Media Merger Mania Strikes Again

In this podcast, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Rick Munarriz discuss:

• Paramount Skydance's interest in Warner Bros Discovery.
• Oracle's huge deal with OpenAI.
• Adobe's AI story.
• Media, autonomous vehicle, and restaurant stocks.

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A full transcript is below.

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This podcast was recorded on Sept. 12, 2025.

Travis Hoium: Is the richest person in the world taking over media? Motley Fool Money starts now.

Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Travis Hoium, joined today by Lou Whiteman and Rick Munarriz. We are going to be talking about the big media deal of the day. That is Paramount is officially merged with Skydance. But the next deal that may end up happening is another merger with Warner Brothers Discovery. These are the two media companies that have been back and forth. What is the future going to look like? Larry Ellison is the money behind this deal. We're going to get to Larry Ellison's new status as the richest person in the world a little bit later, but his son, David, is really the deal maker here. Rick, what is going on with the potential merger of this new Paramount Skydance business and potentially the pre-split version of Warner Brothers discovery.

Rick Munarriz: Obviously, Warner Brothers discovery is on the market, and this is nothing new. Anyone that's followed Warner Brothers discovery knows it's always, waiting on the front porch for someone to show up on bended knee. Before this Paramount Warner Brothers discovery. If that even happens, this is still up in the air. It sounds a lot to me like Warner Brothers in discovery, and before that Warner Brothers and AT&T, Warner Brothers in AOL. It feels like a Sadie Hawkins dance at an all-boys school where not a lot of things are happening here because no one wants to dance, and no one's inviting anyone to begin with. I think Warner Brothers Discovery would be an interesting piece for Paramount to have, especially because Paramount's also a company that the reason it was made available and why it was acquired was because it's not one of the major players right now in this new normal. It's struggling on the streaming end to become a profitable, thriving enterprise, which right now is a very limited number of companies doing that.

Travis Hoium: Lou, the question that I have here is, what would this future even look like? Paramount does have some interesting assets. They do have CBS, so you have things like football. You're bringing in some of the Skydance assets, as well, so you have a little bit more content, but you don't have the same critical mass as you have at Netflix or at Disney, which has Disney , Hulu, and now ESPN. They're all trying to break into streaming. We know that cable is in decline. That's a structural decline. I don't think that's changing. That's one of the reasons Warner Bros. Discovery is having so many financial issues. They all want to break into streaming. But to do that, you've got to have the content to pull people in is Paramount and Skydance enough, or do they need to make another deal like this and just gobble up more content, more assets to actually make a play at getting these big two players and streaming?

Lou Whiteman: This is so weird because I think it's a no brainer to do it, and I don't know if it moves the needle. If I'm Warner Brothers discovery, I take this deal on a heartbeat. It feels like a get out of jail free card because they are in a tough position. For Skydance, whether it's a good deal or not, we'll talk about it later, but they have all the money in the world. They can afford it, and we do need to consolidate. But I like some of the assets. I'm a soccer geek. I love Paramount for that. I know I'm in the minority. I don't know if this is a compelling thing. I think, guys, these points to we're in this weird, we don't have a strong foundation here. This industry is evolving in real time. I don't know where we're going, but even with this deal with everything we've seen, it doesn't feel like we're close to solidifying to stabilizing. There's still a lot more work that needs to be done.

Travis Hoium: Let's get to what that potential endgame would look like. I think Netflix is there. Netflix isn't going to go anywhere. Disney, I don't know that they would be able to buy anyone else. The other thing to think about with these companies is the broadcast networks, you're not going to probably be able to combine ABC with NBC, for example, or Fox with CBS. Where do these companies need to get to? Because the other two that we have not talked about is Comcast-owned NBC and Peacock, which is their streaming service, and also Fox. Fox just launched Fox One. I can't believe we're having a new streaming service being launched in 2025, but they did just launch Fox One. That is going to be available in a bundle with ESPN and the other Disney services, I believe, starting in October. But those four companies seem like they're hanging out below the Netflixs and the Disney's of the world who do have over 100 million subscribers who do have profitable streaming businesses. Rick, it seems like this dance somebody's got to start dancing, or they're all going to be in really big trouble.

Rick Munarriz: Lou played out a get out of jail free card. I'm going to take a different monopoly card for some of these companies. I'm going to go with the Go Back three spaces card because it does seem like they're going backwards. While they are coming together in the cold, survive, and it seems right because, hey, let's see if we can make a go together. They're not feasting on the larger players right now. This is more like the rugby team from Yugua that got stranded in the Andes. This is not a good place to be for these companies, and it's more desperation, more fragmented market that needs to get together and do this. But I don't think they're going to make a dent in the big players. Eventually, the companies that got acquired, like Skydance, Paramount and Warner Brothers, they'll find another company to absorb. But in the end, it's not really moving the needle, at least not to viewers and definitely not to people watching the bottom line.

Lou Whiteman: Travis, I'm going to get bold here. Rick mentioned it earlier, AT&T Brothers, AOL. This has been a sector that has been ripe for didn't see that coming type mergers and acquisitions. I said before, I think we are no closer to knowing what the endgame looks like here than we were a couple of years ago. It strikes me that just a couple of years ago, the idea of HBO and Showtime merging would have been just a non-starter for antitrust, and now these are two afterthought companies, so this is a really rapidly evolving business. I think Netflix is out there ready to do something that would have sounded crazy a couple of years ago, maybe, just adding live sports, maybe adding to them. Maybe a network does move the needle. Maybe like having Fox in-house, maybe that would help solidify them.

Travis Hoium: Fox is an option, but what about NBC?

Lou Whiteman: I think that's an option, too. Because that core Comcast business seems to be less of a cash cow than it was just a few years ago. I think we are pretty early on here. I think we do know. I feel pretty safe saying Netflix and Disney are survivors, and they are, first movers, consolidators. I don't think we really know. I think that they all might have something a little out of left field, and it might be genius long term, but I just think this is such an important, like, consumer facing business, but it is so unsettled right now. I feel like a lot of the CEOs, they are no closer to having the definitive answers than we are talking about.

Travis Hoium: The other name that we haven't talked about here that is actually bigger than Netflix is YouTube, and that seems to be the challenge when you come to all of these mergers and acquisitions. Great. You can combine CBS with Skydance's assets. But when you talk about who's going to win the next Sports Rights deal, the NFL can opt out of their deal. I believe it's in 2029. That's going to be a huge deal. Who's going to have the cash to bid on that deal? Are we going to be at the point, Rick, where in five, 10 years, we can only handle three, maybe four subscriptions, and either of these companies at the bottom that we talked about, the Paramount, the Peacocks, some of these other Fox, the smaller companies, they have to either sell out somehow or survive. Then the thing we haven't talked about, and this is what I'm thinking about a Lou is offering up Fox, you have a lot of egos involved. That's the Murdoch legacy, where they just sell to a company like Netflix and just wash their hands of it. All of this is extremely complicated, not only on a financial perspective, but also on a personal perspective, because Allison's are now behind this potential merger, so very complicated.

Rick Munarriz: But the Red Stones had an ego, too, sure enough, exactly. Eventually there comes a breaking point that, "Hey, you know what? Let's move on. Let's sell the team." But you mentioned football. To me, I think that's the fact that if you want the NFL Sunday ticket, now it's you have to go through Google. Then if you want the games, it depends on the night. Do I need Amazon Prime for this? Which network is it, ESPN? Is it Apple? All these things are happening right now. It's very complicated for the consumer, and I think the leagues are losing out because of that. They're getting good money. Fan confusion is not the way to win.

Travis Hoium: What most popular sport with kids right now? I see this in my house. Is Blue a sport? No Blue. But the Savannah bananas are incredibly popular because it's absolutely everywhere, and you can get it on Netflix. We've got it on YouTube TV. It is absolutely everywhere, and it's fun. That's a cohort of people that a lot of these leagues are missing out on because of these huge money deals that actually make your audience smaller.

Rick Munarriz: It starts like that, and then it becomes like a WW, where it's not just, cult thing, it becomes a larger thing, and then they can't afford the Savannah bananas anymore. But it is the market we live in now.

Lou Whiteman: Here's the deal. Chaos creates opportunities. On the content sides part of it, but there's a bigger picture here, too, guys, that this is broken and we need to solve it. Right now, I'm going from my cable box, flipping channels to the Roku experience, where I have to back out of one app, load another app just to check the other game or whatever. This will not stand, whether it's Roku, whether or not it's a YouTube. We need an aggregator. My credit card can handle just the multiple dings each month. On the billing side, it is what it is. There's a real opportunity for someone to modernize the consumer experience with all of this chaos with this new world. Whoever gets that right, I think, as an investor, that could be a big winner, too. As a consumer, please hurry.

Travis Hoium: I want to end on predictions of where this ends up and where you think the best opportunity is for investors. Rick, where are we going and where are you putting your money as a result?

Rick Munarriz: I think Netflix has survived. It's not even breaking a sweat through any of this, so I think it will continue to be the leader. I think the Netflix stock is a little overvalued at this point, it's a screaming value here, but it's never been that way. But it's the one company that I can say can safely be around. Even Disney, as powerful as it may be, you don't know if it'll still be this streaming juggernaut five, 10,15 years ago. They could change. Netflix has one thing and one thing to do only, and it's going to keep doing that. I think Netflix is the best play on the future of streaming, which will continue to be a good thing. But I think they're the ones that just have the clear runway to keep going.

Lou Whiteman: My only clarity about where things end up is that I don't think we have a clue. Again, I think I think we are well into the evolution, but we are not settled yet, so I don't want to sit there. I would probably say Netflix, too, Rick, just so we're different. I'm going to say Alphabet, just for fun, because I do think with their money and their access to the consumer, they have a role to play, and you get all that diversified business. I'm really curious what they do for you.

Travis Hoium: I was going to bring up that one. People don't even know that Alphabet owns YouTube, but there it is, the biggest streamer in the world. Still underappreciated. Next up, we are going to talk about the potential owner of some of these media assets, Larry Ellison and how much money he made this week, you're listening to Motley Fool Money.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Oracle was the hottest stock this week, nearing $1 trillion valuation. Crazy thing is, the company added $356 billion in remaining performance obligations for the past year. Nearly all of that is from OpenAI. We found that out after earnings. Funny, they didn't disclose that during earnings. By the way, this is mostly from one company that doesn't actually have $300 billion to pay us. But Lou, this is a huge story because this has vaulted Oracle into the big tech space. It has also made Larry Ellison, the tie to the Paramount deal, at least earlier this week, was the richest person in the world. So what is your takeaway overall from this move from Oracle and OpenAI?

Lou Whiteman: Yeah, so the biggest thing to note is, like you said, RPO remaining performance obligations does not equal guaranteed revenue. Period. But it does mean that at least the potential is there. You're right. OpenAI doesn't have the money today, but they don't have to have the money today. OpenAI also has a long track record of being able to raise cash. As of today, I think they can probably raise that money. So I do think that, yes, this can all work out, and there's understandable enthusiasm. I think, though, it needs to be tempered with the nuance that yes, this is assuming the status quo. This is assuming that, I guess, the music doesn't stop, right? Or it doesn't become significantly harder for OpenAI or someone else to raise the money they need to pay this. There is a sort of grandmas don't count to chickens before they hatch here, as far as the stock reaction. I think investors are rightly very excited about this. I think cautious optimism is best here because I also, again, you cannot say, Well, then this is money they have. This is the potential that they might grow substantially from here, and that's an important difference if you're buying in.

Travis Hoium: The other thing I'll add before I throw to Rick is that, at least reportedly, Microsoft and OpenAI have reached a non-binding agreement to basically allow OpenAI to turn into a for-profit company that could lead to an IPO and the capital raises that will likely be needed. But, Rick, is this the thing that is a needle mover for Oracle's long-term business because they have not been in this Cloud juggernaut considered in the hyperscalers, but this could make them one?

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, definitely opened the eyes of investors. When Oracle jumped 36% in a single day on Tuesday, it's like the NFL combine when a 330-pound Lyman crushes a 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds. You don't see this very often. But true to Oracle's form, here, you have a company that still has a lot of other things happening. I do think that obviously, Payers watching. And this whole thing. Lou is absolutely right about the RPOs, that this is not guaranteed revenue. Ryans is like when IMAX used to have like, we have a backlog of hundreds of screens to install, but they never really happened because they're in countries and deals and all these things that can fall apart. But with this particular deal, I think it has a very good chance of going through, and I think if it doesn't going to be more problematic for open open AI, the reasons why I wasn't able to go through with it than for Oracle's bottom line. But again, I'm not only concerned. I think it makes Oracle more interesting, but I think the stock started to tick down a little bit in the few days after Tuesday's jump. So I think maybe the investors saying, Well, wait a minute. Let's not get too excited until we see something happen. But it's definitely a positive development for them. There's no denying that.

Lou Whiteman: It's a double since June 1, so anyone who wants to take a little gain here, God bless. I don't blame them.

Travis Hoium: Yeah, the other thing I'll note, we had so many questions about this deal, and I was trying to figure out exactly the details how you can add that much, who the counterparty was. The conference call was almost useless for investors because it seemed like the analysts even had no idea what to ask, and they were just congratulating them on a huge RPO number without digging into is this contracted. Who's the counterparty? Do they actually have the money? So a lot to learn there in the future for Oracle. The other AI story to touch on is Adobe. They reported earnings last night. They're at least trying to make an AI story out of their business. But, Lou, is this something we should be buying into?

Lou Whiteman: No, so look, very careful here. This is one data point. This is one quarter, and I'm loath to read too much into one quarter. But this one data point said that Adobe or suggests that Adobe can be a net winner from AI. We're all worried about what free or low-cost tools will do to Adobe's core business. I think that there's a case to be made that the professional users of Adobe they don't want to use what's free, especially when Adobe is using AI too and they are making their tools better. I think if you think about this as a marathon, Adobe has a huge lead. Even if AI can supercharge who's coming up from behind, AI can also at least add to Adobe's speed; the gap isn't going to close as quickly as maybe it would if Adobe was standing still. I worry more about Figma here than Adobe, Travis, if I'm honest, because, look, the professional class knows what they know, and they've been using one thing for decades. You have to be significantly better or significantly cheaper, so less profitable to take that away. But if free and cheap is taking the casual user, does AI cannibalize Figma's attempt to be the disruptor here more than it cannibalizes the incumbent?

Travis Hoium: Will Canva be the other name to add into that?

Lou Whiteman: Yeah, there's a lot of names that will do this on the low end. If the low end is where the crowd is, then that makes life harder for the disruptor. Not impossible, but it makes it harder for the disruptor, because disruptors usually go from bottom up.

Travis Hoium: When we come back, I am going to ask Rick and Lou to rank some baskets of stocks in some interesting categories: media, autonomous vehicles, and restaurants. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Today, we are going to have Rick and Lou rank their top stocks in a few different sectors. We've already talked a little bit about media, so I do want to start there, and I'm going to give you five stocks. I want you to rank them one through five. I'm going to have Lou go first here, and then we'll see if we like his rankings before we get to Rick. So, Lou, in the media space, I would like you to rank one through five. Netflix, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Comcast, and Fox. And here's the information you need to know. This isn't just do I like the business? Do I like the product, but also the valuation matters here. So this is do I like the stock? Where are you at?

Lou Whiteman: So Disney is probably first with the valuation, but Disney and Netflix prize winner. Well, these are the top tiers. I probably feel more. If this was who's definitely just going to make and who's, I probably would go with Netflix, but I do think Disney is close enough, and I do get a little better value, but those two are in the elite category here. After that, it's a mess to me. I might take WBD today just because I don't know. I would have taken it two days ago before this announcement, but at least there is maybe an outcome here. Fox is just a mess. I don't know what to say. Comcast is there because they do have all of the non-streaming revenue. I worry about that revenue. I mean, the cable is declining. Even the broadband is it's not the growth opportunity or it's not the salvation we thought it was. I would largely rank these as three I worry about and two I don't, and then the rest is detail, but I'm probably WBD just for outcome, then Comcast, then Fox going down.

Travis Hoium: Just to put some numbers on those valuations, Disney's price earnings multiple on a trailing basis is 18. Netflix is 53. So that's why valuation matters here. Rick, what's your order?

Rick Munarriz: So I'm saying valuation doesn't matter. Obviously, I'm going to number one will be Netflix. To me, they're the leader, and I don't mind overpaying for Netflix. People are overpaying for Netflix all the time. I mean, the stock, not the service, and they wind up being rewarded. So Netflix is my number one. Two, Disney is my favorite company. But immediately, my second favorite stock. Obviously, they have a lot of things going well for them, and it's a varied empire. But growth has been really slow for Disney the past couple of years, so it's been a very lackluster stock.

Travis Hoium: Do you think ESPN can turn that around, or is that just going to be hidden in the background, in the sports numbers, the way that they're reporting things? I've now used their streaming app. I think it's one of the more compelling new apps. They got some bugs. I'd like to do some add-ons of NFL Plus can't figure out how to get that to work, but they'll figure that stuff out. But does that end up becoming a growth driver, especially as they start to bundle these services together? Or is it more of a nothing burger?

Rick Munarriz: I hope it's not a nothing burger, but even if it wasn't be found money if it works out, because this is a segment that, like a year or two years ago, the narrative was, Okay, Disney, just spin off ESPN, get rid of it. Its programming costs are so high. We know ESPN is a great brand, but just the cost structure will never work for sports programming, despite the fact that it's the one thing that people demand to see live, and so I think it'll be fine, as far as whether it happens or not, I don't think it's being valued into the stock right now. In fact, I assume that ESPN is just accounted for; it'll be more of the same, whereas this whole ESPN $30 a month unlimited plan may start to turn heads.

Travis Hoium: All right, worried about those bottom three. That's where things really get dicey.

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, so Lou seemed to like lump them all as the three worst ones before, just, you know, ranking them at the end. I'm going to watch them, I'll say Comcast is number three, and I know all the bad things about Comcast. I know that we've known that cord-cutting has been happening for several years now, more than a decade since we had peak cable. But now, surprisingly, we're seeing connectivity. So Brian Van, you're wing, where are these people going? And it's obviously some of the 5G wireless, and all these companies are doing other products. We still need to fiber. They're not doing it necessarily through Comcast, so that's taking a hit. But it's still a cash cow business these too. And I'll be honest, it's a theme park enthusiast. I've been to the Epic Universe that opened in Florida. I've been there six times, six individual visits since it opened. It opened in May, but I went there in April I preview, and then a couple of days, several times this summer. And I think that overall, it's fine. More importantly, the reason I like Comcast is a stock, and you said the stock, not the business, it is selling at probably the lowest earnings multiple of these five companies, has a dividend of 4%. So you're being patient while this company sorts itself out. And to be honest, I just got the first episode of The Paper, which is the Office Creator show streaming on Peacock. I'm going to keep watching. It's not bad. And at Warner Brothers Discovery and Fox, I started having the same, like, Lou, forget about these companies. Obviously, with WBD, you have the fact that it did pop already. So there's like this appeal, maybe it does get bought out at a good price, and there's that appreciation. So there's a speculative appeal to it. But once that goes, there's obviously a lot of downside, too, if it doesn't happen. So I'll put Warner Brothers fourth and Fox fifth.

Travis Hoium: Comcast trading for a 5.6 priced earnings multiple, even on a forward basis, it's under eight. That does not include the around $90 billion worth of their net debt that they have, so that's a pretty big number as well. But, yeah, that is interesting value play. Let's move on to more of a growth segment, or a certain growth segment, autonomous vehicles. And there's a lot of things going on here. But, Lou, in your neck of the woods in the Atlanta area, Waymo is now operational, and Lift launched May Mobility earlier this week. So these are proliferating. I've seen a mobility vehicle in the Minneapolis area. So it seems like these vehicles are coming faster than a lot of people thought just a few years ago. Some of them still have safety drivers, but a few of them don't. So here are your five stocks that I want to know how you think they're going to perform in the future. Tesla, Rivian, there's an AI autonomous vehicle story there. They have the full StacheanHuse. They're going to be level two, but visions of going to Level 3, Level 4. Uber, little bit of a different play. Mobileye, which is a company that's going to be selling chips and technology to other automakers.

Travis Hoium: And then we ride. Rick, I'm going to start with you.

Rick Munarriz: Yes.

Travis Hoium: How do you rank these five companies?

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, so I'm going to say, so again, we're judging the stocks, not the companies.

Travis Hoium: Right. That's what makes this stuff 'cause Tesla is valued very differently than a lot of these other companies.

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, I mean, Tesla would be, well, yeah, it's a great company. I'm happy with my Tesla. My second Tesla, I mean, I traded my Tesla for Tesla last year, so I'm clearly happy with the experience. But as far as the stock goes, I'm going to start with Uber number one. To me, this is a company you thought that, the pandemic, this is when it's going to thrive. But then post pandemic, you figured, Hey, we're going to go back, and we're going to start eating at restaurants again. We're going to say, why are we going to be paying someone and tip someone to have food brought here or groceries when we can go get it ourselves. But, sure enough, that business is still growing heavy free cash flow out of this company, so definitely Uber would be number one on my list. For number two, I will go Tesla. Again, the valuations frightens me. I'm afraid of what's going to happen after September when those $7,500 tax credits go by, because, the Model Y and the Model 3 are the cars that fall under that category. They are their best sellers by far in volume and everything else.

Travis Hoium: Volume was down before, those subsidy cuts, so that could be true.

Rick Munarriz: Yes, yes, no, growth has been slow even to come with. I think this last quarter, this third quarter that we're in right now is going to be that last great quarter for them, as far as that goes, because that's what I was going to be buying before to get that last $7,500 check, those that qualify. But again, I'm concerned about the valuation and everything. Number 3, I'm going to go with mobile because I always think of pick and shovels play matters, and there's no denying that the whole move toward, autonomous driving has to be technology driven, and you have to have a company like Mobile I getting in there and getting the chips and the hardware in there. I'm all for that. Number 4, between Rivian and We Ride. I'm not a big fan of Rivian, and I know there's a lot of fools that love Rivian. I'm going to just make it Number 4 for the sake. But again, I do think that this is it needs it needs to go mass market, the way that we saw with Tesla. The Model S, the Roadster, the X, they were great cars, but it wasn't until they had that breakthrough with the Y and the three that the company really hit, that kind of scale. I don't know if Rivian can do that without sacrificing the brand that it has. Number 5, I would put We ride last, and it's also probably the one that may wind up it's either going to be the best or the worst stock of these five.

Travis Hoium: Yeah. Very binary outcome.

Rick Munarriz: Very binary outcome. Again, a Chinese autonomous driving, trying to get from level two to level four, doing all these things. There's so many companies working on this right now, and I hope they succeed because who wouldn't want cars that are safer on the road and that we can actually just relax while we drive. But I don't know if as far as investment goes, it may be too early to pick a winner, and it may even earlier to assume that We Ride will be the winner.

Travis Hoium: Alright, Lou, where are you at?

Lou Whiteman: Yeah, I mean, I'm somewhat similar for slightly different reasons. I'm Uber first, too. The reason slightly different. I think if autonomous driving, if we figured it out, it becomes commoditized, at least. Who controls the customer matters more than I think the tech, and they are in such a great position with that with just their roster customers. I really like them. I think they're about middle on the valuation of these five, too, so you're not getting a bad valuation. Beyond that, I know you said, Travis folks on valuation, but look, there are a couple of these companies. I don't even know if they're going to make it, so it's hard to get too caught up in valuation in that. I'm at mobilized second because, you know, valuation, and I do think again, I've never liked automakers, but I've done real well with the right auto suppliers. I think this couldn't be the right auto supplier. I don't love the valuation I get, so I'm not eager to add here, but I think it's a solid company and winner. Tesla's third for me. Tesla, I don't know what to think of what they're doing with robotaxis. I don't think what to do with their automotive. I think they'll figure it out, but you also have optionality elsewhere there, which as an investor, I like, energy, solar, all of that.

Travis Hoium: I want an optimist robot. I know what you're really saying here.

Lou Whiteman: I love dancing robots. Who does not like dancing robots. At the bottom end, I think, yeah, I struggle. Rivian, I don't see especially since we're judging on autonomous, I'm less, they feel like an afterthought there for me a little.

Travis Hoium: They've come in really with an autonomous story that a lot of people have bought, but it does seem a little bit like Fox getting into streaming in 2025. If you were going to do this, you should have done it when you went public three or four years ago.

Lou Whiteman: They are still mostly a hardware story. That is, their vehicles. But look, We Ride, like you said, it's just all over the place. We Ride is everywhere doing everything. I mean, look, hardware sales, subscription sales, service revenue. In a way, Wow. Look at that diversification. But in an unregulated, soon to be regulated, there's also just risk all over the place. You throw in the wild card of the Chinese. I just I can't get my head around that one, so it's last for me, almost on the too hard, who knows? I can't say.

Travis Hoium: Yeah it's interesting how the narrative has changed over the past six months to a year. I don't think a year ago, we would have thought Uber was going to be a leading autonomous vehicle company, but I think you're right, Lou, and you guys are both heading in the same direction that it seems like there's so many players here that this is going to commoditize itself one way or another. Quickly, I want to get to your thoughts on restaurants. Rick, you may be a restaurant expert in this group, but I wanted to get a feel for where do you rank Chipotle, Darden, Cava, Portillos and Wingstop? Because there's a lot going on here. We've talked about this on a number of shows. People may be sitting down more, maybe eating out a little bit less. There's growth in certain stocks. It's negative same store sales in other stocks, but where do you have these ranked?

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, so, Number 1, I'm going to go with CAVA with the caveat that we're talking about the stock and that the stock has taken a big hit in recent months. This is not CAVA from high flying where it was several months ago. It's fallen substantially. Cops were up just 2% in its latest quarter, which is not very impressive, but better than most of the other chains that went negative. Number 2, I would say Chipotle, one of the companies that did post negative comps. You do have It's hard to go bet against Chipotle. Right now you have a chance to actually bet on Chipote Lou while it's out of favor. Just as we saw several years ago, when they had the food borne illness outbreak, it's not a bad time to bet on a company when everyone's assuming that their time is up and they're like, on their third CEO or whatever. Chipotle Lou Number 2. Third, I would go with Wingstop here. Wingstop also had a very rough quarter, but the stock moved up. You are seeing some signs where this was the company that was so golden coming out of the pandemic that it was able to just have positive comps, even in the actual quarter when people had to shelter places had strong take up business and strong digital sales. They were built for this. Then for fourth and fifth, I'm going to go with Bartlas fourth, and it is very speculative. I'm a fan of their hot Italian beef. I'm a fan of their chocolate cake shake. It has a lot of room to grow. It has more upside than all the ovens. Darden, even though I put them last, actually they're working on a different fiscal year. Their fiscal year ended in May, so we don't know what happened in the summer quarter, where a lot of companies seem to have stumbled, they did post positive comps at Olive Garden and Longhorns Stakhue. That's it. That's my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Lou Whiteman: As a consumer, I'm going to Cava nine out of ten times. But, Rick, we're supposed to do valuation. Even with the declines, it is still, by far, an enterprise value to EBITA. It is still up there. I struggle here. Look, here's what I'm going to say on this. I'm actually going the exact opposite. I'm going Darden Tops, because Wall Street, if I'm an investor, Wall Street pays for growth. I wonder if fast casual, it's a category that didn't really even exist when we were kids guys and has just come up and become a wonderful thing. But I'm wondering if it has just become saturated and reached its natural limits. I don't know. I'm just not sure if any of these guys will really be able to post substantial growth. I think we're just doing as much fast casual maybe as we want to. Darden tried and true. There's still even in this economy where maybe the fast casual is falling off, but you still go out to celebrate a night or do that. I think slow and steady is the play here. It's also, I think, the second best valuation among these guys. The rest of them, I mean, throw a stone. I think they can all be market beaters, but I wonder about all of their growth. I probably maybe Chipotle second, Cava, and then Portobello and Wingstop, but I'd really struggle with that. I just Darden's to stand out from me here for weird reasons.

Rick Munarriz: You didn't put this on there, Travis, I mean, no one's going to put Brinker International on it. But Chili's is the one chain that has post monster comps. If you pull up a stock chart on Brinker International, ticker symbol EAT, great Ticker symbol, has been a monster stock. Again, I don't know what they've done at Chili's. I've gone to Chili's. I go to Chili's once every couple of months, I mean, I haven't noticed a turnaround, but something has happened there, magical over the last two years where they've had strong comps on top of Strong Comps, and it's working out great for them. But yeah, very much like the Darden story, an old brand that you don't necessarily trust. But hey, not just like count on being a growth stock, but definitely interest.

Lou Whiteman: Maybe the one to play them all is Uber. When we come back, we are going to get to stocks on our radar you're listening to Motley Fool Money.

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, I'm going to go with Celsius, CELH Ticker symbol. This is the company behind the Sparkling beverage namesake beverages that has thermogenesis and all these cool things. The stock had taken a beating from late last year to early this year to the beginning of this year, and then it made an Alani new acquisition, which basically transformed everything starting in April. Their last quarter was amazing growth for a company that posted negative growth on the Celsius side, and actually even the Celsius brand had a positive turnaround, but the company's doing well. Pepsico got so excited that they own a piece of the company. They own a bigger piece of the company now just because they want to get in on that Alani new distribution, not to Celsius. Good times for Celsius Holdings.

Travis Hoium: Dan, what do you think about Celsius Holdings? I just happen to have one sitting next to me right now.

Dan Boyd: I've never had one of these things. I know that they're popular. I assume they're good. Rick, you got a favorite flavor.

Rick Munarriz: I got into the Lani Lu stuff, and I know it's actually, it's targeted to women, but to me, I enjoy the Cherry Smash. I think that's what it's called Cherry Smash flavor of the Lani Lou. I always enjoyed the orange vibe of Celsius. If you asked for that brand?

Travis Hoium: Lou, what's on your radar this week?

Lou Whiteman: Yeah, it's just carbonated, Tang, you guys. Come on. But look, I'm bringing Truist Financial. Ticker TFC. Truist is a poorly named product of a 2019 merger between BB&T and SunTrust. On paper, this is a powerful banking franchise with a presence throughout the Mid Atlantic and Southeast. But, look, the integration didn't go well. The stock is underperformed. I'm seeing signs of life, though. Truist is going on the offensive announcing plans to open 100 new branches and high growth areas. They made a lot of loans during the zero interest rate times. Those are maturing, which provides an opportunity for repricing and improved profitability. Right now, you can buy the shares at a discount to the company's book value and get a 4.6 dividend yield to boot. It looks intriguing to me, Dan, for a company I think that's on the upswing.

Travis Hoium: Truist may be a good energy drink name, but it's a bank. What do you think, Dan?

Dan Boyd: Yeah, the name still stinks. So I think I'm going to have to go with Celsius this time around.

Travis Hoium: They have really made a big turnaround in investors eyes over just the past few months, so I'm watching that one, as well. For Lou Whiteman, Rick Munarriz and our production leader Dan Boyd, the entire Molly Pool team, I am Travis Hoium. Thank you for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here tomorrow.

Dan Boyd has positions in Chipotle Mexican Grill and Walt Disney. Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Rick Munarriz has positions in Alphabet, Celsius, Comcast, Netflix, Roku, and Walt Disney. Travis Hoium has positions in Alphabet, Celsius, Mobileye Global, Portillo's, and Walt Disney and has the following options: long December 2027 $5 puts on Rivian Automotive. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, Celsius, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Microsoft, Netflix, Oracle, Roku, Tesla, Truist Financial, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Cava Group, Comcast, Mobileye Global, and Wingstop and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short September 2025 $60 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.