In this podcast, Motley Fool senior analyst Jim Gillies discusses:
- Home Depot's lackluster first-quarter results masking an otherwise strong business.
- Capital One getting a boost from the Oracle of Omaha.
- The surprising energy stock the Berkshire Hathaway team took a stake in.
Motley Fool host Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp dip into the mailbag to answer listener questions about investing, retirement, and more.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on May 16, 2023.
Chris Hill: What stocks have the folks at Berkshire Hathaway been buying and selling? Glad you asked, Motley Fool Money starts now.
Chris Hill: I'm Chris Hill joining me today. Our man in Canada, Motley Fool senior analyst, Jim Gillies. Good to see you, my friend.
Jim Gillies: Good to be seen, Chris.
Chris Hill: We're going to start with Home Depot and simply put, first-quarter results were not great. Home Depot's revenue was lower-than-expected. Their same-store sales were down 4.5%, and the company says it expects sales to fall somewhere 2-5% for the year, and that is lower than previous guidance. Shares of Home Depot are only down 1%, which as a shareholder, I have to say has me both pleasantly surprised and a little bit confused. Why isn't this worse? I'm not complaining, I'm just confused.
Jim Gillies: Why isn't my stock down more? Come on. I think because it was largely expected. I don't think it's news that after a year of inflationary pressure, which followed two years of being locked in your home when the only thing you could do is basically buy stuff for your home. I'm not surprised that the number of grills and outdoor furniture sets that they're selling has gone down. I'm not surprised that home improvement projects are perhaps smaller than on average than they were a year or two ago. People are choosing to spend their money to go out after being locked in their homes for almost two years or essentially two years. I think it was largely expected, Chris, I also think that the headline I saw that made me look at it and go really, I mean, who cares? It's one of those things where it's a headline that contextually, doesn't make a lot of sense is that the headline was, the last myth of this magnitude was in November of 2002. It's one of your favourite sports teams. You might see your favorite sports even said, oh, they, against this other team they've had a record of over the past 100 years. Well, the guys playing today weren't playing 84 years ago. It's irrelevant. This might be a reference to the fate of the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But anyway, we'll leave that one alone.
Look, the last miss of this magnitude was in November of 2002. Well, I'm going to invert, I'm going to pull my inner Charlie Munger out. I'm going to invert what has transpired for Home Depot since the last miss of this magnitude? Well, for starters, it's been a 10-bagger since. That's about 12% annualized returns before dividends, if you like your returns dividend adjusted assuming reinvestment, it's about 14.5% that has crushed the S&P market returns of 7.7% over the same period. Or again, if you like, dividend reinvestment adjusted about 9.8% for the S&P. This has been a market-crushing performance. I will point out, Home Depot had to suffer under the CEO-ship of Bob Nardelli until he was thankfully ousted in 2007. Look, this is also what has happened since the last miss of this magnitude has been Home Depot has converted itself essentially from a growth story to a cash cow story and brother, they had been milking that cash cow. The CapEx peaked for Home Depot in fiscal 2004, but it stayed about the 3.5 to 4 billion level until fiscal '07. Then concurrent with Nardelli getting ousted and going through the global financial crisis, fell to below a billion dollars by fiscal '09, it's only been slowly ramping up a really slowed new store spending. The business was run for cash.
They did the radical strange thing of deciding to return all of that cash to shareholders. Strange. Over the last 15 years, roughly coinciding with the company finding its footing post-global financial crisis. We're not completely going back to the largest miss of this magnitude, but 15 years is pretty decent. The dividend has gone from $0.90 a year to $8.36 a year. That's about 16% annualized. Chris, you say your shareholder, I hope you're a long-term shareholder. The company has produced about $125 billion and free cash flow cumulatively over the last 15 years, the dividend is taken. That dividend, which has gone straight up, taken about 53 billion. Buybacks have taken about 87 billion. This has reduced since the last miss of this magnitude, this has reduced the share count by 57% from 2.35 billion shares to just over a billion shares today. Now if you add those two numbers together, it's slightly more of the free cash flow they produced. The rest comes from they've increased their debt, stock option exercise. But if you are a trader, if you're someone who tries to go quarter-to-quarter-to-quarter with Home Depot, I don't know why you would.
Chris Hill: I was just going to say, why aren't you finding better targets if you're a trader like that.
Jim Gillies: I hope so. This is the epitome of long-term buy and hold, add opportunistically and forget about it stock, this too shall pass. Before you asked me to be on the show today, I was actually thinking of buying some Home Depot this morning. I guess you ruined it for me in terms of Foolish trading rules. But I'm fine to take that hit because I imagine if I much like my shares in Costco, which I've owned for years and attitude for years. I imagine buying some Home Depot and leaving it alone, I think would do just fine from here. Fine, it's the worst miss of this magnitude in 20 years. To that I say, big deal, don't care.
Chris Hill: Just a reminder because we don't talk about this often. But for any new listeners, yes, we actually do have internal trading restrictions here at The Motley Fool. One of them is, if you're going to talk about a stock on a podcast like this, that basically shuts the window on when the next opportunity for you to buy it is so, sorry to screw that up for you.
Jim Gillies: A sacrifice I'm willing to make, Chris.
Chris Hill: I hope you're willing to continue to make it because we're going to talk about a bunch more stocks in the form of one company which is Berkshire Hathaway, because Berkshire Hathaway filed documents with the SEC late on Monday 13F, revealing a variety of investments. The one that's getting the most attention is Capital One. Berkshire Hathaway is taking a new stake and Capital One is close to $1 billion in terms of the stake. At the start of the trading day, shares of Capital One were up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7%. This was the headline and a lot of people, particularly in the wake of the Berkshire Hathaway meeting, which I know you attended. One of the narratives coming out of that was blind Buffett doesn't really seem to like the banks anymore. The headline of Capital One had some people saying, well, maybe he likes the banks now, no, I mean, you'll look a little further part of this filing we learned that Berkshire Hathaway has sold their remaining shares of US Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon, as well as Taiwan Semiconductor, Restoration Hardware. I'm wondering what stood out to you because I know it's not Capital One.
Jim Gillies: No. I mean, I've gone through I've got a whole list of the notes of what's changed this quarter. But we'll start with Capital One and the banks if you want. First off with Capital One, as you say, they've added about a billion-dollar position. It's 9.9 million shares. Everyone needs to calm down about this, which I guess is probably why that 7% bump didn't last, I think it's only up 1 or 2% as we speak. This is 0.3% of Berkshire's portfolio. Capital One could go bankrupt tomorrow and I'm not sure Berkshire would notice. Really just it's OK. Here's the thing. As you said, the banks completely gassed Bank of New York Mellon, which was previously a $1.1 billion position at the end of 2022, completely gassed US Bancorp, which is only about $290 million. Those are those are relevant. There's still into Bank of America. In fact, they added a little bit to Bank of America in the quarter. The first thing that stood out to me though, is it was conspicuous by what didn't happen in the quarter because of course, this filing this 13F filing is essentially the portfolio as a specific date, March 31st. Of course, they filed these four times a year. The previous one was December 31st, New Year's Eve, and then this is March 31st. We got the quarter. Something happened in the March quarter of this year about in the banking industry. Silicon Valley Bank, ring any bells?
Chris Hill: It rings a couple of bells.
Jim Gillies: Yeah. There was a lot of it. Of course. They went belly up and then there has been this slow-moving banking crisis since. But there was a lot of speculation out there that, oh, Buffett is going to be, he's going to be greedy when others fearful of, if you heard that before, he's going to be buying regional banks. Well, if he was, they neglected to put it into third TNF now, I mean, in theory. Now, so he obviously wasn't, in theory there could be some positions that he's asked for to he's not done building a position. In theory, you could ask for a waiver, but they usually disclose that there's a waiver is not telling you what we're buying. Didn't see that this time. It didn't look too hard to be perfectly frank. I think that the takeaway is he's just not buying the regional banks yet, or maybe ever, so that's fine. But things that leaped out to me if we can move away from banking. Some moves in the oil sector got some attention. He sold down about a fifth of the Chevron stake he had accumulated, probably sold about $5.1 billion worth of Chevron depending on where he sold it in the quarter.
He added, again to Occidental Petroleum. Added about 1.25 billion. If you use the weight average price, I suspect it was probably lower because you can go track his prices online with his Form 4 filings and he's generally not adding over 60 bucks like the high 50s right now. In fact, he's actually been adding this week or last week rather, he's added 2.2 million shares in May 2023, average price just over $58. Don't forget, Berkshire also owns about 9.3 billion of 8% preferred stock from Occidental, was 10 billion, but Occidental started to redeem those preferred and why that matters. I'd have to redeem at 10% premium, so they're getting rid of the 8% dividend they have to pay. But they have to pay them 10% more to get out. That got till 2029 to get out of those. Why that matters is as part of that financing deal where he gave them $10 billion for our preferred. He also bought 84 million warrants for Occidental, 84 million shares he could buy at an average price of $59.62 I think. Those warrants expire a year after the full redemption of the preferred. Berkshire is hard into Occidental. People might look at the Chevron sale, they're, oh, he's selling, doesn't believe in oil prices going up, net higher over time. I'm like, I use this change in horses. Something else that I think is probably going to raise a few eyebrows and I am here for that is he added just over 20 million shares to Berkshire's largest position which would be Apple. Now, as about $3 billion he added Ballpark.
Chris Hill: We chatted about this earlier and this is another thing I'm scratching my head on in the same way that you talked about Home Depot earlier and said this was largely expected, how could anyone be surprised coming out of the Berkshire Hathaway meeting? All of the flowers that Warren Buffett's through Tim Cook and Apple, how could anyone be surprised that Berkshire Hathaway is adding to their stake in Apple?
Jim Gillies: That's exactly where I was going to go. I don't know how you can be surprised, but the prevailing wisdom to market wisdom, and you can't see the air-quotes Fools by hope you heard them. Is that Apple is too expensive? It's trading today at about 29 times trading earnings. Growth has stalled over the last year, revenue was down 0.2% earnings per shares down about 4%. Now, I'm going to point you to the most recent quarter, Chris, where revenue was up 11% and earnings per share, helped by buybacks were up by 25% versus the same quarter last year. The flat numbers might be hiding maybe a nascent reacceleration of some growth. But look Apple with Buffett again at the meeting, he called Apple a better business than anything Berkshire owns. It flat-out said it. That's interesting. He praised as you say Tim Cook has praised many times that Tim Cook's management style and the buybacks that are ongoing and Apple. Apple remains the predominant cash-generation story of our lifetimes. Their margins and their returns on capital are still fantastic.
There's still net cash positive, or are there still net cash position on the balance sheet? They of course are free cash-flow positive. Maybe a little respect for the long-term record is warranted rather than just talking about how, oh no, Apple's too expensive now and I've seen people on Twitter who knows about how accurate that is talking about shorting Apple here. I'm like, good luck with that. That's a full strategy. You have fun. That's Apple, but again, that's probably going to get a few people what's going on. Eliminated a couple of small positions. Restoration Hardware, which is about 630 million at the end of 2022, that's completely gassed. I'm sure they're going to be people saying, is that recession or inflation concerns probably warranted eliminated completely their position in Taiwan? Semiconductor another 650 million at the end of 2022. This was completely not a surprise. Buffett flat-out said that they eliminated it at the meeting. The reason why would seem to be a geographical risk, which you can probably read as these on unhappy with the relationship of China, and Taiwan, and what it might mean for the future of Taiwan Semiconductor.
Chris Hill: This is another move that if you were paying attention to the Q&A during the meeting, you really shouldn't be surprised by the sale of Taiwan Semiconductor.
Jim Gillies: No, it was partly everywhere. I got three more for you. They added about 16% more to their HP, Hewlett Packard, the older fuel QHP position, just shy of half a billion dollars. It's about 360 billion. I think that's just a growth at a reasonable price investment. Certainly, there's a few folks out there in financial, media and world, and Twitter-sphere and whatever we call these things who really like that position. That's OK. I'm going to point out it's still barely a one-per cent position in the overall portfolio. They did reduce their stake and Activision Blizzard by about 6, 7%. Why I'm hitting this one is because first off, a year ago, Buffett flat-out said this was a merger play. They expect the deal to go through with Microsoft acquiring Activision and I believe it's in the mid-'90s where the deal price is, the stock price is currently in mid-'70s so they were looking for that deal to go through and for them to get a higher price. There's that, of course, that deal is run into some problems over in Europe. There was speculation beforehand that Buffett may have gases position entirely.
But we'll find out in the 13F. I'm like, well, since the restrictions are the blocking of the deal that happened after March 31st, now you won't find out in the 13F because that's a position ending March 31st. Buffett famously won't tell you any more than he has to. Maybe we'll see in the next one, he's continued to sell down the stock. He certainly sounded like he thought that deal should go through, but that sometimes what should happen and what do happen or different things. Then the last thing that I love about the Buffet 13F or the Berkshire 13F because this is a company as one of the residents, small-cap guys at The Motley Fool. This one's right in my wheelhouse and I was actually looking at this stock about two weeks ago. I'm still looking at it. I'm still wondering about it. But it came out that 13F that Berkshire Hathaway has initiated a position in Vitesse Energy, 51,000 shares at the present price, this is worth roughly a million dollars. Now, this is weird because it's a $555, $560 million company. Even if Berkshire bought the whole thing here, it's irrelevant in the context of $328 billion equity portfolio. If they bought the whole thing, it's 0.17 per cent of the portfolio, but they didn't buy the whole thing.
They bought a billion dollars worth, which is what? 0.0003%. Why even bother? Are we sure that this wasn't Warren who bought a million dollars of this thing because he thought it looks cool and they have a 10% dividend yield at this point? It's just weird to me to see that, but I'm wondering how many people are going to try to coattail Berkshire Hathaway and go running in the direction that the Tesla Energy. Anyway, that was the last thing I thought was fun.
Chris Hill: We're going to find out. Jim Gillies, always great talking to you. Thanks for being here.
Jim Gillies: Honor and a pleasure, Chris.
Chris Hill: You've got questions. They've got answers. Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp dip into the mailbag to answer your questions about investing, retirement, and dealing with stock from an employer.
Alison Southwick: Our first question comes from Jared. My wife and I took a modest chunk of money and set it aside for individual stocks. She and I are taking it as an educational exercise in researching companies, looking at balance sheets, reading the news, and keeping track of progress. So far, I have bought a few shares, each of AMD Berkshire Hathaway in Dick's Sporting Goods and I mean, literally a few shares. My two questions are. One, do you think that there is a minimum share number to reach to really make investments worthwhile and two, I've heard the quote attributed to Peter Lynch that goes, the best time to buy a stock is now and the best time to sell is never. But when you talk about watering the flowers and pulling the weeds, does that mean selling stocks, or does that mean rather just stopping purchasing a certain stock while continuing to purchase shares of flourishing stocks?
Robert Brokamp: I think barring a few shares in a few companies is a great way to tip your toes into buying individual stocks. We do generally recommend that an investor owns at least 25 companies just so that you're sufficiently diversified. It might be better to add some more companies to your portfolio rather than add to what you already own. These days, it's pretty easy to do with commission-free trading. And some brokers offer fractional shares so you can add more companies with relatively small amounts of money. As you get more comfortable investing in companies, you can increase the percentage of your portfolio you devote to individual stocks. I would say that roughly speaking, once it reaches about 5% of your portfolio, then it begins to have a material impact on your overall performance. But stick with a percentage that you're comfortable with as you've learned and maybe track your skills at picking stocks. I know many people who have 90% of more of their portfolios in mutual funds and index funds but just pick stocks with a smallish portion of their portfolios.
As for watering the flowers and pulling the weeds, it's a general, Foolish guideline to let your winners run, though, I would say that every Motley Fool analyst has a somewhat different take on that. I would say that every time you have cash to invest, focus more on the stocks future potential than its past performance though that's definitely a signal of what to pay attention to. As for whether you should sell stocks that are significantly underperforming. We had the full of plenty of stories of stocks that were down 70, 80, 90%, but then turned around became great investments. Also, many stocks that went down and stayed down. I would focus on the reason you bought these companies. If they're still valid and the stock isn't doing well, or maybe it's down significantly because the market overreacted, then just keep holding on. Or is it underperforming and maybe gone down significantly because the future potential really has changed. It's not going to be the investment you thought it would be. I would say if so then maybe you should sell the stock and invest the money elsewhere. I know that can be difficult because it's an acknowledgment that we made a mistake and we're essentially locking in losses if you're selling it at a loss is actually evidenced that investors hold onto their losers too long and sell winners too early. What behavioral finance experts call the disposition effect. But sometimes the right move is to look at our wounds, try to learn from the mistake, and move on.
Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from Gary. Alison, that's me, you are wonderful, smart, and funny, but I think this one is for bro. I'm 61, my wife is 50. When deciding about when I should retire, how do I account for the likelihood that she'll continue to work for several more years? I don't think we have enough saved for both of us to retire now, but we could probably live on what she makes as a contract employee. I don't plan to retire right now, but I would like to take my foot off the gas pedal at some point in the near future and control my own time a little more. Complicating matters a bit is that I'm the one who has health insurance benefits. Should I just see a fee-only financial advisor to go through the specific? It's true, Gary, but bro really is the scholar here and I'm just the, I don't know, Gracie to his George Burns. But I have been doing this show along his side for a very long time. So let's see if I can guess what bro's response would be. I think he would say yes, you should meet with a fee-only certified financial planner if you're approaching retirement. Bro is also going to say that he's glad to say that you're looking to semi-retire and not retire early because the science tells us that that's the healthier and wealthier path. You'll have more money because you're still be earning a paycheck and you'll probably stay more active and engaged in life. Here's the thing. I'm not actually sure what he's going to say about the problem with the healthcare. Bro, this is where I need you to step in. Was I right?
Robert Brokamp: Yes. I'm going to say Gary is right about everything he said about you because you are wonderful, smart, and funny.
Alison Southwick: There we go.
Robert Brokamp: You perfectly anticipated what I always going to say. Yes, I would say anyone really every five or so years should see a fee-only financial planner, but particularly as you get closer to retirement. How do you find a fee-only financial planner? I'm just going to name the networks I always name and that is the Garrett Planning Network, G-A-R-R-E-T-T, National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, that's NAPFA, and the XY Planning Network. I should say it's not going to be cheap. According to the Justin Nichols, the Director of Operations for the Garrett Network, the average hourly rate across their network is $225, with most falling in the range of 175-350. To do a thorough analysis of your retirement prospects will require at least a few hours, if not several. It may sound like a lot of money, but one thing to understand is actually most financial advisors don't charge by the hour, but they charge by assets under management, the average fee being 1% or so. So when you think of paying 1% of your portfolio to have it managed and get the financial planning, it actually could be very expensive, particularly if you actually don't want your assets managed. You just want a one-time analysis of your retirement plan. If you're looking for a tool that could do some of the number crunching for you for free, do an online search for CalcXML's tool called the Comprehensive Retirement Planning Module. I think it's one of the best free retirement calculators out there.
Just make sure that you have the right one because CalcXML makes lots of calculators. The one we're looking for here has the number 606 at the end of the website address. It's not necessarily a substitute for a professional planner, but you'll still learn a thing or two. As for the healthcare coverage, that's a tough one. You can visit healthcare.gov to see what might be available to you through the Affordable Care Act. But you might also talk to your employer about how many hours you'd have to work and still be eligible for healthcare coverage. Nowadays, more employers are embracing what's coming to be known as a phased retirement, creating programs by which older employees can work part-time for a few years before retiring. It's good for the employer because many are still struggling to find enough qualified workers and by keeping you around a while longer it limits the brain drain and you could even spend time training your replacement. It allows you to, as you say, take the foot off the gas pedal and have more free time. As Alison said, the evidence about retiring is actually mixed and staying somewhat engaged in the workforce for longer might be good for you.
Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from Vee. A big part of my portfolio used to be the stocks I had received from my company. Recently I've sold those stocks to invest in index funds recommended by the Motley Fool. My question is, should I make that investment in one transaction or is there a better strategy such as investing a portion every certain number of days to hedge against fluctuations in the market?
Robert Brokamp: There have been several studies that looked at whether it's better to invest a lump-sum all at once or dollar-cost average into the market over a period of, say, 6-12 months and the consensus is that investing all at once with something like 66-75% of the time, depending on this study and the period looked at. This is because historically the US stock market is up approximately three out of every four years. So usually it makes sense to get your money in the market as soon as possible. I'll just add that I like that Vee is highlighting that we at the Fool recommended index funds as well as individual stocks. If you don't have the time and inclination to file individual companies, there's nothing wrong with just sticking with index funds or at least use them to complement your stock portfolio, which is what I do.
Alison Southwick: Next question comes from Brian. What interest rate is the tipping point where it makes more sense to pay off a loan versus placing money in a high-interest savings account. Currently, my savings rate is 4.2%. Is it as simple as paying off loans with rates greater than my savings rate and putting money into the savings account if the loan rate is lower?
Robert Brokamp: Brian, you're on the right track. I would just add that you might want to factor in taxes. If you are, let's say, the 24% tax bracket and you pay 5% state income taxes, then the 4.2% you're earning on your savings account is really closer to 3% when you factor in the taxes that you're going to have to pay on the interest you receive. That could possibly make paying off your debt sooner more attractive depending on the rate on the debt. But that's just comparing the rate to what you would earn on cash. If you have a longer time horizon, the calculation may be comparing the rate on your debt to what you could earn in the stock market, which could say 6-8% maybe. That's how I think of it. I used to send in extra payments to pay off my mortgage early, but then refinanced during the pandemic at a rate below 3%. So now I invest those extra payments because I'm reasonably confident I could beat that rate on an after-tax basis between now and when I retire. Of course, there's no guarantees. Just a couple of other benefits about paying off debt. First, if you don't have debt when you retire, you've lowered your annual expenses, which means you've lowered the amount you need to withdraw from your accounts. That in turn could lower your taxable income, which not only lowers your tax bill, but as we discussed earlier, could lower the amount of your social security that is taxed and the amount you pay for Medicare. Then, finally, there's just a big psychological benefit to being debt-free, especially by the time you retire. So if having a mortgage or some other loans weighs on you, then paying it off might be the better choice.
Alison Southwick: Next question comes from Patrick. We have most of our retirement in IRAs, but recently heard something about 401(k) annuities. Google tells me BlackRock, along with others, might be buying annuities into their target date funds. That seems like a good idea though I can imagine lots of ways this can go very wrong. Is this a good idea for anyone or just the 401(k) providers?
Robert Brokamp: Some recent laws have made it easier for 401(k) providers to add annuities to their plans. It's not just BlackRock. A recent Wall Street Journal article talked about how State Street and Fidelity are looking to do the same thing. One reason they're getting embedded into target-date funds is that's where the money is. The majority of new 401(k) contributions go into target-date funds. On the one hand, I actually like this idea as long as these are the types of annuities that pay a monthly or annual income for the rest of the retiree's life and especially if it's a better deal than what an individual could get on their own. That's often the case with investments in 401(k)s. I like these types of annuities as a replacement for a portion of a retiree's bond portfolio because they mitigate market risk because the checks keep coming in regardless of what's going on in the stock and bond markets, they mitigate longevity risk because you can't outlive the payments, and they somewhat mitigate the risk of making mistakes later in life due to cognitive decline. One reason these are being added to this 401 ( k ) s is that there's evidence that the average retiree actually doesn't know how to turn their portfolio into a paycheck and they often spend too much too soon. But the other reason is that insurance companies have lobbied Congress very aggressively to get this to happen. I attended one of these lobbying events at Capitol Hill a few years ago. You could just tell they were dying to have access to all that money. I'm cautiously optimistic that this is a positive development, but I'm reserving judgment until I see more of the actual products.
Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from Aryan. I'm currently a 21-year-old senior in college, double majoring in environmental studies and legal studies, with the intention of attending law school in the future. However, I have also developed a keen interest in investing in personal finance and keeping up with market trends. How would you go about finding an entry-level job in investing? Thank you for producing such informative and engaging content. I began listening to your podcast this year and now I listened to it every day. You guys are great. Oh, I'm not going to take all the credit for that. That's nice. Thanks, Aryan.
Robert Brokamp: Yes, thank you and good for you for learning about investing at such a young age. I would say the first thing you do is figure out what you want to focus on. Are you interested exclusively in investing or are you also interested in personal finance topics like retirement planning, college planning, taxes, insurance, and those types of things? If it's just investing, then the gold standard designation to begin investigating is the Chartered Financial Analyst designation or the CFA. If you're more interested in personal finances, check out the Certified Financial Planner designation, which I have. You don't need to necessarily begin preparing for these exams. Just look at some of the course materials, watch some videos on YouTube, and just see if you really enjoy the subject matter. Then look for internships with companies that do what you're interested in. It could be big-name firms or local smaller firms. You can contact them directly or check out the local associations. There are almost 70 CFA societies across the US and for CFP practitioners, there's the Financial Planning Association. They often allow students to attend events or join at a reduced rate. By doing all of that, I think you'll get a sense of what job you're looking for. Perhaps you'll make some contacts which could then lead to an entry-level job.
Chris Hill: As always, people on the program may have an interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
