In this podcast, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jon Quast discuss:
- The Iran war and how it impacts markets.
- Are there safe havens?
- Stocks on their radar.
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A full transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on March 20, 2026.
Travis Hoium: Oil is up, the market's down, so where do we go from here? Motley Fool Money starts now. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Travis Hoium, joined today by Lou Whiteman and Jon Quast. Guys, we've got to talk about the elephant in the room. That's what's going on in Iran. It's causing a huge increase in oil prices. It's causing the market to decline. This could impact the economy for years to come. We're going to try to pull this apart as much as we can bring a little bit of historical context to what we're seeing in the market, how investors should be thinking about this. But let's start with the near term impact because I think that's probably the easiest look to get our heads around. As we look at in particular energy, about 20% of the world's oil flows through the Straight of Hormuz. That's getting a lot of the attention in the market. Qatar's LNG assets have been hit. They say that that could take years to actually bring back online. When you look at over the next one to three months, let's say, what are you looking at in energy markets in the impact in the market overall in the economy, where is your head going to sort of try to process this?
Lou Whiteman: Yeah, where does your head go. It's a great question. The hard thing about this is that there are two independent timelines, and the second timeline is the one that's really scary. Destruction is immediate. Rebuilding takes time. The work of one seconds explosion can take if we're lucky months. We have both the timeline of the immediate. When will this conflict end and the timeline of looking forward? When are we back to normal? Those are separate things. We can't just say, all right, if the conflict ends next week, we're back to normal next week. In the case of the LNG assets, what do they say 3-5 years before we're back to normal. That assumes no more destruction, which I don't know if we can assume that. The longer we're in the destruction phase, the more that time exponentially goes out on the rebuilding phase. I don't think we can look in terms of months here. I think we are already at a point where we are looking as a matter of years before things are back to normal. That's really depressing. I don't think I have to say that, but that really creates challenges for the global economy.
Travis Hoium: Jon, it seems like there's some band aids that we can put on this. We talked about releasing some of the oil in the US oil reserve. In the past, you would see a country like Saudi Arabia say, Hey you know what? We'll step up. We'll provide a little bit more oil. It seems like there's a little less slack there for them to be able to do that. How do you think about that supply chain? Because we learned during COVID. Things get really complicated really quickly.
Jon Quast: Yes, supply chain does get really complicated very quickly. I heard one person talk about this like this. There could be a supply issue, and that's an easy thing, but we're actually dealing with a supply chain issue, and that's where it gets a whole lot more complicated very quickly. Take OPEC, for example, it regularly changes the supply of oil on the market. It goes both up and down in how much oil it's producing and shipping out. That's a supply issue. But right now, we're talking about the LNG facility in Qatar. That's a supply chain issue that takes forever. Like you mentioned, we're talking about some potential ways to mitigate this, but it's pretty difficult. You look at the oil reserves. We've talked about that on a previous show. It really doesn't do a whole lot for prices because of how small that is in relation to daily consumption. The Trump administration right now is talking about waiving the Jones Act, or maybe it officially did waive the Jones Act for 60 days. This is something that is hoped to mitigate oil prices because it basically loosens restrictions on US ports, but some are already doing some estimations here, and maybe it's going to save less than a penny per gallon on gas at the pump. It's really not a material development at all. There's not a whole lot we can do here other than what Lou said, rebuild the supply chain, but that's going to take time, and we can't get started yet until this current phase is over.
Lou Whiteman: Another complicating factor here and another glossary word we have to add is the crack spread. The crack spread is basically the difference between the price of oil and the price of what we make with oil. It's very oversimplified.
Travis Hoium: Yeah, gasoline is typically what you would.
Lou Whiteman: Yeah, all of that. Oil has been relatively calm relative to refined products, and that's because there's a disconnect between where the crude is and where the refineries are and what refineries are where. Technically, there is a global surplus of crude, even with what's going on. If you look at the embargoed crude, the ability outside of straits of Straight of Hormuz to produce, but there isn't the capacity to refine. At the same time, a lot of those products are demand is inelastic because we have to drive to work, but more importantly, the military is using a lot of jet fuel and a lot of diesel right now. The bigger issues right now, and this is how it reverberates through the economy, we could go beyond that. A fertilizer has already come up and fertilizer we are lucky here because the North American fertilizer season it had already been booked. It's already through the strait. We have time there, but that implies that if this is going to ripple through for years and not just one growing season because next season's fertilizer is stuck. How about cheap manufacturing? Even semiconductors, guys, helium and sulfuric acid, two very, very important parts of the chip making process. 20-30% or more production comes through the gulf. I don't think any of us really have our heads around just the disruptions that have already occurred. Again, I hate to be such a doomsday person, gave them back to this, but all of this is assuming that it just all ends today. How long would it take to rebuild? I haven't checked in the last 10 minutes, but I have seen no sign that it is ending today. Again, for every one day the conflict continues, these issues are going to be extended by days, weeks, months, not just a day.
Travis Hoium: Let's bring a little bit of historical context into this. I want to wrap the economy in as well. You guys have touched on a little bit of that where we could see some impacts. But gasoline is something that people are buying on a day-to-day basis. Like Lou said, it's an inelastic demand. If I need to go to work, I need to go to work, whether gas is $2 a gallon or $4 a gallon. The two historical times that I thought of comparing this moment potentially to is the 1973 oil crisis. Also Iran involved in that one. Then also the war in Iraq started in 2003. You had 911 2001. The period after that for the market was essentially a decade of the market going absolutely nowhere. There was an economic impact, and then you potentially had a market impact where investors start to go, man, look, think about all the growth stocks that we have today. Maybe we shouldn't be valuing these as highly if we've got a whole lot of uncertainty. Now, you see multiples start to come down. Is that something that we should be thinking about Lou? We don't want to be dumism here, but these are the concepts that we need to think about because if this is another 1973, if this is another 2003, it could mean that that's going to affect our investments over the next decade.
Lou Whiteman: I would say the oil experts say that we are already past what definitely the Iraq War was.
Travis Hoium: In the supply impact, is that what you mean?
Lou Whiteman: Yeah. Production capacity was largely spared there. We had local infrastructure issues. I don't want to be dismissive of it, but this is far worse. I don't remember the '73 oil embargo as well as I remember. Yeah, I'm happy to say I'm not that old, but look, there is no way that this won't have a profound economic impact. I don't think that can be debated. The debate and the unknown because there really isn't a debate. We just don't know how severe the impact is going to be. As investors, I think we need to prepare ourselves for that because hopefully I'm wrong. Hopefully there will just be a bounce back, but if there isn't we can get into this later, I think, it's going to be it's time to buckle up.
Travis Hoium: Jon, we've already seen the market start to be impact to the S&P 500, as we're recording year to date, down about 4%, the NASDAQ composites down about 6%. We're definitely not in any major correction territory, but the fear and greed index is now in full on fear mode. Should we be a little bit more fearful in the way that we're thinking about expectations for the future?
Jon Quast: Yeah, it's so interesting. Right now, the fear and greed meter tracking this investor sentiment sitting at 17, that's its lowest this year and hidden pretty close to the lowest point, highest fear in several years. What's so interesting is that a market crash and a situation like this can generate months and months of bad news. It really can. It can drive sentiment lower. One of the interesting things is so many investors haven't experienced a real economic crisis. Yes, there have been pullbacks here and there. But it's a little bit dated now, but in 2021, Charles Schwab did a study and found that 15% of investors started investing during the pandemic. We're five years later now, that means that there's a significant percentage of investors that have started investing within the last six years. They've never experienced a 2000 event. They've never experienced a 2008 event, and they're already very fearful with the market it's only like 5 or 6% off of its all time high right now. That's pretty good. It can get a lot worse. It can drive that sentiment a lot lower. I hope that people listening to this show don't start panicking because that's one of the worst things that you can do. Your emotions are a very bad instructor and guide for your financial life. It's important to have a level head. But it's also important to realize, yeah, this can get worse before it gets better.
Travis Hoium: Yeah, just to do some quick math on that, the market bottomed in March of 2009. If you started investing and you were 23 in 2009, you would be 40 now. There is just a huge number of investors. A lot of people that I talk to on a day-to-day basis were not investing back then, much less have stories like JDS Uniphase for those of us who can go back all the way back to the 1990s. Yeah, it can get worse. Let's talk about when we come back, where we're looking at potential opportunities because I do think that we need to remind people that this does not mean panic sell everything, but it means that this is why we continue to add to the market. By when you Lori to be greedy when others are fearful. How should we think about that as investors? We'll get to that in a moment. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. One of the things that people often talk about when the market starts to decline or we have uncertainty like this, Jon, is safe havens. We think about these as maybe the big companies where we know we're going to be buying toilet paper in the future or food in the future, but a lot of these companies are really expensive. We also have things like gold, Bitcoin. Are there any real safe havens today?
Jon Quast: No, in a worst-case scenario with the economy and with the stock market, then, really, no. When it comes to what we're talking about here, let's just say oil prices stay high for longer. There's an obvious first-order impact. That's on discretionary spending. If you're spending more on gas to get to work, for example, you have less disposable income on toys. Your discretionary spending is an obvious first-order impact. There's lesser obvious second-order impacts. Lou already touched on potential helium disruption and how that can impact semiconductors potentially. There's also things such as aluminum. Aluminum is a very energy-intensive metal. Maybe even your beverage companies are having a higher input cost with aluminum cans. There's some interesting things there. But what I like to do in times like this is I have a watchlist of high-quality companies. Not necessarily safe havens, as in they're never going to go down a percentage point, but they're very high-quality businesses that I would turn to when it's hard to see through these cloudy skies. I'm thinking about companies such as Waste Management, for example, ticker WM, or even Costco. I'd even put Tractor Supply in here as well. Tractor Supply provides a lot of livestock and pet food. It really tends to be more resilient. Vistra Energy would be another one. These are things that, regardless of what market conditions are, and it can get, I like to have a watchlist of these kinds of companies that I can really say, "You know what? In ten years, I really expect them to be bigger and better than they are right now, no matter what happens right now.
Lou Whiteman: In a real downturn, and look, we're not there yet, but if it comes in a real downturn, there is nowhere to hide, period. I wish there was some secret code. There are some sectors that tend to hold up better than others, but in a downturn, everything goes down. The pain is almost unavoidable. Most important advice here is don't make long-term decisions based on near-term pain. Fleeing the markets when things are bad can be really harmful to your long-term goals. If an individual business is permanently damaged from this, and it could happen in some sectors, then yes, maybe you need to look at selling, but focus on the long-term; no matter how bad things get, I believe the economy will eventually recover. I believe that this 100-year-old chart of the markets going up, that long-term trend will continue. Ask yourself if the companies you're considering selling will be there on the other side; if they are, try to ride out the storm. In terms of specifically where to go, I'll note, Travis, I almost admitted my radar stock because a six-month treasury is ten basis points higher than a week ago. That's something, I guess. But that's cash. I think I'll just be contrarian to Jon. If you buy the premise that everything goes down, and if you believe that the economy will eventually recover, and I do believe that there are really great companies out there that can survive, I actually like to look for opportunities in the non-consumer staple area. I don't know if it's high-flying Mag 7 stocks that come back to Earth, but it's really hard to do. Again, I think doing nothing is good enough, but I am much more intrigued in a real downturn, God forbid, a repeat of 2008, 2009. These are the times that I like to stick my neck out and try and pick those previous high flyers that I think in better times can do it again. The staples are there, and to me, I would argue that things like energy and staples, you keep in your portfolio four times like this, and you don't buy them now. But look, in general, I think you look cautiously for long-term opportunities and again focus on what a business can be after the damage is done and try not to dwell on what it is now.
Travis Hoium: I'll just add one of the things that I'm looking at is companies that have really phenomenal balance sheets and don't burn cash. I think that's one of the challenges. A lot of companies that you get a lot of attention, have a ton of cash on the balance sheet, but then you look and you go, "They've really only got the runway to make it through the next two or three years." If things are really bad, they're going to have to go raise capital again. But if you have 20%, 30% of your market cap in cash, and there are stocks that I have in my portfolio that are in that position, and you have a cash-generating business, you can start to do things like use it as a safety blanket, but you can also start to use that cash as a weapon to buy back stock and say, "You know what, market? You're completely wrong, and we're going to be the ones that are aggressive when everybody's in fear mode." Jon, I just want to quickly ask how you think about cash in this moment. Is that something that you are either moving or do you just have it available if you're we do have a downturn and you want to be opportunistic?
Jon Quast: It's so important to stay invested. Everyone would love to sell the top and buy the bottom. Research shows that you can't do that. I can't do that. To channel my interim Mark Twain. I've anticipated many market crashes that have never happened. It's important to stay invested. But I do have a cash position right now. I'm about 20% cash right now. It's arbitrary, imperfect. That's my max. The other 80% is going to stay in, but that cash precision does help me hold tight with my stocks right now before things get chaotic. It helps me be able to realize that in a downturn, I'm ready to go; I can take advantage of some opportunities when it knocks.
Travis Hoium: I think all of these things. The other thing I'm doing is I'm adding to my portfolio every single month. Dollar cost average: whether you're at the highs or the lows, it helps me sleep at night, as well, knowing that I'mgoing toa be buying every month. When we come back, we are going to have Jon and Lou pick their final four. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. [Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. March Madness has begun, so we thought we'd take our opportunity to turn that into a little bit of an investing game. I want to give Lou and Jon 12 stocks, and I want them to pick a final four. Then ultimately the champion of these 12 stocks. We'll go with companies that arewell-knownn or bigger in the market. We have the full Mag 7, so Alphabet, Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. Then we've added Palantir Micron, one of the hottest stocks in the market today. Disney got to have something consumer. It's a little bit of a recovery play. Chipotle and Rocket Lab. Jon, I'm going to have you go first. Out of those 12 stocks, who is going to make your final four?
Jon Quast: My final four here was actually easy for me. I'm going to go with Amazon, Meta, Micron, and Rocket Lab.
Travis Hoium: What are you thinking there with a lot of technology and big companies? Amazon, obviously one of the biggest companies in the world. I think that has one of the lowest price-earnings multiples in the Mag 7. Are you just seeing value in all those areas right now?
Jon Quast: Yes. With Amazon, as you point out, it has pulled back. The valuation looks good, and that cloud business. It just continues to perform so well. I like Amazon for that reason. Meta platforms, as we're going to talk about it in a moment, I think. As much money as it has wasted at times over the last several years, this company is still just oozing cash. It is being very shareholder friendly. That's with all of the things that it's wasting money on. I think that it's hard for meta platforms to lose, quite honestly. You look at Micron. I think that the current trends in computer memory, I don't think that it's late in the cycle. I really think that this still has multiple years at least to it. I think that Micron can make unprecedented money over the next several years.
Travis Hoium: Can we just touch on that? You talked about it on yesterday's show, but the numbers are absolutely insane right now. Revenue growth in the most recent quarter was almost 200%. Do I have that right, Jon?
Jon Quast: Yeah. What's so interesting, and I believe Matt Frankel, our colleague, pointed it out: gross margin doubled, essentially, year over year at this scale. I physically cannot make enough memory to meet the demands of its customers. While that persists, it is going to be generating incredible profits. Now, it is investing some money to build some more manufacturing capability so that it can increase supply. That's multiple years away. That could really change the profit margin profile of the company in two years, maybe three years. But in the interim, it's going to be really printing cash, I believe. Rocket Lab. Come on. I love outer space. I really do. I like to invest in companies that I enjoy thinking about. I enjoy researching, and I can't have an entire portfolio comprised of that, but some part of your portfolio where it's like, This is a fun stock for me. Rocket Lab is that.
Travis Hoium: Lou, do you see any different opportunities there in your final four?
Lou Whiteman: Yeah. This is just like basketball. Because everybody loves to pick Virginia Commonwealth over North Carolina. Everybody loves to pick High Point over Wisconsin. But at the end of the day, by the time you get to the final four, it's just going to be Duke and all of the usual people there at the end. That is [OVERLAPPING].
Travis Hoium: We don't have an NIL in the market. I did do my bracket this year, and I picked all one seeds because I realized last year that the NIL has ruined it for some of the lower seeds.
Lou Whiteman: This has been happening for a while. The blue bloods are the ones that make it. The ultimate blue blood, the Duke in this list, I think, is the company that nobody really wants to root for, but we all just know they're going to be there at the end. That's Microsoft. Microsoft is everywhere. You can't not see it. If someone's a Microsoft alum, they probably talk about it too much, just like with Duke. Microsoft just has so many ways to beat you, whether it's backcourt, front court, business side, consumer side. Microsoft is just this constant for the last how many years, and I think they're going to be there. Again, we don't have to like it, but we should probably know they're there. Similarly, alphabet. I don't even know who Alphabet would be because I guess they were a little younger; Duke's been around forever.
Travis Hoium: They are at least a little bit more exciting businesses.
Lou Whiteman: They have some exciting business. They're a little flashier, maybe. But look, again, winners win. Alphabet is the ultimate winner. I think, as we've talked, they are pretty well set up to actually put AI to use, which I think is going to be the hard part for these hyperscalers, getting people to buy it. I like Microsoft and Alphabet there, so I am going to lean into them as well. I do like Amazon for the reasons Jon said. They're probably a two-seat here, and I'm less certain about that. Maybe if you would let me set the list. I don't even know what it would be off the top of my head, but I'm less certain about Amazon, but I like them relative to what's here.
Travis Hoium: Do you think that they have lost some of the magic because they've let's say, lost to Mike Shousevski, the founder energy now that they've gone to Andy Jassy?
Lou Whiteman: I think that's part of it. Again, I think it's partially maybe the North Carolina on this list where you're not going on fumes by any means, but you're still both a powerhouse, and you're less scary than you used to be. That's the way I saw Apple, too. Apple, I considered for this. That's one we haven't mentioned in this. But look, I both believe Apple's going to sell a lot of phones, and I don't know what to get excited about with Apple. I feel that way with Amazon, too. I think the retail business is just going to be what it is. AWS is very strong. I don't know if they have the AI chops or advantages that, say, an Alphabet does. It's less interesting to me, but I'm not going to be surprised if they show up there. My last one, this is probably more of a four-seat. It's not really a cinderella. It's not really something we can get excited about, but it's not a blue blood. I went with Rocket Lab, too. It's so interesting. Rocket Lab, maybe there's a Gonzaga. Because in a way, Rocket Lab, it's how did you possibly get to here? In a way, it's, "Wow, look at what the future can be for them." I don't know if you said how long we're looking out here, but if we are talking about for five years versus one year, it wouldn't surprise me to see Rocket Lab outperform a huge number of companies on this list.
Travis Hoium: The one that you didn't mention that surprised me a little bit is Nvidia, the biggest company in the world. I believe they still hold that title. The valuation is looking pretty attractive. Price to earnings multiple is 24, still a phenomenal growth company. But Jon, with Micron instead, arguably a little bit a step down on the value chain of actually building these systems and these chips. Why Micron instead of a company like NVIDIA?
Jon Quast: No, it's very inconsistent reasoning because what is good for Micron is good for NVIDIA, quite honestly, and that is why Micron is doing so well. In fact, it actually pivoted out of the consumer business, and it's going all into these AI chips. This is why NVIDIA has been such a great company, its profit margins are just incredibly high, historically high, once in a lifetime profit margin situation, and it's continuing to be in very high demand. It's a very strong business. As NVIDIA continues to perform well, it's good for Micron, though, as well. It is inconsistent reasoning on my part, to name one and not the other.
Travis Hoium: Well, it's so hard to look at the valuation of a company like Micron, as well, because given that growth rate, I'm just looking at the forward priced to earnings multiple. It's 4.8 right now, which just seems absolutely crazy. I want to get you guys takes on.
Lou Whiteman: Wait, hold on. Just real quick on NVIDIA because I thought about this for a long time. They are the UConn in this bracket. UConn was great in the '80s, took some time off, and then came back and takes time off, and now they're great again. Look, you can't go wrong long term investing in NVIDIA, but I don't know if I think, based on the growth they've seen in the last five years, that again, next five years is going to be the growth story it was. Again, you can do a lot worse than writing UConn into the brackets, especially this year's bracket, I think. But inevitably, there will be that ebb before it flows again. That's UConn, and that's NVIDIA to me, too.
Travis Hoium: Jon, you have to pick one champion out of your final four, who have you got?
Jon Quast: I would have to go with Amazon there. Seriously, I know that sounds, I don't know, maybe a little bit like a letdown because we all know Amazon, we've all seen Amazon, and Amazon has been so good in the past, but surely it's not now. But no, I think that Amazon still has many good years in front of it. I believe that the Cloud business can continue to get bigger. Really, you look at some other business lines, such as advertising still ramping very nicely. This company has the opportunity to generate a lot more profits in coming years. The valuation is historically quite attractive, and so I'm taking Amazon here of this list.
Travis Hoium: Lou, out of your four, who have you got?
Lou Whiteman: I want to go with Rocket Lab. I think it could be Rocket Lab, but I'm going to go with the University of Houston, which I think is alphabet here. Flashy, exciting, great leadership, one of the best leaders in the whole tournament.
Travis Hoium: Is that sentiment completely changed for Sundar Pichai.
Lou Whiteman: I can't speak for him. Yeah, I think the markets have grown into him. I think that his track record speaks for itself. I like their chances of winning here, I guess, and I don't know. I'm also I do think it's Houston's year. I'm going to put those together and say Alphabet is the Houston of this story.
Travis Hoium: I like it. Well, we do have to circle back to Meta when we come back, get an idea of what's going on with the future of that company. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Meta's side quest into the Metaverse is coming to a somewhat unceremonious end. Horizon, the Metaverse is officially being shut down or neglected even more than it already was. I just got to start with this, guys. Jon, does Meta platforms now need to change its name from that, maybe back to Facebook or something else, but it seems like this name doesn't really identify where the company is right now.
Jon Quast: I think it does need to change its name. This is the reason why it changed its name in the first place was explicitly, all in on the Metaverse. Look, I've got a great name idea for the company. How about Facebook?
Travis Hoium: Or Instagram. That may even make more sense, though. Lou, do you agree?
Lou Whiteman: Zuckerberg's world Emporium. How about that? Does that work? Now look, you know what? Again, I'm sure my classics teacher from high school will call me up and yell at me if I'm wrong here. But I believe Meta is the ancient Greek for beyond. I think you can use it for anything. If anything, maybe, it's more appropriate now because they're going beyond just the Metaverse and the AI. Look, I don't know. At this point, I think I would advise against it. You are what you are unless you want to go with the Jack Dorsey route and just make it, I don't know, the symbol Prince used to use. Just keep what you're doing and focus on the business.
Travis Hoium: It is wild the name changes that happened during the pandemic. It seems like executives just seem to have lost their minds for a few years.
Lou Whiteman: They had too much time on their hands. They couldn't jet off to Burning Man, and look what happened.
Travis Hoium: Exactly. All right Jon, so what's real here and what isn't because the Reality Labs has been a ton of spending, but it isn't like they're not spending on some of these future products, like AR glasses and AI. What should we actually know about this?
Jon Quast: That's a good point, Travis. Meta is winding down Horizon Worlds. That is the digital online Metaverse world, if you will. But it's not winding down all of Reality Labs. It's not winding down Oculus. It's not winding down the Meta Ray-Ban glasses. There still will be money spent here. But what's so interesting is Meta started breaking out Reality Labs in 2021, and that gave us the financials into 2020. Basically cumulatively, since that time, it has spent roughly $80 billion on Reality Labs and generated about 10 billion in revenue during that time. I don't know if we've ever seen anything quite like that. Essentially, it has burned $70 billion on this project. Now, like I said, some of that was Oculus. I think most of the revenue generated was Oculus. But it's so interesting to me that spending all of that money, it still couldn't will this concept into existence. Part of me says that that means that the Metaverse will never be ready. Player 1 will never be. The other part of me says, maybe Meta was just too early here. Maybe once we have a better haptic experience that incorporates the five senses even better, maybe that will be something that the user experience will be improved, and then you won't have to spend $70 billion to get people to use it. They will be lining up to beg to use the platform because it is good. I don't know which it is. I would personally lean toward we're not getting ready player 1, but time will tell.
Travis Hoium: Lou, is this a wise move to get rid of this spending now?
Lou Whiteman: Yeah, here's the thing. Being at the Grand Canyon is cooler than looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon. I will concede that the Metaverse is probably somewhere in between. I don't think it's worth hundreds of dollars or any revenue of mine versus that picture. I think this is all the money in the world is going into AI. We already know this. This is just them telling us what we already know. We're not focused on this anymore. I think it's a much of that, and as little of that, that's the story. It's just we've moved on.
Travis Hoium: It will be interesting to see how they break things out in the future, because they did talk, I think even going back a couple of years about how some of the spending on AI was falling into Reality Labs. It was like they were shifting the focus already, but now are they going to be breaking out AI spending in a different way or is it all just going to be this huge bucket of money? I don't know that we know the full answer to that yet. Maybe by the end of 2026, they'll have to change the disclosure. Alright, we like to end the show with the stocks on our radar. Jon, I'm going to have you go first. What are you looking at this week?
Jon Quast: This was a hard one for me this week, but I'm going to go with Celsius Holdings. That's ticker symbol CELH. This is the number 3 energy drink company behind Monster and Red Bull. It owns its namesake Celsius Brand. It also owns Alani Nu, which is an up and coming energy drink brand. I acquired just over a year ago. It also recently got the Rockstar brand, if you've heard of that one. I like revenue growth and I like profit margin improvement. Those are two things that I look for. Revenue in 2025 for Celsius was up 86%. That is huge. A lot of that was acquisition related. However, the company did still take market share with its brands, and so it was still organic growth, as well. The mission in 2026 is basically to get its newer brands fully integrated into the business. It's working to get them into Pepsi's distribution network. Pepsi's an investor and a partner here. That will help its profit margins improve this year. We're seeing both of those things that I look for, revenue growth and profit margin expansion. It's down 35% from 52 week high. It's trading at four time sales. That's about 50% cheaper than Monster. Even though Celsius has way better growth potential, I like Celsius today.
Travis Hoium: Dan, are you a Celsius drinker?
Dan Boyd: No, they market this stuff as healthy, but listen, I might be being skeptical here, but I don't think any energy drinks are healthy. Just drink water, gang, if you want to be healthy.
Lou Whiteman: Amen, Dan. Thank you.
Travis Hoium: As I take a sip of a Wildberry Celsius. I guess I'll take the other side of that one.
Lou Whiteman: Carbonated tang.
Jon Quast: I don't know quite what's in these things. They have very few calories. I've never understood how you can have a drink with flavor that has zero calories.
Dan Boyd: Look, don't ask questions.
Travis Hoium: Maybe it's magic. Don't think about it.
Lou Whiteman: Don't ask questions. Just buy the product. I like that.
Dan Boyd: Lou, what's on your radar this week?
Lou Whiteman: Dan, I am looking at Planet Labs. Before you ask, no, that's not a B52 song from the '80s. It is a company with a ticker, PL. They are satellite Imaging specialist. When you look at Google Earth, chances are you're looking at a Planet Labs image. The company posted a solid beat this week and laid out a very good growth case from here. Government's about 85% of the business, 20 new awards with an average value of 170 million, so that's a lot of revenue visibility from here. The intriguing part is commercial. It's not just for cool map applications. There's a lot of data that can be extracted for agriculture, for industry, real time mapping. A lot of things can come out of this. Stock is not cheap, but Planet Labs, if nothing else, laid out a case why they can justify this valuation and grow from here. I'm watching closely.
Travis Hoium: Dan, what do you think about Planet Labs?
Dan Boyd: I actually think this company's pretty cool. Their whole deal is taking pictures of the Earth from orbit. I don't know, I think it's really cool. I love seeing pictures of the Earth, and I like what they're doing here. It also seems like they're almost propping up SpaceX with the amount of satellites that they're launching through SpaceX.
Travis Hoium: I also like that they have the website. Their main website is just planet.com.
Dan Boyd: It's a little unspecific if we're going to be honest here, because we got a lot of those around here, so I don't know.
Travis Hoium: Dan, which one is going on your watch list?
Dan Boyd: Let's go Planet Labs.
Travis Hoium: Congratulations to Lou. Dan, better luck next time. Thanks for listening, everybody to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here next time.
