It's April, a month of optimism, a month of storytelling on this podcast, and, yep, it's Shakespeare's month too. It's also your mailbag this week. It's the final Wednesday of April. I'm looking forward to tackling questions as diverse as should I have gold in my portfolio to what about those ETFs that rebalance quarterly? We're also gonna talk about buy now, pay later casinos, and I'm gonna close out two five stock samplers. All that and more only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.
It's the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Motley Fool cofounder David Gardner. And welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. I had a lot of fun this month on this podcast. I hope you did too. We started it off with a shot of espresso, an espresso shot of optimism from my friend, and I hope now yours, Bill Burke. Bill joined me to talk on the subject.
He is, of course, the founder of the Optimism Institute and the host of the Blue Sky podcast, and we had some blue sky in fooled them early this month. Then it was telling their stories. I invited Bill Barker and Robert Brokamp, two long time fools to come on and tell their stories where they're from. What about the stock graph of their lives? What does that look like, and what were the three moments that for both of them respectively made them into the investors they are today.
That was sports family and finance telling their stories, volume six, our long running series where I talk to some of our favorite fools. And then last week, the eighteenth episode of Great Quotes. Yep. Five more for you this time in keeping with April, Shakespeare's month. It was all Shakespeare all the time. As you like it, my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, five great quotes making you smarter, happier, and richer from the bard himself. This wasn't about literature, though.
This is about money, finance, business, life. That's what this podcast centers on. Although, admittedly, sometimes we leave the reservation briefly especially for Shakespeare from whom we take our name at the Motley Fool. In fact, from the play as you like it. So that is the April that was let's open up hot takes as I always do with tweets. Yep. That's right. I still say Twitter and tweets from Twitter because I know a lot of people are starting to call it x, and I'm okay with that.
But what do you do when you when you tweet? Do you exit? I'm not really it doesn't make any sense to me, so I'm sticking with Twitter. And here are some of my favorite tweets from the month that has been the first from Bill Burke himself. Again, my first week guest. That was a fun interview, Bill tweeted out as I knew it would be, and David shamed me into finally changing my Twitter slash x handle.
You know, I was just trying to give Bill a little publicity there that first week by reading out as I often do how you can find him on x slash Twitter. And it was something like at w a burke, and I'm making up the number six two zero nine. And I read it out loud on the podcast, and we briefly smiled about that. He said his kids have been tweaking him about that. And sure enough, Bill, all of a sudden, is now at Burke with an e on the end, at Burke optimist.
Bill, I did not intend to shame you, but I think good things came from our conversation. Another tweet, this one on the subject of the same podcast, Craig Hawkins at craigs brain wrote, thank you so much at david g fool for entertaining my question on the podcast about optimism in difficult circumstances. Craig went on at Burke Optimist ended his answer with the question, what's the alternative? In my case, Craig writes, I'm often tempted to the alternative of self pity.
It promises a sense of comfort, but it just leaves one empty. For me, an optimistic mindset takes constant effort, but putting in that work makes all other burdens easier to shoulder. Thanks again. Well, thank you, Craig for that note. Two more, both on the subject of telling their stories with bro and bill at jason underscore trice awesome episode and two more amazing fools. I was familiar with both bro and bill, but came away with a new appreciation for both after hearing their stories.
I'm already looking forward to volume seven. And at Fergus Cullen have enjoyed this series, and this episode, Fergus writes, was especially good. Appreciate how Bro's family history shaped his caution and tendency to, his word awfulize. Bill made me think, of course, re subbing stats for calculus. By the way, I think that's a Yale reference. Both sound like folks, Fergus concludes, you'd be glad to have as neighbors. And I can certainly back that one up, Fergus.
Now I've never lived near Bro or Bill. I I would think they're pretty good neighbors. I have to admit, I don't even talk to my neighbors that much. That's something we don't do as much in the United States. I understand many other countries are much more neighborly than we sometimes are here in the good old US of A. But I'll say this, they've been fantastic employees. Great folks you'd be glad to have as employees for twenty years plus in both cases.
What a delight it was to have them tell their stories. Alright. Seven mailbag items for this, the one hundred and second rule breaker investing mailbag. Let's get started with mailbag item number one. Hey, David. Didn't she mean to say a couple more things about Shakespeare in last week's great quotes? And this one is just signed in quotes David. Oh my gosh. That's because it's me.
It's me writing myself for mailbag item number one because there were indeed a few more things I wanted to convey in last week's great quotes that I forgot to. So here we are, mailbag item number one. The first thing I wanted to mention was the timing of it. You know, Shakespeare was reputed both to have been born and to have died on the same day. My wife asked me earlier today, how many people does that happen to? And I said, I don't know, maybe about one in three hundred sixty five or so.
And she said, it's probably more often than that though. There's something about that. She might be right. As You Like It, which was the title of last week's podcast, was timed up very specifically with April twenty third, which is the day we're recording this mailbag on because it is known as, as I mentioned earlier, Shakespeare's birthday and his death day.
We know for sure Shakespeare was baptized on May twenty sixth of fifteen sixty four, and tradition held it back then that they would typically baptize infants just a few days after they were born. So we tend to say Shakespeare's birthday was April twenty third. Now we know for sure he died on April twenty third. It was fifty two years later. That's right. Shakespeare lived what have you done in your years? He lived just fifty two years. The year was sixteen sixteen.
And he had signed his last will, just a few months beforehand where he noted he was perfectly healthy. He just happens to have done his estate back then. So we're not exactly sure how and why he died. There's speculation he may have gone out drinking and caught a fever.
There are various stories there, but I just wanted to mention that the very specific timing of Great Quotes volume eighteen was to celebrate William Shakespeare, his birthday and his death day, which we celebrate on this day as we record April twenty third twenty twenty four. So I guess, Bill, it's your four hundred sixtieth birthday. Happy birthday.
I also wanna mention before we move on to mailbag item number two that my final quote from last week was, of course, a fool, a fool, I met a fool, the forest, a motley fool. I mentioned at the end of last week's podcast, that is the exact line I was reading in the Penguin Book of Quotations when I was like, hey. That's what we should call our newsletter. We'll be The Motley Fool before we ever thought we'd be a company, etcetera.
But I neglected to mention that was the only quote I've ever used reused on the great quote series. So if you go back to volume six years ago, I did that very same quote then. I haven't gone back to listen to that, and what I said is probably somewhat similar. I don't repeat. I make a real point of not repeating one great quote from one episode to the next or just about anything else on this podcast generally, but that is one that I did. So just noting that in passing. Alright.
On to rule breaker investing mailbag item number two. Oh my gosh. Is it is it not just the chief investment officer of The Motley Fool, but the world champion of the market cap game show? Is it Andy Cross joining me for a couple of mailbag items this week? Andy, welcome. David, it's great to be back after after my close victory in the game against Bill, and I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Does does the world feel different to you in any way now? I would say maybe a little bit.
I I walk around a little bit with a little bit of a lighter step. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I I I saw you walking recently. It almost looked like you weren't quite touching the ground as you were walking. Kinda floating. Kinda floating a little bit. Yeah. Exactly. So that's that that's the way I roll right now. So Well, let's get down not just to Earth, but let's go underground for this mailbag item, Andy, for reasons you will understand immediately.
Dave writes Robert Schuya writing in from, check it, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Andy, where are you from? I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Andy, where is my father's family from and still living? Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Oh my gosh. Let's do it. Alright. David. Coincidences. I love it. Robert Scalia writes, Dave, thank you for all the podcasts over years. You've amused and enriched me both financially and mentally. Well, thank you very much, Robert. We really appreciate that.
You've had my letter on your show a few times in the past. I hope you'll answer this one. What's the role Robert writes? This is why I'm having Andy on. Robert writes, what is the role of gold in a portfolio? Would you recommend it now? He goes on a little bit more here, Andy. I've heard advice from another podcast. It's an insurance vehicle. Just like all insurance, it's a product you buy. You hope you never have to use it.
You'll never purposely crash your car to use your auto insurance or burn down your house for your homeowner's insurance. At least most people wouldn't, I think. But Robert goes on, you pay for them just in case. I feel gold could be the same. I never hope for some financial crash, but just in case, it would be nice to have insurance. Now I know you generally stay out of politics, and you're right. So we're gonna do that here, Robert.
But with our national debt going up a trillion dollars every hundred days, I don't think our economy is gonna be a stable in the future. I can't say how far it could be measured in months, years, or decades, but eventually Andy, this goes a little bit this this goes deeper. Eventually, all great civilizations are no longer great. The nice thing about gold is it can be converted to any currency.
So if the US dollar does collapse or we see hyperinflation, it can be converted to a more stable currency if ever needed. What is your opinion on gold? Now, Andy, I don't own any gold. At least there might be a little jewelry here or there, but this is not a meaningful holding for me. It never has been. I've generally listened to people like Jeremy Siegel, who in stocks for the long run points out that gold for a couple of hundred years really hasn't had a meaningful return.
Gold does seem increasingly of interest to people right now, Andy. Do you pick up the same vibe? Oh, I sure do, David. When you think about how gold has performed, I think it's natural that someone like Robert, my fellow Red Rose City citizen, may be curious about how gold can can, help support a portfolio. And so I think it's a natural question, Robert. I don't think it's quite like insurance because gold can go down. I mean, it's right now at about twenty three hundred dollars per ounce.
It can definitely go down, and it can be volatile. But I think some people consider it a little bit of a of a of a difference than a counter to stocks or to other fiat currencies like the dollar because of some of the issues or reasons that that Robert laid out. However, David, when you buy an ounce of gold, and by the way, you can buy gold now at Costco, and it's quite a hot seller at Costco if you've been to a Costco recently. I don't go into Costco.
I never really shop, but I hear great things about it. It well, it's a great store, and it's been a great winning stock. And, frankly, I would probably own a little bit wanna own a little bit more, a little bit of Costco rather than a little bit of gold. Gold doesn't pay anything, David. It is it is the the great, psychological safety net that that investors consider. It doesn't pay out dividends.
Warren Buffett Buffett, I just for a few seconds, if I can go into this, has a has a wonderful quote that says, if you bought and owned all the gold that was mined in all of the world over all the time, over all of the years, Right now, that would be worth I'm paraphrasing, but in today's dollars, that would be worth about eighteen trillion dollars. And he goes on to say what you could buy for eighteen trillion.
Eighteen trillion dollars, David, you could buy all of the Mag seven and still have about five trillion dollars left over in your pocket to buy your next base buy a baseball team, whatever you wanna do. You'd have five trillion left over. And what would you rather own? The Magna seven companies for the next ten, fifteen years, or would you really own a big cubic sixty seven foot by sixty seven foot by sixty seven foot cube of gold? And so the the gold doesn't pay you anything.
It's a psychological safety net. The fool as far as I know, I don't think we've ever really recommended gold. We prefer to focus on stocks because stocks pay dividends. They pay cash flow. They generate cash flows, and they generate hefty returns for members over time and for and for investors over time. So I think people might think they can be a good psychological safety net right now with stocks. But overall, it's just not a a great place we think for investors who are focused on businesses.
If you wanna own a tiny bit of it, I guess there's no no harm in that. But do know that it can go down in price. It doesn't always just go up. He does point out that and I assume this is accurate over the last twenty years. It's beaten the S and P five hundred. So, it's worth noting. At least those are Robert Summers. I admit because this is not a topic of great interest to me or maybe rule breaker investing.
That's why I wanted to have our chief investment officer on and certainly across Fulldum at Full dot com, we have more articles and more in-depth that you'll get on the subject and history of gold as an investment. I also mentioned Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel, a great book. That's where I learned while gold may not really go down that much and it's kind of an inflation hedge, doesn't really go up very much over the course of time, which is what I want my investments to do.
Mhmm. The idea of that of it being an insurance policy, especially against high inflation or fiscal irresponsibility on the part of our nation or any other, I can see that up to a point. I just don't focus much of my time there. So, Andy, in conclusion, we're not saying, Robert, you've made a mistake. We're not saying this won't be recurringly of interest to people at different points throughout history as it has been, but we are saying, I think, Andy, at least I am you're agreeing.
Right? We're I am. Investors. By definition, we're invested over long periods of time with your capital, the Cross family capital, and the Gardner family capital, both of which tie to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. True. But we don't actually want much of that capital that don't add value to our society in more evident ways that lead to, I think, escalating returns. Is that fair? I think that's right, David. I mean, Robert says, a certain percent could be useful.
I I I think allocation strategies will say about gold, maybe that that would work. But overall, I think the focus really needs to be continue and I in my view, and I think the Motley Fool's view, continue to be focused on great businesses for the long term. Thank you for that. And thank you, Robert Scuia. I do wanna say as we move on to rule breaker mailbag item number three that there are many different types of investors listening to us right now.
My real focus is, of course, on rule breaker investing, rule breaker stocks, and the traits and habits that we build up as rule breaker investors. That is just one form of investing. The Motley Fool is very Motley. So there are people on our staff who love gold. There are people who write articles in favor or against gold on our website. We encourage people to follow their own adventure, to choose their own adventure, actually, as investors.
So your mileage may vary, Robert, and a lot of older people listening, you remember times where gold was a good hedge. And if you've got some in your portfolio, I'm not saying no. But since you're asking me, I'm not interested. Alright. On to rule breaker, mailbag item number three. This one from Brian Lamoreaux. Brian lists himself as a Motley Fool member since two thousand sixteen, tapping in from Petaluma, California. Thank you, Brian. Hi, rule breakers.
I had a question about a rule breaker recommendation from a few months ago. It's a biotech ETF from Standard and Poor's. This biotech ETF has an equal weight strategy, writes Brian. The question, Andy, is more about how equal weight ETFs work in general. In principle, especially in light of what we like at The Motley Fool. So this isn't really Brian says about the biotech industry.
Now he says, while some people aren't gonna like ETFs at all or maybe may may not like The Motley Fool nationally recommending ETFs because they think about us thinking about stocks most of the time, which certainly has been true of you and me, Andy. He does point out that recommending a portfolio of biotech companies can make sense for a lot of investors to get an ETF, to get a basket, Andy, of biotech companies.
But then he goes on, doesn't that mean that when they rebalance that fund every quarter to reach a goal of an equal weight fund, that would be, Andy, when all positions have an equivalent dollar value, Brian asks, doesn't that mean that in effect, you're not letting your winners run? You're sort of cutting the flowers and watering the weeds if every quarter or so, you're selling down the ones that have gone up and reinvesting in the ones that haven't done so well.
So that is the heart and soul of Brian's question. Andy, what comes to mind when we talk about rebalancing and ETFs? Yeah, David. So ETFs, mutual funds, they operate by very strict rules on how they allocate their capital. And in this case, for actively managed funds that are rebalancing every quarter, which as you mentioned, at the end of the quarter, beginning of next quarter, they do selling and buying to match up the stocks and the positions.
They have to do that, so they they will have to sell down some stocks that have become overweight in that quarter and buy ones that have become, less weight in the quarter. And, historically, for us, we find the advantages of the individual investor to let your winners run. When we look at all of our data and it's not just The Motley Fool. I think there are many investors I respect who talk about this, just thinking about their performance of their portfolios.
Letting those companies that are compounding returns for your portfolio and continue to compound portfolios, those compounding effects have really big Lollapalooza effects on our portfolio when you get it right. So we wanna encourage people to buy and hold those great companies that compound that. And if you sell, you ruin that compounding effect.
Now the ETF strategy, there's some risk to that, David, because the balancing of a portfolio gets a little bit maybe out of center of what somebody may expect if a position becomes too, a stock position becomes too high in their portfolio, and the actively managed ETF in this case doesn't do that. So they keep that balance as they go, and, hopefully, the boats all kind of rise over time, and the the ETF overall does well enough, over time to account for that buying and selling.
And while I don't exactly know what ETF he's referring to because I'm not sure what was recommended, I will say that in general, I understand why people might prefer for biotech or an industry like it where it's more opaque and there might be fewer winners and a lot more losers. You feel more diversified when you buy into an ETF.
But I do agree with Brian's supposition, and I agree with your response, Andy, that in general, that is why we prefer to invest directly into individual stocks so you can allow them to grow up and win in your portfolio. It does seem inevitable then that if an ETF is focusing on a sector and trying to be equal weight, it will continually sell off the ones that have gone up in order to buy the ones that go down.
Now I guess the hope is that the ones that go down are coming back anyway and so you're getting a good deal on them. And in the end, you can see from any ETF via Morningstar or other resources. I think the fool probably has some help here too. You can see how a given fund has performed over time, so it doesn't have to be a mystery. Of course, we can only look backwards and see how they've done. We can't initially know going forwards.
You know, I do notice that coming on board for rule breaker mailbag item number four is my friend and yours, Robert Brokamp. Robert here to talk about something else. But, Robert, since you're happening in at this timely moment, we're talking about ETFs. What are we missing? What do you wanna say to Brian that we may not already be speaking to? Well, I think a lot of people choose ETFs because they want exposure to some segment of the market. It might be an industry. It might be a sector.
It might be a type of stock that has certain risk and return characteristics, but they don't want to spend time sorting through the stocks, choosing the winners or the losers, staying on top of the research, whatever it may be. So they just want exposure to that type of investment strategy, in this case, biotech.
And the reason the ETF might will do some rebalancing quarterly or annually, and all ETFs will probably do at least annually, is that if you don't do that, the ETF will become gradually dominated by one to two to three companies. And if you're an investor and you look at that ETF and look, why would I buy that ETF? Why shouldn't I just buy these companies themselves? Why should I pay an ETF company an annual fee to own an ETF that's dominated by three individual stocks?
So I think there is an investment perspective. Right? I really want this exposure to this industry, not to just the two or three biggest players, but there's also a business perspective. Like, we don't want to be just these two or three stocks wrapped in an ETF wrapper. Really well said. So I I guess in conclusion, we can say, Brian, that we generally agree with your intuition about these things. Do remember that not every investment makes sense for every person.
I think a lot of in this case, it sounds like Rule Breakers members might benefit or appreciate that recommendation because while they may or may not end up owning lots of the biggest winners, biotechnology as a field is interesting enough with enough dynamism and possibility that it probably well, let's hope so anyway. It's a good investment over the course of the future. And for a lot of people, they may not have invested at all, Robert and Andy, because they would have not wanted any biotech.
They don't feel like they know it well enough with a single ticker or a few tickers in their portfolio companies they may have a hard time following. So I can see why the team may have recommended this and why this can still be a good investment even though even if it doesn't capture the top performance of the top stocks fully. Alright. Well, Andy, always great to see you. Thanks for joining us for this April mailbag. Happy spring. Happy Shakespeare's birthday.
Oh, happy Shakespeare's birthday, David. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here, on on the podcast and especially answering some mailbag questions. Thanks so much. Great job and full on. Well, I am about to head to number four, but, Robert, you're raising your hand. You wanna add something to our ETF discussion.
Yeah. I will just point out that our buy and hold strategy, if you own an individual stock for years, if not if not decades, and it's in a taxable brokerage account, That's a very tax efficient way of investing. These ETFs, whenever they're buying and selling, they're creating taxable events. Now they try to offset the sales and the losses, you know, the gains and the losses. They can do some tax loss harvesting themselves.
But if you're holding ETFs like this, especially if they're doing quarterly balancing, they could be rather tax inefficient. So that's something to pay attention to. And if it is tax inefficient, but you still like it, then you might wanna keep it in an IRA or your four zero one k. Really appreciate that important point. You know, you're reminding me one of your heroes, one of mine too, Robert. That would be Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard.
He really went after his own industry, the mutual fund industry, for not sufficiently transparently reporting the actual returns that you would get from holding managed funds over long periods of time. You and I both know that indexing is more efficient for the most part than manage mutual funds, But you would see a return Bogle would say, you know, it might say it's up eight point two percent a year, but they're not actually factoring in the tax that you have to pay as an investor.
And if there's a lot of buying and selling in an ETF or an index fund, all of a sudden, what looked like an eight point two percent return is not over time. And Bogle really went after that as the firebrand that he occasionally would be. And it's really surprising because you get this tax bill at the end of the year even though you didn't sell the shares. Like, you you bought and hold those shares for the long term, but you get a tax bill every year based on the capital gains distributions.
So you can find out how tax efficient your fund or ETF is by going to Morningstar, and they'll have something called the tax efficiency ratio or something like that or the aft pretax and after tax return. And you compare that and just look. And if if if you're looking at a fund that is rather tax inefficient, again, put it in a tax advantaged account. Love it. Such an important point.
We probably don't make it enough on rule breaker investing, but that's because we tend to talk more about stocks anyway. But let's not talk about stocks once again as we go to rule breaker mailbag item number four. We can break our own rules on this podcast. I think we're speaking to really relevant things, though, that aren't always about stocks, but they are about money. And that's where JAMA is headed with rule breaker mailbag item number four.
Robert, she starts, here's a dark cloud I can't see through. Credit card debt and the buy now pay later system. Of course, BNPL is the acronym which we may rock a little bit to save breath. While these businesses jump goes on thrive with ecommerce growth, their success masks potential risk to their clients.
Credit card debt has surged from two hundred forty billion dollars, that's about a quarter of a trillion twenty five years ago, to over one trillion dollars today, raising concerns about the systemic stability reminiscent of our two thousand eight nine financial crisis. Many, John goes on, including financially savvy people I know carry high interest credit card debt thinking it benefits their credit scores despite the financial drawbacks.
Now b n p l, buy now, pay later, is increasingly embedded in transactions. It offers people what can sometimes be deceptive affordability, leading people to overextend financially. In her note, John mentions, hey. Yeah. You could get this for thirty dollars now, or you could get it for six installments of five dollars each that may have additional fees, even sometimes interest tied to those, Robert, as an example.
She goes on unlike tobacco products which carry health warnings or gambling services, FanDuel, for example, whose, well, actually, the disclaimers on their commercials sometimes last longer than their sales pitches. She says, unlike those, BNPL lack transparent warnings about the potential financial dangers. So a mandatory clear warning before transactions might be in order here.
She calls it a financial shock collar that might help prevent poor decisions if you had to, for example, say, I understand I'm using a potentially dangerous thing here. Thank you for making me sign the disclaimer to purchase this thing. John even goes on to say, you know, we could turn that into a business idea at The Motley Fool. You could call it the foolproof collar.
She concludes after starting our book, you have more than you think, which Tom and I wrote a couple of decades ago, she felt compelled to write this. I plan to finish it, she wrote, seeking more insights into combating this issue and spreading financial health awareness to continue The Motley Fool's legacy. Forever a fool. She always says she's my biggest fan. Jump. Let's talk about buy now, pay later. Robert Brokamp.
Well, it's, something that has been around for many years, but it was mostly in the apparel and cosmetics industry. In fact, it was, like, eighty percent of the sales up until maybe two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen. But it has spread all over, mostly through the websites you buy something from when you're checking out. And it says, hey.
You know, instead of paying for it all right now, how about we split this up in four payments, and you only have to pay it over the next month and a half? And now it's actually now moving also into apps, so so where you can use it on your phone and not only use it to pay for things there, but then because they're collecting all this data on you, they are suggesting things that you could pay. And the reason people find it compelling is that it varies from the service you're using.
But generally speaking, there are no fees, and there's no interest. So people will say, well, like, why wouldn't I do this? Why why should I pay for it all now and I can spread it out at no cost to me? The problem, of course, is that sometimes you don't get around to paying it off, and that's when the interest rates start hitting you or the fees start hitting you, and it could have sort of knock on effects.
And and I will say that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also equally concerned. They released a report in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, and saying that it's probably about time for us to have more say in what goes on in this industry and regulate them. Because currently, the buy now pay later, that that is not regulated the same way credit cards are. But I think that is going to change at some point in the near future. I think John's concern is well placed.
She talks I didn't read the full letter, but she talks about she's a nurse, and a lot of the people that she knows both who work with her and the people that she serves, are generally not that financially savvy. So for a lot of people, I could imagine they might make the mistake of, yeah, I will pay this off and maybe they even do. But if you find that you can buy a whole bunch of stuff at a present very near term discount, you might buy even more stuff.
She speaks to this a little bit in her note about how people maybe are buying things they don't even necessarily need and don't realize how much they're spending. So I think, I guess, like a lot of things, whether we're talking about tobacco or gambling, a topic I'll take up a little bit later, these things are legal. They have disclaimers. And generally, I would say, Robert, there's enough societal awareness that they're serious problems. Gambling can be addictive.
Tobacco can be killingly addictive that these things have disclaimers on them. Now we love commerce. We want people spending. I think that's a big part of our economy. And so, I I it's hard for me to picture people actually having to sign through a disclaimer in order to make these kinds of purchases. I didn't even think about how it's was true of cosmetics and true of apparel, but now it's spread to other things.
Do you have any thoughts about how to raise more awareness or how to do this effectively? It's a good question. I mean, in the end, I I was thinking about this. Like, why are stores offering this? Right? And they're not actually usually the ones doing the the buy now, pay later. It's usually a company offering that. But why would, you know, an online store do this? And, obviously, they believe it will lead to people spending more money.
And that's what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found, that the people who take who do these loans are more likely to have high levels of debt and more likely to be delinquent in their debt. And about three quarters of the people who do this have household incomes below seventy five thousand So it's definitely a concern. It would be difficult to I I would say this.
Stores and the providers of these services are not going to regulate themselves because the whole appeal of this is that it's so easy to do. Alright? When you sign up and and do one of these buy now pay laters, you just have to prove that you're over eighteen and that you have a bank account or a checking account. At the most, they do a soft credit check, not a hard credit check. So approvals are pretty high. So that's the appeal. Right? That lots of people can do it and it's so easy.
I think it will require some sort of regulation for there to be some sort of disclaimer related to these. And I think I think what we will see is it's not going to happen until it really harms a lot of people. John is right that credit card debt is at very high levels. These these programs are becoming more popular in twenty twenty two. There's about twenty five billion dollars used through buy now, pay later. It's gonna be almost forty billion in twenty twenty four.
But the economy is going well, so it's sort of the old you know, the old while the music's playing, you gotta keep dancing. During the next recession, when a lot of people get hurt, I think that's when things will change. Well, in the meantime, what we can do is what John's doing, which is to raise consciousness of those around us, those that we feel comfortable enough saying, hey. How are your finances doing? Or how much debt are you riding?
Or those kinds of questions that we can have with friends and family, those topics. I'm trying to fight this battle, educate whomever will lend me ears, Jim wrote in her note. Who would ever would like to improve their financial health? That's something that we've been trying to do for thirty years or so. The book You Have More Than You Think, that was a big part of that book when we first wrote it in the late nineteen nineties.
Robert, you have done a lot on behalf of many fools and those connected to them to help them be smarter about their finances. Here, I guess, is just one more topic. It's funny because buy now pay later is exactly what credit card debt enables. When credit cards emerged as a new technology about sixty years ago, That really is the concept at heart. Buy now, pay later.
But for it to have further evolved is probably not surprising at all, but it does mean we have to watch ourselves and our finances even more carefully. Robert, thank you for joining in once again.
By the way, I don't think you got to hear this because you weren't in the studio at that point, but you got called out on a tweet read out earlier on the show by one of our listeners who said after hearing you tell your story along with Bill Barker in the middle of the month, said, Fergus Collins said, in fact, sounds like you'd be pretty good to have as a neighbor. Are you a good neighbor?
I think so. Yeah. I I'm I'm thinking I I live in a little pipe stem, and there are three other people around us. And I I think specifically, I've helped every one of my neighbors at one point, and they've helped me. We have a a nice little group. So, yes, I would What what is the do you have a neighborly tradition or ritual? Or what makes you a good neighbor? Well, so, actually, honestly, we have one collective snowblower for our pipe stem, and it's in my garage.
And when the snow is is falling, I'm the one who gets the the snowblower out because two of the other neighbors are, well into their seventies, and one other neighbor is a doctor who's always too busy. So I guess that makes me a good neighbor. Fergus Cullen, you had it right. Thanks, bro. Thanks, David. Alright. Three mailbag items left. Let's go to number five.
And number five for a reason, I guess, I'm punning a little bit because Mark Minor begins, David, with your final five stock sampler review on the horizon, wouldn't this be a great time to start a new stock picking tradition since you've retired from the stock picking game yourself? Perhaps bring guest stock pickers on board either from the fool or outside the fool. And since you love games, you could even choose to have two stock pickers go head to head on a given theme.
The five stock samplers, their reviews always have been great episodes. A great way to teach about investing. Let's revive that yours in full them, Mark Minor, Esquire. Mark, thank you for that. And, of course, this has been on my mind for the last couple of years. My final five stock sampler was picked in June of twenty twenty one. And when it reaches its three month destination, which would be indeed June of twenty twenty four, Well, I've already mentioned on previous episodes.
I will be closing out the thirty five stock samplers with that thirtieth when we review it in June. And then I committed to the week after that reflecting on the overall learnings from picking thirty different times, five stock baskets along a given theme, keeping track of our scoring, and what could we learn from that. And I will definitely be doing that this summer.
But, yes, I've also thought, Mark and others, about what would come after, and I am a gamer as you well know, Mark, and your thoughts are running fairly consonant with mine. I just wanna think a little bit more about how to do that in a way that would be fun and foolish. But believe me, I've been thinking about that. So thank you for writing in. And I using this opportunity with mailbag item number five, in fact, to close down two other recently expiring five stock samplers.
And those two five stock samplers, let's take them in chronological order. The first one I wanna close out here was five stocks rolled up at random. Now I first picked these stocks in January of twenty twenty one. In fact, it was January twentieth twenty twenty one. Yep. One twenty twenty twenty one. It reminds me that this podcast comes out on four two four two four, but it was very close. One twenty twenty twenty one.
When I unfortunately had this notion that I would pick stocks, that particular basket, the twenty eighth of the thirty in rule breaker investing history, that I would roll them up at random from my universe of a few hundred stocks. I decide I will dice up which five I'll pick this time. And it wasn't pure randomization because I actually chose ten out of that larger universe of a couple hundred stocks. Ten chosen at random, and then I face them off against each other.
You know, that pair, which one would I favor that first pair? What about that second pair? And so it was really close to randomization, but not pure randomization. Of course, I'm randomizing from a universe of stocks that I've picked for Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers. And so, yes, I suppose it was a fateful day because three years later, I'm sorry to say this basket, this sampler was fated to underperform. Let's take a look at the particulars for this first one.
Five stocks rolled up at random. Alright. And what were the five stocks rolled up at random? Well, in alphabetical order, they were Apple, Atlassian Corporation, SolarEdge Technologies, Starbucks, and Teladoc.
Now, regular long time listeners will know that when I picked those three years ago, January, one year later, and two years later, I updated, did review of Paloozas as we called them when I would take a number of different samplers and sort of update them for the year all at once as a full weekly podcast. But now that we're down to the last few, it didn't make sense to reserve full podcasts for just one or another expiring sampler. That's why we're doing two at once now.
But my tradition is to talk about the one that did the best, talk about the one that did the worst, and anything else I wanna share. So let's start with the one that did the worst. This is Teladocs, ticker symbol TDOC. It's not its only appearance in a Rule Breaker Investing five stock sampler. It was a very hot stock as you'll remember during the pandemic, and I took a shining to it.
In fact, we owned it several years before the pandemic, but there we were at the height of the pandemic in January of twenty twenty one, and I said, I like this stock rolled up somewhat at random for this sampler. And I'm very sorry to say the stock was at two hundred forty six dollars a share in January twenty twenty one.
When this sampler expired on January nineteenth of this year, a few months ago, Teladoc, we've talked about this before in this podcast, Teladoc had dropped from two hundred forty six to twenty. That's down ninety one point eight percent. The market over the three years for the sampler was up twenty five point seven percent. So you can imagine that put us deeply in the hole.
Teladoc is still trying to figure out its business model in a world where demand for its services all of a sudden and somewhat understandably, but all of a sudden has receded. And the company in the midst of a large merger over the last couple of years, has hit a wall in terms of not showing growth and not showing profitability either. So that explains Teladoc, the worst performer in this five stock sampler, the best.
Unfortunately, only one of these randomly rolled up stocks beat the market, and that would be Apple. On the other side of the ledger. Apple up forty five point one percent. That's nineteen plus percentage points ahead of the market. Not nearly enough to bring the sampler into profitability. Apple has enjoyed a good three years. Again, the stock was up forty five percent over the last three years. This is for the company with the largest market cap in the world among public companies.
Apple, especially in these last three years, began to build out that services component of its overall business. And so the apps that we were buying in digital subscriptions now are a very significant force on Apple's income statement and its balance sheet and cash flow statement in a way that was not true five or ten years ago. Wasn't even that true three years ago. So top of mind, that's my number one reason that Apple has been a good and winning stock.
It doesn't hurt either that Apple is the best known to me, the best loved brand in the world today. Even if you don't love and use Apple products as I do, you certainly know the brand and I hope for the most part you esteem it as well. It's been a fantastic growth story, this company for forty years en route to becoming one of the largest companies of all time. So Apple will continue to be in my portfolio, maybe yours too. I just wish I could have loaded up on more of it for this sampler.
The other three stocks, Atlassian, SolarEdge, and Starbucks. Well, Atlassian and Starbucks both kind of right around a zero percent return. So with the market up twenty six percent, they're in the red. And SolarEdge Technology is much closer to Teladoc in terms of its underperformance.
This company's lost seventy five percent of its value over the last three years, reminding me of the incredible volatility that we've seen among many companies during COVID, through COVID, and now a little bit post COVID. What a crazy world this has been. Unfortunately, SolarEdge underperformed by about a hundred percentage points on its own.
This is a company obviously benefiting from our conversion to solar, but in the same way that electric cars didn't necessarily hit their demand quotient last year. Not as many people bought electric cars as the automotive industry expected. That has also been true of the solar industry. So rising interest rates and weaker demand. Solar Edge lost sixty seven percent of its value last year. Two thirds of its value in a single year.
It was dropped unceremoniously from the S and P five hundred as well. So take it all in all for five stocks rolled up at random. On average, these stocks declined by twenty five point nine percent. The market almost the exact opposite up twenty five point seven percent. So as we send five stocks rolled up at random to Foolhalla, cue the music, Dez, And also Rick, but we'll be talking about Rick in a few minutes. I have to feel sad as I watch this livestock sampler stumble.
I won't even say into obscurity because we never forget, and we keep track of our numbers. I'll be speaking to that a little bit later in June. So thus much for five stocks rolled up at random. Alright. And a brief review of Palooza for the most recent five stock sampler to expire, and that would be five stocks to teach rule breakers. I picked these three years ago this month. The date was April seventh of twenty twenty one. Again, a really harsh environment.
We were about to experience some more up in twenty twenty one and then a huge downdraft in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, a year of sort of resettling for a lot of us. And for many of us, twenty twenty four has been equally volatile. So it was interesting for me to think about what would be some stocks. I could pick a stock and then tie it to a key point about Rule Breaker Investing. And that's what I did on April seventh twenty twenty one.
And if you're looking for a little bit of an introduction, if you just happened upon this podcast this week or in recent weeks and you're still wondering, well, what is rule breakers really about? That would not be a bad one to go back and listen to because I summarize some of our key points. But all the while, I'm tagging a stock to each of the five points I make on that podcast which is how this five stock sampler came to be the twenty ninth all time in Rule Breaker history.
And I was having a little bit of fun because I decided when I'm looking over a couple hundred stocks, which is my universe of recommendations as I just mentioned earlier with the previous sampler. I thought, you know, I I think I can pick a letter and just pick companies that start with that letter to teach each of my five points. And so I have it upon the letter a. It starts the alphabet. When you're learning things, it's the a, b, c's.
So I lighted upon these five stocks here presented alphabetically by ticker, which is how I did it three years ago. Airbnb, Axon Enterprise, AeroVironment, Activision Blizzard, and, yep, Apple. Those are my five a stocks picked three years ago this month. Let's right away go to the worst performer of the five and the worst performer over those three years was Airbnb. Airbnb at about a hundred and eighty dollars a share. It had only recently come public.
And even though I don't often go after IPO stocks, I'm happy to make exceptions here and there. And I thought back then, Airbnb is an enterprise that is gonna be around a long time, and it is very much a rule breaker. And while the stock has recovered grandly over the last year or so, I'm sorry to say it's down about ten percent from where I picked it three years ago. The market, by the way, up twenty seven and a half percent.
So we start with a minus thirty eight in the loss column for this five stock sampler. Let's go from our worst to our best, and the best performer here was Axon Enterprise, a x o n. Of course, the company that serves the law enforcement industry with its taser nonlethal weaponry, its body its axon body cameras, and the cloud services business that harbors all the videos that police are required to take these days as they apprehend criminals. The cameras start.
It's right there on their body cameras, and all of that video is a big part of Axon Enterprise's business model as well. The stock was at a hundred forty seven dollars a share that week three years ago today. It ended April fifth, which is, by the way, when this five stock sampler expired earlier this month. That's why we're reviewing it now in this mailbag.
It expired at three hundred nine dollars and ninety cents, so it was up a hundred and ten percent, catapulting five stocks to teach rule breakers into the green overall. Three of the five did beat the market, but, really, there was only one big winner, and it was Axon Enterprise. The company, by the way, just a couple months ago, it was February of this year, reported its twenty twenty three results very strong once again.
Annual sales for the year of twenty twenty three up thirty one percent, and the company said there's we don't see any slowdown right now in this business going into twenty twenty four. The market liked that a lot. The stock, I think, popped about twelve and a half percent one day in February, and that helped Axon Enterprise toward more than double slightly more than a double over these last three years.
By the way, of the three I haven't spoken to, Activision Blizzard was bought out a couple of years ago. That was announced and it closed out in October of last year. And so Activision Blizzard was actually down two percent. The market was only up six percent comparably over time. So a very small difference of minus eight. That was also true of AeroVironment and Apple. So you have three stocks that were right around market performers treading water with the market.
You have Axon Enterprise up over the market eighty percentage points. And as I mentioned, Airbnb behind by about forty. Take it all in all, this five stock sampler, five stocks to teach rule breakers up thirty two point four percent versus the S and P five hundreds return of twenty three point two percent directly comparable to those five stocks over the last three years and now performance of nine percentage points. So there you have it.
Two five stock samplers that we're closing out with this podcast. We'll do the thirtieth in June, and then I'll speak to the whole enterprise a little bit later in the summer. I wanna thank Mark Minor again for his inquiry about our five stock samplers, giving me an opportunity here with mailbag item number five to perform a mini review of Palooza. Lots of numbers, lots of stocks, not that much time.
But I'm really happy to say for these thirty samplers, a majority of them did beat the market and they've done even better than that if you just keep holding the stocks over time. Again, I'll speak to that in June, but it is a resounding demonstration of the benefits of Rule Breaker Investing. Those stocks picked freely for my listeners here over the years for Rule Breaker Investing. Alright. On the Rule Breaker, mailbag item number six.
This one from William Smith. Thanks for writing in, William. David, listening to your most recent podcast with Bill Burke earlier this month, you mentioned you don't recommend gaming stocks because they, in my words, paraphrase, basically, just make money by taking your money. And that's generally how I do feel about it, William. So that's accurate. You go on to say, I will grant you that some people harm themselves at casinos and other gaming businesses.
However, when you go to a movie, you leave without anything. Theaters just basically make money by taking your money. Same goes for concerts. You don't receive anything tangible for your dollars. The same goes for many other forms of entertainment. The expectation is for you to have fun while you are there at the casino or the movie theater or the concert. That's the exchange. Love your podcast and The Motley Fool in general. Thanks, William Smith.
I appreciate the point, William, and I do get it that you can call casino gambling a form of entertainment, especially for those who, I don't know, maybe on a cruise or briefly walking past a resort might pull a one armed bandit or take a roll of the dice. You're right. It is entertainment for them. And there's even the chance that they might win money, which you can't necessarily do at your local movie theater or concert.
So I I grant you that the risk involved in gambling does have its upsides. But I think for me, the business model and the value proposition that gaming companies provide is very different from what movie theaters or concert venues offer. I agree it's all entertainment on the one hand, but the possibility of losing not just what you paid, your movie ticket or your concert ticket, but maybe a lot more.
And for some people certainly to walk out very disenchanted because they lost more than they thought that they would either because they were surprised or because they have a gambling problem strikes me as a lot more serious than movies or concerts. I also wanna say that there are aspects of our society that also are made worse by gambling addiction that I think is different from people who, like me, might be addicted to streaming entertainment or video games.
It's been well documented, increased crime and bankruptcy rates in areas where gambling is prevalent. I think these are points you you appreciate and would make in my place. So I don't think we're having a big important debate here. I do just wanna say we're all investors, and we each have choices with where we want to invest our money.
And at least just for me, I remember speaking to it in the podcast earlier this month, the headline that Americans had given sixty six and a half billion dollars of their money over to casino gambling and the gambling industry. It just strikes me as sad and a real misuse.
I realized it was entertaining in the moment, but this is a very substantial outlay of cash that really could have grown at eight to ten percent rates annualized if more people understood the benefits of capital allocation that have a history of going up.
I will mention, I didn't really speak to it much then, but I'm not really a big fan of sports betting even though I love sports and I even like betting, but expected rates of return that are negative because in a sports bet with somebody else, typically, someone's gonna win, someone's gonna lose, and the house extracts its portion. Therefore, your expected rate of return, even with sports betting, which is very entertaining for many people, is a very poor way to allocate your money.
You will lose money over time if you do bet on sports regularly. That's why FanDuel end up with long disclaimers in their television advertisements as we mentioned earlier. So I do think there are some important differences. And if you want, you you're more than welcome to invest in gaming companies. Many people do. And I'm sure there are some things that I enjoy investing in that you might not either.
In the end, I think each of us should be trying to put our money where our mouths are and also where our actions are. I think it makes a lot of sense for you and for me to be invested in the things that we think lead to a better world, and not everybody has the same view of what that might be. Alright. And now best for last? You tell me. On to rule breaker mailbag item number seven. Alright. On the rule breaker, mailbag item number seven. Let's call it lucky seven.
Although in some ways, it feels a little unlucky to me, but not really. When I get above, when I click out one level and I look down at this is a beautiful thing that's happening because Rick Engdahl, this is one of your first true guest appearances on the podcast. Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing, Rick. Is this more than a cameo? And that's what we're used to. Lots of cameos over the years, and so many of us have gotten to enjoy and learn you in little bits and pieces here and there.
But you came to me a few months ago, and you said, you know, I've been at The Motley Fool since the year two thousand. Yep. What day was it, Rick? January third, I think. Whatever the first workday in January was. Excellent. So it's been twenty four plus years, and it's time for a full batical for Rick Engdahl. And I and when you mention it to me a few months ago, I was immediately sad and felt that this is unlucky seven, that you would be stepping away for some months now.
But I'm so happy for you. And I thought it was a good opportunity just to kick it around a little bit here at the end of the April mailbag. So, Rick, I think you start officially your sabbatical as of May one? Monday. So technically, April twenty ninth. But yeah. Excellent. April twenty ninth. And when are you expecting to be back? September fourteenth or something like that. Sometime mid September. Excellent. So let me do the math here. That's feels like May, June, July, August.
So four and a half months. I think a lot of us have got to know and appreciate you over the years know that you love music. Mhmm. You're also such a talented photographer, and I know you enjoy traveling. Does that in some ways describe your next four and a half months? I hope so. That that pretty much in that order.
I I hope to dive into my creative self a little bit, put some energy into music making, learning more things, and getting out performing some, and then also traveling a bit usually in the context of finding more people in places that will be inspiring and then also perhaps doing some photography along the way. So And Rick, I think I know some of this because I've seen you perform at full events, etcetera, over the years.
But I think a lot of people don't know which form of music you favor and where your talent lies. Would you brag just a little bit? Your your life in music, please. Well, I used to be a lot more active in in kind of the contemporary folk singer songwriter scene. And then with, you know, family and life, have been a little more dormant. So that's kind of now that kids are teenaging and we have a little more time on our hands, that is part of the reason to dive back in right now.
So kicking off some rust, getting back out there, and, and also exploring, you know, new music, electronic production, just whatever I can get my hands on. I'm I I love to learn. So And you mentioned traveling, Rick. Do you already have destinations in mind? Are you a travel planner? Do you already know your agenda, or is it have guitar, will travel? Little of both. Little of both.
I I do have my most solid plans right now are to visit a friend in Nashville who is part of the music scene there, whom you have met, I think. My friend Laurie Kelly. And she is a fantastic songwriter and and will drag me around to some open mics and stuff in Nashville, which will be fun. Rick, coming back in the fall, what do you hope to be able to have said about the time that you spent away? I hope to feel grounded in my creative self again, and I hope to be able to bring that energy back.
I've been giving a lot of energy to foolish things over the last twenty plus years and, and loving it. But, to take a little more time for myself again and just kind of figure out, what's new out there because I'm I'm like I said, I'm a little rusty and time has gone by. Technology has come, and gone. And so I hope to bring back new tools and a new spirit of of exploration and musicality and art or whatever.
I appreciate you mentioning technology because I just think about how much technology has changed. I think about podcasts and the benefit of having let's say Zencastr, which is the platform that we use to do a lot of our podcasts these days. And we kinda needed a platform to show up when all of a sudden we couldn't go into the office because of COVID. I just think of that as a relatively recent evolution of technology. But what about in music, Rick?
I don't I don't keep up with trends much, but how has music changed in terms of technology in the last twenty years? Well, it definitely, there's it's possible to to be a lot more independent with music now. Like, it used to be you to record something, you really needed to go to a studio somewhere and pay a lot of money. There's a lot of upfront cost to making music. You're basically putting together an entire album or CD, and it can take a long time and be expensive.
And nowadays, the the technology in home studios is so good. This is especially for someone who's more of an amateur musician like me. I'm I'm not trying to go out and win Grammys, although I'd happily accept one if one came my way. But I'm not trying to get out and play stadiums. You know, I'm just doing my own thing for local performances and such. So the capabilities of recording locally, are just fantastic now. Yeah. And it's it's really gone a long way.
And and so the music industry has turned on its head a bit, and that's been bad for a lot of artists and but it's also enabled a lot of new independent artists now to, produce their own things and and get it out there in front of people. So And, Rick, as you think about this sabbatical, are you project minded? Are do you have a specific collaboration, let's say, with Lori in Nashville? Do you organize your time that way? I don't even know how you do it during the week when you do this podcast.
How do you roll in terms of being a planner or not? I'm generally less of a planner. Although, for specific points along the calendar, I need to plan certain events like this trip to Nashville for one. But even that, it's like I I kinda picked the dates and picked the the time and place and worked it out with Laurie, but I I didn't, That's great. Plan much beyond that. We're just gonna play it by ear a little bit. Who is ably filling your shoes while you're away?
Well, primarily, you've all come to know Des here, and and she's been, filling the role behind the glass. And, and yeah. So I think the the whole team, the multimedia team will be picking up pieces here and there, but but, I think Des is the the one that everybody here at RBI will recognize. Thank you. And, yes, it's been a delight to have Des, at least last few weeks working alongside you as we make this transition together.
And, of course, this is just one of your responsibilities at the Fool, Rick. There are others who are gonna be, I hope, continuing to pick up and juggle the balls that you've kept aloft here for, decades, frankly. So I just wanna close by thank you, Rick, for all that you've done for me personally and professionally with the Rule Breaker Investing podcast.
I just think about starting this in it was July of two thousand fifteen, and I'm pretty sure that we've never missed a single week with a fresh new pod sorely and dearly missed by me. I I hope people will not even be able to tell you're away because Des has her own talents. But I do wanna make it clear, you are a very special friend and collaborator, someone I've so enjoyed, and I just wish you the best for this summer. Well, thank you. And, obviously, right back at you.
It's it's always been, one of my favorite parts of my job is coming here and and doing this show. And it really is an astounding record. The the fact that we haven't missed a week in all this time, that I I don't know if any other podcast has gone that long without was missing a missing a week. Well, it's thanks to you, especially because I think when we started, Rick, you weren't expecting to be working with somebody who would start to realize he could retake what he just said.
And somewhere in year, maybe two, it's been a long time, Rick. But again, long time listeners may know this, many will not. I tend to stop and restart, and I say three, two, one, and take it again. I think I probably did it about forty to fifty times just this week alone. So Des is getting to inherit what is now a very proud, well established tradition, somewhat painfully, I'm I'm sure, for this podcast. But, Rick, thank you.
We didn't know how we would evolve together, but that's at least one way. You gotta make it perfect. Indeed. Well, practice makes perfect, and there's no substitute for getting back out there in the field every single Tuesday, week after week, year after year. I think we've gotten better together. So again, thank you to Rick Engdahl. Rick, best wishes on your sabbatical.
Give us one final line of inspiration that can still echo in our ears as we think about you somewhere out there in the hinterlands with your guitar somewhere in a hot July. Well, if you want me echoing in your ears, then you can go to sense of wonder music dot com and and, download some of my, old songs. And hopefully, one of the things you'll see there is that our website is desperately in need of some work, and that'll be first on the list to get up to speed. Sense of wonder music dot com.
That will echo in my ears through the summer. Rick, you'll be missed. And to our listeners, thank you for this month of April. It was a delight. This is a very motley mailbag, and I always try to save the best for last. And that certainly is true when we get to feature our own Rick Engdahl sending him off on sabbatical. Next week, it's dividend fools volume two. That's right. We're gonna go back to dividend stocks. I've got Buck Hartzell coming back. We did this together a couple of years ago.
And Matt Ager singer who has a lot to do and say with dividends in and around the Motley Fool for our members. So Buck Hartzell and Matt Argersinger, dividend fools next week. In the meantime, happy April. Fool on. As always, people on this 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. Learn more about rule breaker investing at r b I dot fool dot com.