In this podcast, Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis and analysts Asit Sharma and Bill Mann discuss:
- Microsoft and OpenAI's odd definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
- Meta's push into AI influencers for Instagram.
- One of the tastier parts of President Jimmy Carter's legacy, and the potential ripple effects of the surgeon general's warning about alcohol consumption.
- A few words of caution about fintech and investing in the U.S. in 2025.
- Two stocks worth watching: Darden Restaurants and Imax
And Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner walks listeners through his 2025 investing playbook, what his favorite indicator is saying about the state of the market right now, and how he feels about Bitcoin as it hovers around $100,000. You can become a member of Motley Fool Stock Advisor at Fool.com/signup.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks. When you’re ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy. A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Jan. 03, 2025.
Dylan Lewis: What's AGI? We'll know when we see dollar signs. This week's Motley Fool Money radio show starts now.
Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money.
It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Dylan Lewis. Joining me over the Airwaves, Motley Fool senior analysts Bill Mann and Asit Sharma. Fools, great to have you both with me here to welcome in 2025.
Bill Mann: How are you doing, Dylan. Happy New Year.
Dylan Lewis: Happy New Year to both of you guys. I'm excited. It's nice to be back, feel a little restored, feel a little refreshed after the holiday break. We're going to pick up exactly where we left off in 2024. AI was in focus last year. We're focusing on it in 2025. It's not going anywhere.
Two incredibly interesting stories that I wanted to dive into right away with you guys kickoff the Year. First up, Microsoft and ChatGPT Maker OpenAI have a very well-documented partnership. There are reports out this week detailing some of the more finer elements of their agreement, including how they've defined the Holy grail of AI, borrowing from Supreme Court Justice Potter's Stewart Bill, I know it when I see it hit 100 billion in profits. I feel like this is not the highly technical definition we were expecting.
Bill Mann: In the terminator, SkyNet became self-aware on August 29, 2024, and that's a pretty exciting definition of AGI. This one is so much more boring, but it does, in fact, fall from the fact that Microsoft has invested in OpenAI when OpenAI was and is a non-profit. You have to put some definition that is a little bit different than what you would have with a for-profit company, investing in a for-profit company. They apparently did, like, a little Yelta conference and decide that it's $100 billion in profits, which sounds like a long way away because OpenAI is expected to accumulate losses of about 44 billion between 2023, and 2028, but it could change very quickly. They are simply putting bounds around what happens when it changes.
Dylan Lewis: Asit, I feel like so much of the conversation with AI has focused on development and whether it can pass the Turing test and all of these more noble technical ideas. How do you feel about money being the milestone marker here?
Asit Sharma: Well, I think it's entirely appropriate in one sense. I think SatnaNd is saying to get to $100 billion in profits annually, we're going to need AGI to be able to turn that much money. No one else has been able to figure it out except for monopoly like operations like Saudi Aramco or big conglomerates like Berkshire Hathaway. In some ways, this makes sense. Now, cynically, you could also say this has some bit of sunk cost fallacy in it, perhaps. Microsoft is waking up to these losses and trying to up the anti to recoup their investment. Some could chalk this up to in for a penny in for a pound. We have billions, tens of billions to invest. Let's take a moonshot here. I think what we will find with OpenAI is they'll probably revise this agreement, or definition in a few years to something that's more tenable, but it does spur both parties to try to make some progress.
Bill Mann: Putting the number around it, if you think what $100 billion is, on their website, OpenAI defines AGI as a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically viable work, which in some ways is way more scary to me than $100 billion [laughs] in profit.
Dylan Lewis: I think we have to also note here, $100 billion is not some arbitrary number or AGI is not some arbitrary milestone, I should say. When Microsoft and OpenAI originally contracted their relationship, part of the deal was OpenAI will be free of Microsoft if they hit AGI. That was a term in the contract that they had set up. If you're a Microsoft shareholder, Bill, are you rooting for AGI here, or are you rooting for this very prolonged development process where Microsoft continues to be very closely knit with OpenAI?
Bill Mann: Well, Microsoft is a three trillion dollar company, and so in some ways, these numbers are shockingly small for them, but Microsoft has a $13 billion investment in OpenAI in their for profit subsidiary. Yes, they would like to be able to recoup, and a 44 billion cumulative loss over a five-year period is not for an investor, I would describe, maybe the technical term is not great.
Dylan Lewis: A lot of red.[laughs]
Bill Mann: It's a lot of red. That's right. You would like, at some point, for an investment to pay off.
Dylan Lewis: That's the goal. That's what we try to do here. Sticking with the futuristic, Meta is bringing a suite of AI products to users on the platform, building out its AI studio, offering to help users create online personas or also AI influencers. Meta's VP of generative AI telling the Financial Times, we expect these AIs to actually exist on our platform in the same way that accounts do like human accounts. Asit, did you think we would be here this fast?
Asit Sharma: No, but [laughs] I've always been surprised at the rapidity which certain social platforms grow and explode. I guess this is no different when you throw AI into the mix. What's important here to note from Meta's perspective is that humans have such a narcissistic bent in some ways, and we want to share so much about our lives. They're putting their finger on just an amazing pulse of human tendency, which is to say, hey, look at this. Now, being able to have AI avatars or AI influencers just completely made up things that you, or I could direct or create makes so much sense for Meta on an economic level, because this requires an amazing amount of compute.
If they get hundreds of millions of kids using this system, that's a lot of money that will accrue to Meta. They have every reason to want to promote this. Although the societal effects, do we want to even go there?
Dylan Lewis: In some ways, this is a blend of Meta, saying, we think this is where the world is going, but also where we have seen people already go. Independently, there are agencies that have built AI influencers. They are receiving money from fans. They are also inking brand deals. Bill, if you're an advertiser, are you hopping into the AI influencer economy?
Bill Mann: I think that you have to play there. Whenever I hear these conversations, I'm always mindful of Bill Gates saying in the '70s that he did not believe that every home would need a personal computer. We have an idea of social media now because it is how we have used it. What these types of devices will do will alter it and will create experiences that we really can't conceive of now, even the creators and the advertisers who look to benefit from this can't really conceive of where this is going, but they've got to play in it. They have to be in that sandbox.
Dylan Lewis: Asit, you offered a cynical take earlier when we were talking about that Open AI story. I'm going to put one up here, and I want you to react to it about this Meta story. At the end of the day, advertisers and social media companies want eyeballs. They want time. They want attention, and anything in service of that will work as long as it converts. What do you think of that?
Asit Sharma: I think that's the way the advertising world works. Let me be non-cynical for a moment. [laughs] I think there is a way that all of this evolves because we inevitably will have a reaction at some point in time after this peaks where people want to go back to more human experiences. We're seeing this in smaller variations all over the AI experience, and that will force advertisers to come up with maybe something less homogeneous, less pure, 100% all on AI. A hybrid mix is what I'm indicating of a human and an AI experience. Maybe I don't know. You're picturing a car where a human influencer is driving down the street with their AI in the passenger seat. I'm headed back to heading back to the cynical part here. [laughs] Let me stop while I'm behind.
Bill Mann: It does feel like our robot overlords are setting up for a pretty good 2025.
Dylan Lewis: You opened the 2025 radio show talking about SkyNet, Bill. Where do you think we were going to go today show? No more SkyNet ahead, but plenty more Motley for Money. We'll be back. In just a minute to raise a glass to President Jimmy Carter and how he opened up one of my favorite industries, that'll be coming up after the break. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley For Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. Here on air with Bill Mann and Asit Sharma. Before the end of 2024, we lost President Jimmy Carter after a long and impressive life as a public servant and humanitarian. Bill Carter is known for so many things, but this week, you wanted to zoom in on a very specific part of his legacy.
Bill Mann: It's funny because Jimmy Carter was a teetotaler his entire life, and yet he can single-handedlyy be credited with changing the entire tenor of the American craft brewing industry. Because after prohibition was repealed, they forgot to I'll say forgot to. We'll give them that credit. They didn't really contemplate creating rules around home brewing. It just went without being conversed. It was technically illegal up until 1978, in which time Jimmy Carter signed a bill that ended a prohibition on home brewing, which then the Jim Cooks of the world from Boston Beer will tell you that's where the fantastic Craft Blog industry came from and got its start.
Dylan Lewis: I'll put some numbers to that. Back when Carter signed that bill, there were 90 breweries in the United States. That is the fewest in US history aside from prohibition, which let's be real. There were breweries. They just weren't being reported back then.
Bill Mann: [laughs] Officially.
Dylan Lewis: You go to 1998, 20 years after the bill was passed, there were 1,500. Today, there are 10,000 breweries in the United States. I mentioned all of this, Asit because there's a point here in the way that regulations and markets can work together. If you eliminate the barrier to entry, some smaller players can hop in and maybe do some tasty things for consumers out in the marketplace.
Asit Sharma: I think that's very true. Innovation sometimes gets stifled by regulation. This is a great case study for how coming together for a common cause that is to bring flavor into the light can be good. Now, I want to get off this soapbox I'm starting to stand on and bring some numbers to it, or one number. About a year. [laughs] That is the length of time that a beer called Billy Beer lasted in the marketplace. How can we not talk about the unsung hero of this story?
Probably in an informal advisor to the president, Jimmy Carter's beloved brother, Billy, had his own beer. It was outsourced to a local brewery out in the Midwest, I think, but I'm sure that played a role. I think some conversations between the two because Bill Carter was not a teetotaler may have helped change Jimmy Carter's thinking or at least influence it to support the passage of that Bill.
Dylan Lewis: We're in an era of revivals and franchise extensions, so I would not be surprised if there was some brewer out there saying, you know what? It's time to bring back Billy Beer.
Bill Mann: This actually has happened.
Dylan Lewis: It has?
Bill Mann: Dylan. Yes, it actually has happened. In 2018, the Uptown brewering company in Snow Hill, North Carolina, began brewing Billy Beer again.
Dylan Lewis: If you're a Billy Beer fan or a Boston Beer shareholder, you owe a glass to Jimmy Carter this weekend. We'll be honoring Carter's lifetime here in Washington, DC with his state funeral on January 9th and just a heads-up for investors. The stock market will be closed Thursday of next week. If you want to celebrate them, maybe raise a glass this weekend, but try to keep it to just one or two. News out Friday, the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is issuing guidance that alcoholic drinks should have warnings about alcohol's ties to preventable cancer. Asit, this is affecting shares of AB InBev and Diageo on the news. What do you make of it?
Asit Sharma: Well, first, I think it's not a bad thing personally because many of us don't realize that alcohol does carry cancer risk. Getting that personal take out of the way, I'm not so sure it's a big hit to major brewers and major purveyors of spirits. The reason is that, during the pandemic, we saw a market decline in heavy consumption of alcohol among younger age groups, simply because they couldn't get together and go out for those long bar nights. Some of those habits have continued post pandemic. Many brewers around the world and many spirits makers had to adapt with a whole class of people that just want to drink a little less. We've seen them innovate.
I think it's Anheuser Busch, which is going to have 20% of its sales that will come from non-alcoholic drinks this year in 2025. That's just one indication of where this industry is moving. Here's one more small challenge for the industry as a whole, to innovate. You'll see more energy drinks. You'll see more tasty non-alcoholic drinks. I think overall, it's not a dealbreaker.
Dylan Lewis: This is the other side of the coin. We were just talking about how deregulation can reduce the barriers to entry. Regulation can also force creativity, too, Bill.
Bill Mann: Without commenting on the merits of the surgeon general's warning on alcohol, I will say this. Is anybody surprised that alcohol's bad for you on certain levels? It is another obstacle for alcohol suppliers. It's also an obstacle for the restaurant industry, which is facing a number of headwinds. There's a slowdown in restaurant traffic, lower consumer spending, fair amount of inflation in their cost structure. As Asit mentioned, the younger consumers just aren't drinking as much as we did, I guess, or do.
Dylan Lewis: This segment will double as some added encouragement for those doing dry January. You've got this, and you're doing yourself a favor here, according to the surgeon general. Before we head out to break, I do want to get each of your takes on an investing story that you are watching for 2025. Asit, I'm going to start with you. What is something that you have on your radar and maybe want more people to be paying attention to?
Asit Sharma: Well, Dylan, over the last year, we've seen a number of fintech companies, companies that combine technology with finances, suddenly collapse. The most notable one was a company called Snaps, which I think still has maybe 100 million bucks of customer money unaccounted for. [laughs] Even here we are in the beginning of 2025. Some smaller companies as well, one by the name of Tally the information, which is a great resource for learning about Silicon Valley, just reported two more Fintech closures, abrupt closures in the past two weeks. What I want to point out here, and maybe cue folks into is that when you place your money with a Fintech app, and it says that it's FDIC insured because it has a relationship with a bank.
That's not always the case. Many of these companies are simply intermediaries, and it's being really dragged out in court, in some cases, who has the responsibility for your account? Just something that I'm following as a news story, as an investing story, but also a cautionary tale. If your bank is one that offers you maybe 4% on your money, that's not [laughs] a bad place to park it. I do embrace the spirit of innovation, as we've been talking about. I have some Fintech apps that I use myself, but buyer beware, do your due diligence before you place your funds anywhere.
Dylan Lewis: Bill, what about you? Do you have a cautionary note for investors as well?
Bill Mann: Cautionary, I guess, I would say in one way. The US stock market has outperformed every other global market for really good reason over the last call it decade. If you're holding US equities today as a starting point, we're at a cyclically adjusted PE of the market in the high 30s. You just have to recognize that historically, you are expecting an awful lot of the market, especially by one that's dominated by so few companies especially by one that's added several trillion dollars in market capitalization to those companies. I want to talk about that, but really, that's boring. What I really want to talk about, is I want to know at the end of 2025 how much fart coin's going to be worth.
Dylan Lewis: We will check back in at the end of 2025 and see, I think it's going to be worth less if I take a guess. Bill, Asit we'll see you guys a little bit later in the show. Up next, we've got Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner talking through his favorite metric and what it's saying about the state of the market for 2025. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Dylan Lewis. New Year, new financial plan. This time of year, a lot of people start revisiting their portfolios and household finances as part of the big resolution swing. Ahead of the New Year, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner walked our Motley Fool members through his 2025 investing playbook in a bonus episode of our premium podcast Stock Advisor Round Table. Tom and one of my colleagues, Laurine Horse, talk through the tried and true principles that govern how they look at any year as investors, what one of their favorite indicators is saying about the state of the market right now, and what to make of Bitcoin as it hovers around $100,000.
Loren Horst: Tom welcome.
Tom Gardner: Great to be here, Lauren.
Loren Horst: Let's begin with a big-picture playbook question. For an investor who wants to have more success in the stock market, what's the play here?
Tom Gardner: Mostly, the playbook is a timeless playbook, and in hidden gems, we have some things that are particular to our style and approach, which I will share a little bit in this answer and during our conversation. But there's a larger classic rule book at the Fool, which is that we're long-term oriented. We don't really think about an individual year as being very consequential. There are big impact years in the stock market. There are years where the market falls 27% and years where the market rises 41%, so these things happen. They may be about to happen in 2025. I don't have a particular prediction about that because they're very hard to foresee.
I would guess if I had to that it will be more of a middling year in the market, maybe slightly below average returns, maybe, but I'm not banking any of my approach on what will happen in the next year. Some of the core questions that I would have members ask themselves is how long do you have to hold your investments? How low can you go before you start feeling sick and how high are your hopes? If I were to answer those questions and say, I have 10-plus years, I start to feel a little sick when my portfolio is down 40%, and I have high hopes.
That is a particular strategy that can be assigned to that set of answers. For somebody who also says, I have exactly five years then I'm retiring, I'm going to feel really bad if my portfolio's down 20%. I have moderate hopes. I'm not looking to run away with it and just have a high-volatility market crushing portfolio that I just the wear and tear is difficult, but I'm willing to handle it. That's a different strategy. You have exactly five years. You don't want to see your portfolio fall more than 20, 25%, and you have moderate hopes. You would be starting to look toward dividend payers. You'd be looking for lower volatility companies to invest in larger caps.
My playbook for 2025, as it is for every year, is know thyself and continue to explore your situation because it does change. What you thought three years ago about your financial life is not the same as today. Those Fools who have children, they make their way through life. There are different expenditures that you have to prepare for. Then there are scenarios you weren't expecting. Like there's an illness in the family, and that's going to take some additional money to solve. We have to be prepared for the unknown. The only way to do that that I know of is to continually examine your situation, your temperament, your time horizon, what you enjoy doing in life, and answer those questions and build your approach accordingly. I would just say that I think we've had quite a run here, and a lot of growth stocks have really moved up rapidly, and so I would be tilting a little bit toward caution. At least for the average member, but I think it's even more important than what I have to say there is getting to know yourself and your situation better and better.
Loren Horst: That leads in quite nicely to the potential growth indicator. We talk about it often, but it's the data point that we can revisit all the time. In short, it compares the ratio of cash in taxable money market accounts to the total value of US stocks. The higher the PGA, the more bullish investors should be. What does the current PGI level tell a typical stock advisor member right now?
Tom Gardner: Well, it's at about 10.9%, and that's essentially how much money is sitting on the sidelines as you explained, so 10.9%, it means that about 11% of the total value of stocks is sitting in cash. If that number goes down, the available capital to invest in the market goes down to 8%. That would be a big danger sign. There's not new money to come into the market to push the prices of companies higher, so at 10.9%, that's pretty much in the normal range, a little bit lower than we would like. If it goes up to 15%, it means there's a lot of cash sitting on the sidelines.
When you get a spike of selling as happened in March of 2020, with the pandemic and people's getting very fearful, it jumped to about 19-20% cash on the sidelines. That's a really good time to invest for long term investors. It doesn't mean the market can't go down more. It doesn't mean there can be even more cash on the sidelines. In the financial crisis, it got to 50%, but that's a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence to have that. Now we're at 10.9%. I would say that there is another factor to consider because the PGI only measures cash in the US. There's a lot of money coming in from outside the US right now. Just illustrative is Masayoshi Son meeting with President Trump and committing to $100 billion investment in US companies to build AI infrastructure. Then President Trump said, how about 200 billion? [laughs] Masayoshi did his best to give a little bit of wiggle room but say, we will try.
That's representative of what's already happening here with what will be one of the most business-friendly most deregulating administrations in American history, and there are some wonderful things about that, and there obviously can be some problems with that, sometimes some very serious problems with that. But there's no question it's a massively business-friendly environment. That, given the strength of the US market regulatory structure and the history of innovation in the US, the most innovative companies, the best tech companies in the world, they're all in the US, they're virtually all in the US, and we have a funding mechanism for them. Now we're saying it's going to be even more beneficial. For people starting companies, growing companies, hiring, making investments, and that's drawing in money from around the world. I think 10.9% may even be a little bit misleading.
There's so much international foreign worldwide cash in that I actually think the market may be even more overvalued than the PGI would indicate. I'm particularly saying that to anyone that has a low threshold for pain in terms of stock market volatility or has a shorter time period where they're going to need that capital three years from now or five years from now instead of 8-15-20 years from now. I think if you're getting down to that five-year range and you really need things to go reasonably well, I think you need to be looking at the distinctions on the Motley Fool site of companies that are classified as cautious and moderate versus companies that are aggressive.
It doesn't mean sell those aggressive holdings necessarily, although maybe it's a good idea to sell a few percentage points here and there to reduce large positions in high-growth, high-value, aggressive stocks in your portfolio. Again, depending on your situation. But what I would say is at least you could start adding new money toward again, large caps, dividend payers, low Beta stocks. Boring, sleepy. It's when you sit there, and you say, gosh, I've run all the numbers on this. I think I might only get like 11.1% a year from this investment. That's not that exciting. Once you start saying that when an 11% return, 0.1% return is quite satisfactory. Once people start saying that more and more that's another sign, hubris animal spirits, as everyone's saying, and over high expectations.
This could get people out over their skis. Again, the shorter your time horizon and the less threshold tolerance for pain you have, I think the PGI and what's happening in the marketplace is saying, start thinking about moderate, cautious investments in the hidden gems methodology, we love having a cash position on the sidelines. Maybe think about a 10% cash position. Consider those options. That's what the PGI is telling me and other factors today.
Loren Horst: Well, one important thing to remember is that stocks aren't the only place that cash on the sideline can go, and 2024 was a big year for Bitcoin. The first decentralized cryptocurrency crossed the $100,000 mark, and it can be pretty polarizing, but it's worked out so far for longtime bulls like you, Tom. What do you make of Bitcoin's latest run-up?
Tom Gardner: Well, Bitcoin is above 100,000. That puts its market cap at two trillion. On the one hand, something that is nothing is worth two trillion. That's speaking to those who really don't believe in this at all. Something that is absolutely nothing is now worth 2 trillion. I hope you're happy. We've seen it before. Read the book famous Financial Fiascos I believe it was written by John Tran, Famous Financial Fiascos. You can read that book during lunch. It's about a 120-page book with 40 different three-page chapters on financial calamities throughout history. It's a wonderful book. Read it.
Because anti Bitcoin is saying, this is the next chapter, and it's not three page chapter yet. We're only a page and a quarter into this chapter. Wait to see what happens next because this is all going to zero. I've seen this before. That is one of you. To dismiss that out of hand, I think that is to blind yourself from history and from our human instincts, our untrained minds, our big hopes, and our delusions. That's at least a big part of the Bitcoin story. The other side of it is, what's so great about gold again? Why do I want to own gold? Why is gold a hedge? Why does gold a hedge against inflation or diminishment of fiat currency? Why is gold? Because 90% of the value of gold has nothing to do with its use or even jewelry. It's just speculative. If gold is worth, let's just say 18 trillion, and Bitcoins is worth two trillion and 90% of the value of gold is just speculation about it as an asset, a hedge in the marketplace, why exactly do we assign that value to gold? If we're willing to do that, why wouldn't we assign it to a digital system that has proven to be secure with a worldwide brand name that has the promise of a limited a supply cap, and not just why would I assign value to gold, but why do you think future generations would? Why do we not think that people change where they choose to assign value?
What would cause somebody to really say that the average 23-year-old today is thinking, when I get my whole portfolio bill, I'm definitely going to have a slice for gold, but Bitcoin is a joke when they see so much of their life is digital. They're taking online courses, they have an Instagram. They see people making millions of dollars taking photos on Instagram.
So much money is about their digital presence in this world, not their physical presence. Why do we think a 23-year-old is going to say, give me gold bars? I want Kruger ants for my holiday gift, Bitcoin is a joke. That's the other side of the story. I don't think that there's a automatically correct answer. I asked on our Twitter feed. What are the percentage chances you are willing to change your opinion on Bitcoin? And 52% of everyone said zero. What that means to me is if you choose to talk about Bitcoin these holidays, you're going to be choosing to talk about politics, religion, and any other third rail issue that's just divisive, because there are a lot of people who made their mind up about Bitcoin. I happen to be in the other 48%. I have invested in Bitcoin. I have made dozens of recommendations, over 40 recommendations in real money portfolios with cost basis as low as 20,000. My highest purchase price for Bitcoin is 72,000. It's now at 104,000. I would not be surprised to see it go back to 72,000. Bitcoin's been volatile. It's fallen 70% multiple times. (NFLX -4.03%)
Same thing with Netflix and same thing with other great companies throughout history, see their stock price that volatile. I would say I would not be at all surprised. If Bitcoin goes to 72,000, I'm not changing my thesis or approach on it at all. I think that could easily happen. Conversely, this administration is very favorable toward cryptocurrency, and the appointments are indicating that there will be a new regulatory structure and regime to cryptocurrency. Furthermore, Bitcoin is rising now, not because individuals are speculating at it in their digital wallets or even just buying ETFs. It's institutions now that are moving into BTC. It's institutional money. This is worth two trillion.
The companies in this world that are worth two trillion, they aren't 94% owned by individuals. What's happening is institutions are buying in. They're saying, we need to put 1%. This asset has some role to play in our portfolio. That's how I started my investments in Bitcoin with two and 3% positions, 1%. I think one portfolio put 5% in. But it was never, hey, fold on every other investment and just Bitcoin maximalist across all investment opportunities. Definitely not. But I have always said, I think it's a good idea to have 1-3% of your portfolio. It's the leading digital asset brand in the world, it has proven secure. I think having 1-3% of your portfolio, Bitcoin to me, it was pretty much automatic to do it. I don't want to overstate that because I know many people don't and haven't made that investment, and are now thinking, what should I do with it at 100,000? But I would say what I said when it was at 20,000 or at 40,000 or at 60,000, which is put 1% in. Put 1%, 2%, it's the leading, it's the number one brand for digital assets in a world that is transforming digitally at a pace that our mind cannot process.
Dylan Lewis: Listeners, if you're a Motley Fool premium member, you can catch the full episode where Tom Gardner breaks down investing in 2025 and offers up three of his favorite stock advisor rec right now. We'll be sure to drop links to where you can find those in the podcast version of today's radio show. If you're not a premium Motley Fool member and you're ready to take your investing chops to the next level, head over to fool.com/signup. There you can join Stock Advisor, our flagship Investing Service. As a stock advisor member, you'll get two new stock picks each month, rankings on the whole scorecard of companies in the Stock Advisor Universe, and access to all episodes of our premium Podcast. Stock Advisor Round Table, including these monthly Drones episodes with Tom G. Again, fool.com/signup is where you can learn more and get started. We're going to hop out for a quick break. Don't you go anywhere.
Asit Sharma and Bill Mann are going to be back with me in just a minute talk through tips for those with money on their mind this resolution season and offer up a few stocks on their radar too. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. [MUSIC]
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards, and it is not approved by advertisers. Motley Fool only picks products it personally recommend to friends like you.
I'm Dylan Lewis, joined again by Asit Sharma and Bill Mann. What would our first show of the New Year be without a little resolution talk guys? Survey out on top resolutions for 2025. No surprise. The top of the list save more money. Asit Any quick tips for people without on their list?
Asit Sharma: Sure. For this and any other financial resolutions, we should all resolve to do a monthly resolution. On the first of each month, go and check on what you did in the past month toward that resolution. In finance, I think this is important. There are other New Year's resolutions you can let fall by the wayside. But folks, in the age of AI in the age of the Google calendar, there's no reason you can't put a reminder for yourself on the first of each month to check in on that resolution and see if you can do even better in the current month.
Dylan Lewis: I love that. That is essentially the January 1st as a construct Mann response to the Resolution Industrial Complex. It doesn't have to start on January 1st. It can start whenever you want. Just improve yourself. Be better.
Bill Mann: The Resolution Industrial Complex will not be pleased.
Dylan Lewis: No. It'll be checked in on monthly. Let's get over to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, Rick Engdahl is going to hit you with a question. Bill, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?
Bill Mann: The company that I'm looking at is Darden Restaurants, which is the owner of Olive Garden, Eddie V's, Ruth's Chris Steak House, the Capitol Grille, and a number of others. Restaurants have had a tough couple of years by virtue of the fact that their labor cost and cost of goods have gone up in fairly uncontrolled fashion. A lot of people are calling for a slower growth in both. But there are these things that may be coming down the pike in the form of tariffs, which would impact the restaurant industry really, really sharply in terms of a rise in costs. These tend to be very thin-margin companies, Darden among them. I'm interested to see what happens macroeconomically and how it impacts endless breadsticks. Rick, a question about Darden restaurants, ticker DRI or endless breadsticks.
Rick Engdahl: Do you have a favorite Darden restaurant? Because I'm looking at the web page here, and none of them are jumping out to me. I wouldn't choose any of them for dinner tonight.
Bill Mann: I do actually love Ruth's Chris. I think it's actually a good, unique place to go.
Rick Engdahl: I learned to cook over the pandemic years, and, sorry, I just don't buy steaky restaurants anymore. [laughs]
Dylan Lewis: We'll be getting our recipes from Rick for the rest of 2025. Asit, what's on your radar this week?
Asit Sharma: Dylan I want to read a headline from NBC News recent headline. Film fans flock to Interstellar IMAX 70 millimeter release. If you saw this headline, you probably saw that it was almost impossible to get tickets to this IMAX release. That reminded me that my investing colleague, Meilin Quinn, had been talking about IMAX last year as maybe an interesting play. This is a company that had a slowdown over-indexed in China and is a little bit of a turnaround play, although it's had a good 2024. Looking for a promising slate of about $1.2 billion in global box office receipts that will be tied to the platform in 2025. Their system installs are up. They make money installing IMAX systems and also through licensing. Just a really popular slate of movies coming out.
This company is now cash flow positive. I think it's going to increase its cash flow in the coming years. A little bit of a risky stock. But hey, this is where the movie industry is trending toward bigger and better films, so I am looking forward to following IMAX some more in 2025.
Dylan Lewis: Rick, are you a bigger fan of IMAX than the Darden Restaurant Chain portfolio?
Rick Engdahl: I think so. I either watch movies at home or may as well go to IMAX.
Dylan Lewis: That's the one going on your watch list this week. Bill, Asit, thanks for bringing the radar stocks. Rick, thanks for weighing in. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Fool Radio Show. Show was mixed by Rick Engdahl. I'm Bill Lewis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
