The Ownership Battles at U.S. Steel and TikTok

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser and host Mary Long discuss:

• Why so many companies want in on U.S. Steel.
• How to factor CEO personality into potential investments.
• TikTok's potential buyers.

Then, Motley Fool host Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp tackle the listener mailbag and answer your questions about finding flat-fee financial advisors, trimming in-the-red stocks, and more.

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A full transcript follows the video.

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This video was recorded on Jan. 14, 2025.

Mary Long: All's fair in love and sales. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Mary Long, joined today by Jason Moser. Jamo good to have you here.

Jason Moser: Hey.

Mary Long: We got stories today of two potential sales. One that's hit a bit of a snag and another that's still got a lot of question marks surrounding it. First up, that sale that's hit a snag is US Steel. This is a company that was planning to be acquired by Japan's Nippon Steel, the proposed acquisition was first announced back in December of 2023, but it was blocked by the Biden administration about two weeks ago due to national security concerns. The most recent update is that last week, US Steel and Nippon Steel sued the Biden administration for attempting to stop the sale. They also filed a RICO complaint against their rival, Cleveland-Cliffs, and a few other entities, one of them being Cleveland-Cliffs CEO, Lourenco Goncalves who will talk a bit more about down the line, as well as the head of the United Steelworkers Union. The suing of the Biden administration was largely expected, but it's this RICO complaint that upped the animosity of this whole situation. Why do that? Why do US Steel and Nippon Steel want to pair up so badly?

Jason Moser: I think like most mergers, much of this just boils down to economics, one of my econ professors in college always said at the end of the day, economics rule. Combining these two companies, I mean, that increases market share. Makes them a more competitive entity on a global scale. I mean, you always hear that word synergies. They feel like you can realize some synergies there with the two companies working together. Also, probably some cost savings involved, gives them the ability to continue to invest in the business, invest in technology, and then ultimately grow, that gives them access to new markets, expanding their reach into new markets and new customer bases. My guess is that's the primary reason why they're so set on trying to make this deal.

Mary Long: Once upon a time, US Steel was the world's largest steel producer. That is no longer the case. Give us a little history lesson. How did that happen? What happened to US Steel?

Jason Moser: This is a fascinating story. If you look back at the history of US Steel, it's funny, you look at the five year chart and this has been an outperformer. It's been a good investment. You stretch that out over ten years though, and it's woefully underperformed. Granted, you still made money, so I'm going to give credit where credit is due. But like I said, it's a very interesting story. I think it goes back to 1901 where JPMorgan ultimately merged Andrew Carnegie's, Carnegie Steel with nine other steel companies to ultimately form this corporation. It was the first billion dollar corporation the world had ever seen. I think it was capitalized to $1.4 billion at the time.

First billion dollar corporation in the world had ever seen. Around eight billion dollar market capitalization today. I was 20 billion as recent as 2008. But it's a business, steel is difficult. Elon Musk always say space is hard, it is steel is hard, too. The challenges that they face are just very intense. It's a very competitive market on a global scale. You talk about foreign imports from lower cost steel producers, particularly in China and other Asian countries. Then I think it's also very cyclical in nature, too, it just goes with the economic cycles. As a business like this it faces very high input costs, a tough regulatory environment, trade disputes, tariffs. You put all of that together. I think that's just where we are today with this company.

Mary Long: Nippon was set to purchase US steel at $55 a share. Overall, this deal was valued at more than $14 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs, the second largest steel producer in the US by volume, is now teasing an all cash offer that would be in the high $30 per share. Yesterday, US Steel shares jumped about 6-8%, so they're now at over $36 apiece. It's really clear just hearing those numbers which deal would be better for US Steel shareholders hint, it's the Nippon Steel one. Why did the stock jump at news of Cleveland-Cliffs offer, if that's the case?

Jason Moser: Multiple offers can have that effect. All of a sudden, you've got multiple potential outcomes. There could be a bidding war in theory. One deal might have a better shot as opposed to the other. It does seem in the case of Cleveland-Cliffs in looking to try to purchase US Steel, they would also in tandem, they would sell off their big river steel mill to another competitor in the space, Nucor, if the deal is allowed to go through. Ultimately, you get to a point where you have multiple offers. You could see a bidding war and now get a lot of interest in this company, and that'll that'll make investors excited.

Mary Long: Cleveland-Cliffs CEO, Lourenco Goncalves he hosted a press conference yesterday, and this featured a lot of, I'm going to say bombastic commentary, particularly about Japan. I'm going to focus less on what Goncalves actually said and more on this idea of media relations, how a CEO presents themselves and their personality more broadly, and how you factor that in when making investing decisions. Goncalves has been CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs since 2014. He made a bid for US Steel in 2023, and I was trying to figure out, I hadn't paid much attention to him in the past. This was just this most recent press conference was my first introduction to him. I was trying to figure out, what is the deal with this guy? Does he have a reputation for making bombastic commentary. Answer seems to be, yes there's a Wall Street Journal article from 2023 when he was initially gunning for US Steel that describes Goncalves as a pugnacious arm twisting CEO. A fortune article from 2023 called him the Elon Musk of Steel, to say the very least, he's a character. How do you factor that in? We don't have to talk about Goncalves in particular, but just broadly speaking, how do you, Jason Moser, factor CEO personality into your investing decision?

Jason Moser: Sure. I think that's absolutely something to consider. It doesn't necessarily dictate the final decision on an idea, but depending on the personality, it can be a risk. When I thought about this question, the first company that came to mind for me is Under Armour. It stands out as a really good example. Kevin Plank is the founder. He was the CEO, he stepped aside. Now I believe he's back again until further notice. But I can remember discussing Under Armour as a potential recommendation in stock advisor with Tim years ago. We all were kicking this back and forth and we all saw him as a reason to invest. He definitely supported the bull case, a founder leader, hell bent on making sure this company could succeed. We recognize this, he was also very much a risk, given his personality and things that he would say about wanting to supplant Nike and whatnot. It's like just build a good business and what will be will be. Don't go in there with a goal of trying to supplant Nike, for example. Playing over the years is a track record of saying some controversial things, making some controversial decisions. I think it could be argued quite effectively that Under Armour has done poorly over the last decade due to his leadership, He's put himself and his company in hot water on a number of occasions, and it seems like he's a tough guy to work for. Flip that, on the other side there. Look at something like Elon Musk. Elon Musk, I think, would be considered very much the same in regard to being a polarizing figure. But hey, that's worked out pretty well for Tesla shareholders so far.

It's funny. It's something to consider. But again, I don't know that it's necessarily what makes or breaks a case, just definitely something to keep in mind.

Mary Long: Going back in time and looking at doing some more research on Goncalves, when he first went for this deal with US Steel, there are quotes of him saying, I get what I want. It's wild to then fast forward into the future and look back and hear that and say, he was pretty quiet when this Nippon Steel deal first started circulating and was first announced, but now he's gunning for this again, and it's interesting to see how that plays out because, people that are dogged about something to watch them chase that and the patience that they're willing to exhibit to make that happen. But it's risky also. There's another rival that you mentioned that's involved in Cleveland Cliff's potential bid. It's a North Carolina company called Nucor. They are the largest producer of steel in the US by volume. I'm going to bet that most of these companies that we've been talking about thus far today, US Steel, Nippon Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs, Nucor. They're not on a lot of investors radars in the same way that tech stocks are. They tend to stay out of the spotlight. They manufacture and sell basic materials that go into making other products. These are strong, notable companies, Nucor's trading at about eight times free cash flow. It's got about 2% dividend yield, strong cash flow. Do any of these materials companies look appealing to you? I know I just highlighted Nucor but out of the bunch. Is this something that's catching your eye?

Jason Moser: I think it's interesting. Steel is just very boring. It probably isn't on a lot of people's radars because you just sort of think, steel is just steel, and there is something to that. For me, personally, these types of companies aren't really my cup of tea. As I mentioned earlier in regard to the challenges these businesses face, very cyclical. There are a lot of input costs. They're just very capital intensive. Now, with that said, I do think they make for some very interesting potential value plays, value investments. Now, that's not really my style of investing, but I think there is something to be said for that. The thing with value investing, it can be very effective, but you need to know when to get in. Then, more importantly, you need to know when to get out. I'm just too lazy to work that hard, to be honest with you, Mary. I like to just buy companies that I can hang on to for a long period of time. It's not to say they're bad investments. I think they're just more value style investments, and you really need to be able to plug those numbers and come up with some understanding, evaluation of when to get in and then when to get out.

Mary Long: We are going to move on to another potential sale that's taking up a lot of space in the news these days. This is TikTok. We're still awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court about whether or not it will uphold a law that will result in a force sale or ban of TikTok in the US, though it certainly sounds like the Supreme Court is leaning in favor of upholding that law. This feels to me like a pretty unique situation. You've got the US government telling a foreign company, you have to do this in order to continue operating within American borders. Is this actually unique or are there other examples from history of this happening?

Jason Moser: It is a unique situation for sure. I mean, there are examples of other companies that have gotten on the list here in the past. Most recent probably most obvious example would be Russian companies in regard to what's going on with Russia and Ukraine right now. But if you look back, I think, effective August 2020, Huawei was added to the entity list, as it's called, which severely restricts its ability to do any business with US companies at all. Then the FCC also banned the sale and import of ZTE equipment in the United States. I think that was November of 2022, and that was due to national security concerns. There are definitely some history to go on there.

Mary Long: Marketer projects that if TikTok is banned, more than half of the ad dollars spent on the platform in the US would go to entities that are currently owned by Meta and Google. What does that actually mean for Meta and Google? How significant would that be to either of these companies?

Jason Moser: It projections peg TikTok's ad revenue at around $11 billion annually, right now. So it would be a nice incremental ad to Google and Meta. But when you consider that Alphabet has made $340 billion over the last 12 months and Meta has brought in $156 billion, it ultimately is not very meaningful. It would be incremental, but it wouldn't be terrible meaningful..

Mary Long: There have been a lot of names that have been thrown around as potential buyers of TikTok since this law came to be. But Bloomberg reported yesterday that Chinese officials are considering a sale to Elon Musk. Like Dance for what's Worth has called this report, "Pure fiction." But it's not just Musk who's interested in potentially buying TikTok. Shark Tanks, Kevin O'Leary, and billionaire Frank McCourt have already submitted a formal offer to buy TikTok without its algorithm. Their group is called Project Liberty. It calls itself the people's bid for TikTok and says it would change the platform to collect less data on users. Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick expressed interest in buying the platform last year. He's allegedly spoken to Sam Altman about helping to finance the deal. Microsoft has expressed interest. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has also expressed interest. We're going to close with this. We're going to get into the arena of reckless predictions. But are there any of these buyers that you see as being the most likely to win out should this be the direction that TikTok goes?

Jason Moser: I would be surprised if Musk really wanted to take this on. It just seems like a small bite from a revenue perspective. Now with that said, TikTok, the valuation here somewhere in there at $80-$100 billion valuation. It's not an easy deal by any means. I think given the names that you mentioned and given the names we've seen bandied about, it wouldn't shock me. I think O'Leary's group could certainly handle it. I mean, he's very entrepreneurial. He's been pretty outspoken about this and they seem to at least have a game plan as I'm sure most do. It wouldn't shock me to see O'Leary's group pull this in, and they can definitely handle it. But yeah, this is just a fascinating story. We will have to continue to follow it.

Mary Long: We'll continue to follow it, but it sounds like we'll start to get a little bit more clarity in the coming days. I believe the final Supreme Court decision will come out on January 19. Stay tuned for more updates there. Jason Moser, always a pleasure to have you. Thanks so much for the insight, all the information, and the time spent on Motley Fool Money.

Jason Moser: You got it. Thanks so much, Mary.

Mary Long: You got questions? Bro has answers. Up next, Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp. Tackle the listener Mailbag and answer your questions about finding flat fee financial advisors, trimming in the red stocks, and more. This episode is brought to you by Curry's Business. From laptops to mobile contracts, TVs to toasters, Curry's business can offer you impartial expert advice on the kit you need at the budget that's right for your business. Right now you can save up to 40% on hundreds of products to boost your business with their January epic deals. Shop at business.currys.co.uk. Visit your local hub or call their UK based specialist Business Center, Curry's Business powering your business in 2025.

Alison Southwick: Our first question comes from Pat. I was interested in doing a one time consultation with a financial advisor. I believe the group Bro has mentioned in the past was the Garrett Group. I looked into them, but surprisingly, there are no advisors that offer a flat fee consultation in my area Philadelphia and New York City. Well, but that is surprising.

Robert Brokamp: That is surprising.

Alison Southwick: I have heard of Philadelphia and New York City, and they're big deals. Pat wants to know. Any other suggestions?

Robert Brokamp: Yeah, so a longtime listeners know, I do think it's a good idea to check in with a fee only financial planner once every few years, especially right before a big event like retirement. The challenge is most advisors charge basically making their money by managing your assets, charging about 1% a year or so to do so. However, there are some that charge by the hour, by the project or a flat fee. One place to find such advisors is the Garrett Planning Network. This is a minority of financial advisors. As Pat is finding out, there aren't SCADs and SCADs of them all over. For Garrett, in particular, you go to Garrett planning network.com. You click on the find your advisor link. Then you'll see there something called search by specialty. It's a drop-down, and from there, you can choose how they charge. There's a bunch of options, hourly project only, hourly plus fixed flat. There's a few options. I would say, try a few of those options and your zip code or city to make sure you're not missing somebody. That's it. I did look, and Pat is right. There's no one really in Philadelphia, though there are other planners elsewhere in Pennsylvania. I did find a couple in New York City, but perhaps not as much as you might expect. The choices might indeed be limited, especially if you want to work with someone face to face.

These days, most planners will work remotely, you talk to them over Zoom, and then you share documents over a Dropbox or something like that. All you need to do is find someone who's licensed in your state. If you're willing to work with someone remotely, you can wide in your net. There are plenty of planners who actually they live in other states, but they can work with folks in your state. Garrett is one network to consider. Two others are NAPFA stands for the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and the XY Planning Network. On the NAPA website, you click on the find your advisor, and you click on an icon that looks like a funnel, and then you can filter your search by how someone gets paid, including hourly. For the XY Planning website, it seems that choosing the advice only filter is the way to find someone who charges by the hour or the project or flat fee. When you click on their profile on the XY Planning Network site, you'll see how they charge and how much, which I think is particularly helpful.

Alison Southwick: Next question comes from Fred from Florida. Thank you all for the wisdom you share to guide our future. Oh, Fred, you're welcome. We are blessed to be able to save early and can semi retire by Age 55. That's awesome. I would like to ask how it will impact our Social Security benefits. I'm 43 right now, started contributing at Age 24 and will probably work part time or per diem till Age 70, since I love what I do. Fred is living the dream.

Robert Brokamp: He is living the dream. Yeah, congratulations on your projection of being able to retire early. That is outstanding. Social Security is based on your 35 highest earning years adjusted for inflation. If you scale back at age 55, it will impact your benefit. Fortunately, the way that Social Security is designed, you get the most bang for your benefit buck from the first 7,400 or so that you earn each year, and that amount is adjusted annually. This is because the program is designed to replace more income for lower income workers than higher income workers, and it's why the more you earn, the more you have to save because Social Security will replace a lower percentage of your pre retirement income. The fact that you plan to keep working part time up to age 70 means that you'll likely be better off than if you just stop working altogether. But it really does depend on how much you earned in each year of your career. If you go to the Social Security website, there are some calculators that maybe might be able to project a little bit how it will impact your benefit. There are two in particular. One is the online calculator.

There's another called the detailed calculator that you actually have to download to your computer. I'm not as familiar with that one. Those won't, I don't think exactly answer your question, but it'll give you a sense of how working less will impact your benefit. All that said. The other important factor will be when you actually claim Social Security because your benefit will increase for every month you delay up to Age 70. Delaying until then would be a way to counteract the reduction from reducing your workload there at Age 55. At the very least, it likely makes sense for you to delay at least until your full retirement age, which for you is going to be Age 67, because if you claim before then but are still earning above a certain amount, you'll have to give back some of your benefits. That amount in 2025 is 23,400, and it increases to 62,160 in the year you turn 67. Those figures are also adjusted annually for inflation, but as you can see, it doesn't take much to get over those limits. If you plan to keep working part time and earn amounts above that, you're probably best to at least delay until Age 67.

Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from Van. Bro, I've been inspired by some of the things I've heard you say regarding your work to improve.

Robert Brokamp: I'm going to point out here that Van did not put the emphasis on some. You put the emphasis on some.

Alison Southwick: Guilty. I'll say it without editorializing this time. How about that? Bro, I've been inspired by some of the things I've heard you say regarding your work to improve the Motley Fools 401K available to employees. I'm trying to do the same at my place of employment. Oh, Van, that's super awesome. What are some of the features that you have found most beneficial?

Robert Brokamp: A good 401K really comes down to three main things, low cost, good investment choices, and an array of good features. When I joined the Fool back in 1999, our 401K was pretty lacking. We had more features probably than the average 401K, but the costs were high and the investments were mediocre. At one point, the S&P 500 index fund in the Balifol 401k charged something like one and 1/2 to 2% a year. It was ridiculous. That's it. Back then, a new small business really didn't have many choices. You were stuck with what was available to small companies, which was pretty mediocre choices, frankly, but that's not so much the case today. Anyway, at some point, more than 20 years ago, a couple of fools named Buck Hartzel, Barry Chambers, and I went to the company and said. We're the Motley fool. We probably should have an excellent 401K. The company agreed, and the three of us formed a committee along with several other fools, including some HR and legal fools. We've been meeting every quarter since then. The first thing we did was choose a better 401K provider, and then about five years ago, we chose an even better provider. I can't guarantee that your employer is going to be as open to such a drastic change because changing 401K providers is a bit of a pain, but most should be open to at least adding features and better investments. I would say start with that latter one. Use morningstar.com to evaluate the fun choices. If they're underperforming their benchmarks over the last 3, 5, 10 years, they'll lobby for better choices.

There are other features to consider. You'd certainly want to be able, for example, to be able to contribute to a Roth account. But the feature that I think most listeners would value is a side brokerage account that would allow you to buy just about any stock in ETF and choose from among literally thousands of mutual funds. Not every 401K provider has this feature, especially those who are geared toward small companies, but all the big name providers, Vanguard, Schwab, Philadelphia, all those folks, they certainly offer this. Ask your employer to make that a feature. It might come at an extra cost, which your employer may or may not choose to cover. If you do get the feature, your employer might say, well, that's fine. But if you use that feature, you have to pay a little extra, but it might be worthwhile, depending on your investment choices.

Then finally, just look at how much you're paying in costs. It does cost money to offer a 401K. You want to understand, first of all, how much it's costing the company in general, how much the provider charges, and then how much the employer is covering and how much basically the employer is putting on the employees. The cost will depend on the size of the company and the level of assets, but I would say just start understanding there, you'll be able to do some good research online on what the provider is charging, as well as better options. Do some research, and if you're paying a lot, bring it up to your employer and see if they're open to a lower cost option because after all, she or he might also be part of the plan and would benefit from a better 401K.

Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from JS. I went through some of my in the red stocks this holiday season, evaluating if I still want to hold them or if I want to add that capital to another investment or ETF. One I came across a Rivian. I've been invested in them for about three years now and lost most of that investment value. I acquired it before I was a capital F Fool and was more of a lowercase f Fool, maybe still am. Just shotgun the EV market. My thesis for owning it was as simple as they make electric cars, and I hear Amazon will use their trucks. I feel like I would probably be better served in the long run adding to another company I'm invested in that is doing well or yet to take off. All that to say, how do you broadly think about trimming investments and reallocating the money from the sales?

Robert Brokamp: Well, there are a couple of things, JS. First of all, I think it's a great time of year to just look at your overall asset allocation, how much you want to have in cash, bonds and stocks, and what type of stocks US versus International, large cap versus Small Cap, all that type of stuff, various sectors and see where you are compared to where you think you should be. Most people probably are a little off, especially after last year, which was generally a good year for investors, but some investments did much better than others. The asset allocation might be a little bit off. That's one thing to think about. Then, as I've said on the show before, I think it's very helpful to go through each of your investments and say, if I didn't own this already, would I buy it today? Every time you say no, that might be something you might want to sell, and it sounds like this company is one of those.

You go through it, you decide what you're going to sell, considering tax consequences, of course, although in this case, you might get some tax loss harvesting opportunities if this is outside of a retirement account. Let's say you decide to sell. What are you going to do with that money? Well, again, you think about how much do I need in cash? You might want to just keep it in cash. You might be closer to retirement, you want to bulk up your emergency fund, something like that. But then, as you went through that process of looking at each of your investments and said, would I buy it today if I didn't own it? Every time you said, yes, that might be where you put that new cash. That's something to consider as well. But then getting back to asset allocation, as well, I think probably these days, most people are a little light in probably small cap stocks, value stocks, maybe international, although I won't blame you if you don't want to go international quite yet. But those are some other considerations of where I might consider putting some extra cash.

Alison Southwick: Our next question comes from Dana in Ohio. I saved in a 529 for our son, and he used most of it for college, but there's a few thousand left. What can I do with the money?

Robert Brokamp: Well, that's outstanding. First of all, that you saved for college, and then second of all, that you saved enough that you have a little bit leftover. I'll go through the options. One thing you could do is just spend it. Now, this may not be the best option because when you take that money out, any money you contributed will come out tax free, but any growth on that will be taxed and penalized 10% because it's not being used for qualified education expenses. Plus, if you got tax deduction from your state on the contribution, there might be what they call a tax recapture because that money was not used for qualified education expenses. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, but maybe you're in need of some extra money, so that's at least a possibility. The other thing you can do is transfer it to a qualifying relative. That could be another sibling, it could be a cousin. The list is very long. What you might consider doing is just leaving the money in there and letting it grow so that you can eventually transfer it to any eventual grandchildren that you have. Now, of course, I don't know if you're going to have grandchildren. I can't predict that. Also, some 529 don't let you leave money in forever, but some do, but that's just another consideration.

Then finally, another option that just became available starting last year was that you can roll it over to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary, but there are a lot of rules about it. First of all, the account has to have been open for at least 15 years and you can't roll over any money that you contributed in the Last 5, as well as the growth on that money. To contribute to the Roth IRA for your son, he would have to have earned income, and the regular annual limits apply. Let's say you have $10,000 leftover in the 529, the annual contribution limit for a Roth IRA is $7,000 in 2025. You could only roll over that $7,000 in one year, assuming he had at least $7,000 of earned income, and then you could roll over the other $3,000 the following.

Alison Southwick: The next question comes from Scott. I want to move out of my parents' house in the near future. Scott. Awesome. Yes. Good for you. How much should I save up? I'm planning on renting a house probably with a friend currently have around $5,000 saved.

Robert Brokamp: Good for you, Scott, and $5,000 is definitely a good start. I'll just highlight a few things to consider. First of all, you might want to check your credit score. Landlords generally do check your credit score. If your credit score is not so great, or maybe you don't have one because you haven't really had a long credit history, that's something to think about before you make the move. Now, once you find this house, generally what a landlord will request is, one month's rent as a deposit, and then the first month's rent upfront. You're basically to paying two months worth of rent right off the bat before you even move in. Ideally, you'll get that deposit back once you're done, but generally speaking, most people recommend that you should plan on that not happening, but if you take good care of the house, maybe you'll get that money back. That's one thing to think about. The other thing to think about is an emergency fund, which for someone in your situation is probably three months of must pay expenses. You'd want to have three months of rent built up if you could, in case you lose your job or something like that. Although, of course maybe mom and dad would help out, as well, possible.

The other big expense when you move is going to be furniture. Now, you can get furniture on the cheap pretty easily. I'll tell you that when my wife and I met as elementary school teachers, and then we got our first apartment, we basically just asked all our fellow teachers, both of whom were much older than us, if they had any furniture they didn't need anymore, and we pretty much furnished an apartment with all of that. But you can go to Craig's list, free cycle, Facebook Marketplace and get furniture on the cheap. You'll have to get it into the house somehow. That'll be another expense. My final piece of advice for you is just to be unclear what the landlord is going to be responsible for and what you're responsible for when you move in. Things like utilities, upkeep, repairs with a house, there's going to be some maintenance, like snow removal, maybe mowing the lawn. You want to be clear on what the landowner's going to pay for and what you're going to pay for because the more you're responsible for, the more you're going to have to build that into your budget.

Mary Long: 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 stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow, Fools.

JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Alison Southwick has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Jason Moser has positions in Alphabet and Under Armour. Mary Long has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Robert Brokamp has positions in Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, JPMorgan Chase, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Garrett Motion and Under Armour and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.