Many stocks have dropped into bear territory, but these Motley Fool analysts decided to celebrate and give some of these bears a hug. The team talks about:

• The fear and greed index is showing extreme fear.
• Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $382 billion.
• Tesla approves Elon Musk's performance award that includes important operational milestones.
• Denny's is being acquired, Papa John's bid is pulled, and Yum! Brands may be looking for a buyer for Pizza Hut.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Nov.07, 2025.

Jon Quast: Stocks are near all time highs, but investors are shaking like a leaf. Motley Fool Money starts now.

Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Jon Quast, joined by fellow Fool contributor Lou Whiteman, as well as by Motley Fool analyst, Emily Flippen. Thank you both for being here. We're going to talk Warren Buffett and Elon Musk in a moment. But first, let's talk about fear. There's a thing called the fear and greed index, and it tracks investor sentiment. And today, Friday, November 7 is the 21st consecutive day that it's measured fear or extreme fear. And it's actually measuring extreme fear today. Now, the market goes up 10% annually on average. It's up 14% year to date. These are above average times, and yet investors say, I'm scared right now. I want to acknowledge that fear and I want to ask both you, Lou and Emily, what exactly are investors afraid of? Emily we'll start with you. I mean, this is Day 38 of the government shutdown. Is anything contributing to fear from that?

Emily Flippen: That's the understatement of a century drawn. One of my favorite movies is this movie called Everything Everywhere All at Once. I think that basically sums up what investors are afraid of, everything, everywhere, all at once. Headlines to your point are driving the narrative, and that means we're waking up every day with new news of tariffs, shutdowns, concerns of the divide between the middle class and the K-shaped recovery, layoffs. Then I think what most of our listeners and every investor is probably afraid of, what's going on with my retirement funds as a result of all of this? But the fact that this has measured fear or extreme fear for nearly a month now, it's absolutely crazy when you compare to the actual market performance itself, because if you had blindly entered this story, Jon, I'd say, well, the market is in greed mode. That's certainly how it's acting, and that just goes to show that there is a divide between how people are feeling and what they're actually experiencing. But in my opinion, there's always a reason to be afraid. There's never going to be a realistic world to relive in where an investor sits down and says, there's nothing to be afraid of, whether that's terrible economic situations or if that's literally just the fear of missing out because the market is so hot. But in my opinion, the fear is what drives the narrative, and when that happens, that presents opportunities for diligent long-term investors.

Jon Quast: You mentioned layoffs, and I did want to acknowledge that. So October layoffs are around 153,000 jobs cut. That's the highest for October since 2003. And if you look at year to date, the highest since 2020, Lou, is there anything to be concerned with the regular working person?

Lou Whiteman: Yes, I think there is. And it's funny, right now, I get the fear. And I feel the fear too. But, if anything, guys, I'm more bullish about Wall Street than I am Main Street. Main Street, I think it's really taking it hard right now. Wall street, there's this weird world where there are still enough people working. We've talked about a K-shaped recovery where the haves and have nots. The haves are still buying, coupled with all of these layoffs are going to help profitability, I guess, and everything going on with lowering rates.

Lou Whiteman: There's a world where earnings continue to go up, even if things get worse and worse on wall street. It only goes on for so long. But I think the fear is going to hit Main Street before it hits Wall Street. And so if anything, to Emily's point, it's been a great run for stocks. The question is, looking into 2026, I guess, how long did that last?

Jon Quast: This past weekend, it came out that Warren Buffett in charge of Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway is actually sitting on a record pile of cash at $382 billion dollars. For her perspective, that's more money than what 95% of S&P 500 companies are worth. I think we call that a lot. Is this Warren Buffett saying, I'm actually scared too and I'm hanging onto my cash? What do you think, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: I don't know what to think of it. I keep a ton of money out of the market, and I do that not because it's an investment strategy, but because I do like to just, I sleep better knowing I have cash. But that doesn't really work for Berkshire Hathaway. They have all the money in the world, a $381 billion. That's more than they are ever going to be able to deploy even if we do have another 2008. The whole idea of keeping dry powder for this, it feels like we've gone over to top there. I just don't think anything that Buffett wants to buy looks reasonably valued. I don't think he knows what to do with it. I will say, if this wasn't Berkshire Hathaway, I wonder what we would think about them just holding onto all of this cash and just letting the pile get higher and higher. I know they've earned the benefit of the doubt, but still it's a weird thing.

Emily Flippen: Well, it really makes you wonder about what that transition plan looks like at Berkshire Hathaway and if the cash isn't part of that decision. To be honest, I think if you're an average person, which I imagine, everybody listening to this podcast, unless you're Warren Buffett is an average person, probably shouldn't be looking to Berkshire Hathaway for portfolio management advice. The amount of cash that Berkshire Hathaway has sitting isn't really an investment. They're not trying to make some macro call by holding. I honestly think to your point, Lou, there's a lot of different dynamics that are going on behind the scenes with the transition of leadership at Berkshire Hathaway, investment opportunities, of course, but also just the sheer size of the cash that they're holding is, in my opinion, not representative of the challenge that the average investor seeks. And while you're right, that I never put money into the market that I need for the foreseeable future of my emergency fund over the next three years, I also do not keep a conscious cash position for my investment accounts. In my opinion, investors, depending on your risk tolerance, probably shouldn't, doesn't make mathematical sense. Stocks generally go up, so every penny that I intend to hold for the long-term, I like to keep that invested regardless of what Berkshire Hathaway or the market is doing at the time.

Lou Whiteman: Far be it for me to expect Warren Buffett to take my advice, but a dividend, come on. We just have to see a dividend. You can pay out a huge dividend and still have plenty of cash sitting around. I feel like we can walk and chew gum at this point with almost half the trillion dollars in cash on the books. Come on, just do it, Warren. Please.

Jon Quast: As crazy as this might sound, $382 billion isn't actually the biggest number that we have to talk about today. Tesla announced that its 2025 performance award for CEO Elon Musk has been approved. And if this thing fully vests, Musk's wealth is going to make Berkshire's cash look like chump change. It's a trillion pay package put all together. I wanted to point out that there are milestones here with this performance award, and there are both, let's say stock milestones, but I want to focus in on the operational milestones that the company has laid out. Essentially, it's looking to deliver 10 million Tesla vehicles cumulatively, five million active full self-driving subscriptions. Optimist robots are in there, robotaxis are in there. What do you guys think about this?

Emily Flippen: Well, far be it for me, to be the person to defend Tesla here as somebody who has been a skeptic of the stock for a while. But I actually really like this pay package. We've seen other pay packages that have been similar, I think, about Exxon, when they set market cap goals for compensation for their founder, CEO and achieved them. It can be one of those win wins for shareholders. But I will say, the milestones that you laid out, Jon, in my opinion, are somewhat contradictory to the expansion and market cap for Tesla, because we're talking about expanding the number of vehicle deliveries, robots, robotaxis. These could be initiatives that are actually margin reducing for Tesla. Trying to deliver more vehicles means cutting the costs. We've already seen Tesla's margin start to erode in previous quarters. There's still not an optimist robot that's available for purchase, so if we're aggressively going after these milestones, if I'm Elon Musk, I want to get my pay package, and I have to achieve these milestones, you're going through all of these steps to aggressively achieve them even if it is at the expense of something like free cash flow. Free cash flow has been the silver lining for Tesla shareholders for so long now. I worry a little bit that these operational metrics are in direct contrast to what has made Tesla such an incredible business to this point.

Lou Whiteman: Spot on. I can't believe that I'm defending a trillion dollar pay package especially from Tesla. But I think it sounds different if you say it's a package that would give him 12% of the stock if he hits milestones. That seems much more reasonable. And remember, if it is an $8.5 trillion company, he will have arguably done just fine for shareholders, even with his trillion. But Emily's right, there are a lot of really wild goals here. If they can achieve them, great. But I think that a lot of these Google or Alphabet would call other bets and know they might never pay off. If he is incented to heck or high water just make sure all of this happens, that might not turn out well for shareholders.

Emily Flippen: There's also this element of, can these goals be fudged? For instance, the five million active full self-driving subscriptions. It's not clear whether or not those are paid or if they can be given out for free, for instance. There's also, I think, a lack of clarity about how these goals could be delivered upon. And in my opinion, I think the operational goals are actually worse for Tesla than just doing pure market cap-based goals. We saw that work for companies in the past. I wish that's what it was, but I'm so excited to see how this plays out for Musk and Tesla.

Lou Whiteman: Are you predicting that SpaceX is going to buy 500,000 optimist robots?

Emily Flippen: There's no doubt in my mind that we're going to be sending robots to space any day now.

Jon Quast: I've gone on record saying I'm not eager to have an optimist robot in my house, but that said, the goal here is 500,000 optimists. I think that there are potentially 500,000 people out there interested in it. That's a really interesting one for me. When we come back, why doesn't anyone want to own pizza anymore? This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Restaurant stocks are not having a great year this year. The Advisor Shares restaurant ETF is currently down about 10% over the past year compared to a 16% gain for the S&P 500. And so there's a lot to talk about here in the restaurant space. Interestingly enough, pizza is having, let's just say interesting time. Yum! Brands, if you look at the top three pizza chains out there, if you will, no disrespect to Little Caesars, but the big three, you have Domino's, you have Pizza Hut, and you have Papa John's. Yum! Brands owns Pizza Hut, and it's looking at strategic options right now, which may even include a spin off. Then you have Papa John's, a private equity firm, Apollo Global, had put in a $2.1 billion bid to acquire the pizza chain, but it actually withdrew that bid earlier this week. Why doesn't anyone want to own pizza anymore, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: It's pizza, and then there's pizza. There's a lot of pizza out there. This is fine pizza. I talked before about the idea of a K-shaped recovery. I do think that there is a world where these companies are more impacted by the economy than some maybe higher end restaurants. Maybe it's that. But this does seem to be like, I don't know. I can't imagine pizza is falling out of favor. But for Yum!'s other brands, KFC and Taco Bell, they're doing great. Together, they generated 90% of global operating profit. Maybe it is a pizza thing. Emily, are we just not interested in pizza or we found somewhere else to get it?

Emily Flippen: You are so off bath, Lou. You're right in the sense that pizza sales for these companies are declining. But people want pizza, people demand the pizza, but they just want it from a gas station. And I think this is what everybody is sleeping on. I look at a business like Casey's General Store, the Ticker CASY.

Emily Flippen: They are the fifth largest pizza retailer in the United States, and they are a convenience store based in the Midwest. Their inside sales, so sales made inside their locations are driving massive comp growth in large part due to their prepared foods, and pizza is by far their most popular option. This is true across the board, even with private chains; Sheetz, Buc-ee's, Wawa just introduced pizzas. These gas stations are aware of the fact that people want cost and convenience. I think when you look at that difference, yeah, there are some elements of the K-shaped recovery with people in the middle class being squeezed, especially. But I think in this case, when you're looking at Chipotle and Cava and all these other brands that are saying you're losing share, they're losing share to convenience stores.

Jon Quast: Yeah, that's such an interesting thing to point out there, Emily. I want to stick with you, Emily, on this one. I know that you have some thoughts when it comes to China, and we do have some news here in the restaurant space. Coffee giants Starbucks, this coffee chain has been struggling in recent years, trying to get back to Starbucks with new CEO Brian Niccol. But it's finally making a move in China. It's been trying to figure out what to do with its business there, and it just announced that it is entering a joint venture with Boyu Capital, it's going to sell up to 60% of its China business to that private equity firm to continue on with business there. Emily, I want to know, is this the right move, and can it help investors?

Emily Flippen: Yeah, you're right, Jon. I do have thoughts for better or worse. I think my answer is a little complicated. I think this is the right move for this management team, but I think this is the wrong move for Starbucks and its shareholders. Look, this is Starbucks new leadership just saying, hey, we're no longer the best owners of our business in China. That's the truth. They're exchanging being the leader that could be in Chinese coffee, and instead trading that for, like, cash, lower risk, less assets. On a quantitative basis, this is really only a good move if their Chinese business continues to underperform, but I actually think that's pretty unlikely. I think if they had just taken the time to find the right leaders and skill set for that side of the business, there was a lot that they could save in this initiative. Look, Starbucks, their second largest market, I believe, is China or maybe their largest market. It's one of their top two. They're facing intense competition there, of course. But why do you face competition in big markets? Because the opportunity is that large, and they're just throwing up their hands and saying, hey, we're going to let somebody else drive the bus. Yeah, they're retaining 40% and some royalty, but that's all less than 100%. Starbucks should always be getting 100%.

Lou Whiteman: I think you're right, and I think this is more about execution than it is lack of an opportunity. But what I'm curious about is, how bad are things in North America, and how hard is it going to be to recover in North America? Because I think the best case for this is that management is saying, we don't have the bandwidth to do both, so we need to let someone else handle China. I love Starbucks. I think Starbucks will be around forever. I don't know how they get the mojo back. I don't think it's going to be as easy as we hope it is. I do wonder if this just points out to management saying is, man, we have a full time job just getting North America back and running the way we wanted to, and so we need to just find help or find someone else to take on China.

Jon Quast: Definitely it's hard to be overly excited about a turnaround story, right, guys? But I will say that sometimes the best turnaround stories are the ones that have the brands, right, the brand recognition, the consumer mind space. I would say that Starbucks definitely has that. Still a ways to go in the North American market to be sure, but certainly not a loss cause either. It's not been great for shareholders over the past several years, but hopefully that turns around in the near future. Maybe this joint venture in China will help it focus on North America market. One final topic we have here for the restaurant space, this one surprised me. Private equity firm TriArtisan Capital Advisors has agreed to buy dining chain, Denny's for a deal with an enterprise value of $620 million. Now, just for some perspective, Denny's flat same store sales over the recent quarters, net closures when it comes to restaurants and a very high net debt position. That's why this was a surprising one for me. I've got to ask, Lou, if you woke up in charge of TriArtisan tomorrow, would you be excited to go through with this deal, or would you have your eye on something else in the restaurant space?

Lou Whiteman: I only know Denny's from the ads, so I am not the one to tell you about Denny's and their quality. But no, this will not be my topic. Living in the South, if I was shopping in this pool, it would be Waffle House. Not for the food, again, but they are everywhere around here. There's always people there. I have a feeling it wouldn't be the same turnaround play. I'm not sure how far my $620 million would get me, but Denny's just feels to me like a chain that snap test. If it disappeared, I don't know if we would notice it the way if Waffle House disappeared all over the South.

Emily Flippen: Look, this would be canceled the moment it goes across my desk. At a $600 million plus valuation, that's more than Sweetgreen. I understand Sweetgreen's been struggling, but in my opinion, one is clearly the better pick over another.

Jon Quast: Lou is speaking my love language by pointing out Waffle House, and now I'm hungry for that chain. I think that food is good, and I would also concur that that would be the one that I'm going for here. Next up, we've got some random calendar events, and that has our team here hugging bears. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. On the Friday show, we like to have a little bit of fun, and we have a big holiday coming up, which is Thanksgiving. That's my favorite. You can't beat gratitude, family, football, and pie, in my opinion. But there are infinity of other holidays on the calendar that we hardly ever talk about. It turns out that today, November 7 is Hug a Bear Day. I think for safety reasons, I'm obligated to point out we're talking about hugging teddy bears, not real bears. But we thought this would be an opportunity to have a little bit of fun. There's a lot of fear in the market right now. There are things that investors are betting against. We're optimists here at The Motley Fool, and so we wanted to go through some stocks where bear sentiment is running high, and I want to ask both Lou and Emily, are these stocks that are beaten down bears that we want to hug or should we avoid them? Let's start with DoorDash. DoorDash reported third quarter results on November 5. The stock plunged 17%. It has ongoing investments to integrate its acquisition of Deliveroo. It's now down 30% from its all time high. Bears territory, is this a bear to hug or a bear to run from? Lou, let's take you first.

Lou Whiteman: I'm really big on who owns the customer with these businesses, because I feel like a lot of these services are going to be commoditized. I like DoorDash's customer list. I'm going to hug that customer list. I think they can be a winner here despite the stock's fall.

Jon Quast: Emily, how about you?

Emily Flippen: I have to take the opposite side here. DoorDash, I think, while the leader in its space does see really intense competition from Uber Eats, especially globally, I think the acquisition they made up Deliveroo was an expensive one. It's going to be hard for them to integrate. I think right now the market is pricing DoorDash shares as if the business is going to continue 20% plus revenue growth and have margins north of 10-15% on the bottom line, I think, given their cost structure and given the costs of this acquisition, that's pretty unrealistic.

Jon Quast: Next up on our list, we have Axon Enterprise. This is the law enforcement technology company. Don't cry foul here. I know that Axon stock is actually beating the market over the last 12 months, but it's down more than 30% from its all time high after it reported third quarter results. There were a beat and race quarter, but it acquired a company called Carbyne for $625 million to modernize the 911 system. Didn't seem like investors were too enthused about that. I don't know. Is this a bear to hug or a bear to run from, Emily?

Emily Flippen: It's ironic because I'm sitting here raking DoorDash over the colt for their expensive acquisition. But I actually think that I hug Axon in this situation. Yes, I understand the market's reaction to this acquisition. It's an expensive one, again, north of $600 million, and we've already established, that's basically the cost of a Denny's and more than a Sweetgreen. But I actually think, in this case, the market opportunity for Axon doesn't really matter whether or not this acquisition goes to plan or ends up costing more because their underpenetrated market opportunities for this company are just so vast that I think Axon, combined with their management team, which as we talked about a little bit earlier, is very incentivized to grow this company. It's a type of business that when it draws back like this, gives shareholders or investors buying opportunities.

Lou Whiteman: Jon, you mentioned Thanksgiving at the top. For me, this is one that I'm just going to sit there with that anti. You don't want to hug, and I'm going to try to be in the room but not have to hug. I love Axon as a long term holder. I'm going to hold it for long term. But I think near term, between the acquisition and the fact that they are so reliant on local governments, local governments are going to take the brunt of what is going on in Washington as far as funding. I do think there's a world where this highly valued company, where it's almost price for perfection going in. Finds it hard to get the full mojo back anytime soon with their customers. I think it all works out in the long run. I love their products, but I do worry if this is going to be a lull and it might impact the valuation over the next few quarters.

Jon Quast: Next up we have athletic apparel company Lululemon. This is surprising. It's actually the second worst performer in the NASDAQ-100 so far in 2025. It's down 57% year to date, down 68% from its all time highs. Its sales are struggling in the US. China hasn't quite delivered as much growth as the company had hoped for. Is this a bear to hug or should we run from this bear, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: I'm running for this one. I appreciate the quality of the clothes, but the clothes are very expensive. I think what has happened is that there are good knockoffs up there. How are they going to get that premium back? That's a hard thing to do. They sued Costco basically saying, wow, Costco makes a great product. Which anytime you do that, I don't know. You can Google something called the Streisand effect is going here, where they basically told the world that Costco made a really good product. I love the product. I just don't know how you get that momentum back, and I don't know how you get people to pay that much anymore. So I'm going to run away from this.

Emily Flippen: Gosh, I've been hugging this bear for the past year, all the way as the stock has just continued to fall and fall much further than I ever thought possible. Maybe take my opinion with a grain of salt here. I agree, Lou. Look, I was banging my head against the wall when I saw that they were suing Costco, as if the person who was buying Lululemon pants sees Costco as a legitimate alternative. All they're doing is admitting the fact that they might not have as much brand recognition as they want. That being said, shares of Lululemon are so incredibly cheap, priced to absolute rock bottom expectations that I think in my mind, and I should knock on wood, there's no doubt that this is an outperformer over the next five years. I think leadership has a lot of runway in front of them, new product launches. I love the fact that they're not discounting their clothes still. People are paying for the logo. People are paying for the brand. There are knockoffs out there, but for the most loyal customers, Lululemon's brand still means something. To keep that in case, they need to keep the higher price points. Short term pain for hopefully some long term gain here.

Jon Quast: Consulting firm Gartner has been a long term market beater, ticker symbol IT. But the stock has been cut in half so far in 2025. The company has lowered its guidance more than once, and investors are worried that AI is essentially disrupting this entire space. Lou, are you going to hug this bear?

Lou Whiteman: I am, and I get the AI concerns, but I look at the world out there today, and I think about just how quickly things are changing from tariffs to everything. I get why companies are not engaging in long term thinking, long term projects for now. I am willing to write off what Gartner, Endava with so many consulting firms has seen as macro and temporary and that there still will be a need. If nothing else, I'm hugging this because at the end of the day, if I'm a CEO, even if AI can do the job for me, I have to take the blame if it goes wrong. By hiring a consulting firm, I guarantee that there's someone else to blame if it doesn't go wrong. I think there's value there, and that's my bullcase for consultants.

Emily Flippen: I disagree. I'm running from this far. Look, I think we're all perfectly fine just blaming AI. I can blame AI instead of blame Gartner if I have to. Also, I appreciate the fact that there is legitimate threats against this business and all consulting businesses from AI. In the case of Gartner, my concerns have less to do with AI. The reason I'm running from it is actually more with how management has positioned their business here. They're very cyclical. A lot of their revenue come from these big events, and those are the first thing that get cut whenever there are downturns. It's not necessarily something where they have it set up a nice subscription-style revenue for a good portion of their sales. I don't love the way that management's managing their capital. They just keep issuing tons and tons of share buybacks, and that's been good over the short-term. But I actually don't know if management is doing valuation on their stock so much as putting their hands up and saying, we don't know where else to spend this capital, so we're just going to try to return to shareholders in the interim. To me, that shows a lack of long-term vision, which [APPLAUSE] when you are experiencing potentially an existential threat from AI, it's like, well, maybe stop sitting on our hands and do something about it.

Jon Quast: Next up, we have Super Micro Computer, and this stock is actually up in 2025, up about 30%. But I wanted to bring this one to the table for the Hugga Bear segment here, because about 19% of its shares are sold short. In other words, investors will make money if this stock goes down. That's actually a very high percentage of short interest for a stock that is a constituent of the S&P 500. I thought this would be a good one here to talk about, what do you think about Super Micro Computer, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: This is an investing advice because I get the bull case, but I'm running from this one just because I don't know what to make of this company. Management has a history of overpromising and underdelivering. We've had some weird earnings margins, pricing power. I question that, the reliance on NVIDIA. This is just one that I'd literally rather run away from than I have to invest in.

Emily Flippen: I really appreciate that. You have me second-guessing myself, Lou, because you're right, there's a lot of uncertainty with this business. The reason I think I'm maybe more willing to hug this bear here is because there is a fair bit of visibility into AI spend, data center spend, which is ultimately what's driving Super Micro Computer over the course of the next year or so. They did massively miss revenue guidance last quarter. I think they came in around five billion versus prior guidance of 6-7 billion, all because of, for the most part, delivery delays. But they still have a pretty big runway of 12 billion north of secured business that's coming into the market over the next couple of quarters. Unless leadership is actively lying to us, which to your point, Lou, maybe that's what's happening. I man, that's virtually contracted sales there. There's a lot of visibility into a lease over the next 12 months or so for this company that makes me think that any pessimism, short interest, is maybe a bit overblown.

Jon Quast: I'm about to say some words that have rarely been said on this show. Chipotle Mexican Grill's stock is down 50% year to date. Right now, it's trading at about 27 times its earnings, that is actually the cheapest it has been in a decade. Emily, I want to know, is this a bear that you hug at a once-in-a-decade valuation?

Emily Flippen: I am hugging this bear. Now, granted, I said previously, I was hugging the Lululemon bear all through the course of the past year. Every single month, week, quarter, whatever time frame you chose, you could say the same thing about Lululemon which was, it was a once in a decade plus valuation getting cheaper and cheaper. Now, it's once in a lifetime valuation. It's entirely possible that Chipotle continues to fall from here. Don't take the short-term pullback in Chipotle and assume that just because it's fallen 50%, that it can't fall another 50%. We have seen that happen in the past with great businesses. But the reason why I have high conviction for Chipotle is because I think there is a dynamic that is we talked about earlier, impacting the entire restaurant space right now, that has made it particularly hard for Chipotle who had years of great comps, to put up the same numbers. I think leadership has somewhat lost touch with what their customers want in the value proposition. Their new leadership team at Chipotle is actually talking about not raising costs, not keeping up with tariffs, keeping prices low, and eating it in the short-term, in terms of their bottom line progress, just to rebuild loyalty with their consumer. I think that is the right decision for this company long term. I love the fact that management seems to be focused on the right things, and I think they can turn the ship around.

Lou Whiteman: I believe in this turnaround. I just don't believe the stock is ever going back to where it used to be. I'm avoiding probably running from this. First of all, maybe it's just around me, but I know people I talk to, too. I don't feel the quality is the same as it was years ago. Maybe that's the centralized distribution. Maybe that was the unicorn there, but I do feel some of the special is gone. Also, I think for fast casual, that didn't even exist when I was growing up. We created the category. It's there, but I feel it's very saturated. Now, I don't know if I love a lot of these restaurants. I don't invest in any of them because I just don't know if there's going to be enough share to grab from here for anyone to really be a standout stock.

Jon Quast: Lou and Emily, we have done six stocks so far. You both have taken the opposite side of it each time. We're about to get into our seventh year with Duolingo, and you surprisingly take the same side, but Duolingo reported third-quarter results on November 5th. The stock plunged 25% in a day. It's now down 64% from its all-time high earlier this year. I have to know, is this a bear that you're hugging, Lou?

Lou Whiteman: I'm running from it. Honestly, it's not so much the financials. I know my kids' school tried it and gave up on it. I know I tried it and gave up on it. There's a there there, but I don't think it works in the way we hope it did. I love all of the machine learning. Who knows? Maybe they'll foursquare this, and then one day, it'll be something totally different will come out of this, and it'll be a huge value creation. But I just don't know, again looking at the stock, I don't know where value creation comes from here.

Emily Flippen: I actually agree with you 100%, Lou. I've been at Bull on Duolingo ever since the company went public, and it's gone up a lot, it's gone down a lot. It's been very volatile. But the reason why I've been Barish actually has nothing to do with the underlying fundamentals. In fact, Tim Beyers, who's a big fan of Duolingo, will always sit me down and try to explain them to me. He's like, you don't understand the amazing return on investment they're getting for every marketing dollar spent for the customers that do come and stay on the platform. But in my opinion, we have seen this story play so many times in the past. People generally do not stick around with learning languages. I understand Duolingo is trying to expand their platform, but we've seen so many educational platforms try to gamify the experience, keep people around, keep them paying. But when push comes to shove, learning, especially languages, but in general, it's not particularly fun for most people. You get motivated in the interim, you buy a subscription, and you lose motivation. It's the same thing as dieting or working out. As a result, I don't think the long-term value proposition for these types of businesses are particularly interesting. That being said, the economics as they exist right now don't support my argument.

Jon Quast: I have to say that I am shocked that you're both saying run from this bear, because of the seven that we talked about during this segment, this is the one that I actually am most intrigued and the most interested in investing in today, is Duolingo. I've been on the other side before, but if you look at their ability to engage people on a daily basis and convert them into paying subscribers over time. I've just been blown away by this company. I think it has a lot of optionality in the future as it moves into other learning verticals. Listeners, they are taking the one side, and I will just help out a little bit by saying, this is a bear that I'm hugging. Next up, we will get to stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

As always, people on 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 stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. We'd like to end our show with each animist providing a stock on their radar, along with a comment or question from Dan Boyd behind the glass. Lou, let's start with you. What is on your radar today?

Lou Whiteman: Dan, it's been a year of drama at Trade Desk. Take your TTD twice this year, the cloud-based advertising platform stock has lost about half its value post-earnings. Earnings this week, I was a little encouraged when it was fine and pretty much drama-free. The stock is down some, but look, the company reported a slight top and bottom line be it customer attention remains over 95%. Adjusted EBITDA is up 23% year over year. The trade just posted a solid margin of 40%. It's trading at 2.3% free cash flow yield right now. Expectations have changed. I don't know if we're getting back to the highs that we had going into this year, but I still see a really strong company leaning into the future of advertising. At worst, I think the trade desk will be one of the big players here. I look forward to seeing where things go from here, and I appreciate just not a 50% job for a change after earnings.

Jon Quast: Dan, any questions for Lou about the Trade Desk?

Dan Boyd: Lou, it looks like this stock has wiped out $90 in value this year, which is not great, but it looks like it's pretty flat over the last five years. Are you thinking a value play here? Are you thinking the stock might be a little cheap?

Lou Whiteman: Dan, we are forward-looking. I think, honestly myself, we had it wrong a few years ago because we overestimated their ability to take in the entire market. Amazon has come in. But no, I think this is a growth stock from here. It's just not going to be growth, $1 trillion taking all the market.

Jon Quast: Emily, what's on your radar this week?

Emily Flippen: A company called Stantec, STN is the ticker. That is on my radar this week. This is actually a Canadian consulting business. Before you start rolling your eyes and explain, I just made the argument against Gartner and why you shouldn't consulting businesses, Stantec is doing something special. They are niche. They serve industrial buildouts, buildings, water, energy, these projects that actually need specialized knowledge, and they do that through a fee-for-service consulting for a lot of these engineering and architectural projects. Their strategy, and this is a company that's been around since the 1950s, has been to always acquire and roll up these smaller engineering firms across the world, and they track ROI really diligently as part of that process, and it's led to great results for shareholders so far.

Jon Quast: Dan, you have to have questions about this one.

Dan Boyd: I have lots of questions about this one, gang, but Emily, would you say that this is more of a picks and shovels consulting play?

Emily Flippen: No, Dan. Come on, get it together now. They will subcontract. The subcontractors call in the picks and shovels.

Jon Quast: The Trade Desk, Stantec. Dan, which one is going on your radar?

Dan Boyd: I'm curious about Stantec. I know nothing about the company, so I think Emily's brought us something interesting today.

Jon Quast: Awesome. Good job, Emily. For Lou Whiteman and Emily Flippen, as well as our production leader, Dan Boyd, and the entire Motley Fool Money team, I'm Jon Quast. Thank you so much for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you tomorrow.