2023 in Review: Nvidia, Interest Rates, Taylor Swift

In this podcast, Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis and analysts Bill Mann and Jason Moser discuss:

• The data points that capture how 2023 has felt for investors, companies, and homeowners.
• Why 2023 was rosy for Nvidia and the cruise lines, and not so great for Dollar General.
• The IPO and product launch that were totally forgotten this year.
• Two stocks worth watching: Okta and CRISPR.

Motley Fool host Deidre Woollard talked with Dave Meyer -- host of the On The Market podcast at BiggerPockets -- about insights from BiggerPockets' State of Real Estate Investing Report, and some interesting areas to watch in 2024. You can get BiggerPockets' full State of Real Estate Investing Report here: biggerpockets.com/REALESTATE24

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 Dec. 15, 2023.

Dylan Lewis: We're looking back at the year that was and reminding you of a few things you might have forgotten about. Motley Fool Money starts now. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From cool global headquarters this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Dylan Lewis joining me over the airwaves. Motley Fool Senior analysts Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Gentlemen, great to have you both here.

Bill Mann: Hey, nice to see you.

Dylan Lewis: We've got to look back at 2023 Some of the winners, losers, and things that you might have even forgotten happened this year. We are going to kick off looking at how the market has done this year and some of the stats that paint a picture of 2023. As we tape in mid December, the S&P 500 is up 20% year to date. The Nasdaq is up almost 40% year to date. Bill, if I had told you nothing else and that was all I'd given you, you'd say wow, pretty good year for stocks. Economically, things must be going really well. People must be thrilled.

Bill Mann: The 100% chance of recession in 2023 seems to have been a little high.

Dylan Lewis: I think so. [laughs].

Bill Mann: I thought he was introducing us with a weather report. [laughs]. Back to you, Dylan?

Dylan Lewis: Back to me. I think it's just surprising to me, you know, based on all the headlines that we've seen this year, to see those market numbers be as strong as they are. Especially because it seems there's been so much uncertainty and so many things working against strong market returns. Jason, what do you think?

Jason Moser: Well, 7.95% Dylan. That is my statistic. That is my number. That is what I want you to remember for this year. I just googled current 30 year fixed mortgage rates and that's the number I got. Now let's not hall over this, I know that we can all get, or most of us at least, get a mortgage rate a little bit lower than that. But I think that really does tell the tale for what 2023 has been all about. I mean, when you look at the impact that interest rates have on virtually everything else that we do in our lives, it starts to make a lot more sense. But taking a look at the housing market and really how this interest rate environment has ground the housing market to a halt. It's just, it's been, I mean, I'm sure we all probably could have predicted it to an extent, given that we knew that the Fed was going to push rates up like this. But when you look at the data out there. I mean, sales now sit at their lowest level since 2010, according to the latest monthly data from the National Association of Realtors. I mean, you've got median existing home sale price $391,800. That's a 3.4% increase from the previous year, and a new record for October. Understanding that housing kind of underpins so much of what goes on in our economy, it just starts to make a lot more sense that this year of interest rate increases has just had an impact on virtually everything that we do. It's not something that's going to correct itself quickly, I think for folks looking for maybe three, 4% interest rates. Listen, I don't know, those days are ever coming back. Maybe they will one day, but it's not going to be any time soon. I think 2024 will be very lucky to get back to something like 6.5% or something like that if things go well. But to me, the mortgage rate story really has been front and center for 2023.

Dylan Lewis: Bill, you took a different angle on this one for your stat of the year, what do you got?

Bill Mann: Interestingly enough, the average profit margin for an S&P500 company this year has been 11.9% which is higher, other than 2017, since 1992. It has actually, from a corporate standpoint, been a very good year, despite higher interest rates, despite all of the headwinds that we thought that we were going to be facing. But there is actually another stat that I think is interesting. There is a cliche on Wall Street where analysts come on to the quarterly conference calls, they say great quarter and there's some sociopath out there who tracks this. In this last quarter, analyst praises were down 29% to the lowest level since the first quarter of the pandemic. Great news on one hand and nobody is given anybody any credit.

Dylan Lewis: I love that. The technical term there is analyst praises. [laughs] That is the metric that we are tracking. We will add it to the dashboard. That is an absolutely fantastic one.

Jason Moser: I was just going to say, I think that may be the first time in motley full money history that the word sociopath has ever been used with you. [laughs] I could be wrong. I think it's at least a possibility.

Bill Mann: Who is the person who said, hey, [laughs] I think I'm going to find some Alpha out of this [laughs].

Dylan Lewis: Bill when you see that though is that, in some way, what you're seeing with the profits and expression of the inflationary environment we've been in and companies being able to benefit from it? Or what do you think's been driving that?

Bill Mann: I think that's at least partially true and there are some accounting conventions that allow companies to value the cost of goods sold based on stuff that they've held in inventory for a long time. But I think a lot of it really has to do with the fact that when we think about inflationary environments, we forget about the fact that a lot of times companies are the ones who are benefiting from, or at least they are the ones who are increasing the prices. It tends to work out more OK for them at least in the short run.

Dylan Lewis: Let's talk about some of the winners and losers of 2023. We're going to dig into some of the best and worst performers so far this year. Jason, let's start out Rosie, I mentioned the S&P500 returns to kick off the show, a couple companies in the S&P 500, a very large part of why the index has done so well this year.

Jason Moser: Well, I mean, we've seen, I mean, obviously we talk about the Magnificent Seven a lot. That's something we'll get into a little bit later on here in the show. But I think the one that really stands out in video shares up better than 220% for the year so far. I mean, really it all boils down to, I mean, we know the AI theme. I mean, 2023 has been a year of artificial intelligence. We've talked a lot about where AI can take us. I mean, it is obviously still very early innings, but when you look at the numbers, that NVidia continues to chalk up revenue up 34. The most recent earning score earnings report revenue up 34% from the previous quarter but up to 206% from a year ago. Looking at data center revenue. Which data center? I don't know if you've heard dealing with the data center is a big trend in a lot of tail ones there.

Dylan Lewis: Think so.

Jason Moser: That revenue up 279% from a year ago. I understand the enthusiasm, I understand the optimism, and I understand why the market is buying this stock handover fist. I think one thing to keep in mind, obviously we talk about a lot. The market is very forward looking. Of course, you have to at least ask yourself, at what point does the enthusiasm start to winter? At what point do we get to where you know that's enough enthusiasm. Now let's see what results this company can bring, because next year I'd be willing to bet those growth rates probably aren't going to be quite as strong as this year. But again, I mean a great company doing a lot of great things, it's no surprise it's performed so well.

Dylan Lewis: Given how tech dominated the year and thematically, AI really dominated the year. Looking at the S&P 500 components, I think two companies that jumped out to me as surprises as winners were Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean. I just was amazed to see that those two companies were up 100% year to date. They are off highs from before the pandemic and even some of the highs they hit early in the pandemic. But Bill was just a little amazed to see that they had risen as much as they had. I don't know if that's a return to normal type narrative that we're seeing there or what that might be.

Bill Mann: Well, that's definitely true. One thing that we talk about from time to time is that you can find really good investing ideas with companies that simply forget to die. Those were very much two companies that had during the pandemic. The cross-hairs were on them. They had massive assets that weren't being used at all. I mean, good for them, you know, none of it is any laughing matter. But that's where that level of our performance came from. We talked about 2023 as being the year of artificial intelligence. It was also the year of human cause stupidity. At the bottom of the S&P 500 in terms of performance is a company called Dollar General. Dollar General is America's largest retailer, buy outlets. Bloomberg very helpfully says that it has 19,000 locations, the same amount as Walmart and Wendy's combined, which seemed like an odd set of companies to combine. But there you go. One of the biggest problems at Dollar General this year has been self-checkout, which I don't know if I could have predicted anymore that self-checkout was going to be an area where companies that have tiny profit margins, it's probably not going to work out very well. Dollar General almost cut in half this year. Had some terrible storylines about the quality, you know, and the safety in the stores. It has not been a very good year for Dollar General long term, this has been a very good retailer. But I think when you get to the edge of a growth rate for any company, decisions have to be made. A lot of the decisions that Dollar General seems to be making have not worked out at all.

Dylan Lewis: Coming up after the break, we've got some stories from 2023 you may have forgotten about and the themes that dominated the year. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis joined over the airwaves by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. Earlier we talked about the things that jumped out. In 2023 now we're going to talk about some of the things that people may need to get a little reminder of that happened during the year. Jason, what jumps out to you is something that maybe flew under the radar in 2023?

Jason Moser: Well, Dylan, I like food. I like to cook food, I like to eat food. I love to invest in food. Chipotle has been one of my greatest investments, and I just mean, listen, back in June 14th, we saw an IPO. It had been a very IPO thin year. But Cava IPO on June 14th and leading up to that IPO and then really in the subsequent months after, we keep on asking is this the next Chipotle? I think that's a fair question to noodle, right? I mean, when you look at the numbers the company has chalked up, you look at revenue from 2016 up to fiscal 2022, they grew at a 49% compound annual growth rate. They're talking about average unit volumes in 2022, each store pushing through around $2.4 million annually in Chipotle. Around $3,000,000 I mean, they acquired Zoe's before they went public, of course, but they gave them this rich portfolio of real estate to basically open additional covers. They're converting those Zoe's into Vas.

They see a market where they can get beyond 1,000 stores and they're going to crack through 300. At the end of this year. They continue to raise guidance talking around 15-16% same store sales growth for the full year here and then you add they're rebooting this loyalty program 3.7 million loyalty members going into this next quarter here, but they're going to revamp this program to try to make it a little bit more in depth, a little bit more rewarding, I think they're going to probably take some lessons learned from other reward programs out there. You start to wonder, is this something that could be the next goal? It is possible. They definitely have a very quality product. The stock has not performed so well since going public down 13% or so year to date. But this is one to keep an eye on. I think a lot of us out there we do like the product and it feels like they have room to open up a number of stores to go. In a very IPO light year, this was just an IPO that stood out as one that you could be wanted to keep an eye on.

Dylan Lewis: I like that one, Jason, because I feel there's a lot of fanfare on IPO day and then everything just kind of fades away. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves the company's still there doing its thing. Bill, what's jumping out to you from T 23?

Bill Mann: I don't know if you guys remember COVID-19. Do you guys remember this? Does that ring a bell?

Dylan Lewis: Yeah.

Bill Mann: It took up about 2.5 years of our lives in which every conversation it seemed we had with people. Outside of our homes or inside of our homes, it was at the center. Well, in May of this year, Tedroscabrasis, who is the head of the World Health Organization, declared that it was no longer a public health emergency due to COVID-19. In a time in which I seem to go weeks without thinking about it anymore, I just wanted to remind people that it has not been that long since this virus up ended our lives around the world, but 2023 should be remembered as the year in which things started to get back to normal.

Dylan Lewis: I think that's a great reminder there, Bill. For my money, I'm going in a different direction on things that we have forgotten about or may need a reminder of for 2023. Do you guys remember the launch of threads?

Jason Moser: I do. I didn't participate, but I do recall.

Dylan Lewis: It was the fastest growing app of all time. Logged 100 million sign ups in the first five days, and I have to be honest, I don't know anybody that uses it.

Jason Moser: Does it still exist?

Bill Mann: It does. It has clubhouse energy. Do you remember clubhouse thread two?

Jason Moser: Yeah, mere cat, that was a mere cat.

Dylan Lewis: I am fascinated to see where this one goes because according to Meta's management team, it has 100 million monthly active users. I know none of them, and they are planning on expanding into Europe short to continue expanding that offering and I think it's just amazing because it was something that was really coronated as this great appalanche and so successful in the moment, but immediately faded from relevance.

Bill Mann: It shows the power, the number of network effects because it's not like the artist formerly known as Twitter has done itself any favors in the process.

Jason Moser: Yeah, that's a really good point. Like Twitter has given them this market on a series.

Bill Mann: Take Twitter and yet take it. Yeah, go ahead. Can't be done.

Dylan Lewis: Listeners, if you're using threads out there, we want to hear about it. [email protected] is where you can sing it.

Bill Mann: Hit us up on Twitter ad. [laughs]

Dylan Lewis: That's too funny, writes itself. Let's get over to the unavoidable. I'm going to ask each of you to crown the winner of 2023. Jason. Complete the sentence for me here, 2023 was the year of blank.

Jason Moser: I mentioned it earlier. I think it was the year of the Magnificent 7. When you look at Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and NVidia, they all just had tremendous years. NVidia, obviously leading the way, but if you held a basket of all seven of these stocks, you did tremendously well, for obvious reasons. I know there's a lot of talk about this great rotation, I pull back on that maybe a little bit. There's no reason to not own really any of these seven business I don't think.

Dylan Lewis: Bill, what about you? 2023 was the year of?

Bill Mann: Taylor Swift.

Dylan Lewis: Has to be.

Bill Mann: It has to be. Jason's coming with companies that added $650,000,000,000 in market gap in a single year. Which I understand to be pretty good, but Taylor Swift's tour, her eras tour was so big that it was described by economists as one of the most successful wealth redistribution devices in the last decade. With wealth moving from the upper middle class to other parts of the wealth distribution curve, it's the first tour to earn over $1 billion and it is far from done. When tours earn that much money, that's just talking about what the tour itself is doing. The amount of economic activity that has happened because of Taylor Swift is going to be calculated for a long time and that number will be massive.

Dylan Lewis: Bill, so many of the things that Swift has done over the last couple of years seem unprecedented in a lot of ways. The massive concert tour, followed by the movie release, which people in my household saw and absolutely loved, it is on our viewing list as a group at some point soon, but also re recording all of her songs so that she owns them outright. It seems like there is a little bit of a new playbook in the music industry that she's establishing.

Bill Mann: Yeah, she's obviously a very talented businesswoman and it's to the point that when FTX collapsed, people were giving Taylor Swift credit that maybe not entirely deserved for not having gotten into NFT's because she was worried about contingent liabilities, but yes, obviously a very savvy businesswoman and a talented artist.

Dylan Lewis: Great foresight by Swift there. Bill, Jason, we're going to see you guys a little bit later in the show. Up next we're going to switch from stocks to real estate and talk about the state of housing in 2023. Stay right here, you're listening to Motley Fool money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis, U Sectors caught quite as many headlines in 2023 as the real estate market, high rates and high prices made for a tough environment for buyers, and housing supply continued to lag demand. To get a sense of where the market is now, Motley Fool Money is Deidre Woollard caught up with Dave Meyer, the VP of Growth in analytics, and the host of the On the Market podcast at Bigger Pockets. Dave did talked through the insights from Bigger Pockets State of the Real Estate Investing report, in some interesting areas to watch in 2024.

Deidre Woollard: I'm excited to talk about this report and I wanted to figure out, what do you think the big story was in 2023?

Dave Meyer: The big story in 2023 to me is all about inventory in the housing market. I know the predominant media narrative about the housing market is about interest rates. Those are certainly important because that's really impacted demand. But I think that really was predictable. Interest rates went up, that's going to make it less affordable for people to buy homes and therefore we have fewer people interested. But what was less obvious is to the extent that which supply in the market, which in real estate we call inventory, really declined. That has surprisingly held prices relatively steady in the housing market. If there's one thing that surprised me, and I think dictated the market this year, it was inventory levels.

Deidre Woollard: The impact of that, the housing affordability has just risen now. It's the lowest opportunity to the housing affordability is now at the lowest rate since the 1980s. It's a terrible situation for a lot of people trying to get in the market. Is there any way that can shift? We know that interest rates are probably going to stabilize next year. What about the inventory rates?

Dave Meyer: I think that's the big question and I agree. I do think interest rates will probably peak sometime soon if they haven't already and we'll start to decline a little bit. I'm not one at this point in December of 2023 thinking that the Fed is going to cut rates as much as certain people are forecasting. But I do think we'll see some mortgage rate relief. But to me, the thing in 2024 is like where does supply come from? Because I'm having a hard time figuring out where it is. The big thing that's impacted supply so far is the "lock in effect" if you haven't heard of this term, It's basically that so many people, about 95% of people, have mortgage rates that are under today's current rates. When you think about that, it is not attractive for people to sell because most people who sell a home go on to buy a home as well. When buying conditions deteriorate, that means that people don't necessarily want to sell. There's been some studies into this by Zillow and another firm called John Burns Research and Consulting. They have found that mortgage rates would have to get to somewhere around five to 5.5% before we start to break this log jam and people start to sell again. Personally, I don't see that happening in 2024, so I don't really see supply getting that much better. The other places it could come from are potentially foreclosures, which are rising from pre pandemic lows, but are still way below where they were before the pandemic construction has been up or down. But it would take a lot of years of accelerated construction to alleviate the housing shortage. I don't personally see any huge increases in supply next year. It will probably go up a bit, but to pre pandemic levels, I don't really see that happening anytime soon.

Deidre Woollard: Well, and it's really been this way since the great financial crisis. They had a report a few years out that predicted the silver tsunami of all the retirees that we're going to sell didn't happen yet. May happen at some point, but in the report, you did note the new listings which usually fall in the second half of the year. They weren't following the usual pattern. They're up a little bit, not a lot. I think the latest NR report was like 3.6 months, which is still way below what we need. But it brings up another question for me, which I've noticed over the last few years, is that the traditional real estate cycles of April through October being the time when everything's on the market. We seem to be getting away from that are kind of is the seasonal dynamic shifting in real estate.

Dave Meyer: It does seem to be that way and I think it will be interesting to see what happens this year, but for the last two or three years, it has really bucked a lot of trends. As you said, normally what we see is housing prices for the year bottom out around January, February, and then they steadily rise through the end of the second quarter, usually peaking somewhere in May or June. Then they gradually decline a little bit through the end of the year. Now we're just seeing all different things happen. It's hard to nail that down. I do think we'll probably still see some deviation from normal seasonal patterns until interest rates come back down a little bit, and probably until we have a little more economic certainty. There's just been so many anomalous economic events over the last three years. I think they're still rippling through the housing market and it's going to be a little while until they settle back into the normal patterns.

Deidre Woollard: I think that makes it challenging for buyers who have been taught that they don't, you know, so the thing has always been maybe you'll get a better deal in January or October after everybody else has sort of stopped looking because school's back in session, doesn't seem to be the case anymore, which I think makes it tougher for people trying to get in the market.

Dave Meyer: Definitely. I think normally it's somewhere around two or 3%. If you're buying them medium price home, which in the US is $400,000 it'll save you eight or $12,000 by waiting to the winter, which is great. On top of just the financial gain, I think a lot of people like the decreased competition, where you don't have to make these offers sight unseen or you're not bidding against a lot of people. That is the benefit of typically buying this time of year. Even though there's sometimes less options for you to see. Right now I think most behavior is really rate driven. You just see even when there's slight deviations in mortgage rates right now, the demand for mortgages, which is sort of how we measure demand in the housing market. You look at how many people apply for a mortgage in a given week. It's really sensitive right now. Like if you go back to 2018, 2019, if mortgage rates changed by 20 basis points, nothing happened. It really just wasn't that big of a deal. Now people who want to buy are waiting and say, OK, drop from 7.2 to 7.3 Like now we're going to jump in. It's not like a huge rush of people, but you do see those slight deviations dictating demand in the market.

Deidre Woollard: The home builders have been talking a lot about that, is they've seen that massive fluctuation in terms of people coming in and then changing their mind as soon as rates shift. I wanted to talk about a phrase I heard recently I can't get off inside of my head and that was that the single family rental is the new starter home for many Americans. If you're a real estate investor, that should be good news, right?

Dave Meyer: What does that mean that the single family rental, so most people are buying a single family rental instead of their starter home?

Deidre Woollard: No. Most people can't get into the starter home, so they're getting the single family rental. They're going from like you get your first apartment as a young person, then you move up to the single family rental and you may or may not be able to eventually afford because of the housing affordability problem.

Dave Meyer: Okay. I think that housing affordability is a huge issue and I am an investor, but I don't think it's great that people can't afford homes. I would rather more people be able to afford a starter home. That said, I do think a lot of this narrative that everyone is turning to a renter is a little bit overblown. If you look at the data for the home ownership rate going back like 50 or 60 years, it is very stable in the United States. It's always between 63-68% and right now it's 66. It's right where it normally is. Now I do think there is danger that gets worse, but just right now, you hear that phrase "Renter nation." But I think honestly it makes sense. I know culturally in the United States, we've created this narrative that to be successful, you need to own a home. And it is a good way to build some wealth. But if you actually do the math right now, it is better to rent than to buy in almost any city.

I am a real estate investor, I rent my home, because I think I'm better off putting that would be down payment into investments like rental properties rather than into my own property right now. I do think there is a little bit of truth to that and I think that's just generally true, but I also think this goes to the home building situation as well, which is that we just don't build starter home size properties in the United States anymore. The average home built, I don't know the exact number so correct me if I'm wrong here, excuse me if I'm a little off, but I think it used to be, like in the '90s it was 1,400 square feet and now it's like 2,400 square feet. What makes money for builders is bigger homes, and unfortunately, that's not things that first time home buyers can afford so there is this mismatch between the product that is being built and what people in our country actually want and need. That's probably creating more demand for the single family rentals.

Deidre Woollard: Let's talk a little bit about next year and what might happen. Personally, I'm hoping that 2024 is the year we break our obsession with the Fed, that maybe we get limited moves in either direction. What do you think of that? Will that create a better investing environment?

Dave Meyer: I would love to go a week without talking about the Fed in my life. [laughs] You and I think talk on podcast a lot is a very common topic these days. I do think it's going to be a more quiet year. I think a lot of what's going to happen next year in the housing market, is going to be determined by the Fed pausing. Not necessarily what happens with the federal funds rate. Because mortgage rates obviously are impacted by the federal funds rate, but it really has a lot more to do with bond yields and what's going on with the mortgage backed securities markets so those things are obviously impacted by the Fed, but are also highly influenced by what's going on in the stock market and what is going on in the broader economy and recession risk. I think as the economy, and hopefully gets a little bit more clear, we will get some stability in the mortgage market and my hope is that, housing volume starts to pick up and we can no longer be talking about the Fed every six weeks.

Deidre Woollard: I would like that as well. It's interesting because, one of the things the report mentions and one of the things that I've seen over the years is not all types of real estate investing works in all markets. So as we think about 2024, I've noticed an uptick in lending in private credit, but what do you think about a strategies that are more attractive next year?

Dave Meyer: Lending is great. Obviously, in a high interest rate environment, the people who benefit are people who lend so that is always good. It's not necessarily the easiest way to get into real estate investing unless you are an accredited investor where you can do funds, which is a good way to do it. I think there's a couple strategies. One is a term called house hacking. If you haven't heard that, it's basically an owner-occupied strategy. This is great because as we were talking about rentals, it is expensive to buy your first home. Basically, if you buy a duplex or a triplex or a quadplex, live in one unit and rent out the other ones, it can either help you cash flow or greatly reduce your cost of living, your housing costs, and you get the benefit of residential financing. You can actually buy three or four units, putting 10% down and getting those better rates. Actually just this year, there are some rules now that have made that a little bit easier so I just said that you can buy four units and put five or 10% down. Last year, that wasn't possible. That is a new thing that is coming out and is making it easier for people to do this house hacking strategy. There's also a new rule that allows investors to count revenue from an ADU, which is an accessory dwelling unit. It's like an apartment over your garage or a mother in law suite toward your mortgage qualification. Previously if you had an extra unit on your property and you rented it out, that didn't count toward your debt to income ratio. Now it will, so that will make it easier for people to qualify for those types of loans. I think house hacking in general really works in almost any market in the country and really in any type of economic conditions because its aim is really to just reduce your housing cost, which you can use to invest in more real estate or in equities or something else.

Dylan Lewis: Listeners, if you want to dive into the insights from Dave and his team at Bigger Pockets, there's a link in the show description. Coming up after the break, Bill Mann and Jason Moser return with a couple of stocks on their radar. Stay right here, you're listening to Motley Fool Money.

As always, people in the 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 anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Bill Mann and Jason Moser. 2023 was not just a year of technical innovation with AI, it was also a year of menu innovation gentlemen. We saw food chains continue to bring new and different things for us to taste. McDonald's had the grimace birthday meal complete with a purple shake, Burger King brought out the fiery nuggets and Italian royal crispy sandwich, and Wendy's brought back their strawberry frosty due to popular demand. Jason, of those four that I just threw out there, which one is going in your takeout order?

Jason Moser: Holy cow, man. They're all really good choices. You know what? I'm already looking forward to spring and summer and golf, strawberry Frosty just has me feeling the vibe. Let's go strawberry Frosty.

Dylan Lewis: Jason is going strawberry Frosty, Bill what about you?

Bill Mann: How do you not go with fiery nuggets?

Dan Boyd: I like fiery nuggets.

Dylan Lewis: If i can play mediator here. I think those two would go pretty well together.

Bill Mann: Do you dunk your nuggets into the frosty?

Dylan Lewis: Absolutely.

Jason Moser: Scared to try.

Dylan Lewis: Let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd, is going to hit you with a question. Bill, you're up first. What are you looking at?

Bill Mann: I am looking at a company called CRISPR Therapeutics, ticker is CRSP. They accomplished something phenomenal this last week in which their treatment for sickle cell anemia was passed. It's them along with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. This is one of the few companies that has a Nobel Prize winning technology attached to it. It is gene editing. I don't really expect there to be a huge amount of revenues to CRISPR from this, but it's a little bit like the Tesla Roadster. Something that has come out that maybe is not economically going to be beneficial, but it is an incredible proof of concept. CRISPR Therapeutics, very little revenue, highly speculative company, but a company that I think should take a bow for what they have achieved in the area of scientific discovery.

Dylan Lewis: Dan, a question about CRISPR.

Dan Boyd: Bill, so this stock, if you held it for a long time, has been basically flat if you go.

Bill Mann: If you're lucky.

Dan Boyd: Four years. Is this the stock that you're more of like invest in how you want the world to be stock or the kind of stock that you actually expect to make returns?

Bill Mann: It's a little bit of both. Obviously, gene editing is a Holy Grail technology and there are so many different implications that we will be able to have personalized medical treatment for so many different therapies. If you can literally go in and almost like a Word document, go in and edit someone's DNA in order to fix a number of genetic problems, it's going to take a while, but I think that this company will be a stock success before it is a commercial success because people will see it coming.

Dylan Lewis: Jason, what is on your radar this weekend?

Jason Moser: Well, we all know the Internet is full of bad actors looking to steal identity, data information. Identity security represents an $80 billion total addressable market opportunity today, globally speaking. Okta is a company that sells its software and services to businesses of all sizes in order to help companies stay secure and making sure that access to their systems and services are available to the right people at the right time, in the right place. As you may guess Dylan, Dan, I'm going with Okta, ticker is OKTA. Okta's business it's supported at the top by the Okta identity platform that ultimately helps empower the workforce identity cloud and their customer identity cloud. They claim over 18,800 organizations as customers today, revenues continue to grow at very impressive rates. Even in this day and age Dylan of elongated sales cycles, we've talked about that a few times on this show, there's a little bit of a last "have at thee" vibe, the recent security breach. But honestly I think with companies like these, you have to assume breaches are a matter of when, not if it's a matter of how they respond to these breaches. I think Okta has done a very good job. But I do think the pullback in shares here represents an opportunity for investors.

Dylan Lewis: Dan a question about Okta.

Dan Boyd: Not a question, more of a comment. There's nothing worse, Dylan, when you send me a Word document with the description for this podcast, and then I have to hit that two factor authentication. It really boils my blood.

Bill Mann: Can I just say I love Dan's comments more than his questions.

Jason Moser: I've got a feeling I know the answer this one. But Dan, which one's going on your watch list this week?

Dan Boyd: You guys mentioned chicken nuggets, so I'm going to go CRISPR.

Bill Mann: I love the logic. He's connecting the dots. Happy 2024.

Dylan Lewis: That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money radio show. We'll see you next time.