In this podcast, Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis and analysts Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger discuss:
- How Nvidia continues to deliver in the face of great expectations, but even those great results haven't kept the market happy with the chipmaker or big tech stocks to start 2025.
- Apple's and Eli Lilly's plans to expand manufacturing and development in the U.S.
- Earning updates from Home Depot and Cava.
- Jason dives deeper into Axon's earnings with Axon President Josh Isner, breaking down some of the major growth opportunities ahead, and how the company is approaching the focus on government budgets and tariff talks.
- Two stocks to watch: Marqeta and EPR Properties.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Feb. 28, 2025
Dylan Lewis: It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me over the airwaves. Motley Fool senior analysts Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. Fools, great to have you both here. Dylan. This week, fresh off their earnings report. We've got Axon's president on the major growth levers for the company. We have plenty of company results for you guys to dig into, and of course, you both brought your stocks on your radar this week. To kick us off, we have results from the chipmaker NVIDIA. Jason, it feels like one of those '90s teen movies where everyone has been waiting for the popular kid to show up at the party.
Jason Moser: I love the '90s teen movies reference. It feels we've been saying this a lot with NVIDIA recently. You need to be aware of the burden of great expectations. This is a company that just continues to lob up amazing numbers. This was an absolutely fine quarter, but the market has its sights obviously set very high on this one. That probably explains a little bit of the volatility in the share price this week. But I think when you look into the numbers, the numbers, I think were great. Revenue $39.3 billion was up 12% sequentially but even more impressively, it was up 78% from a year ago, and it beat their outlook of $37.5 billion. Now if you break that down, the datacenter revenue, which is clearly the gist of this business.
The crux of this business, datacenter revenue of $35.6 billion. That was a record for the company. That was up 93% from a year ago, as the Blackwell ramp commenced. They continued to see strong demand in Hopper, Hopper 200, that continued sequential growth. But ultimately they delivered $11 billion in Blackwell revenue which I thought was very encouraging, they saw, obviously, the large cloud service providers that represented about half of their data center revenue overall. Big spending from the biggest of spenders. Gaming revenue, $2.5 billion. I was down 11% from a year ago. The professional visualization side of the business. That revenue of $511 million was up 10% from a year ago. Then finally, the automotive and robotics segment. That revenue of $570 million for the quarter was up 103% from a year ago. This was something. I had to double check this in McCall, because I was amazed by this. The automotive vertical revenue is expected to grow to approximately $5 billion for this coming fiscal year.
Now, that compares to $1.7 billion from this last year. We can see some real progress being made in that automotive and robotics segment of the business, but gross margin down slightly. That was expected as this Blackwell ramp continues. They're making sure they get products out to consumers as fast as they can. But again I think all things considered a very good quarter. It's just the market has very high expectations for this business today.
Dylan Lewis: There have been some concerns around AI workloads. The DeepSeek Saga made a lot of people wonder exactly how real and how sustained the chip demand is going to be. Jensen Huang doesn't seem all that concerned. He had some comments on the conference call, Jason, basically saying we are seeing much more adoption of a reasoning approach to LLMs and AI work. That's just the beginning. We're going to see more simulation and search based models, and that is going to drive a lot more compute than we currently have, and that a lot of people are currently using. Essentially he's not worried about demand for chips or their Data Center business anytime soon.
Jason Moser: Well, I love the cloud puns there Dylan. I feel that was intentional. I'm going to go ahead and give you credit for it. It's an interesting question. There's a narrative now where we're deliberating, what is the actual demand. This question really boils down to demand. On one side of the coin, the questions are growing. Are we overbuilding? Some think so, perhaps. Obviously, as you mentioned, this computational prowess requires a lot of power. I think that would speak to the demand there. You look at Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. He just said the other day, on the other hand, there's not enough chips and power to meet AI demand. I think that's a question that investors will have to deliberate as we move forward with the story.
Dylan Lewis: As you noted, Market took a little bit of a breather on this report, shares down about 10% this week. Matt it seems some of that is earnings. Some of that is what I'm going to call macro Malaise affecting stocks right now.
Matt Argersinger: I think that's right Dylan. I like what Chemo said about the burden of high expectations for a company like NVIDIA. I think that's the case for most of the Mag7. If you look at what led the stock market over the last two years, it was these massive technology companies, and, of course, NVIDIA was at the spear tip. That. But look what's happened in the market. The S&P 500 it's down about 5%. This is as of Friday morning down about 5% from its high. Not a big move.
But look what's happened to the Mag7. Apple down about 9%, Meta down 11%, Amazon 14%, Microsoft is down 16, Alphabet down 18 and NVIDIA which we talked about down almost 22%, and Tesla down 42% guys. I'm not saying this is a sea change in the market, but I do think some of the things that really worked over the last two years are not working so far here in 2025. Some of the things that didn't work, and I know about a lot of these, real estate industrials and dividend-paying stocks are doing great so far in 2025. It just makes you wonder, is this a shift in market?
Dylan Lewis: Seems Apple is trying to get the market excited about some of its domestic investments this week, company announcing $500 billion in commitments to fund new internal initiatives and manufacturing here in the US. Jason, it seems a lot of this is focused on some of their artificial intelligence, machine learning, and chip capabilities.
Jason Moser: I think big picture, Apple and beyond. These are investments in the US. Companies are starting to look at their supply chains a little bit more closely. Obviously a priority of this current administration is to reduce reliance on certain entities in that supply chain. China stands out as an example there. Companies are definitely trying to see around the corner. I think in regard to Apple, it makes a lot of sense. That's a lot of money $500 billion over the next four years. Clearly a company that can afford it. But again speaks back to the investments that we're seeing from all of these big tech companies in their AI aspirations. Apple has flown under the radar with all of this stuff right now. When we're talking about AI, Apple's not really the first company that's coming to mind, and maybe these investments will start to shift that discussion a little bit.
Dylan Lewis: Apple not alone in making commitments this week, drug maker Eli Lilly also announcing plans to invest over $25 billion. Yes, a bit smaller than that $500 billion commitment we saw from Apple. But Eli Lilly is doing their part. Matt for them, they are focusing on boosting supplies of the weight loss and diabetes drugs, also looking to fuel some new drug development. It feels with both of these stories, it's a bit of where the world is going. Really we can't be that surprised that these companies are making these commitments.
Matt Argersinger: No, and I think this is where the world's been going really since the pandemic. Jamo talked about supply chain issues with Apple. It was acute for the healthcare space in those early days of COVID. A lot of investments have already been made to try to fix those supply chains, make sure that there's redundant inventory of medical devices and drugs here in the US. I think a lot of these investments were already in the pipeline. I think the Trump administration has given these companies, well, a gentle push a gentle as Trump can be with these things.
But with Apple in particular, most of their products are made in China, 10% tariff they've gotten around that in the past, but maybe they wouldn't get around this time, so maybe that's a little more incentive for them to invest. But Eli Lilly, I think, was seeing the demand already. They had to make investments.
Jason Moser: I think Matt is absolutely right there. It is really about trying to figure out ways to diversify that supply chain. I think with regard to Eli Lilly in specific, remember too, lawmakers here in the US, they're considering legislation this thing called the Biosecure Act. This is a bill that would prevent US companies from working with certain Chinese biotech companies, and companies like Eli Lilly are very dependent on that China supply chain source. They are absolutely dependent on China as a part of their supply chain, and this Biosecure Act could really fundamentally change that. It absolutely makes sense that they're, again, trying to see around that corner and make some investments to get away from that dependency.
Dylan Lewis: Coming up after the break, we've got a retailer returning to its winning ways. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. Here on air with Motley Fool analysts, Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. We're kicking off this earnings rundown with one of the companies Arman behind the glass, Dan Boyd absolutely loves. It's where Doors Get More done Home Depot. Matt, looking at the results. It seems there are more doors doing a bit more doing this quarter.
Matt Argersinger: A bit more Dylan. Comps and earnings came in a little bit better than management was expecting than what they had guided for a quarter ago. It was a better quarter. But I would just say this you can't really write home about 1.3% growth in US comps, especially when you're starting to lap pretty slow results a year ago, with a lot of HD comps. I take it with a grain of salt. Operating margin was down again. Earnings per share were higher, but that was because there was an extra week of sales in this fourth quarter than a year ago. You take that out, the $0.30 they got from that, and earnings per share were lower again. The dividend was only raised 2.2%. That was the smallest increase for Home Depot in 13 years. So disappointing.
Look guidance for 2025, was really not that great. I'm looking for another year of flat to slightly higher comps, lower earnings. I really Dylan, it comes down to customers just still being reluctant to spend on big ticket items, not doing a lot of kitchen or bathroom remodels. The pro side is definitely holding up better, but until the housing market gets unstuck, we've talked about this. Existing home sales are at multi-decade lows. Mortgage rates are back near 7%. Without a pickup on transactions in the home front, it's hard to see AC sales gaining attraction. By the way, at this stage in Home Depot's development evolution, I should say. They're store growth isn't going to do it. They're only going to open 13 stores this year. That's on a base of more than 2,300 stores. The unit economics at the storefront have to get better, and I don't see them getting better until we have a housing recovery.
Dylan Lewis: It speaks to how much I want to see this business turn it around that I am cheering single digit top line growth. [laughs] But we've been waiting to see both top line growth from this business and same store sales positive again. Now we have both on the right track. But Jason Home Depot is not without a new challenge. We talked about some of the macro stuff a little bit earlier. Tariffs, certainly something that will affect a business like Home Depot. What is the outlook there?
Jason Moser: Well, Matt, I know that wasn't the biggest dividend boost in the world, but 2.35% yield to sit there and be patient with a business like this. I'm OK with hanging in there, just waiting it out. But I think tariffs is something we're talking about across the market here. I think the encouraging thing here in regard to Home Depot, it was not a huge theme or concern in the call. They got a couple of questions on it. It's something that they continue to deal with. But going back to that conversation with regard to Apple and Eli Lilly, this is something that's been in the It's been on their radar for a while. They've been working at this over the last six to seven years trying to diversify that supply chain and get away from having to worry so much so all they mentioned in a call really in regard to this, they're not terribly worried about it.
They feel they've got the best team in place to deal with it. Given their experience in dealing with it over the last seven years plus, they're confident they'll be able to navigate those choppy waters if they arise. I think in that regard, this is just another thing where you look at a company like Home Depot. This is clearly something where their scale is just a very big advantage and these types of things ebb and flow. This two shall pass, and I think Home Depot will be just fine.
Dylan Lewis: Jason, keeping the earnings beat going, do you know who has two thumbs and is down on his biggest possession this week?
Jason Moser: That ain't me.
Dylan Lewis: This guy. Shares of body cam and Taser Maker Axon, one of my largest holdings, down about 10% following their quarterly update this week. Shares about 25% off highs recently. What's going on here?
Jason Moser: Well, it's been a volatile stretch to be sure. The stock is down 11% on the year. It's still better than 90% over the last 12 months, so let's give him credit where credit's due. But market volatility aside, I would say this was a very impressive quarter from a company that they don't seem to stand still Dylan. They just keep innovating and bringing new things to market. The revenue for the quarter, $575 million that was up 34% from year ago. It marked their 12th consecutive quarter of over 25% revenue growth. They saw double-digit growth year over year, in all of their business areas, Taser up 37%, censors up 18%, software and services up 41%. That's all very encouraging.
It's also very encouraging that the two areas where they're most excited about today are the enterprise and international segments because they are just a lot of opportunities to expand their business. They signed the biggest deal in company history with a global logistics provider. That's in the enterprise segment. We'll probably learn who that is later on down the road. But I think one of the things to consider that drove a lot of the volatility of this headline out recently in regard to flox safety technology start-up known for its automated license plate reader solution. They were partners since April 2020. This seems to be a bit more of a negotiating tactic. It doesn't seem like they're trying to part ways. I think they're just trying to make this relationship work better for both companies. I wouldn't be surprised to see news here in the near future where these two companies are happy working together again.
Dylan Lewis: We'll have a bit more commentary on Axon's quarter from President Josh Isner. You got the chance to speak with him earlier this week. That's coming up after the break. Before we get there, though, digging results from Mediterranean Fast Casual Chain Kava, Matt, serving up some spicy lamb for its fourth quarter results. But the market seemed to be focused on some guidance that could use a little salt here.
Matt Argersinger: That's right, not quite as spicy on the guidance. I'm not surprised that the stock has sold off as it has since those earnings because of the guidance. If you look at the results themselves, hard to find anything to complain about, 21%, same restaurant sales growth in the fourth quarter, a 15.6% increase in traffic. Restaurant profit margin continues to increase for CAVA. But when it came to guidance looking at comps of 6-8%, that's about half of what Cava did in 2024 for the full year. That was probably disappointing to see growth decelerate that fast. You have to remember, going to the report how richly the stock was valued. Cavas Market Cap about a month ago was over 16 billion, which valued each restaurant at around 45 million per store.
Ask yourself if you're an aspiring restaurateur, would you spend 45 million on a store that generates about 3 million in revenue and about 600,000 in profit. I don't think you would do that Dylan. I certainly would. Even look at Chipotle 10 years ago when it was at the same stage as Cava, its restaurants never traded near that valuation. Even after the sell off, you're still looking at a pretty richly priced stock, but results have been fantastic. This is still an awesome emerging market concept that I think we know has plenty of runway of growth. This might be one of those opportunities to invest and behind a sell off.
Dylan Lewis: Jason, this is one of those companies where a lot of things do have to go right. We know they need to continue building at their growth story with their store footprint. We need to see comps hold up. But I'm curious. Do you think the market is weighing the fact that there might be some burgeoning competition from the Moser household and in particular, the Jason Moser menu?
Jason Moser: [laughs] It's a very fair question, Dylan and I appreciate you bringing that up. We were talking before taping here that I discovered the recipe for that spicy lamb meatball mix there, and I'm going to tell you what, it is really good.
Dylan Lewis: Well, maybe we'll drop that in the episode description. If that's available somewhere, Jason. For folks that are listening to this week's radio show in podcast form. That's why it's worth subscribing. You get those little bonus nuggets here and there.
Jason Moser: It works for me. Fool food. I've talked about it before.
Dylan Lewis: Up next, Jason's going to keep the earnings focus, digging further into Axon's results with Company president Josh Isner. Stay right here. Listening to Motley Fool Money.
music: I'm not feeling right today. I'm not feeling that great. I'm not catching on fire today. Love has started to fade. I'm not going to smile today. I'm not going to lie. You're outliving it up to date. I've got dues to pay in the grave digger, put on the forceps. The stone mason does all the work. The barber can give you a haircut. The carpenter can take you out to lunch. Now, I just want to play on my panpipes. I just want to drink me some wine. As soon as you're born, you start dying. You might as well have a good time on.
Dylan Lewis: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. Listeners, we gave you a quick rundown on Axon's earnings earlier in the show, now for the Deep Dive on the body camera and Taser Maker that holds the spot as the largest holding in my portfolio. Fool analyst Jason Moser caught up with Axon's president Josh Isner to talk through the company's recently reported quarter, some of the major growth opportunities ahead, and how the business is approaching the focus on government budgets and tariff talks.
Jason Moser: Josh, let's talk a little bit about the results. This is another report with a lot to like on both the quarter and the year. Clearly, the market having a very positive reception to what you all reported. A number of milestones, I thought, for the quarter and for the year, reading through the shareholder letter, what stands out to you in regard to this quarter that you all just reported?
Josh Isner: It's probably a couple of things. Jason, again, thank you for having me on. It's good to see you again. I think the standouts are, look, our revenue growth rate, seeing that at 30% plus for three straight years now on top of probably four or five years behind it at 25% plus growth, that's exciting, as the numbers get bigger, to see the growth really endure. Then bookings, that's one of the forward indicators of our business that we look at a lot is making sure that total contract value is representative of continued growth out into the future. That came in at over five billion dollars this year.
That's a record for us, and we're really proud of that and can't wait to hopefully break that record this year. Then lastly, the enterprise segment. This is the customer base that is not part of public safety. Think like retailers, logistics companies, etc, we actually closed our biggest deal in company history in that segment. Even considering law enforcement, the federal government, our international customers, enterprise now holds the biggest deal in company history, which I think is a really exciting sign for the things to come in that market.
Jason Moser: Absolutely. I'm glad you brought up enterprise. I definitely want to get to that just a minute. One thing that stood out to me for the quarter, it just seems like you guys do this quarter in and quarter out. Net revenue retention at 123%, that's just been such a strong metric for you all, and I think it really speaks to not only bringing your customers into your universe, but then keeping them and expanding those relationships over time. I thought that was a really encouraging metric. The one thing I was really surprised to see pleasantly, I'll say, you raised your total addressable market opportunity rather significantly.
Now, last, I think I saw in the first quarter of the year, you raised it from 50 billion to 77 billion. I know typically you guys do that on a two-year cadence, and this was an exception because of some acquisitions. But now you see this total addressable market at an eye catching $129 billion. Now, you guys just crossed over the two billion dollar revenue mark. There clearly is a lot of opportunity there, but what are the drivers behind raising that total addressable market so significantly?
Josh Isner: I think, like you had alluded to, the enterprise segment is a big part of that, as well as more products fit across many of our markets. Whereas two years ago, we had fewer products and we were in fewer markets, now we have more products, and we've established ourselves in more markets. I think it's safe to assume that with more products available, sales can increase in those markets, and that's really what's driving the TAM update there. It's exciting stuff. We're very excited to see the continued opportunity. It's a story of one thing leading to another, where we solve problems for our customers and more opportunities present themselves. You were talking about our NRR number. We really work hard to drive a great customer experience, and we want our customers to be fans of ours. NPS, we consider one of the biggest indicators in our business. We're very proud of our NPS score, and we take it very seriously.
When you invest in your customers and really feel like, hey, the customer is at the center of everybody at Axons universe, not just our sales team or our executive team, but the folks in finance, the folks in people ops. Every policy, everything we do, we make sure that the outcome is going to be better for our customers. When we have that mindset, I think it leads to exciting results like this.
Jason Moser: Absolutely. On the call, you talked about two customer groups in particular that you're really excited about. That gets back to Number 1, the enterprise customer, and then also international. Let's go ahead and start with enterprise, and I'm glad you clarified that for listeners, exactly what enterprise customers are. You know and you booked the largest deal in company history with a global logistics provider. I'm going to take a shot here because I have to. Any hint as to who this global logistics provider is?
Josh Isner: We will be announcing them by name in the coming months, but for now, we're just sticking with global logistics. But I will tell you this, they are my favorite global logistics partner in history. I will not partner or even as a consumer use any other product moving forward. When companies show faith in us, where we get excited about that.
Jason Moser: Well, I respect that. We'll just stay tuned and look for that name. It's need to think about this being the biggest deal that you've signed. I wonder, was this an all encompassing deal or is it one where this is a really big customer that signed on for a couple of things that will then give you the opportunity to cross sell in the future.
Josh Isner: We hope it's the latter, for sure. The deal includes body cameras, evidence.com licensing and our Fusus product, and we're really pleased to get off the ground there. But certainly, we think there's going to be a lot of future opportunities around drones and robotics, around more video tools and AI, around drone defense and mitigation. All of these are in the logistics world. You can imagine you're housing millions of dollars of merchandise in warehouses. You've got a lot of risk in terms of liability, in terms of handling merchandise and items for both civilians and for enterprises, and all of a sudden, those warehouses could become targets of drones. To have drone defense and awareness capabilities around all your highest value assets, we think that's going to be a growing market, as well.
Jason Moser: Well, the other demographic that we're very excited about international, we saw sequential growth there of 50%, which was really impressive considering that's on top of 40% from just a quarter ago. We know your aspirations in regard to this international business. I think it's in the 20-25% range of your business today. But you ultimately see it becoming probably closer to 80%, that international opportunity. Now, that's obviously a little ways down the road, I would think. But what is going well? What's driving the growth there in those international markets?
Josh Isner: I think we've had good product market fit in international historically, especially with our TASERS and body cameras. I think the part of the equation that's changing a little is now some of these international customers are growing more and more open to storing digital evidence in the cloud, and that hasn't always been the case. I think that's part of the equation. The other part of it is we've made some major upgrades on our team this year. We have our new CRO, Cameron is based in Europe. He comes from AWS, where he ran Europe, Middle East and Africa or AWS, and very talented guy and very thoughtful about how we go to market international, and as a combination of having a good sound strategy and bringing on the right country managers and resources around those country managers. I think those investments are starting to make a difference in our international business, and like you said, there's a huge opportunity out there. I think we will have failed as a company if our international business doesn't surpass our US public safety business at some point, because the reality is there's just way more customers internationally, way more users, and it's our job to figure out how we can build the exact right products for them that'll drive the type of value that our products drive in the US.
Jason Moser: You acquired a business last year. You just mentioned it earlier, Fusus. I wonder, could you just give us a little explanation, give our listeners a little explanation what Fusus is and how it ultimately is making Axon's business stronger.
Josh Isner: We're very proud to have them on our team now. Chris Lindenau is their founder and he built a very good team and product over at Fusus. We call it the Switzerland of CCTV. [LAUGHTER] Essentially, think about all of your different camera feeds you might have in your building or interior or exterior. You might have a bunch of different vendors in terms of hardware. Fusus essentially fuses all of those camera feeds together into one pane of glass. If you're in a real time crime center and you're looking at everything going on, you can get an alert right into your crime center, oh, this business, there's a theft in progress or something, and the police can actually see it and react accordingly. Then, of course, for city owned and police owned cameras as well, same dynamic. We were never super excited about getting into the fixed camera business in terms of hardware. But in terms of software and being able to fuse all those feeds together, that's extremely valuable for our customers.
Jason Moser: Another story that has continued to go on with what seems like a lot of red tape is your real estate aspirations in the state of Arizona. I saw on a call that it doesn't seem like it's something that's going to resolve itself soon. But I guess first, I just wanted to start with a strategy behind all of this because it's a pretty grand vision. Can you explain exactly what the vision is here. This is not an insignificant investment on Axon's part. I think some investors maybe feel like it could be something that is taking the company's focus away. I would imagine you all view it differently.
Josh Isner: Our company was started in Arizona. Rick started it in his garage in Tucson. Arizona's very much been near and dear to our hearts, and we love being there. I've lived in Arizona for the last 16 years and made a lot of great friends out there. We've had a lot of success as a business, and we love being there. Candidly, Jason, Arizona's just got to decide if it wants to be a business oriented state or a retirement oriented state. There's a big anti-development sentiment in Arizona, and now our project was actually approved by the Scottsdale City Council. It was zoned and we were ready to go. Then an out of state union came in and partnered with a former politician in Arizona to essentially pay to get signatures to put this out to referendum. I think 93% of the signatures garnered were from paid signature gatherers. Most of the money came in from out of state. It's one of these where it's like, wait a sec. This is our land. The city already said we could build this thing on it. Why is it that the elected officials in Scottsdale can't speak for the city anymore? Why do we have to wait two years for this to go out to referendum now? Arizona just lost Anderl. They went to Ohio.
What does Ohio have to offer that Arizona doesn't? Nothing against Ohio, but Arizona is a great state, too. I think it's a matter of, look, does the state really want to be a state where businesses can thrive, or is it going to be anti-development and focus more on residential and retirement, which is fine. But that's a choice of theirs to make. Where the rubber hits the road on this for us, Jason, is that there are no top 100 colleges in Arizona. We have to import a lot of the talent at Axon from other states. If we can have a campus that gives people an affordable place to live, that offers dining and other activities right on campus and our headquarters is there, that's the recruiting tool we need to keep growing our headcount in Arizona. It's also an opportunity to bring in industry events and other forms of tourism into the state. We think there's a win-win for everyone. But at the end of the day, just like any company in any state, the politics can sometimes be a hurdle that you have to overcome, and we're working through that, but our patience on this isn't going to last forever, and we're getting more and more serious about looking at other alternatives for our headquarters outside of the state of Arizona.
Jason Moser: Got you. Well, speaking of politics, and we're not getting political, so to speak, here, but just bigger picture, clearly, there is this big focus in DC these days on cutting costs, maximizing efficiencies, given the overall opportunity for Axon at the state and the federal level, is this a cause for concern for the leadership team? Is this something y'all are discussing as a source of potential near term headwinds?
Josh Isner: Actually, I think it's going to be a tailwind when all the dust settles for us, I think. What you're seeing is contracts are being canceled that either you're just like, Hey, should we be spending taxpayer money on this? Probably not. Or are we not getting value out of this contract that we're paying a lot for as a government? At Axon's case, actually our products are heavily used. They're valued by our users. They're ones that we think deliver great outcomes for the government, and I think they feel the same way. As some of this money is freed up, I do anticipate there's an opportunity there for more to be spent on military, more to be spent on defense tech and federal law enforcement. I think we're relatively insulated from a lot of the cuts, but actually, these cuts could lead to some opportunity to help in more places.
Jason Moser: I guess, same idea, given the international opportunity and all that you're doing there, how concerned are you all in regard to tariffs as it pertains to the near term? Because I tell you, Josh, it seems like every morning we wake up and there's a new headline regarding tariffs and what may or may not happen. It feels like there's a lot of uncertainty out there, and I would imagine that your team is reassessing this on a daily basis.
Josh Isner: Absolutely. One of the things we say a lot internally is, hey, what we value is seeing around corners. We want people to be able to predict what's going to happen into the future. Two or three years ago, between tariffs and some of the uncertainty around China and Taiwan right now, we kicked off a big project to make our supply chain more flexible. We actually feel like we're pretty well positioned regardless of what happens with the tariffs. Our guidance, I don't think would change as a result, as Brittany said on the call yesterday. But our operations team has done a great job with this, Josh Goldman and Eric Hertz at Axon. They've just really gotten out ahead of these issues to where we have multiple suppliers, and we have a lot of raw materials on hand, and we've done all the things to mitigate the really bad outcomes that tariffs could lead to at times for businesses. We're feeling OK about that.
Dylan Lewis: Listeners, we love getting company leadership on to help us wade through what's going on with their business. If there's a company you want us to reach out to, let us know, [email protected]. Coming up next, Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger are back with me. Let's talk about the stocks on their radar this week. That's next on Motley Fool Money.
As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and it's not approved by advertisers. Motley Fool only picks products and personally recommend friends like you. I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger. Fools, we are dive right into stocks on our radar this week as it does every week. Our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd, is going to hit you with a question after you pitch your stock. Jason, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?
Jason Moser: One that's probably under the radar for a lot of folks, Marqeta, ticker is M-Q. Marqeta is embedded finance. In simplest terms, they provide tools and APIs that allow its customers to create and issue customized payment cards. I think debit, credit, prepaid, all that good stuff. But those are programs that are specifically designed for the specific business needs. Their customers are companies like Block, Uber, DoorDash, even Alphabet, so they need a big name customers with a lot of folks using those networks. [inaudible] has had a great week, thanks to a strong earnings report and encouraging guidance for the coming year.
As you can ascertain, Marqeta is in fintech, and so one of the big metrics you follow there is just total processing volume, and that for the quarter clocked in at $80 billion. That represented growth of 29%, net revenue of $136 million and gross profit of $98 million were up 14 and 18% respectively. A big concern, I think, for investors early on with Marqeta story was its reliance on Block as a big customer. That continues to become less and less the case. Block revenue concentration of just 46%. This quarter was down five percentage points from a year ago. One final point, as of note here, seemingly sudden move, but CEO Simon Khalaf has stepped down. And so CFO, Mike Milotich has taken over as the interim CEO until the company finds Khalaf's replacement.
Dylan Lewis: Dan, I saw your eyebrows go up there when Jason said embedded finance. I'm curious. We had a question or a comment here on Marqeta, ticker M-Q.
Dan Boyd: I know that Jason's always ready to bring us some war on cash-based stocks here. We love to see it. Jason, this stock price has been pretty flat for the last two years. What makes you think that's going to change anytime soon?
Jason Moser: Well, they've re established this relationship with Block, and again, they have extended that out several years, so that's some reliability there. Again, with those big customers, I think that makes a big difference, and they continue to grow that total payment volume. It just very impressive rates quarter in and quarter out. Given the trend toward the digital movement in money, I'm encouraged.
Dylan Lewis: Matt, what's on your radar this week?
Matt Argersinger: I'm going with EPR Properties, ticker E-P-R. If you don't know EPR, it's an experiential REIT, which means they focus on experience-based products, think restaurants, resorts, fitness centers, water parks, top golf is a big tenet, and Dan, movie theatres. The last time I brought this company up, I'm pretty sure Dan's comment was, movie theaters, are you kidding? The last movie I saw was Cats in 2019, and it was terrible. Well, it turns out you can do pretty well with movie theaters. EPR's results were great. They raised the dividend. Still one of the best bargains in Ratland as well, 7% yield.
Dylan Lewis: Dan, are you still anti-movie theaters?
Dan Boyd: It's not that I'm anti-movie theaters. It's that I have two young kids and a full time job and no time to go to the movies. Still, Cats, 2019, the last time I was in a theater.
Matt Argersinger: We'll go see Superman this summer. You got to go see that one, I know. Get out of the house.
Dan Boyd: We'll go together, Matt, you and I.
Dylan Lewis: Sounds like an awesome deal. Dan, Marqeta or EPR, which one's going on your watchlist this week?
Dan Boyd: I'm going with Marqeta because fintech, baby. Let's go.
Dylan Lewis: Hey, baby. Dan, thanks for weighing in. Jason, Matt, thanks for being here. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show. Show is mixed by Dan Boyd. I'm Dylan Lewis. Thanks for listening. See you next.
