People Hate These 5 Stocks But They'll Be Wrong with Jonathan Boyar

22:09Downtown Josh Brown:They told Foot Locker to go f*** themselves. That was like their number one retailer. They thought they would be pure direct-to-consumer selling through Nike.com and the app. They pissed off Amazon. They put up a Nike store at Amazon, and then they sort of like backtracked. So they lost shelf space in all the retailers like Dick's and like all the places that matter. They're riding the Jordan brand like 30 years after Michael Jordan retired. It's like sort of unbelievable, but that's still their top. Like it's everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong, and they have stronger competitors now than they ever did.

22:50Downtown Josh Brown:And it still might not be a buy. It still might not be attractive. And it's also the athletes don't need them anymore. Like before Michael Jordan, not thinking, I mean, it won't help launch Nike and also helped launched his career. Now, now athletes can go direct to consumers. So the Nike is less relevant as a platform. So I, it's one that I have just passed on. You could make a lot of money from here. I think there are a lot easier ways to make money.

23:16Michael Batnick:One thing that happens that I think is unique, not I think, one market dynamic that is different today than the 70s that I think provides opportunities for investors. One of the dumbest things that happens, and you see it all the time, is this basket trading. So if something happens, most recently, these apps, Instinct and Muse, which are unbelievable. I feel like this is the consumer app that we've all been waiting for. Holy shit. And one of the things that it does for you very easily is it goes through your subscriptions and it can either cancel or whatever. So it's an AI assistant. So there's a basket, a consumer inertia basket from Goldman Sachs.

24:00Michael Batnick:And ever since the launch of these AI agents, the stocks are getting killed. And so Planet Fitness, all right, I get it. Like cancel my damn subscription. What am I still doing there? But New York Times, this stock is down 7.2 % over a couple of days. This is not at risk at all for disruption because of Muser Instinct. This is a hardcore loyal audience. The business is on fire.

24:28Downtown Josh Brown:They think that Muser and Instinct are going to tell the user, hey, you have like 12 subscriptions that you never use.

24:39Michael Batnick:Yes, but there's no thinking, Josh, this is the point. It's in a basket of stocks. And so it is programmatically happening. There's nobody thinking it's the quant shops. So Jonathan, for people like you, when you see this and Expedia and booking, which we'll talk about, you must lick your lips because you know, historically what happens to some of these business that you followed for a long time when some of the automation competition comes in, because you've seen this before. Yeah. I mean, booking and Airbnb, why it was in that basket and how Goldman comes up with these baskets, I have no idea.

25:13It's absolutely ridiculous. And this will turn out to be, I think, a great buying opportunity. I don't know why some of those banks are in there. I mean, Schwab's in here, Josh.

25:22Michael Batnick:Remember, I was asking the other day, what the hell is going on with Schwab? How is Schwab at, how is this an inertia stock? Oh, no, I forgot I had an account at Schwab. Let me move it. What? Makes no sense.

25:35Downtown Josh Brown:You know, well, it's not, I don't. It's a cash sweep, I think.

25:39Michael Batnick:It's in the basket. It's in that basket.

25:42Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah, I think, so Schwab is funny. You could set your watch by this. Anytime there's a disruptive AI product on the tape, like that's the poster chart. Like, let's go beat the shit out of Schwab. Adobe's in, we should make a list of the stocks, you know, are going to be down. anytime people get excited about AI. There's probably a reflexive countertrade there. But Josh, coming back to how stupid this is,

26:09Michael Batnick:Ameriprise, what does that have to do with this? When Hazel launched and Schwab and LPL and Ray J fell 10%, we were like, what in the hell? And then when Vanguard actually bought Altruist, which is going to compete with Schwab, Schwab was down like 40 basis points. there is so much computerized trading that is providing opportunities for people that know what they're doing. Yeah, I mean, I think I don't have statistics to back this up, but there are huge. I feel like there's been disproportionate moves in stocks. I think a lot of it has to do with these pod shops that get these guys get fired if they're down two or three percent and they blow them out of the positions.

26:51I mean, I think that's a horrible way to manage money, but that's a whole other thing to discuss.

26:57Downtown Josh Brown:That's a really good point. So the most popular format for a hedge fund these days is not a standalone long short manager battling it out with the rest of the market. The market's wrong. I'm right. That's sort of – I'm not going to say it's gone, but the flows are not going to those funds the way they used to. The flows now go to millennium and firms like that. 0.72 is now like a pod shop. The flows are going to these fund-of-fund platforms. You got six guys in a group, and their purview is they only do this type of trade. But they're told when they're hired, you're going to have a really short leash, and we're not going to give you six months for a theme to play out.

27:45Downtown Josh Brown:And if you're down 5 % in the course of a month, you're going to be dragging down the total returns of the whole thing. And we're going to scrutinize that. And so I think that's the right take. It's like, oh my God, this stock's down 5%. Should we take advantage of it? And the risk manager's like, no, actually you should get flat right now, reduce your exposure immediately and start putting these photographs of you and your daughter at the swimming pool into a cardboard box because you're not going to get another week to do this. And that exacerbates the losers. Yeah. And probably the winners are on the short side.

28:27And selling begets selling. It's just a loop. It eventually ends. But yeah, I think this creates opportunities. I think it creates opportunities for very short-term oriented people who kind of look at fundamentals and people like myself who are looking three, five, 10 years down the line because you're able to get these great entry points. And, you know, you just, you kind of, you take what the market gives you and I think it's giving you some opportunities now. Okay, let's talk about them.

28:56Downtown Josh Brown:What are you most excited about? What stock am I most excited? I don't want to do a repeat of last time, but just for the record, I think my Uber, I still love, MSG Sports and Atlanta Braves Holdings. Great stocks. Give me an update on the Uber thesis because my take is nothing they say matters. It's hard to disprove a negative. The street just does not give a shit. All right. So now Dara just bought. How much did he just spend buying stock for himself? I think 10 million. And the CFO, I think, did five. And stock still won't go up. The stock went down the next day. So now they're doing a buyback, corporate buyback.

29:45Downtown Josh Brown:The insiders are buying. They actually have concrete like robo-taxi partnerships on the streets of multiple cities with multiple partners. It doesn't matter. This feels like it's going to trade at 12 times earnings. Directionally, that feels like where it's headed. I think it's almost impossible if it's going to continue growing at 20 % to 30 % a year for the stock to stay the way it is. I can't tell you what the catalyst is, but you have a great business, and this is one that you hold on to. I think this is an example of a buy and hold because the fundamentals of the business are great. Why don't they just buy back 20 % of the shares?

30:31Downtown Josh Brown:Why don't they do a tender offer? if you were advising if you were advising uber talking to the investor relations people the corporate treasurer the ceo like hypothetically so you've been involved in a lot of stocks that were uh way underpriced relative to their growth over the years how do you get a happy ending here what would you be telling them that they could be besides running the business and executing which obviously that's what they're doing what would you be telling them on on like the management of the stock market side? If they think that they are still able to invest in the business, and I would say they should put whatever they do, they need to invest in the business and have a little cash cushion and then just buy stock as much as they possibly can.

31:21A tender is not a terrible idea. I like these insider purchases. Dara had been a seller until recently. I think it's a great signal of the market. So, but I think you just have to be patient. hasn't been that long. Every year, this is either my best or worst performing stock.

31:35Downtown Josh Brown:How much free cash flow are they going to generate in 27? It was like 10 billion or something. Insane number relative to the market cap. It's crazy. I'm doing it from memory, but I think it's something like$10 billion. I mean, they're executing. They're doing everything right. At some point, they'll be rewarded. I think the bear case is silly, but you know. They're making equity investments in fleets of autonomous vehicles, which was something that two years ago they said they're not interested in doing. But I think from their perspective, they need to seed the market with fleets that are not Waymo and Tesla.

32:16Downtown Josh Brown:They need to get cars on the road. And the fastest way to do that is to give money to the OEMs that are making the cars or to invest in fleets that are coming along from third-party AI companies. So they're doing that in Europe, in the United States, in Asia. The market is giving them no credit for any of these investments being good investments. Are you surprised by that? No. I mean, the market does what the market does. It hasn't been that long. I mean, this was$100 stock not too long ago. So I think I just have to be patient. You know, it's one of those things that's frustrating, but it is what it is.

32:56So why, you know, Josh and I tend to be, certainly with broken stocks, a little bit technically

33:03Michael Batnick:cautious where we wait for the sellers to stop before we dip our toe. And then most of the times we end up being wrong, like everybody else. And we sell at lower prices. You know that meme, did it work for you? No, but it might work for me. That's what it's usually like when you buy these broken stocks. But sometimes, sometimes, sometimes in the case of these businesses, the turn happens faster than you can catch up to it. I think meta is a really great example of that. You can't wait for a technical setup because the news can happen overnight. And who knows? Same thing could happen with Uber where there's a headline stock gas up 10 % and it just doesn't let you win.

33:39Downtown Josh Brown:So that's a great, that's a great point. and the thing that Meta and Uber have in common, in both cases, these were not broken businesses. Not at all. These are just stocks that fell out of favor. Meta's last earnings report was f***ing great and the one before it and the Outlook. Same with Uber. They've done nothing with their earnings estimates. Their guidance is intact from January. It's definitely a broken stock, but not at all is just a broken business. And if you decided to exit the stock and wait till something happens, are you going to buy a 20 % higher? That's the problem. That's the psychology of it.

34:20And that's why you take your pain, but I think the pain will be well worth it.

34:27Downtown Josh Brown:You put out this fresh looks thing and I love it. And I couldn't read every stock on your list, But you said you go through your universe of 200 stocks and see – there it is. Thanks. Super fresh. Dude, it's awesome. Thanks. And at the end of the show, we'll tell people how they can get a copy of it. But you go through your universe of 200 stocks and you ask yourself, which of these names deserves a fresh look? Yeah. What do you mean by that? Like stocks you haven't written about in a while and a lot has happened? It could be. It could be. Or we've written about it relatively recently and a lot still has happened.

35:09And we just want to let our subscribers know that this is the time to really take a fresh look at the company. And the theme in most of them is now there's been significant multiple compression. The businesses are fine to improving. And I think investors have a great setup. And I think we did 14 names this year on it, and our subscribers love it. And I think they're names in an AI-dominated market that are worth taking a look at.

35:44Downtown Josh Brown:I want to ask you before we get into the individual names, there has been a lot of multiple compression in the market this year.

35:51Michael Batnick:Every sector, except for staples.

35:54Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah. So is that interest rates and oil? what like what's behind like we can't just say oh it's ai yeah because that would be dumb because ai is actually fueling the earnings growth so maybe in some cases it's the perceived threat of ai but like how difficult is it to still like some certain stocks in a five percent 10-year interest rate world or do you not really think that that's a valid conclusion to draw i think it's not a valid conclusion to draw if you take a three or four year period because we been, stocks have done well in those type of interest rates environments. It's been quite a while.

36:33And I think it's going to take investors a couple of years to get used to investing in a world where money isn't free. I mean, the 90s had 5 % tenure. Yeah. And stocks are just fine. I mean, what about the 80s?

36:45Downtown Josh Brown:I mean, but do you think whether or not it's valid aside, do you think that that is the primary reason for all of the multiple compression that we're seeing? Because other people believe that. I don't think you can pin it to one thing. I think that's a significant factor. I think the AI threat on some of these names is another reason. I still think in certain businesses, there's still COVID hangover as well, even though it's still a few years. One of the names, Pool Corp, that I can talk about in a minute. I know it's Michael's favorite stock. So I can't wait to get yelled at by him. Pool Corp needs to pivot from digging swimming pools to digging graves.

37:27Downtown Josh Brown:same same equipment smaller holes let's start with broadridge just because that's the first one we have in front of us what what is this company what's wrong with it i mean broadridge is is it i wouldn't say it does the plumbing of the financial system but it helps you let's say do proxies it has lots of businesses if you're if you're a company and you need to vote your proxies because you're required to by the sec they do that they do all the boring things this This was a spin out out of, I believe, ADP years ago, and it was a fantastic stock for many years. And it's stubbed its toe recently.

38:04So it's just ingrained. We like these companies that are ingrained in regulatory, heavy businesses that they're needed. It's like a monopoly, too. It's essentially a monopoly.

38:17Michael Batnick:I mean, they're market shares. They have 80, according to you guys, 80 % of all proxy votes they handle, among other things. It's not their only business, but it's 63%. I'm sorry. Their recurring revenue is 63 % of total revenue. And yet, this stock's been around forever. And this is its second worst drawdown since the GFC. I mean, this is like a toll booth business, typically. Yeah. But you know,

38:41Downtown Josh Brown:didn't Fiserv blow up like a year ago? And it was sort of in the same position. Fiserv had all these boring back office financial businesses. and there was tons of reliability. And then I guess the CEO ran it off the cliff or something, but like it went from being this boring thing to a stock that fell 20 % in one day. I think the CEO ended up working for the Trump administration, sold his stock at basically the high, didn't have to pay any capital gains or had them deferred. And it looked like, I don't want to say he was cooking the books. That's not what he was doing, but there was some shit going on.

39:18There was some not kosher stuff. So, yeah, Broadridge is a legit company. It's well run. They cross sell. Like, for example, if you're if you're a money manager and you have all these shareholder lawsuits that come to you as your own shares, they'll take care of it for you for a fee where they'll go in, they'll file your claims, etc. They have a lot of these boring little businesses that do really well. It's an interesting company that has had decent multiple compression. It's a good business. As Michael said, it's kind of a toll booth type business. And it's worth a – Why is it crashing?

39:59Michael Batnick:And what for 280? It's now 160 and it was way, way lower. Is this – yeah, to Josh, is this AI stuff? Like what's happening? People are worried that these tokens, you know, one of the bear cases is these tokens where you can trade stocks. They're not going to have to do proxies, et cetera, for them. I mean, there are a lot of just things that just don't make a heck of a lot of sense for it. And it's been a sentiment-driven name. Yeah, I think it's driven like about 25 % this year gone down. How big is this company? This company, enterprise value about$20 billion or so. So it's a real business. Okay.

40:38Downtown Josh Brown:Could it get acquired? I mean, I think it's – with interest rates as high, who knows? But it could be. I mean, it wouldn't shock me. A lot of the businesses, because of the way we look at it, end up being acquired. So when you look at this, though, you don't need that to happen. You don't need a catalyst. From your perspective, the market is irrationally derating the stock. And when the dust settles, people will realize they weren't displaced at all. They weren't disrupted at all by AI. You might even get a benefit in terms of using AI internally, which could actually serve to enhance the profitability.

41:16Downtown Josh Brown:And they'll keep their monopoly over all of these little businesses. Yeah, I mean, we generally want a catalyst. And I think if you had to stretch the catalyst was, will be, people finally realizing AI or tokens are not going to kill their business.

41:31Michael Batnick:So it's a similar story to the insight that you had with Salesforce. similar in Broadridge, as well as Booking. So if you know what the business is, you could sit back and laugh. I mean, I know it's not fun when these companies are getting sold into oblivion, but for Booking, which is a company that you own, and that's Booking.com and Priceline and Kayak, you said that ChatGPT tried to do this in September 2025. They launched Instant Checkout. And then by March, they said, nevermind, actually not that easy. And Google tried to do this. So it's the same thing. It's like it's headline, online, basket selling, and you're like, wait a minute, hello, this is not going to happen.

42:09Michael Batnick:We've been here and done that. So what's the story with these AI and the trip advisor type stuff? Yeah. I mean, I think that this is a really dumb rationale. They're saying that Muse is going to be able to do this whole book you a hotel, et cetera. How are they going to do it? How are they going to call all these, you know, booking specialized, and that's why we like it more than Expedia in these small boutique hotels. They don't have, some of them don't even have websites. They have relationships with all of these proprietors. They help them with their business. The EU has tremendous amount of regulation when it comes to travel.

42:53Muse isn't going to do all this stuff. They're going to use booking. This is a positive for booking, not a negative. Of course they are. It's going to use the site, no? Yeah.

43:00Downtown Josh Brown:I'm in the middle on this. Part of me is like, does anybody even want one click booking? Like, don't, don't you want to know like what the room size is and what hotel you're staying at? And like, I don't think people actually want one click. I do think what the agents will do and booking will probably build their own agent. But I do think what people want is instantly what is the cheapest room that is over 500 square feet, has a good view, and is on the west end of the Las Vegas Strip, the north end of Las Vegas Strip instead of the south. People want that. They want their answer spat back at them instantly.

43:44Downtown Josh Brown:that's not the same as i want to skip the the booking process and and just instantly have a room yeah maybe in some cases for really savvy travelers or for business if you already know where you want to stay yeah so for for example i know i'm going to this hotel anyway so maybe it's like book me a room at this hotel the same room i book every year or but yeah but booking has a loyalty program where you get breakfast or whatever it is, these companies are going to want to use booking. And also, Muse doesn't have inventory. Do you know how hard it is to get inventory throughout the world to do this?

44:28Muse just can't snap their fingers. If Google couldn't do it, if TripAdvisor couldn't do it, I see no reason why they will be able to do it. Glenn Fogel has run this thing since I think 2004. He's done a fantastic job transitioning the company through a variety of perceived this company is now dead. And I think this is going to be a positive, not a negative for the business. Jonathan, in September alone, the stock went from

44:57Michael Batnick:215 down to 157. It's crazy how violent these AI-driven sell-offs are. I haven't seen anything

45:04Downtown Josh Brown:like this. You know what else is funny? Travel, I think, I read this somewhere, travel might be the number two or number three contributor to Google's ad revenue.

45:16Michael Batnick:Wow.

45:17Downtown Josh Brown:I think it's like, I think it's like the number two or three category of ad spend on Google is travel, which tracks with your own life experience, right? Think about how much time you spend like searching for hotels, vacations, flights. Like it's a big one. It's so funny. This idea that like Gemini is just going to do all that shit for you so you don't have to start. Well, is that going to be necessarily great for Google? That all those searches for travel related stuff go away and the ad revenue associated with them? Like, I don't know. Is that revenue neutral for Google or maybe worse? Yeah.

45:57Yeah, that's outside of my purview. But what I do know is a company like Booking, and the one that's, I think, even more ridiculous where it took it down hard was Airbnb. Makes no sense. I mean, Muse is now going to go directly to every single homeowner who's renting their home to see if they want to rent it out to someone. I mean, it's just these things, they're nonsensical. And Airbnb was on fire.

46:25Michael Batnick:The stock gapped up, I don't know, 10%, ran from 150 to 190. Now it's back down to 150. So you need serious nerve to buy and hold stocks these days, individual stocks. It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. But if you're able to really tell yourself you're going to have that 2-3-4 view, it's much easier as an individual. As a money manager who gets graded and can get fired, that's much harder.

46:54Downtown Josh Brown:Put up the forward PE multiple. No offense. This could just be getting started. Like the business could be great, but the multiple could keep derating. Like we know 15 times is not the bottom. No, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You could be right on the fundamentals and still wrong on the stock, which is the danger for everybody in all of these stocks. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you have a catalyst here? Well, one, if oil going down, I think will be significantly beneficial for the company, which also, obviously, if things are solved in Iran, that's helpful. And just general fears over AI disruption.

47:43Plus more, you know, I think those are what's going to make the stock kind of ascend in value. There's no one concrete thing that you're going to put your hat to.

47:52Downtown Josh Brown:Am I stupid? I actually disagree with you. I think one announcement with OpenAI and the D rating is over. Yeah. We just saw that with Salesforce. He brings Dario on stage at Dreamforce and they hold hands and raise them together like two prize fighters at the end of a match. And that's it. It's over. Yeah. Now it's a new story. Yeah. Right? Like, why don't they all just do deals with Sam Altman or with Dario and put an end to this bullshit? But is that the fastest way to fix this problem? I think what they want to do is pay less attention to the stock price and do what's best for the business.

48:31And to sign a deal prematurely to one or the other, giving exclusivity, et cetera, it may solve your temporary stock price problem. But I think you want to figure out, you know, this is still very new. I mean, first, ChatGBT was in the lead. Then Claude, now back to ChatGBT. Who knows who you want to go to?

48:50Downtown Josh Brown:They don't want to get married. Okay. Start dating.

48:54Michael Batnick:Jonathan, let's talk about one of the biggest pieces of shit stock on the planet, Pool Corp. So over the last two years, we know residential construction is a disaster. Over the last two years, new pool construction in the US averaged approximately 60 ,000, the lowest level in over a decade. I guess, fortunately, whatever, Pool Corp is the largest wholesaler distributor. So it's a low capital intensity business. They're just a distributor. They're not building the product. But my God, man, this stock just keeps going lower and lower and lower. It's taking another leg lower down. What does it mean?

49:27Michael Batnick:What does it mean?

49:28Downtown Josh Brown:What does it mean, distributor? So they're independent companies that build pools, buy their equipment from Pool Corp. Like chemicals, filters, all that kind of stuff. So construction, maintenance. Yes. Mostly maintenance. but yes okay so you would think like you build a pool you're not going to fill it in with cement two years later yeah you would think the installed base for swimming pools has grown substantially just in the last 10 years and that's annuitized revenue you have to treat your pool all summer every summer you can't take a year off you'll have an algae pond yeah so but it doesn't it It doesn't seem to matter.

50:12Downtown Josh Brown:So what is the market rate the stock based on? New pull construction only? Is it the only thing they care about? Well, revenue hasn't really grown because from like during the COVID era, it grew like 27 % annualized. So there was a lot of pull forward kind of demand. And now everyone got a pull all at once. Everyone got a pull all at once. Everything is now starting to normalize. And that's why you see the stock go from 500 and whatever to$167 a share. Now you're buying it at 15 times earnings, which is roughly what it's cheap enough. Well, I mean, that's what it traded for in the financial crisis and what it traded for after 9-11.

50:53So I think, you know, in dot-com bust. So I think that's it. I mean, this stock, and this goes back to the Coca-Cola example, it sold for 55 times earnings at the height of COVID. This did? Yeah. 55 times.

51:10Downtown Josh Brown:People thought it was a compounder. People thought, yeah, they're going to build this many pools. They thought everyone in the country was going to have a pool. Essentially. Berkshire Hathaway, Todd Combs bought this, and then Todd Combs left Berkshire, and they dumped the whole position. Yeah, that's what he seems to do. Yeah, I wouldn't read too much into that Warren hates this. I think it was just he left. Let's sell his stuff.

51:37Michael Batnick:I feel like Berkshire could be the type of company that just buys this whole thing. Is this the type of thing where you say, all right, obviously I was wrong on the stock. It's down so much. But maybe there's an opportunity to be rescued by some sort of white knight. I mean, I would prefer that not to happen because I think that - That would be terrible for you. I mean, we just, I just, a little background. We wrote this up in 2009. We did an issue discussing, you know, now it's a time to buy consumer-oriented stock. So we did Pool Corp at$20. We did Marriott. We did a few of these names. We hadn't revisited it until the summer.

52:20Wow. So for the last couple of years, we've been tempted. We really wanted to write it up, but it just didn't get cheap enough. but when we wrote it up this summer i think it was 17 times maybe 18 times we're like wow it could get a little cheaper and it has but it is a cheap cheap stock now put up the uh put up the chart of annual new pool construction in the u.s is this like is this bottomed or is there no way to really

52:48Downtown Josh Brown:know it's like very interest rate sensitive right people borrow money do a heloc to to dig a new pool. So we don't even know if we've seen the worst of it. We don't know we've seen the worst of it, but it's pretty. There are signs that there are. This is a very well-run company. The board is fantastic. If you look at it, they all have distribution backgrounds. And this is a company with extremely low leverage, has no controlling shareholder. And as Michael pointed out, this certainly could be someone, a private equity firm could take a run at this company. So, I mean, that's not the investment thesis.

53:29And as a long-term investor, I would rather, this is a great business. As you said, I don't want to say it's an annuity-like business, but it's close. There's a lot of maintenance revenue there. I'd rather be able to own and compound this over time.

53:43Downtown Josh Brown:Okay. You want to do Burger King?

53:46Michael Batnick:Sure. Sure. Why is this one of the few QSRs, which is a sticker? Why is this one of the few that's hanging tough? I mean, it got sold off the past couple of days, but this has been a really, really difficult category. Yeah. A few reasons. One, Patrick Doyle has done a great job. He's executive chair. 3G recruited him to be executive chair of the company. He was at Domino's and, And under him, he was a CEO. Under him, Domino's went up, I think, 20x. Disaster. Yeah. He's a great – well, since he left, it's been a disaster. He picked a good time to lead.

54:27Downtown Josh Brown:Is he the guy that came in and started doing the videos online about how bad the food is? Yes. Yeah. At Domino's, yeah. He saved the company. Exactly. It was like – it was a train wreck. And he came in and he said, the food sucks. Yes. I think he said it tasted like cardboard. Yeah. He did a focus group and they started to improve the recipe. And I don't know what they really – they added garlic to the tomato sauce. It was like this revelation. Yeah. I think they made a crust that travels better. Like they did meaningful things with the food. Yeah. But they also were brilliant with the app. Yeah.

55:07Downtown Josh Brown:They had the best food delivery app at one point. They probably still do. I don't know. Still do. It's great. Made it so easy to order and it remembers what you like and it remembers your instructions, how to deliver it. And they just, they crushed it. So this is the guy now that was brought into, this is Burger King and Tim Hortons and Popeyes. So all health food. Yeah. And firehouse subs. Firehouse subs. Yeah.

55:35Michael Batnick:But Jonathan, a lot of the competitors are getting killed, I think, because of GLPs. Like, I think that's part of the story. Why is Burger King and Tim Horton, why are they immune? They're not immune, but they're in the middle of their turnaround. They addressed this. I mean, listen, they have to deal with 20%, 25 % beef inflation, like everyone else. The stock, one, had a cheaper multiple than the other ones going in. And two, Burger King North America is now in a turnaround phase. And they're in the middle of the turnaround. Why are they turning around? What does that mean? Like the franchises weren't happy.

56:13The unit level economics for the stores weren't doing well. You know, same source sales weren't good. Now same source sales have improved. They're basically halfway through the recovery that McDonald's is just starting.

56:29Downtown Josh Brown:The great thing about this is every five years it goes private. Right? Right? Burger King goes private every five to seven years. Somebody takes it private. 3G bought them in 2011, 2012. I think they're going to stay for a long – I think they've built a great business that they're getting paid a 3%, 4 % yield while they wait. They're going to be able to have opportunities to buy other restaurants. Maybe it gets sold, but now I think the enterprise value is$45 billion, so it's a little bit harder. I mean, the Burger King take private was, I think, on a percentage basis, the best private equity deal of all time.

57:16Yeah.

57:16Downtown Josh Brown:Fun fact, the company was founded at the University of Miami. Really? Yeah. It's like one of their big claims to fame at the business school. There's like a bust of the founder. Yeah. The guy was like a genius. I forget the whole story.

57:30Michael Batnick:Was he really a king?

57:31Downtown Josh Brown:He was not actually a king. I think he was in the military. I don't, I forget.

57:35Michael Batnick:His last name was Burger.

57:38Downtown Josh Brown:He is. His last name is Boydor. Jonathan. Yeah. Patrick also got rid of the king, I think, too. Oh, that idiotic mascot where it's like a mannequin. Yeah, yeah. I think he got rid of it. Super creepy. Okay.

57:51Michael Batnick:What do you see in Comcast? This is not, to me, a garpy business. What's going on here? Yeah, Comcast is controversial within our firm. Some people like it. Some people don't. I think now the Roberts family looks like they're ready to potentially exit. They're now splitting it into two businesses. You're going to have NBCUniversal, and then you're going to have the Comcast broadband business. But the broadband business is a tough, tough business. You're going to have lots of competition, fixed wireless. You're going to have Starlink, et cetera, even though Starlink has their issues within cities.

58:30But at five or six times EBITDA, it's pretty cheap. So, I mean, our service goes to people who are garpy, goes to people who are somewhat deep value. So we have, you know, different flavors within it. Will people make money here? Yes, but it's probably less interesting than the others.

58:50Downtown Josh Brown:What is the last company you looked at and wanted to like it, but you just couldn't bring yourself to be bullish? And what was the reason? Can you think of anything recently? I can't think of. It happens to be all the time is why I ask.

59:04Michael Batnick:Oh. Jonathan, what about StubHub? Oh, God. StubHub. Weren't you close to pulling the trigger on that one or not? I was close to pulling the trigger. Luckily, I mean, unfortunately, we wrote it up for subscribers. You know, one of the things I think I've learned is to not buy businesses or look at businesses that are hated by consumers. I hate StubHub. Yes. A lot.

59:29Downtown Josh Brown:Everyone hates StubHub, right? Yes. That's a thing. Yeah. It's like, why am I buying? Yeah. So, I mean, could you make money here yet? It's a convoluted story. It's a convoluted ownership structure. Could you make money? Yes. Is it our favorite? No. But we have to come up with a lot of ideas in a given year. Not all of them we're going to like equally.

59:50Michael Batnick:Let me tell you a quick stop-up story. A couple of years ago, I was away, I think, for a Knick game, a Knick playoff game or whatever the case was. And I listed it. So, I took responsibility. I messed up. I listed on Ticketmaster and StubHub. They both sold simultaneously. I had to deliver the ticket to a StubHub buyer. I couldn't. That's f***ed up. And so I had to pay whatever the value was to make good. My hand up, I messed up. But they didn't tell me that it happened. And they allowed the same ticket on StubHub to sell seven times. And they tried to charge me. In fact, they did charge me like$9 ,000 or something like that.

1:00:25Michael Batnick:And Josh, you and I were in Los Angeles together when this happened. I remember that. And I had to go to Amex.

1:00:30Downtown Josh Brown:Your face was white.

1:00:32Michael Batnick:I was talking to the customer service. I'm like, how could you allow this?

1:00:36Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah.

1:00:36Michael Batnick:If it happens once, okay, fine. Take the listing off. How could you allow this? And the reason is, this is a big profit center for them. So yeah, consumers hate StubHub.

1:00:46Downtown Josh Brown:Consumers do. Do you have coverage or a view on any of the sports betting stocks like DraftKings and Flutter? These stocks are not doing well either. Yeah. I think they're ripping each other apart competitively, like Caesars, BetMGM, BetRivers.

1:01:07Michael Batnick:Flutter's at an all-time low today. There's just so many.

1:01:10Downtown Josh Brown:And now Robinhood is in the game. Is that the problem here? Yeah. I mean, I think the one that we have a view on is MGM, which is down about 10 % today because Diller pulled his bid. I think he's going to come back. He had a$48 bid. Now it's going to be$38. Now it's a$33 a share. He tried to buy it through IAC. That's a great business selling at, you know, not demanding multiple here. I think it's, you know, 16, it's trading at about 16 times. And what's interesting to us about MGM, in 2031, they're going to have the only casino in all of Japan. And they'll have like a four or five year at least head start on everyone.

1:01:57Downtown Josh Brown:That exclusivity matters. Yeah. I was talking to somebody this week. Do you know Hard Rock pays the state of Florida$500 million for the exclusive gambling app in the state? Wow. And the Seminoles are involved. Like, the tribe is involved in that. It's part of how they pulled it off. But, like, I don't know if that – I didn't independently verify that. But somebody who knows this stuff was like, yeah, they pay half a billion dollars. And that's why there is no DraftKings in Florida. Yeah. I had no idea. That's crazy. Just to be clear, they don't have like an exclusive relationship. I mean, they have a three or four year, five year head start because it takes a long time to build these things.

1:02:39So it's great to have a Japanese partner there. They don't fully own it. But it's going to be the revenues that they're going to have are going to be pretty, not similar, but very close to what they have in Vegas. And analysts aren't putting that into their forecast. I think the sports regulated, the sports books are going to be, not the sports books, I'm sorry, the Calci's of the world, those are going to be regulated. I think BetMGM is going to be just fine. I think people are going to want to visit casinos. I think, you know, there's a temporary problem. People aren't going to Vegas from Canada because the Canadians hate the Americans.

1:03:18That's going to change. You know, 2028 is not that far away. So there's lots of things to like about it. Again, if you can take a two or three year view, you might not even have to because I think Dillard is going to come back.

1:03:28Michael Batnick:I know this is not a US casino story alone, but if you looked at the stocks of Wynn and Las Vegas Sands, which I know is a lot in China, they're going straight down. Las Vegas Sands was 70 bucks in December. It's 38 right now. The whole sector is out of favor. I mean, I guess there's China. Obviously, there's China worries. MGM has a China business. And that does, I think, worry me a little bit about the stock because you don't know what's going to happen there. But there's enough other things to like. And I think that's what – Josh talked earlier about position sizing. I think that's one of the things that you have to do is look at the risk of a stock and size it accordingly.

1:04:09If you think the casino stocks look bad, allow me to introduce you to Vichy Properties.

1:04:15Downtown Josh Brown:what is that holy shit vici this is the landlord of las vegas so what happened during the activist shareholder era what happened with all these casino companies is they sold their soul by which i mean they sold their real estate to this reit and the idea was where we have all this money encumbered in like concrete. Let's sell the real estate to Vici and we'll take the cash and we'll use that cash to buy back stock. Disastrous. So they bought back all this stock at the top, which obviously enriched the management because these guys took huge bonuses for themselves. And ever since it's been nothing but down.

1:05:05Downtown Josh Brown:And now the REIT looks even worse than the casinos. This thing was last summer, 33. It's now 23. And for a REIT, for like a yield play, that is disgusting. Dude, this is nuts.

1:05:20Michael Batnick:So I never, Josh, I never heard of this. It's an S &P 500 REIT. It owns 103 assets. They own all the land in Vegas. They own the whole strip. Caesars Palace, MGM Grand and the Venetian. Oh my goodness. All right.

1:05:38Downtown Josh Brown:Way to end on an up note. We did good. Guys, I want to finish by letting people know how they can learn more about Boyer Asset Management and all the great research that you're doing. Give us the rundown of how people can learn more from you. Sure. You can go to our – visit our subsac at boyerresearch.subsec.com. If you want to get a few samples of the fresh looks, go to Boyer Value Group forward slash I will be leaking that in its entirety on the internet shortly. Now, we want people to sign up and subscribe to your stuff. And tell us about the asset management business. How's it going this year?

1:06:19Downtown Josh Brown:What's happening? Good. We're having some good flows. Business is good. And I think it's a great time to invest. Obviously, that's extremely self-serving. But there are a lot of opportunities out there. And if you're looking for a long-term, patient, tax-efficient investor, consider us. Rule number one is be self-serving. If you don't promote yourself, nobody else will. Jonathan Boyar, you are the man. We have so much. The time just flies by when we talk to you. We learn so much from you. And super fun session today. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Guys, thank you so much for watching.

1:06:57Downtown Josh Brown:Thank you for listening. especially thanks to everyone who is leaving reviews and waiting the show. It means so much to us. We really appreciate it. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon.

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