It's time again to have some fun talking about market caps.
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This video was recorded on Dec. 20, 2023.
David Gardner: The price per share of a stock tells you almost nothing. It's the price to buy one share of the stock. But how many shares does the company have outstanding? In math, we multiply two multiplicands together, but the price per share is only one multiplicand. If you don't know the other, you can't do any meaningful math or figure out much of the world around you.
Fools with a capital F know that you need to know the shares outstanding, and then multiply that by the price per share, and now you know the actual full value of the company. It's full price tag, it's market capitalization, market cap. Well, to teach this lesson inexorably and unforgettably, we invented a game. That's what I do. The date was August 9th, 2017. The market cap game show was born and we've been playing every quarter since, and you're playing too. I designed it that way so you can play along against my guest stars, against your spouse or partner, against your kids. Can you outscore my talented contestants? Well, it's that time of the quarter. Again, 10 new stocks and three guest stars. Bill Barker, past champion, Yasser El-Shimy, and you. Only on this week, Rule Breaker Investing.
Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. This is the market cap game show. It's our holiday Fool stravaganza. It's the same game show, you've got to know for 26 quarters in a row now, and yet it's a Fool stravaganza because it's the holidays. As I said last week. Put some logs on the fire, invite the in-laws over. Don't worry about your holiday shopping for one solid hour. Join me in my guest contestants, Bill Barker and Yasser El-Shimy. Bill, a veteran here at the Motley Fool, and a voice personality, stock picker, writer, money manager, extraordinary at the Fool over the years. Again, a veteran by most measures. Bill is nevertheless a rookie to the market cap game show. Yasser, a relative rookie at the Motley Fool, having just joined as an employee in 2020, and yet this will be his fourth market cap game show, a returning champion. Yasser, your record is now one win, one loss, and one tie, and yet even your one loss was just on a tiebreaker. Welcome back.
Yasser El-Shimy: Thank you, David. I love this game. I intend to make that a two-win record, not just one, so watch out, Bill.
Bill Barker: Normally, I'm an eager participant in trash-talking, but in this particular game, I don't want to raise anybody's expectations too high. I've been wallowing in the very specific small-cap world, so I hope all the questions are about stocks somewhere in less than two billion range. If you could do that, then maybe I've got a chance.
David Gardner: Maybe, but probably not. Well, it's great to have both of you. Bill Barker has been with Fool for 25 years. In between, Stance is a trial lawyer and federal terrorist asset investigator, but he's mostly known and fooled them for inflicting sporadic episodes of apropos of nothing on unsuspecting podcast listeners during the days of market foolery. He plays a little tennis and other racket sports roots for the Yankees and by his own reckoning, sings and dresses about two standard deviations below the median back from helping to start up Motley Fool Asset management over a decade ago, Bill now writes again, for the Fool, working on hidden gems and Motley Fool firecrackers. Yasser El-Shimy is an investment analyst at the Motley Fool who covers a wide range of companies, especially small and medium caps. He works on a number of different services, including Global Partners, NextGen Super Cycle, and Trend Spotter. In his free time, Yasser likes to garden, play squash, watch soccer, and study Italian. Of course, the third player, and to us the most important is you. That's right, you, our dear fellow Foolish listener, as Rick begins to crank up our market cap game show music. Let me just briefly remind, especially new listeners, new players. I'll be mentioning a stock. Neither Bill nor Yasser knows what stock is coming. They've been in soundproof chambers for guys. How long?
Bill Barker: Too long. Nice to be out.
David Gardner: Did we give you any refreshments? Let's keep going. I'll turn to one of our contestants here talking about a stock he didn't know was coming, and that fool will do his best to state a numerical range within which the market cap falls. The other contestant and you playing at home will simply say, I agree, meaning it's accurate. The stock's value falls inside that range, or I disagree, I think it's outside that stated range. You simply agree or disagree. If you get it right, give yourself a plus one. That's the market cap game show. We're focused on the real market caps, real stocks here, nobody knows what's coming. A perfect score would be 10.
Stock number 1. Yasser, let's talk about business models for a moment. When an industry shifts its core business model. This is one of the most rule-breaking things that we get to witness. Not just a company, when a whole industry shifts its business model. Can you think of any examples?
Yasser El-Shimy: That's a tough one. An entire industry shifting its business model. This would have to probably come from some major technological breakthrough. I can think of the Industrial Revolution, for example, the invention of the steam engine and what that has done to shipping. But modern examples it would have probably to do with the Internet.
David Gardner: In fact, I'll spot you one because that's where we're headed right now. Adobe in 2013 with its Creative Cloud offering, began to shift the model. Is this a company you've studied?
Yasser El-Shimy: It is not a company I have studied.
David Gardner: That always makes the game better.
Yasser El-Shimy: Exactly. Now I've given it away to Bill that I'll just be guessing here, but it's a cybersecurity company that probably my guessing would be falls within the midcap range.
David Gardner: Let's see. In fact, let me formally ask you. Yasser El-Shimy, what is the market cap range you'd like to state for Varonis Systems? Ticker symbol V-R-N-S.
Yasser El-Shimy: Since I have disclosed my ignorance of the market cap of this company, I'm going to go with a rather wide range here. I'm going to say it probably falls somewhere between a $7 billion market cap to a $15 billion market cap.
David Gardner: Seven billion dollars to $15 billion players at home. Bill Barker, do you wish to agree or disagree?
Bill Barker: I'm going to disagree.
David Gardner: Are you merely guessing, or is there some savvy here?
Bill Barker: There is no savvy here. I'm equally ignorant of the company.
David Gardner: I'd like you both to know that I myself was too. I randomized from the 500 most popular stocks on Fool.com which are ranked for our members. This is down there somewhere like Number 344. Again, I'll be mentioning my brother's pick about this in a second, but let's get back to the game. Bill, you said you disagree players at home. What did you say? You said it. Bill, that is correct. It's a little smaller than Yasser had it. Verona Systems market cap $4.93 billion. If you said disagree with Yasser's 7-$15 billion range, give yourself a plus one. Tom did pick this. February 16th, 2018. It was heard a year later, I mentioned. It was almost a year to the day when Tom picked it that they announced were shifting to the Cloud. Stock goes down 22% but now 5.5 years later it's up 136% overall, the S&P 500 up 70%. He done good with that stock pick. I would like to note, because I know Yasser, you're a soccer fan. That the Chief Financial Officer of Verona Systems is a guy named Guy Melamed, and Guy is a former professional soccer player. He was the first Israeli to play major league soccer in the United States of America. That's the CFO of this company.
Bill Barker: Now if there's a soccer connection, I got to have take a look.
Yasser El-Shimy: Every single thing you've said is news to me, and therefore, it could all be made up, including the existence of this company. I believe you wouldn't do that, but this could all be edited out later. Like that was just messing with you.
David Gardner: Fake news is not on this podcast, is in other podcasts.
Yasser El-Shimy: I know. What I would like is if you just went and say, see, none of this is going in the show. We just made all that up just to make you look good.
David Gardner: It's all so very real. Bill, you have a very real lead. One to nothing as we move on to stock Number 2. Bill Barker, what, in your opinion, constitutes a really bad stock pick? I want you to quantify it, please, if you will, sir the parameters of a really bad stock pick.
Bill Barker: This is a math rather than a psychological explanation.
David Gardner: We went with quantify.
Bill Barker: Quantify. A really bad stock pick is something where you, I would say lose more than half of your money on the sale. That might be something that would have come back. But if you lose half your money, I'd say that's really bad.
David Gardner: Would you like to add in any time elements to this? Is there a difference between losing half your money, over the course of 45 years or 45 days?
Bill Barker: Well, losing half your money over 45 years, if there were no dividends. That would be that would be akin to losing all your money, really. If you put $1,000 down 45 years ago and it was 500 today, you basically lost all much more than $1,000 really.
David Gardner: Bill, have you ever made a really bad stock pick?
Bill Barker: Yes of course.
David Gardner: Well, would you share one? Because we're going to be sharing one of mine when we get to this company?
Bill Barker: Yeah, I got one from back in the day, and this was a company that I recognized was not a great company. But I thought it had become a value because it had been hit so hard. But it didn't begin to finish its job going toward zero and that is Planet Hollywood, which I knew at the time I made the investment was not at all a good company, but it just seemed like it had already.
David Gardner: It had a brand.
Bill Barker: It had a brand, it had existing stores, and it had at the time profits. But it was really bad stock.
David Gardner: Well, I'm glad you shared because we're about to cover one of mine. I picked this stock, I won't say. Let's just go right to the company, Clean Energy Fuels. The ticker symbol is C-L-N-E. That is stock number two for the market cap game show. Bill, you're thinking about your market cap range today for Clean Energy Fuels, which on a side note, I picked on a dark dark day in March of 2012. Bill Barker your stated range for clean energy fuels market cap.
Bill Barker: Well, there's been a little interest in companies that do things like the name of this company.
David Gardner: If it helps, because it sounds like this is not on your watch list, but this company provides natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicle fleets. When it was founded by Boone Pickens, I think, who died, by the way, in 2019. But this company was founded about 20 plus years ago. The dream was that trucks would start using natural gas as their fuel for long haul and we'll talk about in a second how the stock's done, but what's the market cap?
Bill Barker: I'm going to say the market cap is between 500 million and 1.5 billion.
David Gardner: Five hundred million to 1.5 billion Bill using round numbers in his initial shot here on the market cap game show makes it easy to follow at home. Yasser agrees or disagrees with Bill's market cap range half a bill to 1.5.
Yasser El-Shimy: I disagree. I think it falls below that.
David Gardner: Unfortunately, you should have agreed because Bill did a pretty good job, admittedly, with a stock I don't think he knows very much about. I was throwing you a bone there with what this company does.
Yasser El-Shimy: I feel like it might be worth less than 500 million based on both your description of as being a really bad stock pick. But I'm giving it a little bit of credit for the enthusiasm in the market for what it appears to be trying to do.
David Gardner: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because from December 2020 to January 2021, so this is like a couple of months the stock rocketed back from three to where it was in 2020 to $20 a share in a couple of months as there was expectation. Maybe the new Biden presidency and, or a shift to cleaner fuels and some hype probably and some Wall Street recommendations all propelled the stock to a five bagger over the course of a couple of months. But sadly, I picked it higher than 20 and I picked it in March of 2012. The stock down, this fits your parameter bill, I think 82% from where I picked it in Stock Advisor 11 years later. I think part of a really bad stock pick is that you kept holding it for a long period of time and that capital was never put to use in any other place. It just died slowly over a long period of time. That's a really bad stock pick.
Yasser El-Shimy: But an energy company, What about all those dividends it was surely paying out?
David Gardner: There wasn't a lot of cash. [laughs] This company, even in the face of that five bagger that it enjoyed briefly, over the course of a couple of months. It's revenues were low and actually shrinking and I think the story at the time, and I admittedly tend not to follow my losers very carefully years later, I much prefer following winners. But I just remember there's a great article on fool.com. You can read it from one of our contract writers who says, I don't think I'd be touching the stock here at 20 after you just moved up from three. He was right. Well, speaking of right, Bill. In a sense, you've been right twice. It's Bill to Yasser. Nothing. Let's move on to stock Number 3. Yasser requests for you, sir. It's the streaming time of year. How about three streaming show recommendations? But specifically the first, what's a truly great show or season or movie everyone should watch streaming now or in the year ahead, maybe an obvious one? Second, what's a hidden gem that many people likely have not watched, that you have that you can staunchly recommend? Then third, if you will indulge us. Finally, as there are too many shows, we're all increasingly time starved. It's a gift to let your fellow Fools know of a show they do not need to watch. One that probably is quite popular, so they think they should watch it. But you're going to tell us we can skip it. You ready?
Yasser El-Shimy: I'm ready.
David Gardner: Recommendation Number 1. Great show. We should all be watching this thing.
Yasser El-Shimy: We are lucky to be living in a golden era of television and we have a lot of great shows out there. I would particularly point to Fargo on Hulu as a show that everybody should absolutely watch. Great show. The Coen Brothers are my favorite directors out there. They came up with the original movie Fargo. True classic.
David Gardner: I haven't seen the streaming show. It's gotten a lot of plaudits.
Yasser El-Shimy: Absolutely. It's now, I think up to six or seven seasons. I'm still in Season 4, so catching up. But just absolutely excellent.
David Gardner: Well, a lot of us have heard of Fargo which fulfills question Number 1. Question Number 2, what's a hidden gem out there?
Yasser El-Shimy: The Leftovers on HBO Max. It's a show about people basically in upstate New York, waking up one day and finding that at least half the population has just disappeared, gone.
David Gardner: Sci-fi?
Yasser El-Shimy: I would say it's more philosophy slash maybe sociology than sci-fi.
David Gardner: No spoilers.
Yasser El-Shimy: People have to deal with the ramifications of this new world.
David Gardner: I really appreciate that because I hadn't heard of it so it fulfills hidden gem, at least for me. Thank you, sir. How about a show we can skip?
Yasser El-Shimy: You can absolutely skip Monarch Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV right now. [laughs] No reason to watch that. It's a Godzilla show. I have a soft spot in my heart for the old, original Japanese Godzilla movies. But this one you can probably skip.
Bill Barker: Do we all get to play this one?
David Gardner: No Bill. Although later I'll give you an opportunity if you'd like to.
Bill Barker: I would like to hear yours.
David Gardner: How about this, if you get a point here, we'll let you name it. If you don't get a point here, we're not going to let you name it.
Bill Barker: Okay.
David Gardner: Let's go to the company because Yasser, none of those companies is on Netflix. But Netflix is stock Number 3 ticker simple NFLX. The company that started the streaming revolution. A few other revolutions besides we talked earlier about business models. Netflix really shifted the whole business model from a transaction late fee model. When I think about what Blockbuster did when it was the Goliath here. All of a sudden Netflix turned it into subscription. You're using this and getting male DVD's old school so Netflix is a good example of that too. But more importantly, Yasser El-Shimy, what is your stated market cap range for Netflix ticker symbol NFLX?
Yasser El-Shimy: My market range for Netflix would be $350 billion to $475 billion.
David Gardner: Three hundred and fifty billion to 475. This is not a small cap or a medium cap. We can confirm that gentleman. No small spoilers.
Yasser El-Shimy: Correct.
David Gardner: Bill, players at home, 350-475 Netflix. I agree or disagree?
Bill Barker: I'm going to disagree with that.
David Gardner: Bill, you're going to get to name some of your favorite and least favorite streaming shows because you get a third point. Netflix, which is one of my largest holdings, has a smaller market cap than Yasser thought, which to me, gives it room to grow. We always say that when we play the market cap game show, if you thought it was that high, you should have this on your watch. Those Netflix clocking in at a market cap of 214.19 billion when I checked in the last few hours so about $215 billion for Netflix today. That was outside Yasser's 350-475 range. Bill you have a three-nothing lead, but more important Bill what's a show we all should watch? What's a hidden gem we should watch we didn't know about and what's something overrated we can skip?
Bill Barker: Sure. Well, a show that you should watch is Slow Horses if you're not watching it yet on Apple TV. Fairly well known, although not everybody knows it. Not going out on much of a limb on that one, but Gary Oldman and company on that sounds great. Hidden gem I'm going to go with. Very few people are going to know this, but everybody should. I'm not going to tell you anything about it in the hopes that you will watch it. Because the less that you know, the better. It's called In and of itself or Derek DelGaudio's in and of itself. On Hulu, he did an off Broadway show. Type of magician. It's produced by Stephen Colbert, directed by Frank Oz.
David Gardner: I can't believe I hadn't heard of this, but that's the whole point. It's a hidden gem.
Bill Barker: Yeah, very few people know it. Everybody that I've recommended it to, turn off your phone, sit down. It's an hour and a half.
David Gardner: In and of itself.
Bill Barker: Pay attention. Then something you can skip, Bridgerton, I would say. [laughs]
David Gardner: A Netflix fantastic, successful show.
Bill Barker: Very popular. But in the peak of COVID, we sat around, family watched it. Kids were very uncomfortable at times with their parents being in the room for certain parts of it. But it was a little bit of escapism and if you like it, great, but you can skip it.
David Gardner: Well, if our listeners at home were doing what we were doing here, we were writing down each other's recommendations room, and I bet that happened around this world. Thanks to this show briefly this week. Thank you both. Bill, three; Yasser, nothing. Wow. Let's go on to stock number 4. Bill, you and I are the same age-ish. I'm 57, how old are you?
Bill Barker: Fifty-eight.
David Gardner: Nice. We've watched food delivery become a mega business in our lives. It's a way of life just in the past four decades. In your mind, Bill, who is the original gangster, the OG of the food delivery business?
Bill Barker: I'm thinking Webvan.
David Gardner: That's grocery delivery. I'm thinking popular food brought to you by somebody in a car or truck back in the 80s.
Bill Barker: Well, it's got to be pizza. It's got to be Domino's, I guess.
David Gardner: Indeed, that is stock number 4. Gentlemen, Domino's Pizza, ticker symbol DPZ. Oh my gosh, it's a throwdown round. Stock number 4 is a throwdown. To remind listeners at home, both Bill and Yasser will right now write down their market cap range for Domino's Pizza. All we do, the rest of us listening, is once Bill and Yasser state their market caps, we decide which guy do we want to go with, which seems more plausible and if we're right, we get a point. This is a throwdown, we do this twice every show. I want to thank again Sam "Sudden Death" Stevens for this good thought and improvement to this game show in the last year or two. This is a throwdown stock number 4, Domino's Pizza. Bill, I'm going to turn to you first. What is your market cap range? You want to be as tight and as accurate as possible here for the ticker symbol DPZ.
Bill Barker: I'm going with 16-25 billion.
David Gardner: Sixteen to twenty-five billion. Yasser, what did you write down?
Yasser El-Shimy: I wrote down $12-16 billion.
David Gardner: Listeners at home. We're playing this for you. Are you going to agree with Bill or Yasser? I'm going to give you three seconds. 3, 2, 1, say one of their names. For those of us playing at home, I hope you said Yasser because he nailed it; 12-16 billion was the correct market cap range. Because when I checked it last, very recently, Domino's is at 14.01 billion. Basically right in the middle of your tight range. Yasser, well done. Are you a Domino's Pizza fan?
Yasser El-Shimy: I am not. As someone who has traveled to Italy several times and enjoyed Italian pizza, I cannot say that I enjoyed Domino's. However, I do recognize it has been a very successful investment for many Fools and for many investors out there, and I applaud that. But I have to say, I was worried there for a second that Bill was about to have a clean sweep here. So I'm glad I could claw back [laughs] just one point in this game.
Bill Barker: I was thinking about Domino's old market cap, which was above 16.
David Gardner: Well, that is true. That is true. The last 10 years, this has been, as Yasser mentioned, excellent stock. I've never owned it or recommended it. I've always appreciated. I have ordered me a lot of Domino's over the course of my life. I don't know about you, Bill.
Bill Barker: I think the kids like Domino's. It shows up at pizza day here at the office. It's one of the many choices at pizza day.
David Gardner: The last 10 years, the stock has gone from $80 to $400 a share, so it's a five-bagger. It did hit 550 at the start of 2022. Height of COVID, Domino's peaks $550 a share. It went as low as $300 this year. It is now, as I mentioned, at $400 a share, $14 billion market cap, celebrated CEO Patrick Doyle. Do you guys remember this? After eight years of spectacular growth for this company, he stepped down. It's longer ago than I was remembering, January 2018. So it's now five years later or so, stocks a double since then. It reminds me a little bit of like Steve Jobs has gone, oh my gosh, Apple will never be the same. Tim Cook shows up. Apple is far larger than it ever was before. I admire both Jobs and Cook. I admire both Doyle and whoever the CEO is now cause he's doing a good job. On to stock number 5, Yasser, you have good teeth.
Yasser El-Shimy: I would like to think so.
David Gardner: I know listeners at home can't see them. This is a podcast. I never thought I'd think to share this with you until this Market Cap Game Show, but you have good teeth. Briefly, can you share Yasser El-Shimy's history with dentistry?
Yasser El-Shimy: Oh my God.
David Gardner: You never know where you're going to be asked in the Market Cap Game Show.
Yasser El-Shimy: How much time do we have? [laughs] I recall at one point, after I moved to the US from Egypt. Let's just say I had a checkered history of going to the dentist while I was still living in Egypt, and that was over 13 years ago. Now when I moved to the US, I went to the dentist and the dentist told me, "You need to do 19 fillings." I kid you not, I kept going to the dentist at least once a week for almost two months [laughs] just to get all these fillings done and all the work that needed to happen.
David Gardner: That is unbelievable. How old were you, ish?
Yasser El-Shimy: I was about 27.
David Gardner: Wow. It's worked for you.
Yasser El-Shimy: Yeah, thank you.
David Gardner: Have you had any fillings since?
Yasser El-Shimy: I have had some fillings since and I've had some of the old fillings replaced. Unfortunately, dental work is one of those things where it's just the gift that keeps on giving.
David Gardner: [laughs] It's an industry that's going to be around for a long time. Any thoughts ever given to Invisalign?
Yasser El-Shimy: Yeah. It's something I considered in the past, but I have to say, and just put it on the record, that for much of us people who grew up outside of the US, we don't pay a lot of attention to the appearance of teeth as is given here. Yes, it's something that crossed my mind at one point, but it was not something I felt very strongly about. But I understand that some people do you use Invisalign. My 11-year-old stepson currently has retainers, so he's fixing those teeth bright and early. But yes, Invisalign. I'm familiar with Align Technology.
David Gardner: Indeed that is where we're headed. You did guess that. As a fellow stock picker, you know where we're headed. Align Technology is the company behind the Invisalign solution. It's not the only one out there, but that kind of teeth correction with the see-through, the thing that you wear, often during the daytime, maybe 20 hours a day in some cases. There's different ways of approaching this. But Invisalign has been a winner, and so has Align Technology. Yasser, I'm turning to you now and asking you, ticker symbol ALGN, Align Technology, what is your stated market cap range for Align Technology?
Yasser El-Shimy: My stated market range for Align Technology is between $10-14 billion.
David Gardner: Ten billion dollars to $14 billion. Bill, I'm not going to ask you your history of dentistry. The show would go on just too long at that point.
Bill Barker: It would go on a long time.
David Gardner: Then we'd get to mine where I've had more fillings probably than Yasser. But let's just go and cut right to the chase here, Bill. Yasser said $10-14 billion. Viewers at home, Bill Barker, agree or disagree?
Bill Barker: Disagree.
David Gardner: Give Bill a point. It's 4-1. Not a bad guess at all, Yasser, but it is a little bit bigger than you were thinking. Align Technology tipping the scales at $19.88 billion. Let's just round it to 20, 10-14 not a bad guess. This has been a long term winner for Motley Fool Rule Breakers. It was recommended by the OG of the Market Cap Game Show, that's Matt Argersinger. I checked the date, June 25th, 2014. So nine years later, a four-bagger. It's up 370%, the S&P 500 up 170%, but it was once a 13-bagger as recently as two years ago. It's had a huge drop over the last two years from $700 a share to its present perch at about $264 a share. I think it's fair to call it now a one-time winner for Motley Fool members. But for more recent members, it's been a big loser. Maybe with TS White, we'll term this a once and I hope future winner.
Bill Barker: Well, it's visited a lot of interesting places, the stock that is. It was one of the, I guess, less obvious COVID darlings when people spend all their time on Zoom, seeing themselves on and then seeing their teeth. That was a big, big, big help for it. A lot of other things, some business was pulled forward that wasn't really resetting the size of the business.
David Gardner: Well said.
Bill Barker: It's been a good company. Great investment for most holding periods, but not every holding period.
David Gardner: Some of my favorite companies are ones that do real good in the world, that provide products and solutions that help. I wouldn't say every company does out there, but most of the ones that I favor and follow, and certainly I've always felt that way about Align Technology. I grant you the point, though, Yasser. Very interesting, the international view that probably we Americans take our teeth a little bit too seriously, but that helps Align Technology. Well, speaking of help. Yasser, you may need a little bit of help because coming out of the firmament like a star shot, Bill Barker has arrived. He's up 4-1 in the first five questions on the Market Cap Game Show.
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, you know what, they call that, David, beginner's luck. [laughs]
Bill Barker: I think that I've been helped by these tight market caps that you've been going with, representing very detailed knowledge, maybe a little overconfidence from that Domino's scale.
David Gardner: Well, we're going to see, we're at half time. It's time for our brief folly show, Rick. Thank you. On to stock number 6. Bill, you've been living in Washington, DC-ish for how long?
Bill Barker: Most of the last 30 years.
David Gardner: What first got you here?
Bill Barker: I came in for a job with a law firm back in my days as a lawyer at a law school.
David Gardner: I'm so glad we found you, you found us. Twenty five years later, we're having fun. In this city when you think of public companies based in Washington, DC, any standout performers come to mind for you? You and I have been here a quarter of a century here in the DMV as we call it TC Maryland, Virginia. I'll spot you one. Just a big company, maybe the biggest market cap in DC. Lockheed Martin, big company. We did have one last market cap game show with Bill Mann and Emily Flippen, Marriott International based here in Washington DC.
Bill Barker: Bethesda Companies.
David Gardner: That is it. In fact, it was started as an A and W Root Beer stand run by John Willard Marriott and his wife Alice in 1927. That's how Marriott started. But how about a globally diversified conglomerate started by brothers, and these brothers have been a bit more successful so far than David and Tom Gardner and perhaps ironically in this case, the company has a much larger market cap than our company and yet those brothers maintain, I would say, a much lower profile than maybe Tom and I do. Maybe I need to learn a thing or two. Let's go to stock number 6, Danaher Corporation, ticker symbol DHR. Stephen and Mitchell Rails founded this company. Well, we'll cover that in a little bit. Turning back to our present leader, up 4-1, Bill Barker asking you the market cap for Danaher Corporation, ticker symbol DHR.
Bill Barker: I'm going to go with 24-38 billion.
David Gardner: Twenty-four to thirty-eight billion dollars players at home. Yasser El-Shimy, do you want to agree with Bill's 24-38 or disagree?
Yasser El-Shimy: I'm going to disagree.
David Gardner: I'm glad you disagreed, Yasser, because Bill wasn't even close. Players at home, if you were swayed by Bill's 25 years in Washington, DC, the guy was a lawyer, so he must be smart, I will say, is the person who gets asked the questions. I always sound smart as Alex Trebek did back in the day. I love that position because I would've gotten this one wrong too. Danaher Corporation's market cap is $167.8 billion. This company is a monster.
Bill Barker: Yeah, I've had it come across my radar in terms of the success as a stock and some of the DNA that's out there in other companies. But no, I never ever paid attention.
Yasser El-Shimy: For the record, David, how many standard deviations out of the Petree?
David Gardner: Well, I'm not going to do deviations, but I will go like $100 billion, if so. How about that? But you know what's $100 billion. Named after Dan and her creek, by the way, in Western Montana where the two brothers, Stephen and Mitchell Rails, conceptualized the company as they were fishing. It actually started in 1969 as a Massachusetts REIT, a real estate investment trust. It eventually reorganized in Florida and began investing in retirement homes. When the Rails brothers coming back from Danaher Creek in western Montana took it over. It has grown hugely since, mostly through acquisition. Maybe to the Motley Fool's shame, no Fool service had ever recommended this stock until Backstage portfolio did last month. It's been a four bagger in just the last 10 years. It's been a much, much bigger bagger than that had we all bought and held as the Rails brothers have for decades.
Yasser El-Shimy: Yeah. It's one of those companies that are serial acquirers. They look for great businesses to acquire at good valuations. They have generated great return on invested capital and great return on equity for many, many years. Yeah, if you had owned Danaher for a long time, you have done very well for yourself.
David Gardner: The company, I think, in part is lesser known. It's not a brand name a lot of people recognize because it is such a B2B, a business to business company. They're acquiring other businesses, but generally those businesses supply other businesses. They're not selling directly through to you and me like Invisalign is sold to us from Align Technology. That is Danaher Orpen. Those who want the score to be close and to have a little suspense as we near the last third of the show are excited, Yasser, that you've just had Bill's lead. It's now 4-2. Let's move on to stock number 7. Yasser, both you and Bill enjoy racket sports. In your intro, I mentioned your enjoyment of squash. How did you start playing?
Yasser El-Shimy: Squash is like a big thing in Egypt. I don't know if you guys are aware of that.
David Gardner: I did not know that, but Bill knows everything. [laughs]
Bill Barker: Yeah, I know that.
David Gardner: Especially racket sports. We'll get to that. We will keep going.
Yasser El-Shimy: We've hosted squash World Cups several times actually in Egypt. Some of the top 10 ranked players in the world have almost consistently included at least one Egyptian player. It's a big deal, so that's how I knew the sport. But I first came to play it when I went for graduate school in Boston, and I just signed up for a squash class and started learning and haven't looked back since. It's just like the most fun racket sport you can play.
David Gardner: I'm not going to say it's Egypt's national sport, but it sounds like it's very prominent. It's ironic that it took you coming to Boston University, Yasser, for you to actually start picking up this amazing racket sport.
Yasser El-Shimy: That's true. I think in Egypt, I didn't really have any place where I could go train very easily, whereas on campus here, it was just very convenient.
David Gardner: Yeah, a couple of times I planned. I think I smashed my racket once and I realized I needed a new one. How often does one buy a new squash racket?
Yasser El-Shimy: In my case, maybe once every five years.
David Gardner: When you buy a new squash racket, this by the way, is a wayward and lame way to get back to the stock number 7. When you buy a new squash racket, Yasser, do you go on the Internet to make the purchase?
Yasser El-Shimy: Yes.
David Gardner: Just on Amazon or do you support some small business somewhere, a business that wouldn't have Amazon's footprint or capabilities but might nevertheless be well powered enabled by a competing e-commerce platform?
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, the longtime shareholder of both Amazon.com and Shopify. Yeah, I usually buy from Amazon. I'll just be honest here.
David Gardner: Oh, that's fine. But the stock that you've already realized is stock number 7 is Shopify, ticker symbol SHOP. Oh my gosh, guys, it's our other throw-down for this episode of the market cap game show. Both Bill and Yasser put their thinking caps on. They've got their pens out, their posted notes. They're about to write down their personal stated range for Shopify, ticker symbol SHOP. All right. Well, turning first to Yasser. Yasser, you've been a shareholder. Good job. I haven't been, by the way. I helped pick the stock, but I've never owned it. I'm so happy for you. What is your stated market cap range for Shopify?
Yasser El-Shimy: My stated market cap range is $98.5 billion to $103 billion.
David Gardner: $98.5-$103 billion. Bill, what did you write down?
Bill Barker: Ninety-eight to 101.
David Gardner: Ninety-eight even to 101. Wow, those are two incredibly tight market cap ranges. It's almost like you guys anticipated. I might ask about Shopify. You couldn't have known because you've been in a soundproof chamber, not fed for over four days. But here you are and you both made wickedly good guesses. Players at home, it's now up to you. Do you want to go with Bill who said 98-101 billion or are you going to go Yasser, $98.5-$103 billion. If you said Yasser, give yourself a point. Oh my golly, this was close. The market cap as we speak for Shopify is 101.68 billion. Yasser, you allowed 98.5-103. Bill cut it off at 101.
Yasser El-Shimy: What was it when we started recording?
David Gardner: It's a good question. I will tell you. This is the right question and a little bit of inside baseball here. I usually take down the market caps we are taping live here Tuesday afternoon, December 19th at 1:20 PM, Eastern. That is right about where Shopify is now. But I generally do all of this the day before and just log market close when it was 98.22 billion, which means Bill you were going to win because you said 98-101 and Yasser said 98.5, he was over. But we have to respect the market, respect the game, respect the players. Yasser, point number 3. If you players at home said Yasser, oh my gosh, you could have said either and be pretty darn right, but we got to honor the game here, plus one.
Yasser El-Shimy: This is tough. Because I believe that at 12:15, I bet I was. When we started, when we came in, we're still in the soundproof booth. I think it seems to have done well in the hour and maybe the market has done well as well. Who knows?
David Gardner: This is what greatness looks like. I'm just happy to be at the same table with you guys.
Yasser El-Shimy: I love Shopify. It has been good to me over the years, so I'm glad that it gave me a point now.
David Gardner: It is one of the better picks in Motley Fool Rule Breakers history. Carl Teal first picked it on February 24th of 2016. He's write up, and I'm going to quote it here, it began, "Tobias Lütke was a programming prodigy with a taste for adventure and business, and all three of those things came together in his early 20s when he launched an online snowboarding gear store with a friend. But there was a fairly fundamental problem. Even with his advanced skills, Lütke couldn't find a simple e-commerce platform that could be adapted to different sales channels or accommodate a growing business so he created his own solution and it quickly became much bigger than snowboards", and that write-up goes on from there. Shopify seven years later, by the way, is a 36-bagger. Not only that, but one month later in Rule Breakers, so March of 2016, it was time for me to cast my eyes up and down that whole Rule Breakers scorecard and pick a stock already picked as a rerecommendation. Man, am I glad I picked Shopify because that position is at 29 bagger, which is a great investment too. It also shows though, guys, that the stock had gone up 28% from our initial pick one month before, and so I did the rule breakery thing that I like to do in part because other people won't do it, which is why breaking the rules works. By the way, I said, my favorite stock is the one that just went up 30% over the past month. Most people shy away. In my experience, they wait for the dip. I won't call them dips. Anyway, these are past points made in Fool services and on this podcast add to your winners. Credit again to Carl Teal for seeing a great thing back in February of 2016. It's been picked many a time. My brother, Tom Gardner, many services. We've had Toby Lütke speak to our employees, etc. I can't remember if he mentioned the snowboards or not. Bill, did you remember that story about snowboards?
Bill Barker: Now that you mention it, yeah.
David Gardner: Yeah.
Bill Barker: In fact, I remember even further back, an article of yours, David, from back in the '90s about having had a good day in the market, some stock went up and you celebrated by buying a new squash racket with your winnings. [laughs]
David Gardner: You're exactly right. I cannot believe you remember that, Bill.
Bill Barker: Then of course, the stock came back to the previous price, but.
David Gardner: As a young guy in my early 20s, I was like, I needed to buy a new squash racket, and I'd had one good day with one investment and I just decided I'm going to sell that and buy a squash racket, and the rest is history. I thought it was completely buried, Bill, until you mentioned that.
Yasser El-Shimy: Sounds like we got to go play squash sometimes. [laughs]
David Gardner: I tend to hit the wall. I'm not very good. [laughs]
Bill Barker: I got to take issue with one thing said about squash being the most fun. It's the most brutal racket sport.
Yasser El-Shimy: That's what makes it fun.
Bill Barker: Yeah. If you like brutality, and I played squash in college so I know the game, although it was a slightly different version back then than what's played today.
David Gardner: Yeah. Well, and indeed, Bill, you have won a national championship or two in a racket sport here in the United States of America, am I right?
Bill Barker: Yes, not in squash, which is a greater accomplishment than the.
David Gardner: But would you brag for 30 seconds cause you never do.
Bill Barker: Yeah. My son is the US amateur doubles champion in the game of court tennis.
David Gardner: That is the game that you have also won a national championship in, right? Is it court tennis?
Bill Barker: Yes. But I was choosing not to brag about myself, [laughs] which is.
David Gardner: Well, I think it's great to brag about your son.
Bill Barker: Despite your demands that I do so, so I went ahead and bragged about my child.
David Gardner: Yeah, that was beautiful. Well, we'll move on. But before we do, a lot of us know the phrase tennis court. Fewer know the phrase court tennis. What is the difference between court tennis and tennis and/or squash?
Bill Barker: Court tennis as it is called in the US, although it is called real tennis in England and Australia, [laughs] which is not to distinguish it from fake tennis but is a corruption of royal tennis, is the game to hearken back to the Fool origins, Shakespeare, when he was writing about tennis as he did.
David Gardner: He did.
Bill Barker: Two or three times, the game was played back in that day and it's still played the same way on the same courts. It's the origin, it's the ancestor of all racket sports. It's an indoor court. It's got a net across the middle, but there are walls that you hit off of and various other things.
David Gardner: Sounds like fun.
Bill Barker: It is fun. It's great, fun. There are only 10 or 11 courts in the US, but.
David Gardner: Any truth of the rumors that four of them are about to become a court pickleball. [laughs]
Bill Barker: That's the sport that is threatening tennis.
David Gardner: Not to raise your hassles. [laughs] But have you heard about court pickleball though? Court pickleball?
Bill Barker: Courts pickleball. No, there is no courts pickleball. [laughs]
David Gardner: All right. Onto our final three stocks. The score; Bill four, Yasser three. Bill for stock number 8. I thought I'd asked ChatGPT to explain this company and what it does to an eight-year-old. You can find a deeper, more complicated explanation at Motley Fool Rule Breakers where I picked this stock. You can also read more about it on the company website, but here's how ChatGPT has it. After I share this, Bill, I'm not going to ask you to guess the market cap yet. I'm going to ask you to guess the company. Here we go. This is ChatGPT explaining this company to an eight-year-old and I quote, "Think of blank as a company that makes special tools and ingredients for scientists who are like chefs. These scientists work in big kitchens called labs where they make very special and important medicines. These aren't your usual medicines. They are made from tiny living parts like cells, which are super small parts that are in all living things, including us, eight-year-old. Blank helps these scientists by giving them things like tiny strainers and special ingredients to make sure their medicines are made just right. These medicines are really important because they help people who are sick with tough illnesses get better. Blank is a bit like a helper in making sure those medicines are safe and can do their job well." Now I will tell you, Bill, because I know this company, I know the answer. If I just heard that, I don't think I could have guessed it, can you?
Bill Barker: No, I can't guess it. [laughs]
David Gardner: Excellent.
Bill Barker: I thought I got close there for a second, especially in the Rule Breaker category. I'm going to embarrass myself by throwing out. I feel like I could just throw out random syllables.
David Gardner: That word random, it starts with the same letter.
Bill Barker: Yeah. It's suck all the way there.
David Gardner: Repligen Corp, ticker symbol RGEN. Probably a stock you may not have spent a lot of time with. But again, that's what makes the market cap game show fun. I'll talk a little bit about how it's performed later, but let's cut right to the quick again here. Bill Barker, your market cap range for Repligen, ticker symbol RGEN.
Bill Barker: I had luck with the 5-15 billion, I was at 500-1.5. I'm going to go with 5-15.
David Gardner: Bill has gone with $5 billion to $15 billion. Yasser, players at home. Do you want to agree or disagree?
Yasser El-Shimy: I will disagree.
David Gardner: It's a shame you did, Yasser, because that was a pretty good guess. In fact, you both have distinguished yourself now by providing ranges. We're dead in the middle. The median was the market cap. Bill you said, 5-15, 10.01 billion is the market cap for Repligen Corp.
Bill Barker: Not a tight range that I gave here but apparently.
David Gardner: Loose but with the right medium. The golden mean, my friend.
Bill Barker: Multiples of five I think are what I need to go with. I'm still bitter about losing the Shopify. I haven't gotten past that. That was the best guess I had by far, and it cost me.
David Gardner: Well, I was checking the performance Repligen I first picked for Motley Fool Rule Breakers, July 25th, 2019 stocks, about 90 back then, so today at 180 which is where Repligen trades. It's been right about a double, not bad over the course of four patient years and counting, I will say though that it went from 90-330, two years later, that remember of the market went way up in 2021, briefly. Well, Repligen went with it, so it's dropped 330-180, a reminder of the volatility that rule breaker investors should be expecting. Even with global life sciences, companies doing really interesting cool things that an eight year old can understand. As long as I was bragging earlier about my rerecommendation of Shopify, I should mention I did rerecommend Repligen in November of 2020 and that position is down 14 percent. There's that too. But we're not looking backwards. Well, at least for the Market Cap Game Show, gentlemen, we're looking right now at the truth right in front of us. Even if it keeps wavering a little bit and it broke Bill's heart with Shopify, we're looking at the truth, but as investors, all we really care about is not then or now but the future, and I hope it has good things for Repligen and its investors. The score is Bill, five, Yasser, three. Yasser, that means if you are to once again manage a tie and we'll have a tie breaker, you're going to have to win not just this next one, but the one after that too. Do you feel it? Do you feel like you can bring that?
Yasser El-Shimy: I felt it before I started. Now that I see what Bill is made of, I'm not so sure.
David Gardner: Let me turn to you for stock Number 9. Yasser, let me try out a marketing tag line on you. Rate this one 0-10, where 10 is perfect, and zero is the worst marketing tag line that you've ever heard. You ready?
Yasser El-Shimy: Yeah.
David Gardner: I quote, "We're in the business of helping you do business."
Yasser El-Shimy: Say that's an eight.
David Gardner: Why didn't you give it a nine?
Yasser El-Shim: Can you say it again?
David Gardner: Yes, totally, here it is. We're in the business of helping you do business.
Yasser El-Shimy: It's a great, catchy marketing phrase. I feel it's a little too cheesy for my taste, so that's why I didn't give it a nine.
David Gardner: Thank you. Well, this company, Bill and Yasser, is in the business of accelerating the financial services industry into the digital world. In their words, and I'm going to quote them again, "We provide the critical infrastructure that powers investing, corporate governance, and communications to enable better financial lives." I admit having randomized this from the full 500, I know very little about this company, but I'll have a few fun fact after we cover the market cap for Broadridge Financial Solutions. The ticker symbol here, BR. Yasser, your market cap range for Broadridge Financial Solutions. We're in the business of helping you do business.
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, I think that's the company that's in Bill Sweet Spot, you know, those small-cap companies. I'm going to go with $1-3.5 billion.
David Gardner: One billion to 3.5 billion dollars. Broadridge Financial Solutions players at home, Bill Barker, agree or disagree.
Bill Barker: Strongly disagree.
David Gardner: Indeed that's going to clinch the victory because you're right, like Yasser. I can now say like Yasser, because Yasser was clearly wrong on this. But I also knew very little about Broadridge Financial Solutions. Whose market Cap 23.02 billion.
Yasser El-Shimy: Oh my God, how is that even close.
Bill Barker: You go with 22, but I know the company because it was I haven't actually followed along since moving from asset management back to publishing.
David Gardner: From Motley Fools schools.
Bill Barker: But it was in a few of the things that I managed. I was thinking 22.
David Gardner: Well, indeed it's been a good stock pick for three Motley Fools services. Members will know which ones those are. Bill, you obviously have some awareness of this company. Have you ever like looked over the financial statements, visited Owings Mills Maryland where it's based?
Bill Barker: I have not. It was really Brian Inman brought it.
David Gardner: Fellow Fool.
Bill Barker: Fellow Fool and the head of asset management and he was the proud, you know, sponsor and follower.
David Gardner: It has been a very fine investment. It has been a clear winner. I do want to note in passing as we moved to our final stock, that Owings Mills Maryland was where my recollection is that's where the Louis Rukeyser Wall Street Week show was filmed. For those who remember the longest running show on PBS for decades. The reason I mentioned that briefly is because that was my one job before the Motley Fool. I wrote for Louis Rukeyser's financial newsletter. I was doing so here in Alexandria, Virginia where the newsletter company was based. But the TV show, pretty sure they would always say from Owings Mills, Maryland, it's Wall Street Week. I do want to express one regret right now. You know Dan Pink wrote a great book last year called The Power of Regret. I had him on this podcast. Listeners will remember Dan talking about regret. He spoke to our company just last week at Foolapalooza, spoke some about regret. He said it's important to articulate your regrets. Don't walk around saying what I used to say before I read Dan's book, I got no regrets. I live life without regrets. He's like that's probably not true and it really shouldn't be true. Dan has said by expressing regret, we often live better into a future where we recognize that we don't want to do that again. We have a regret, we're going to be a better person.
I was once quoted in The New Yorker reflecting on my job with Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street, which was the name of the Financial Newsletter. It was in the Talk of the town, early days for The Motley Fool. The writer who I really liked, Jesse Kornbluth, who wrote that lovely piece that really catapulted the Motley Fool, earliest days. When asked to describe my experience working for Rukeyser for six months before the Fool and the Internet started, I said it was a waste of time and I noticed in media that came after that did not make Louis very happy. He was a consistent critic of the Motley Fool. He would call us out back when we were still trying to get our legs under us and convince the world that a couple of young guys with jester caps would actually be worth listening to. Louis was definitely not a promoter, he was a detractor and he took quite personally, it seems that I had described my time with his company as a waste of time, and I do regret that I said that I did like Rukeyser. I definitely did say that because I felt that way. It wasn't his fault. It was not a great corporate culture. But friends, thank you for allowing me that brief moment as we talk about Broadridge Financial Solutions operating out of Owings Mills Maryland to express regret.
Bill Barker: Without mentioning or going into Rukeyser personally, do you still think of it as a waste of time?
David Gardner: I don't fully. First of all, I don't think you should say that about a former employer to the media. I was in my 20s and having fun.
Bill Barker: You regret saying it, so I'm not.
David Gardner: You're right. I regret saying it.
Bill Barker: But to what degree do you still think that it was a regret?
David Gardner: I'm so glad that I resigned from that job just six months in which is as the eldest in my family where you're probably raised with a sense that you should be a responsible person and like stay on and give the old college try for a couple of years. It looks bad in your resume. I'm really glad that I cut out. I'm not sure the Motley Fool would have been born. Had I, you know, stuck with it day in, day out, in order to look good for my resume, I will say I got to interview a bunch of people in the financial world. The kinds of people who would be on Louis Rukeyser's show, Wall Street Week. I did gain some experiences and some famous people that I got to talk to about finance. That was a nice feature.
Bill Barker: I recall way back, again, back into the '90s. Well, we'll bring the show back there repeatedly. You're writing. I don't remember writing about it as a waste of time, just as a frustrating thing of bringing on things like we should recommend index funds because of their superior performance to manage funds as a group and you couldn't get that through the channels there. I think of it as having set up some of the foils that the Motley Fool had. That you probably would have known about those foils anyway but the experience of what you can say in different channels and.
David Gardner: I was less aware of media and the effects of media back then just doing our Fool thing. Though I love going back there, we're not going to spend any more time there this week in the '90s, but thank you. As a 25 year employee, you were with us in the late '90s, you remember those heady days.
Bill Barker: You mentioned Foolapalooza, we spent a little time there on those days, it was great to revisit.
David Gardner: Absolutely. Onto stock Number 10. Yasser. While you can't win this time, people tend to remember just the last thing. All psychological studies show, we really just remember the last thing. You have an opportunity to emblazon on our collective memory, the greatness of you.
Yasser El-Shimy: Come down in flames.
David Gardner: That's true. But let's look at things half full, as I turned to Bill for stock Number 10. Bill, let me be blunt and I'm going to ask here on behalf of the American people, do you pay your taxes?
Bill Barker: Yes, I do. Not by choice, as it's removed from my paycheck every two weeks by your company. Despite my best attempts to not pay taxes, this company just won't let me get away with it.
David Gardner: I thought to ask Bill because you know, the Internal Revenue Service here in this country estimates that the tax compliance rate in the US is about 83-84%. Which means one in six Americans, nobody listening to us right now because we're all fellow Fools, and we wouldn't do that. But one in six Americans is under reporting or or not filing their taxes. Bill, have you ever used TurboTax?
Bill Barker: I have, yes.
David Gardner: Did you find it a pleasant experience so far as paying taxes could be?
Bill Barker: In comparison to doing my taxes myself, I did find it relatively pleasant.
David Gardner: Generally, TurboTax reduces errors, it talks us through your e-filing. These days, that's almost de rigueur, but back in the day that was a thing to filing electronically through through TurboTax. I think studies would show that there are fewer under-reporting people not filing their taxes, it's probably a self selection bias. Those who are using TurboTax, you probably know where we're headed with stock Number 10. TurboTax an acquisition of this company that ironically, now that I think about it, I wrote about on the back page of the Rukeyser newsletter when I was saying, Intuit. You can actually track your expenses Quicken. Back in the day, I wrote a whole article about Quicken and they took out all the fun parts and made it gray and uninteresting. That's ultimately why month after month I walked away from that job. I would pick something like a discount broker index fund, as you mentioned, or Quicken, and I'd say, everybody should use this. The form in which it got published didn't look fun or great to me anymore, but it was. Quicken, a product of Intuit. Ticker symbol INTU, stock Number 10 for this edition, the final stock for this edition of the Market Cap Game Show. Bill Barker, your stated market cap range for Intuit ticker symbol INTU.
Bill Barker: This is my chance to do some trash talking. Since you started it, you can either lose or lose badly depending on how you do here.
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, you should go for the jugular.
Bill Barker: Just throwing you. I'm in your head now. I'm going to go with 90-170 billion.
David Gardner: Quite a wide range, 90 billion to 170 billion. A range of $80 billion there. Yasser players at home, 90-170 billion for Intuit, agree or disagree?
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, despite the fairly wide market cap range that Bill offered, I'm going to have to disagree with this. I believe that Intuit is over $200 billion market cap but we shall see what you say, David.
David Gardner: Well, you're right and wrong. The key is that you're right because it is outside just barely Bill's wide range Intuit, clocking in at $173.18 billion.
Yasser El-Shimy: I thought of 180.
David Gardner: You just said it was over 200 because that's not actually true, Yasser, but the main thing is you got it right. That closes out this edition of the market cap game show with a final score of Bill six, Yasser, four. Very close. I'm happy to say pick Intuit for stock advisor. I was checking it November of 2012 and it had a market cap of 17 billion back then. Today it's 170 billion, so it's been a ten bagger and it was already feeling like a fairly mature, impressive, small to mid cap company back then. It has become, Bill, and you said this with confidence, you knew it was big although Yasser, you knew it was even bigger than that. Is this a stock that either you guys owns or have researched?
Bill Barker: Neither. I'm aware of and usually outside of the market cap of where I was working on things but should have owned it.
Yasser El-Shimy: To my regret, I do not own Intuit. It has been on my watch list forever, but as you always say David, dips wait for dips. [laughs] I'm the dip here.
David Gardner: Well, I'm a dip too 'cause I'm the one who picked it for stock advisor members, I've never owned it myself. We can't often own all the stocks that we pick, especially if we're picking on a very regular basis. But I do think back fondly on Quicken. Of course Quickbooks is a big business for Intuit today. That back page of that Rukeyser Financial Newsletter, not published out of Owings Mills Maryland, but Alexandria, Virginia, which is where Fool HQ Studios is today.
Thank you both. The final accounting is then this Bill Barker six, Yasser El-Shimy four. But Bill and Yasser and I know that we're not playing this game for each other. We're playing for you. How did you score dear Fool? Dear listener at home, we hope that you outscored all of us. The purpose of the Market Cap Game Show is to make more popular, I'm never going to say as popular as jeopardy, but to make more popular market caps, the real value of stocks on the market that most people who just look at price per share don't really understand. Except that you do understand, because you just listen to us for an hour, and I hope you scored at least a few points this week and maybe beat one or both of our competitors.
Bill and Yasser, you both distinguish yourselves and help make the world a bit smarter, happier, and richer this week. Next week is our year-end December mail back. I hope you're able to enjoy a lovely holiday between now and then, wherever you are. A last line from you, Bill.
Bill Barker: Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself on Hulu.
David Gardner: A last line from you, Yasser.
Yasser El-Shimy: Well, speaking of regrets, I would like to share a regret that I have, which is agreeing to go against Bill Barker on this game. He is more than a worthy adversary. Good job Bill.
Bill Barker: I'm probably going to retire undefeated. That's my goal.
David Gardner: We will try to have you both back, and I certainly hope to have you back. We do this the penultimate Wednesday of every quarter, we might even do this a little bit more than that in 2024, I have so much fun. Bill Yasser, listeners at home Fool on.
Bill Barker has positions in Apple. David Gardner has positions in Apple and Netflix. Yasser El-Shimy has positions in Adobe and Shopify. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Align Technology, Apple, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Danaher, Domino's Pizza, Intuit, Netflix, Repligen, Shopify, and Varonis Systems. The Motley Fool recommends Clean Energy Fuels, Lockheed Martin, and Marriott International and recommends the following options: long January 2024 $420 calls on Adobe and short January 2024 $430 calls on Adobe. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
