatly made its debut as a public company. The maker of oat milk went public at $17 a share and the stock quickly rose more than 30%. Andy, Oatly is now a $13 billion company, and again, they make oat milk.

Cross: Well, a lot of people like that oat milk. I just served some of it to my daughter for her cereal here, for a snack. Really interesting because the IPO market, Chris, hasn't really been all that great. They came out to the market at a traditional IPO, which is nice to see. The Swedish-based company issuing those shares, about 84 million shares into the market, saw some growth. The business has been doing very well. A lot of interest in oat milk around the world. By some estimates, it is a $7 billion business in plant alternative beverages just in the U.S. alone. They do about $420 million in sales; that's doubled over the past year. They raised about $1.4 billion that they're going to use to invest into their business. Interestingly, Howard Schultz, Oprah Winfrey, and actress Natalie Portman have been investors, and they reportedly invested last year into Oatly at a $2 billion valuation, so that's looking good so far. They are offering in 60,000 retail shops, 32,000 coffee shops around the world. So looking for alternatives to cow milk,Oatly is seeing the growth. Investors are liking what they're seeing; it is a very interesting company. But yes, it is a very high valuation. Compare that against Beyond Meat, Chris, which has about a $7 billion valuation right now, and does about the same amount of sales as Oatly does.

Hill: After working in the hedge fund industry, Eva Yazhari left to become the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Capital, an impact fund that invests in early stage companies in India and East Africa. She's also written a brand new book, The Good Your Money Can Do: Becoming a Conscious Investor. Motley Fool Analyst Maria Gallagher caught up with Eva to talk about her approach to investing and how Beyond Capital operates.

Eva Yazhari: I didn't have the biases that a lot of investors do around looking at Africa and what I would call emerging markets. My family moved there in the '50s and '60s. They took a ship from New York to Cape Town, and then drove up to Tanzania with five children and came back with nine kids in total. I mean, that was an adventure. I think that the lack of thinking that Africa is impoverished, there's no opportunity there allowed me to see an opportunity. But I also looked around my networks after leaving Wall Street, even though I did enjoy my time there and said, it may not be money, but my networks are rich. I like to think wealth is more than money, and so I had skills, I had networks, I had relationships, I had a boy, so I had now a social media presence. I had all these tools that could really build up to invest in something that was sustainable and produced a strong impact. So you're right, every investment that we make impacts 20 individuals. 

Our first fund was built around 14 portfolio companies all in need to have healthcare, energy access, financial inclusion, waste and sanitation, and agriculture. We saw a big market opportunity for what we called the next four billion, so consumers that are relatively low income, we're now defining that as less than $15 today. You've seen language around impoverished communities on our first fund website where we did focus on the bottom of the pyramid. But as the innovations have grown, we've actually noticed that there are larger markets and actually two markets for different companies that maybe are providing loans to small businesses or women's health products to women on the ground. The other thing, just to mention, that you highlighted is gender. We're making money while doing good. We have a 2.2 times multiple on invested capital on two equity exits. We have a debt exit fully repaid with warrants and the company in venture debt. But gender distribution and livelihoods are also impact themes. 

In statistics that you mentioned from our website around our impact, we know that females are disproportionately impacted by our work because they are increasingly the consumers, particularly in our markets that require access to the basic goods and services. They can also be the workforces which are completely untapped. All I see is opportunity. It's not easy, but I don't think investing anywhere is easy, and if I were to be as bold as to say, "I'm not sure I want to compete in the USVC world." I think that has its own dynamics and challenges, whereas we get to see really fascinating value propositions that are somewhat undervalued, and to me, that just means there is an opportunity there to invest.

Maria Gallagher: Do you have any reasoning behind the countries or the areas you've chosen in that the choices to look in these specific regions?

Yazhari: Yes, we were looking for favorable market dynamics like any investor. We were looking for mobile prevalence, which really helps enable the businesses that we invest in. Technology, of course, is a part of that. Although it's more challenging to make, particularly in Africa, end-to-end tech solutions actually work. There needs to be some human component, and I'm very skeptical of fully end-to-end tech solutions on the continent of Africa as an investor. We also looked for a basis on the British legal system. Some of our founding team members are British lawyers, and have a little bit more of a deeper understanding of the structures and the rules and regulations around the investment landscape. Finally, we were looking for complementary markets, and so we have reviewed thousands of businesses. We have over 100 sourcing partners for our portfolio pipeline. 

What we have definitively concluded through being a fund manager for over a decade is that our markets do have similarities, and that's why we've created this blended portfolio for our investors. It's no different than some mutual funds or there's a mutual fund out there that focuses on the BRIC countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China, which you know is really popular when I was working on Wall Street. This is very similar, and that is, a turnkey solution for our investors to have emerging markets exposure, and so we wanted there to be similarities of business models of even target populations and innovations where portfolio companies could learn from each other across the portfolio, and we could also learn from the business models as well as we inform our due diligence for later stage investing.

Gallagher: That's really incredible the way you're describing it as such a partnership with so many different things in that combination of the heart and the head. I think that's such a great model for people to think about businesses moving forward as opposed to this very strict idea that we've had. Changing gears a little bit, you talked in your book about how money has more potential than we think is possible, you've talked about being values-driven. Can you elaborate on that idea, what it needs to be wealth conscious and how you think we can use it in our lives as public investors as well as just citizens?

Yazhari: Wealth consciousness is just knowing what you own. I think finance has become somewhat of a black box at times. It's changing and we see the proliferation of public in Robinhood and other micro investing websites and apps that allow for more transparency and ownership at different levels. But I think overarchingly, finance has not been accessible. I mean, to have to have learned the Greek's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and what's an IRR and all of these whole new languages to just know where your money is invested and what the return is, doesn't allow for your average person to feel, I think, empowered. 

Wealth consciousness is really just knowing what you own and it is one of the first steps to becoming a conscious investor and thinking about all your resources as tools to express your values. Sometimes it's not that nice to know what you own because, especially if you're just starting out, your investments might not really line up with your values. Maybe they are not oriented toward climate action, if that's an area that you're focused on, or gender equality, or maybe they are actually working against goals like racial equity, if that's a focus of yours. It is a really important component, but once you know what you own, you start to realize that no investment is neutral. It's either a positive or a negative impact, and there's really nothing in between. Then you can extend that out to other areas of your life, which is why I use money as the primary starting point and tool for investors to start thinking about wealth consciousness. Because it is actually, I think it's more accessible because of some of the constraints of knowing what you own, but when you dive in, you're like, "Wow, I own Philip Morris." That was one of my examples in the book, it's actually the opener story, and the book was telling my advisor, if you don't want to own Philip Morris and him also not listening, and seeing that paradigm and wanting it to change so bad, that had the a-ha moment to think very differently about my money. 

Then you can start to think about, you can see what the trend is, I'm actually wearing my hat today, which is one of the first sustainable brands started by a South African human rights lawyer. But this is one of the first sustainable consumer choices that I made outside of organic food like a decade ago. But you can really start to think about the other parts of your life, even going as far as not just your food or your fashion, but where you're active citizenry is or like, I don't like to call it activism because I think that's racial and gender equality should not be called activism. It's actually just human rights. But you're active citizenry and your discerning consumer choices. You can really line them up with your wealth consciousness in your values. We can talk about it more, but I think defining your values is also an area that is really critical. You cannot start to become a conscious investor without knowing what you care about.

Gallagher: Yeah. It's so fascinating because I think that that's what's very difficult, I think, sometimes as an ESG investor. For people who aren't familiar, ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, so you're looking for companies that are not only doing well, but doing good in all these different areas and how they treat their communities, their employees, and the environment. I think what's hard is there's no perfect company, and so a lot of times you have to say, "Well, this company does really well in this one area, but I think it has room to grow in these other areas." So defining your specific values because there are no generally accepted accounting principles to look out when you're looking at companies in this way. I'd love to hear some of the way you think about your values and how that's reflected in your portfolio. I know I'd had a lot of problems with some of my companies where I think they do really well on the environmental action, but then there are very few people of color or female leaders at the company or their median pay is super low, and so trying to think about both of those and figuring out if it should be in my portfolio or not is definitely a challenge I face.

Yazhari: It is a challenge, but there are some ways that it can be easier and they will get easier over time. When I think about defining my values, I actually did a value's game that I described in my book with an advisor, and I really just broke up weightings in different areas. For me and my spouse, what emerged was gender equality, racial equity, and then the climate emergency. We wanted to have our portfolio oriented toward those three areas. Now, our portfolio is public because we're young and we're not locking things up for 10 years. We're both fund managers and we're locking up our careers for that long, so just thinking about regular asset allocation, we're looking for public debt and public equities primarily. If we can, we'll make a small venture investment into a fund if we can get into the friends and family level of investing. We did have to toe dip into ESG negative screen funds, where it really was just screening out tobacco, fire arms, and alcohol, locally [...] wouldn't have been in that portfolio so that's checking one box for me. But I like to say, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. 

Doing some good is better than doing no good at all. That's actually one of the pieces of feedback that's come out from the book is, OK, great. I took a deep breath and I really liked how you said that, we shouldn't just try to find the perfect solution. We should toe dip a little bit and get involved. We started there. But actually very recently, I would say the end of last year, 2020, I think woke a lot of people up and it gave me the space to go deeper. As a working mother, it allowed me to actually have more thinking space because I also wasn't traveling as much and I asked a couple of questions. I think impact investing is all about asking questions. I asked my bank, how many women and people of color were running the funds because most of my investments are mutual funds, running those funds. I got the answer, it was about 14% of women and then I think 30.3% female and by pack. Not necessarily good enough for me, if I'm honest, but it was a good answer to start. Then I also evaluated some of my passes at ESG and I just really sat there and looked at the tear sheets of what was in the portfolios. I concluded that the ESG equals technology only is not for me. I've decided to make some changes. There are great funds out there for anybody who wants to look deeper. I think there are some great resources. 

I shy away from giving investment advice. But if you look, there are active impact investment strategies out there that provide maybe a bond fund that is lending to more local communities or lending to people of color and have long, long track records, or even equity funds that are focused on female management team members. I think it's just a matter of looking and asking those deep questions. Last point, the one certification where you can let the certification do the work for you is the B Corporation. There aren't many publicly B Corporations which is the thing that we need to wait for to happen, as you rightly pointed out, Maria, there's a life cycle of a company before it goes public. But B Corporations are businesses that are certified to have a focus on people, plan, and profit. You're probably eating a lot of B Corporations or putting a lot of B Corporations on your skin. But eventually they will end up in your portfolio and there are great easy ways to make sure that you are walking the talk in many different areas.

Hill: This week, Pringles announced it is teaming up with Wendy's to create their newest limited edition chip flavor, spicy chicken sandwich. If you enjoy, Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich and from time-to-time I do. Starting next month, you will be able to get to that taste in a Pringles chip. I'm irrationally excited about this, Andy.

Cross: Hey, they made me some oat milk to go with those planes that you're going to eat into your Pringles sandwich. I think it is just another case of two large companies trying to innovate and bring their brands, expanding those brand names to other parts of the market. It isn't limited-time-only. I think you can actually get a can of Pringles and you can get a code from that can of the spicy chips and get a code to be able to get a sandwich from Wendy's and try it out. I think it is interesting. I love the connection of the two brands and two well-known brands and we will see how it sells, but spicy chicken has been a very successful formula for many, many players recently.

Hill: A reminder that if you're looking for even more stock ideas and recommendations, you can check out our flagship service, Stock Advisor. You get stock recommendations every month, you get Best Buys Now and a lot more. Just go to radarstocks.fool.com. That's radarstocks.fool.com, 50% discount for being one of our dozens of listeners. 

Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass this week is Rick Engdahl, stepping in for Dan Boyd. Jason Moser, you're up first. What are you looking at?

Moser: Yes, sir. Taking a look at Qualcomm, ticker QCOM. Actually, next week I will have the good fortune, I'm going to be interviewing a Principal Engineer with the company, Mr. Rajat Prakash. He is with the Wireless R&D group there at Qualcomm and currently his work focuses on 5G enabled Industrial IOT, Internet of Things applications and other radio access network technology. For me, it's just going to be really interesting to speak with him and learn a little bit more about how 5G is impacting their business, the investments they're making. You've heard a lot of talk here recently about how Apple is going more vertical, bringing their chips in-house and what they get as perspective on that as well. Excited about the interview. It's the stock I've recommended. It is one that I am going to be excited to share this interview once we have it available.

Hill: Rick, question about Qualcomm?

Rick Engdahl: Jason, I have to admit when I hear Qualcomm, I think Nokia or I think BlackBerry, it's one of those darlings from the early 2000s and somehow Qualcomm has done a lot better. How did I miss it?

Moser: Well, it is a name that elicits a lot of snores. It is just a snoozer. I think it's a very boring idea. But when you look under the hood you see that they had this massive portfolio of patented technology. You realize their leadership in the market, it has been a good one to keep on the top of radar, I think for a lot of folks.

Hill: Andy Cross, what are you looking at this week?

Cross: Autodesk, ADSK, $62 billion company that creates 3D design engineering and entertainment software. Rick, I look at this business, very profitable, very steady, they're a leader in this space, that AutoCAD business. When you think about engineering you think about home building, you think about business building. Five million subscribers, very high recurring revenues. I really like Autodesk. Looking at the marketplace, thinking about the growth opportunity, the revenue retention rates to moving to the Cloud. Autodesk, I think has a lot going forward. I actually own shares myself, and they report earnings next week.

Hill: Rick, question about Autodesk?

Engdahl: Andy, I don't remember how old your kids are, but they've probably old enough. What's the best Tinkercad creation you've seen come out of Autodesk?

Cross: Oh gosh, Rick. They haven't gone there yet. They're still tied more to Roblox than that kind of stuff. But I'll be excited to go there eventually.

Engdahl: It's good stuff. Look forward to it.

Hill: Rick, two stocks. Which one do you want to add to your watchlist?

Engdahl: Qualcomm is still boring to me. I'm going to go with Tinkercad.

Cross: It's boring to a lot of people. It's OK.

Hill: Jason Moser, Andy Cross, guys thanks for being there.

Moser: Thank you.

Cross: Thanks, Chris.

Hill: That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money. The show is mixed by Rick Engdahl. Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill, thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.