2025 March Market Cap Madness: Bill vs. Emily
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Last week in an epic finish, Market Cap Game Show World Champion Andy Cross

narrowly won his final four against the comeback kid, Matty Argesinger. Six to five in overtime. We needed a tiebreaker to decide it. This week, it's the Market Cap Game Show again. The other half of our final four of March champions pitting Bill Barker against Emily Flippen. It's our second annual March Market Cap Madness. Bill Barker versus Emily Flippen versus...

you! Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing. Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. It's our March market cap madness! Semi-final round, and with me in studio are Bill Barker and Emily Flippen, raring to go to see who will advance to next week's World Championship.

And of course, the third player, and to us the most important, is you. That's right, you, our dear fellow Foolish listeners. As we get ready to crank up our Market Cap Game Show music, let me just briefly remind especially our new listeners, new players, how this game works. I'll be mentioning a stock.

Neither Bill nor Emily knows what stock is coming. I'll turn to one of them to talk a bit about whatever stock they didn't know was coming, and that fool will do their best to state a numerical range within which the stock's market capitalization, market cap, falls.

Then the other contestant, and you playing at home, will simply say, I agree, meaning it's accurate. The stock's value falls inside that range, or I disagree. I think it's outside that stated range. So, you simply agree or disagree. And if you get it right, give yourself a plus one. That's the Market Cap Game Show. We're focused on the real market caps of real stocks, recording as of 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 11th. Side note.

The market caps for all these stocks are pretty much lower than they were last week. What a week! Anyway, nobody knows what's coming, and a perfect score would be 10.

Bill Barker's been with the Fool for 26 years. In between stints as a trial lawyer and federal terrorist assist investigator, but is mostly known in Fooldom for inflicting sporadic episodes of Apropos of Nothing on unsuspecting podcast listeners during the days of market foolery. He plays a little tennis and other racket sports, roots for the Yankees, and by his own reckoning, sings and dresses about two standard deviations below the median.

Back from helping to start up Motley Fool Asset Management over a decade ago, he now writes again for The Fool, working on hidden gems and firecrackers. Bill, welcome. Thanks, David. Bill, in the early days, the earliest days of your online life, what was a go-to password that you would use to log on to sites or apps? I'm not asking you to give up your go-to now, of course, but can you share something with us?

earliest that I can recall was exactly what you're not supposed to do, of course, but it was a pet's name.

I can't give you the exact pet. It was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. It's just sad to remember pets from long ago. But, yeah, that was definitely my rookie mistake. Wouldn't it be great if you never had to remember another password again? Do you still remember passwords and use them? To the degree that I remember my pets, yeah. Well said.

But if you never had to remember another password again, yet still knew, Bill, that everything was completely secure, Okta Incorporated, ticker symbol OKTA, is stock No. 1. This is a service that we use every day at The Motley Fool. It is, yeah. It's helped me out. Do you like Okta?

I have mixed feelings about Okta. So, for those who don't know what we're talking about, Bill, what is Okta doing here for us at The Motley Fool, and actually many other companies besides? It is maintaining your passwords for things you use frequently. It also is how we sign into the site, and there are hurdles we have to jump.

Every time we want to access certain features and despite the declaration, would you like to stay signed in? There seems to be an option that you can check for that, which would imply that if you check it, you would stay signed in. Yes. I mean, maybe it's me.

It's not you. I see Emily laughing as well. I think you're right. I'll also say, I like Okta overall, and I like not having to remember all these different passwords. But I will say, sometimes I'll sign up for, I don't know, a new cheeseburger site or something, and all of a sudden Okta's jumping in. I think I was just on my personal computer on my phone, and Okta's jumping in wanting to remember my cheeseburger site password. I don't really need it to do that much.

This is a stock that has done well for Fools. Let's cut to the chase here, Bill Barker. What is your stated market cap range for Okta, ticker symbol OKT? I would say that the range for Okta today, as of 1:00, is

$27 billion to $42 billion. Emily, Okta, is that a brand that makes you smile, cringe, or somewhere in between? It's definitely a little bit of both. I can appreciate the security it brings to our systems. And as an investor, this is a business that I look fondly upon. But I do die a little on the inside. Every time I have to reach for my phone to give the authentication to get into our sites, only to realize

I've left my phone somewhere that I can't find. And that happens, unfortunately, a bit more frequently than I would like to admit. Thank you for sharing that, Emily. Speaking of sharing, Bill shared his market cap range, $27 billion to $42 billion. Emily Flippen, players at home, do you want to agree with Bill's range or disagree with Bill's range? The challenge I'm facing right now is,

The markets are down. The markets are down big. And I know there was a point at which Okta's market cap fell into this range. And I know that Okta, just a week or two ago, had a pretty blowout quarter. I think their stock was up something like 20% or 25% on those earnings.

But I still think it might be smaller than that range. So at the risk of making a big mistake here, I'm actually going to disagree with Bill and go smaller. All right. Emily has disagreed. Players at home, what did you do? Okay, you're accountable now.

It was correct to disagree with Bill's range. Bill wasn't that far off, although at the low end he was 50% higher than Okta's present market cap. But, I mean, $18.81 billion, not that far off from $27 billion to $42 billion. And by the way, as Bill and Emily probably remember, there was a time when Okta's market cap was indeed in that range. Looking at this stock 2021, when so many stocks spiked and went crazy,

Okta was right around 300. Today, it tips the scales much closer to 100. So, yeah, these numbers used to be triple. But, Emily, we give you a plus one, as you were correct to disagree with Bill's range. Bill, how confident were you as you set that range out? Not at all. It's not a stock that I've really invested any time looking at. And I

knew that it had visited a lot of interesting places -- It's been up and down. -- in its market cap, and knew that some of the more recent chapters were pretty poor. But it's gone along with a bunch of others in some recovery. It's still not approaching its 2021 highs, obviously, but it's not as low as it really got to probably, I don't know, about a year ago, I would guess, would be a year, year and a half ago. Yeah, the stock touched

below $50 very briefly a couple of years ago today, right around $100 a share. I first picked it, Stock Advisor, on January 19th of 2018 at $29.18. So, to be clear, it spent a lot of 2021 around $250 a share, but as I mentioned, around 100 days. So, still a good market beater for members. Add up, don't double down. One of my

It's my second habit for Rule Breaker investors. After picking it at 29 in January of 2018, I re-picked it at 42 three months later. It was nearly up 50% at that point just three months later, but that's been a market-beater too, so sometimes a good lesson. By the way, the name Okta comes from a meteorological term. Do you guys know this? No. Nor did I, but I did my homework for measuring cloud coverage. So, an Okta is equal to one-eighth of the sky covered by clouds

symbolizing Okta's role in securely connecting users to cloud services. So, some background for you. Also, according to Okta's annual reports, year after year, the most common passwords remain startlingly predictable.

with one, two, three, four, five, six still topping the list, highlighting the necessity in some senses of services like Okta to keep data secure despite human nature. Emily, one, Bill, nothing. Let's move on to stock No. 2. Emily Flippen is an advisor at The Fool, where she helps lead the stock advisor team with fundamental research on companies, particularly those that exemplify David's six traits of a Rule Breaker stock.

Outside of her work at The Fool, Emily co-starred on season 45 of Survivor a couple years back, continues to enjoy her failed attempts to train her cats, and last time she appeared here on the Market Cap Game Show just this past December,

She got married later that afternoon. Emily, welcome back. Thanks. Good to be here. How's married life treating you? It's treating me well. Honestly, for the past decade, it's been the same as it was previously. So I'm happy to report that married life is no different than what life was like a year ago, which is exactly what I wanted. Well, you made a good move, and that is you found a really good person and you got to know them a long time before you got married. Some would argue too long. My mom would certainly be in that cohort.

Emily, if you could summon a car to pick you up right now and drive you anywhere,

Where would you go? Oh, I haven't eaten lunch yet. And if I was in my ideal world, I would unfortunately not be in lovely Alexandria, Virginia, but Texas. And I'd be going straight to Whataburger. That's the first thing that came to mind, at least. Love it. So, that would be quite a large ride-sharing bill if you were to take from here in Alexandria, Virginia, an Uber all the way to Texas for Whataburger. It would be, but I still think it could be worth it.

It kind of sounds like a reality TV show in the making. You know, road tripping, paying how much just to get your favorite meal? Well, you might have guessed we're headed toward Uber Technologies, ticker symbol UBER. Emily, do you order food to your house? Considering this is recorded, I desperately want to say, no, of course not. I cook all of my meals. And if I'm not cooking my meals, I'm going out to a nice restaurant and enjoying a nice date night. But the

more occasions, again, than I would like to admit, where I do have that food delivered via something like Uber Eats. I mean, it's one of the pleasures of the modern world, friends. I take advantage of it all the time. Is Uber Eats your go-to app to make orders? I am now going to admit how much I, in fact, do this to say that I've had the best experiences actually using Uber Eats, although the cheaper alternatives sometimes link up with the DoorDashes or the Grubhubs, depending on who's offering certain benefits. And being a cost-conscious

food delivery person. I tend to go with the cheapest option. Well, let's not beat around the bush any longer. Emily Flippen, Uber Technologies, ticker UBER, what is your stated market cap range for Uber?

I could be grossly overestimating the size of this company based purely on how much I do, in fact, order food delivery and call Ubers around for myself. But I think this is north of a $100 billion company. I know shares have done incredibly well. The business has gotten incredibly profitable. And I'm going to put my range at $145 billion to $170 billion. $145 billion to $170 billion.

for uber bill are you an uber user uh i am an uber user not an uber eats uh user i'm sure it's occurred but yeah we're yeah we cook every single meal oh of course you do hours well since you're an uber user let me ask you this are you an uber uber user no okay no no i have a car and i and that does uh that does the the job most of the time gets you around town yeah

Bill, Emily said $145 billion to $170 billion. Players at home, Bill Barker, do you want to agree with Emily's $145 billion to $170 billion or disagree? I'm going to disagree. I think, although there's been some recovery, the actual profitability and a focus on that following the ejection of the founder and the

new CEO, I think they had dug themselves a little bit of a hole that maybe they are not yet nearly what they were at their better days in terms of market cap. So, I'm going to disagree. Alright, Bill has disagreed. Players at home? Alright, you're locked in, too. You should have agreed, Bill.

She pretty much nailed it. I'm not saying Emily looked this up recently before the show in preparation for the market cap game. I mean, who would ever do research before this show? But that was pretty darn good, Emily. Uber's market cap $148.63 billion. So, it does fall. It was close. It does fall within Emily's range. You know, this stock has actually been quite a good performer. I'm just looking back.

It touched a low of $20 in 2022. I can't remember exactly when Travis Kalanick got in a little bit of trouble and left. But today, it's gone from $20 to $70. So, this is a pretty mega-cap company that just in the last less than three years has more than tripled. Five different Motley Fool services have picked it. And I'm happy to say for us at The Fool, every position is profitable. Does either of you own this stock?

No. Not directly. But now, considering how large it is, I'm sure I indirectly do. You betcha. Well, Emily, you've got two points. Bill, you've been shut out so far. I'm in a hole already. I mean, this is rare for you, but I know you've got to come back in. I know. Just two to nothing. Let's move to stock number three.

Bill Barker, have you ever been to Las Vegas? Yes. Why? Yes, I have. Why? The usual reasons. The usual reasons, the weather. I've been there for business, for this very company. Some analyst meeting back in the days, asset management. Yeah. Do you like Las Vegas?

Yeah, in small doses. I like Las Vegas a great deal in small doses. I've been a few times myself, and each time I've gone back -- which, admittedly, I don't think I've been back in the last eight or nine years -- but each time over the decades, it felt a little bit more like Disney and a little bit less like Goodfellas. I think your impression is correct. Yeah, I think that's what they've been striving for and achieved. Bill, have you ever been to Phoenix? No. Do you want to go to Phoenix?

Yeah. I mean, I've flown into Phoenix, but I haven't actually spent the right amount of time there. It feels as if a lot of Americans are moving Southwest. That's been a trend the last few decades. And Phoenix is absolutely a beneficiary, and Las Vegas can grow forever into the desert because there's nothing surrounding it. The reason we're talking about Las Vegas and Phoenix is because this company was founded in Las Vegas in

in 1994 and moved to Phoenix in 2010. Bill, I have one more question for you. Have you ever seen a bank stock lose 80% of its value in one week? Have I ever seen it? Yeah, probably. There were some scary moments in 2008, 2009 that probably

probably saw that happen for a couple. There were some things that lost more or less 100%. That is absolutely true, like Lehman Brothers, for example. So, yeah, you've been through the wars, you've seen these kinds of things. And Western Alliance Bancorp, ticker symbol WAL, is a company that once did have a week like that. We'll talk about that in a sec. Now, this is definitely not a company as well known as Uber, arguably not as well known as

Okta, even Western Alliance Bancorp. Bill, have you ever looked at this company before? I'm holding out hope that you're just making stuff up right now, and that you're going to shortly name something that I have some tiny bit of knowledge about. That makes the game a little bit more fun. I feel as if Emily may be in the same mental space of confusion and dread. I will just mention, this company's ticker symbol

probably frequently mistaken for Walmart, because it's W-A-L. I'm not saying Western Alliance Bancorp got there first. In fact, I don't think that they did, because the company was founded in 1994. But anyway, yeah, sometimes, probably every day, somebody's typing in their ticker symbol by mistake, trying to buy Walmart stock.

Well, I think it sounds like they would be very disappointed had they landed on this one instead of Walmart, given what little I now know about it. Well, we're all going to get to know it a little bit better this week. So, let me turn to you now, Bill. This is your call to make.

Bill Barker, Western Alliance Bancorp, ticker symbol WAL. What is your stated market cap range for this now Phoenix, Arizona-based company? I am going to go with

A complete guess of $2 billion to $7 billion. $2 billion to $7 billion. Turning now to Emily. Emily, is this a stock you've ever researched? Yes, actually a fair bit, unfortunately, which is part of my quiet reaction over here being so disappointed with myself, because Western Alliant Bain Corp is actually in the Stock Advisor penalty box right now from Team Hidden Gems. It was put there after some of the liquidity issues that happened

with the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank. You are right. Emily knows her stuff. I admit, I haven't followed this company very well. My brother Tom did picket for Stock Advisor eight years ago this month. It is up for him, but kind of an underperformer. And yeah, there's the whole Silicon Valley Bank scare, which we'll talk about in a sec. But more importantly right now, players at home, Emily Flippen, Bill said $2 billion to $7 billion. Do you want to agree or disagree?

I'm very torn right now. I know it's in our stock advisor penalty box. If I had to give a range, I think that range would include something around $2.5 billion, which is, for whatever reason, what my mind has anchored to here, though I fear it could be a little bit smaller. But for the sake of what my initial reaction was, which was $2.5, which admittedly is inside Bill's range, I'm going to take the easy route here and agree with Bill. Emily agrees. Players at home, all right, you're locked in.

You should have disagreed, although Bill wasn't far off. And he did give himself, thinking rightly that this is a small-cap bank, he did give himself quite a bit of latitude, $2 billion to $7 billion. But Western Alliance Bank Corp is $8.09 billion, so just about a billion ahead of Bill's top parameters. So, players at home, if you disagreed with Bill, take that point along with Bill to make it flippin' to Barker 1.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like much of a victory, coming up with the wrong range that is just close enough to seduce somebody into making a mistake. And yet, that is how this game works sometimes. Well done, Bill. Yeah, this company has been sitting on hold in Stock Advisor for a couple of years, actually, but in one month,

It dropped from $75 a share briefly to $15. That was just a couple of years ago. It was around Silicon Valley Bank. The scare that it had -- were you following Silicon Valley Bank at the time, Emily? Not that stock in particular, but it had such reverberations across the entire market. Any business that was even remotely attached to financials, even if they weren't small-cap financials, I think were shaken by that incident.

And certainly, Western Aligned Bancorp was one of those businesses where it caused our stock advisor team to circle back and say,

What happens if there's a bank run here? Does this business have the liquidity that it needs to sustain itself? And part of the reason why it continues to persist in the stock advisor penalty box is because we still, even to this day, don't quite have the assurance that management has the latitude that it needs in terms of capital management, especially with interest rates where they are today, to sustain that. Small-cap banks. Yeah, I can remember where I was when

The first bit of news came out about Silicon Valley because it was in one of the funds that we had at Asset Management. It was not a stock that I, thankfully, was responsible for putting into any of the funds, but I got a notification or a headline or something like that as I was

coming off a tennis court and looked at how much it was down after hours, not knowing the reverberations that it was going to have over the next couple of days, but nevertheless thinking, whatever it was, ooh, 40%. That can't be good.

And just a bit of Motley Fool lore, a fair amount of our own balance sheet was at Silicon Valley Bank. And so, our team, our chief financial officer, some of our finance people scrambling over a very busy weekend to make sure that our Fool funds were safe, which fortunately they were. And I think we're more diversified today as a consequence with our own

balance sheet. So, yeah, banks matter. And even if it wasn't your bank that failed, all of a sudden, people worry about the other banks that are like it. And that's what happened. Briefly, to Western Alliance Bancorp, I am happy to say for them that the stock has generally made a pretty good comeback. It's about a double over the last year. So, $8.09 billion was the correct market cap. Let's move on to stock No. 4. Emily.

Trait No. 1 of Rule Breaker stocks is the most important.

Top dog and first mover in an important emerging industry. What are one or two examples at present for you of companies that fit this bill that you would favor to beat the market over the next 10 years? It's hard to even think about just a few. I mean, off the top of my head, you can look at mega cap companies like Meta, Nvidia, or Tesla, amazing businesses, all of which got to where they are today because they had that visionary leader that said, hey, I see this. I

opportunity, I see this industry and I want to get there first. But I look across the Stock Advisor scorecard where I admittedly spend most of my time thinking, and one that comes to mind immediately is a business like Pure Storage. Now,

Top dog, I think, is a loose term, but they are certainly a leader in an important emerging industry. Should they succeed, could eventually be that top dog. But something like memory storage, in particular flash memory, I love to see those innovative bins. I think it's a great first rule, especially when looking at companies. Thank you for that. Now, Emily, when you think of companies that can be duly credited with starting their industries,

Can you think of a company or two that comes to mind there? Oh, entirely starting their industries. I mean, I already said it, but Tesla is the classic example. I think that's a good example. I would say Uber, which you just made a call about 10 minutes ago, is probably a good example. Intuitive Surgical, Netflix. I would say some of my favorite stocks and some of our greatest rule breakers are these kinds of companies that start industries. Well, one of the first biotech companies, longtime rule breaker Amgen.

is another such. Founded in 1980, Amgen's blockbuster drug, Epigen, was the first major genetically engineered medication. It stimulates red blood cell production and transforms treatment for anemia patients, particularly those on dialysis. You're probably wondering,

properly intuiting at this point that ticker symbol AMGN, Amgen, is stock number four, a company in large part that helped start a really important industry and is still around 40-plus years later. Emily Flippen, your stated market cap range for Amgen, ticker symbol AMGN.

I have no coyness about me. In fact, as you can tell, I'm a verbal processor. As a result, I give Bill way too much insight into where my brain is going through all of this. But it helps me, so I do it anyway. I have to say, with a business like Amgen, I spend very little time thinking about biotechs. I really should spend more. But I think about how long this company has been around. You say they operate. Remind me?

Well, at this point, they're far more diversified. But I was calling out their red blood cell production blockbuster drug, Epogen. They also have Neupogen. They have a bunch of similar solutions today. But that was mostly for anemia patients and people especially on dialysis.

Doesn't that sound like a big opportunity to you? It sounds like a big opportunity to me. So, at the risk of, again, being potentially $100 billion-plus wrong on this guess, I am going to run with $150 billion to $183 billion. $150 billion to $183 billion. Bill, Amgen shareholder? No. Wish I had been over the many years. But that's a very tight range.

I know Emily's been doing her homework before this, and that gives me pause, but I'm going to disagree. Alright, Bill has disagreed. Players at home, do you want to agree with Emily's 150-183, or disagree thinking it's outside that range? Alright.

Bill should have agreed. It's $171.50 billion as of 1 p.m. ish, Tuesday, March 11th. So, this company, I was checking, I first picked it for Stock Advisor in June of 2018. It's up 75%, but it's

trailed the market, which has been up 105% over that time. But we had this stock in the original Foolport back in the day with AOL and Amazon and a few others. Anybody who's held that portfolio all the way through, I think, is very happy. Amgen would be a good reason

a long-term hold of 20-plus years. But again, the last seven, a little bit of a market laggard. Applied Molecular Genetics, that was their original name, shortened to Amgen. Has either of you ever been to Thousand Oaks, California? Unfortunately not. Sounds lovely, though.

I know someone who lives there, but I've never been. Well, they probably have seen the campus then, because Amgen has a big campus in Thousand Oaks, California, the town where it started and still is 45 years later. Alright, I think I have it as Emily 3, Bill 1. Let's move on now to stock No. 5. Bill, what do you do for fun?

I play a lot of racquet sports, and as I mentioned as the introduction covered, I watch the Yankees. Yes, and the Yankees have been fun to watch. They have been. They're having a little bit of a tough spring. I haven't been following the spring. What's been happening this spring? Well, Garrett Cole's gone in for a Tommy John surgery, so losing your number one starter to Tommy John for the year is a bad way to start. Yeah.

We talk about this once every few years, Bill, but I know a constant for you has been lawn tennis. That's right. And you've referred to it as lawn tennis, which not many do these days. Is it the proper term that I'm using? Depends on what circles you're traveling. But if you're distinguishing it from the game, which is known as real tennis in Australia and England, and as court tennis here, lawn tennis is the correct thing to refer to.

What all of the rest of the world thinks of as tennis. Yes. Now, Bill, I've enjoyed you as a friend and colleague for 20 plus years. You spend very little time bragging about anything. But I feel as if you could brag some about your achievement, your lifetime with court tennis, lawn tennis.

I could tell you that my son is the No. 3 amateur in the country. I could go that far for you. And I think it's fair to say he's his father's son, though. By definition, yes. He is. Bill, have you competed at a high level in this sport? In age division categories, I have competed at a high level. All right. Well, you're being modest, but we don't need to go there. But I assume if I Googled Bill Barker or maybe your son's name...

Court tennis, I would see some past results that would open up my eyes a little bit wider. To the degree that you were able to maintain interest for very long, you might learn of a tournament or two over the years. All right. And it sounds like, though, you don't do anything for fun. I don't do anything for fun.

It doesn't sound like that to me. By which I mean Six Flags Entertainment Corp, ticker symbol, fun. You didn't mention...

adding any value to that company. I don't think you've ever been an employee of any of the Six Flags or Cedar Fair properties. Am I right that you haven't done anything for fun? I have, I'm sure, attended an establishment of theirs at some point in the long-ago past. Alright. Well, this is, in fact, stock No. 5, Bill Barker, Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which recently merged with Cedar Fair and took on the company's ticker symbol,

I think Six Flags was SIX, now it's FUN, the merged entity. And that is stock No. 5. Bill Barker, what is your stated market cap range for Six Flags Entertainment Corp., ticker symbol FUN? Six Flags itself had fallen on hard times, as I recall.

having merged with Cedar Fair gives it a little bit more of an upside, I think. And I am going to be no bolder than I was last time and go with that $2 billion to $7 billion range. $2 billion to $7 billion for Six Flags Entertainment.

Corp. Emily, do you enjoy amusement parks? One of my favorites, actually. If I can convince somebody to go with me, although it's a hard sell sometimes. Is your husband willing to go with you? That's exactly what I mean by a hard sell. He says that he has eye problems and that the pressure from the rides will hurt his eyes. I've never followed up with him about the details of these so-called eye problems. I've had a decade plus to do it. But I don't believe him. I think he just doesn't like amusement parks. So I think...

I like amusement parks, too. So if you ever want to invite me, I would go with you. And I'd like to ride the roller coasters, which I enjoy a lot. I don't like the twisty rides, the octopus, the merry mixer, the spinny things. Are you okay with those? I like anything that gets my heart rate up. The only ones I dislike are the ones where you have to wait in line for two hours and then it lasts 30 seconds. If I can go back-to-back on the heaviest coasters, that's my perfect trip to Six Flags.

Well said. Bill Barker said $2 billion to $7 billion for this company's market cap. Emily, you're up 3-1 right now. This could be a defining moment of this week's Market Cap Game Show.

Players at home, Emily Flippen, do you want to agree with Bill or disagree with Bill? Two to seven billion. You know, what you can't pick up on by listening to this in podcast form is the quiet confidence that is coming off of Bill right now. I mean, he's sipping his coffee rather demurely. And I just say he does seem calm, Bill. Considering the amount of coffee that I've had today, I project more calmness than most could.

And considering, similarly to Western Line Baincorp, I don't have much of a clue. And, you know, he is just implying there is a clue to be had here. So I'm going to, again, once again, take the easy route out and just agree. Emily has agreed. Players at home, what do you do? Okay, then.

You were right to agree. Bill did give a wide girth for this one, and it's kind of somewhere in the middle. 3.50. I always take it out to a second decimal. That's accurate. I didn't round anything. $3.5 billion for Six Flags Entertainment Corp. That pushes it to flipping four, Barker one. You were right. Bill was quite calm. And even though he doesn't technically do anything for fun...

He knew his fun. He did know his fun. I appreciate the wide range there, Bill. Well, I would have said that if we were just talking about Six Flags the last time I paid any attention to it, that it was below $2 billion. It really had struggled. I guess the combination with Cedar Fair made me think it was doing better than the last time I checked up on it, which certainly I think was below $2 billion.

That merger happened on, I think it was July 1st of last year. So, we're still in the first year. But on that Halcyon day, it was right around $60 a share, mid-50s. And today, it's down to $34.

and change. So, we're talking about a company that wasn't doing that great leading up to that, spiked with that merger, has fallen back some. This is a company that especially some longtime Fools like me have enjoyed following because Salim Basoul, who was the longtime CEO at Middleby, became the CEO of Six Flags trying to turn it around. And ultimately, Salim decided clearly to merge

with what was sort of an equal and a longtime rival. Didn't Daniel Snyder have something to do with taking a sledgehammer to that company? Oh, my. The former Washington Commander's owner and somebody that isn't that popular around the city. No, no. Am I right about that? I think you might be right about that. I have to admit,

This is part of the past that I haven't followed very much. But I will say that this merged company, Bill and Emily, is pretty substantial. Emily, you mentioned having maybe been there before, perhaps you have too, Bill. 51 properties today, 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks, and nine resorts.

Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, of all places, I declare halftime. We're Emily for Bill One. This happened last week, by the way. Matt Argersinger was down 4-1 and came back to take the lead. So, you never know what's going to happen. Now, in the past, for halftime, we've had marching bands.

music concerts, but this year is special. It's 2025. And as I shared at the start of the year, my 2025 book, Rule Breaker Investing, is available for pre-order now. After 30 years of stock picking, this is my magnum opus, a lifetime of lessons distilled into one definitive guide

And each week, until the book launches this summer, I'm sharing a random excerpt. We break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences. So let's do it. It's a brief, dramatic reading for our halftime entertainment. Here's this week's Page Breaker preview, two sentences from Chapter 14. And I quote, "...probably the biggest driver of portfolio purpose hinges on whether there will be new money coming in or not."

In my parlance, I ask, is it an odyssey or a phoenix? That's this week's Page Breaker preview to pre-order my final word on stock picking, shaped by three decades of success. Just type Rule Breaker Investing into Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, or wherever you shop for great books. And thank you to everyone who's pre-ordered. That means a lot to me.

And that's halftime. The score is Emily 4, Bill 1. Let's move on to stock number six. Turning back to Emily. Emily, speaking of amusement parks.

Have you ever been to Disney and ridden Space Mountain? I have. I believe when I was a child, I went to Disney. I rode Space Mountain. And I wish I could say I had more memories from that experience. But interestingly enough, that and I believe the Tower of Terror are the two rides that have stuck with me. Yeah, I've also been on both of them. And the Tower of Terror, which shoots you up like six stories, and then it's like you're in a hotel and all of a sudden...

the external wall that protects you from the outside opens up and you say, "Oh my gosh, we're up 70 feet or something and there's nothing below me and nothing in front of me." It's a little bit disconcerting. Certainly is. Although I will say, I think that is what started my love for all the extreme rides to begin with.

Did you go on over to Epcot at any point? I had never gone as a kid, although very recently as an adult, and quite literally, I believe in January, I went over to Epcot actually for the first time with some friends. Did you go on Mission Space? We did.

Mission Space, well, I want to say something more about that in a minute or two. But, Emily, what's the closest you've ever been to space? Oh, that's a great question. I wonder if the Space Needle in Seattle counts. That would count. I would imagine, though, an airplane is probably the closest I've ever been. That would be closer. Well, I'm glad we're talking about space, because stock No. 6, a very interesting company,

Rocket Lab USA, ticker symbol RKLB, is a company that is regularly touching and trafficking in space and lots of different stuff. Satellites, probably some spy stuff up there, lots of different interesting things happening just off planet Earth these days. Rocket Lab, an early leader. Emily, is this a stock you've ever looked at?

Never before in my life. Alright. Well, the closest I can really think and get in the mind of a shareholder of this stock, of which I'm not, is Mission Space, which I want to talk about in a sec, that ride at Epcot. But more importantly, and first, Emily, what is your stated market cap range

for Rocket Lab USA, ticker symbol RKLB. See, I was really going to go with the quiet confidence attempt this round and not give a giant disqualifier about why my answer is probably wrong, but you had to lead off with a question about if I've ever looked at the company before. So, maybe I'll try that next time. I have to imagine, if you are shooting rockets into space, as I would imagine Rocket Labs probably does, that's a pretty capital-intensive endeavor. It's probably larger than I think it is. But,

Market's down, space is expensive.

I'm going to go with a range of $6.5 billion to $10 billion. $6.5 billion to $10 billion. And I know you say you're a verbal processor, and I like that about you, Emily. That makes the game much more fun because you're really kind of laying out. And there can be some head faking going on here. You might be trying to tease or mislead Bill in ways that Bill and I can't fully understand. I will say, if that's the goal, then I would give myself credit for that. But unfortunately, what this does in the majority of cases is just

show how embarrassingly off I am on the occasions where I am off. Not so far this week. Bill, is this a stock you've ever looked at? No, it is not. Alright. And I have not really that much either. Our

Our colleague Yasser El-Shimi at The Motley Fool has picked this stock for Motley Fool Trends. We'll talk about that in a sec. This is a company that I think is pretty interesting to follow. And by the way, it has nothing at all to do with the Mission: Space ride that almost killed me at Disney that we'll talk about in a minute. But let's go back now to Bill. Bill and players at home, Emily said $6.5 billion to $10 billion. Bill, do you find yourself wanting to agree or to disagree?

Well, I've disagreed every time, and I think, and Emily's been right with her range every time. So I'm either falling into a trap here or misplaying my cards entirely here.

Well, let's just agree with Emily because that's going to be a change and I need to change the momentum somehow. Clearly there was an inspirational talk at halftime and perhaps a re-plotting of strategies. Players at home, do you want to agree with Bill that Emily got her range right 6.5 to 10 or disagree? All right.

Bill's starting to make a comeback. It's 4-2, plus one bill, because Rocket Lab USA's market cap is $7.99 billion. Emily, almost right at the midpoint of what you said, you pretty much nailed it. Ironically, out of all of the guesses I've had today, I think that was probably the biggest shot in the dark guess. Flattered that Bill gave me benefit of the doubt there. I will just question the use of guess there.

And imagine that all the guesses are educated guesses, and that they are not the kind of guesses that I am employing, which are not educated guesses. The characteristic Barker humility shows itself once again. I mentioned Yasser El-Shibi picking the stock. It was at $4 a share in July of 2023 when he picked it for Motley Fool Trends.

Now it's $17. So, it's proven a pretty great stock pick. Rocket Labs defines itself as an end-to-end space company delivering reliable launch services, spacecraft, satellite components, and on-orbit management of space.

assets. Space is going to be a big industry over the next 50 to 100 years, and maybe beyond, maybe forever, as long as the human race is around. I think space is going to matter more and more. So, I think this is a pretty rule-breakery kind of a company and a pick. It is volatile, and it is early days for the industry and this company. Back to Mission Space. So,

I went to Disney in January of 2006, so our kids are basically 12, 10, and 7. It was a great time to go to Disney. I boarded the ride with the kids and our fellow adults. We always go to Disney with another family because it's more fun to share it with two families and co-babysit than just be on point for your own kids the whole time.

And as I got off that ride, I was incredibly dizzy and not happy. And I looked at one of my other adult friends, and she had had the exact same experience. We're like,

Wow! And I think that was the day for me, Emily, where I decided, "I don't think I'm ever going to go to outer space," because the amount of pressure of liftoff was just very uncomfortable for me. And I'm sorry to say that my friend Christina and I traded texts three months later when in April 2006 a German tourist became ill during or immediately after riding Mission Space, lost consciousness,

and died shortly thereafter at a hospital. The medical examiner, by the way, pointing to severe longstanding high blood pressure for her leading patient.

to a brain hemorrhage, also known as a stroke. A brief dark moment here for this week's Market Cap Game Show. And tragic, and of course, this is a ride many people love and is just fine. It's been around for decades. But I don't think I'm ever going to go with Rocket Lab or Mission Space to outer space. Yeah, this is a great reminder to me to take my blood pressure medication, of which I did forget this morning. So, I know what I'm doing when I go

right home. And I'm glad you are. I also take blood pressure medication pretty much every day, which I'm grateful for as well. So, Emily IV, Bill II. You know, we're not really done with amusement parks or theme parks yet. It's kind of an emerging theme, as you're going to see. But

First of all, Bill, let me turn to you with stock No. 7. Happy birthday to you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. I believe it may have been a big round number last week? It was. It was on this day last week, which prevented me from coming in. We had to have Andy and Matt instead. At this moment, it feels like the better week to have appeared.

We're not done yet, though. Yeah, so I'm now done celebrating turning 60, but I'm now actually just enduring it. Any advice to those of us? I'm about a year behind you, and some of our listeners turned this a long time ago, but many people hearing you right now, Bill, have not yet turned 60. Do you have one or two bits of advice for people who will one day turn 60 based on your own lived experience? Yeah, and that is...

Don't incorporate wine into your celebration. I think that's what I learned upon turning 60, is that the food is just as good as when you're 59, but the wine, at least in volumes consumed by my friends at such an occasion, is the kind of thing you should just wrap up before you turn 60. Did you have fun, though, overall?

You kind of made a few days of it. You described this offline for me. It almost sounded like a Barker festival, a roving, traveling festival. I'm told it was a great time. That's awesome. Well, as I mentioned, Bill, I'm about a year behind you, which means we've lived our lives through the same era. And I want us to feel our age here for a minute or two. Bill, what was your source of information when you used to write up history or research papers in grade school?

In grade school, you probably know the answer. It was The World Book. The World Book. And I assume your school had a library where you would also --

Put your nose in a few books and make sure you're doing the bibliography properly. I learned how to do a proper bibliography. I forgot all of how you do that. But yes, I mean, those were the only methods back in the day, the Dewey Decimal System. Incredible to think just truly how much the world has changed today.

I'm going to turn 59 in a month or two. Bill, you just turned 60. We had one foot in one era where you didn't know that much stuff and you had to look it up somewhere in maybe a library or a world book. And these days you can find out so many things about so many things. Not all true. No.

Not all true, no. I mean, don't believe everything you read on the internet, although most of us make the mistake of doing so. I think I do. I make that mistake, but I don't regret it. And Bill, I mean, aren't we glad that we have one foot in this century? Because this is a lot easier than it was back when we were kids growing up.

It was a lot simpler back then, wasn't it? I mean, it was harder to find facts, yeah, but it was easier to know as much as everybody else. Bill, did your parents ever invest in a full set of encyclopedias? It sounds like they might have with the World Book. Oh, yes, yes. The Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Emily, you're younger than we are. Noticeably so, if I may. And

I'm just curious, what did you grow up with as you wrote -- I assume it's Google, right? -- as you wrote grade school papers? Yeah, it's hard for me to remember a time prior to Google. Now, I was born in '94, which I think was the same year Google was born, if I'm not mistaken. I think I'm the same age as Google. Somewhere around there. So, I grew up with it, in effect. And while I didn't always have access to the tiny little computer I carry around in my pocket today, I did always tend to go to Google whenever I needed to learn information.

David Gardner: Yeah, so we're about to talk about Alphabet, ticker symbol GOOG. Except, oh my gosh, stock No. 7 is a throwdown. So, to remind our players at home, both Bill and Emily will, right now, write down their market cap range for Alphabet, ticker symbol GOOG. It also has an L on the end, another class of stock. We're just going to keep it simple, GOOG. Pencils out, Fools!

Okay, and all you have to do as a player at home is, once Bill and Emily state their market caps, decide which you want to go with. Does Bill's range seem more plausible to you, or does Emily's? And if you guess right, you're going to give yourself a point. Now, there's a chance, by the way, they'll both be right, especially if they use wide ranges.

If they're both right, the tighter range wins the point. And if they're both wrong, it does happen. In that case, whoever's parameter is closer to the actual market cap gets a plus one. Again, this is a throwdown. We do this twice every show. Stock number seven, Alphabet.

Alright, Bill, I'm going to turn to you first. What is your market cap range? Remember, you want to be as tight and accurate as possible here for the ticker symbol GOOG.

I don't know if this is right. It's tighter than the other ones I've given. I've got $1.97 to $2.1 trillion. $1.97 trillion to $2.10 trillion. Yes. All right. I mean, in the grander scheme, that's not that tight. I mean, that's like $13 billion apart. But really ...

When you think about it, that's an awfully tight range from a percentage standpoint. Emily Flippen, Bill said $1.97 trillion to $2.10 trillion. What did you say? See, I was...

I'm initially relieved because I'm in a general ballpark, same as Bill, but I will say I thought my range was too tight. Now, I'm deeply insecure about the wideness of my range, of which I had $1.8 trillion. $1.8 trillion. To $2.35 trillion. To $2.35 trillion.

So, players at home, it's now up to you to call out Bill or Emily. Quick reminder, Bill, $1.97 to $2.10 trillion. Emily, $1.80 trillion to $2.35 trillion. I'm going to give you three seconds right now to call out who you think got it right. Three, two, one.

All right. And if you said Bill, give yourself a plus one. That makes it Emily four, Bill three. The game is getting increasingly interesting, and both of you did a very good job with that. Alphabet's market cap?

$2.00549 trillion. Basically, $2.0 trillion. So, you both had it inside your range, but Bill had a tighter range of just $13 billion, whereas Emily, you gave yourself a $55 billion range. So, Bill, and anybody who said Bill, gets the plus one. We may re-tape some of this. I don't want to correct you, but some people out there might be correcting you that it's $130 billion

not 13 because we're dealing with such huge numbers here and decimals, and we're taking them out two or three places. Bill, we're going to leave that in there just to show that when we're dealing with numbers this large, even your talented...

Game Show MC can get his numbers a little bit off. Thank you very much. At a zero, Fools, the result is still the same, and I sit, which is what I am not sitting, sit corrected. Well, yeah, as you pointed out, it wasn't that tight a range. It was $130 billion. $130 billion from 1.97. You can squeeze several big companies in their entirety into that $130 billion.

And it may be outside that range as you listen to this. It's true. These stocks do fluctuate. But thank you, I do sit corrected. And I was thinking, before we move on to stock No. 8, just go back in time again, Bill, because we're spending time talking about libraries and world books. Yahoo, back in the day, was the search leader.

It was, until Google came along, and it was immediate, almost, that it displaced, I don't know, Northern Lights and that one with the dog. Ask Jeeves? Ask Jeeves. What was the one with the dog? I can't remember. It would fetch things for you? I was checking this. Google truly began to overtake Yahoo as the dominant search leader online.

Around 2003, right in there, Google was officially founded, by the way, in 1998, and rapidly gained market traction and user preference over just those following few years. But it was right around 2003 where a noticeable shift in market leadership. Emily, you were

8-9 year old kid. Did you use Yahoo or ever think about Yahoo? Yeah, definitely. I had used Yahoo for a period. I have a Yahoo account, or I guess I should say had. I don't know the last time I checked up on it. But Google was the place and still continues to be. And it was first picked in Rule Breakers on May 21st of 2008 by our colleague Tim Byers. It's a 12-bagger since, and that just about doubles up the market averages over the last 17 years. Also, Fools, Friends, everywhere, dividends.

Alphabet now paying out $0.20 a share with each passing quarter to shareholders. Starting in June of last year, I just noticed it went ex-dividend. This week, to complete its first full year, $0.80 a share, which is about a half percent dividend yield as well. So, from those

cash coffers on its balance sheet. Google's starting to disgorge some of its funds to its shareholders, including, of course, the widows and orphans who are always after the dividends. Bill, do you own Alphabet?

Yeah, I do. I put a little bit of it in one of my kids' accounts in around 2008. Wow. Good job. Which turned out to be a better idea than the other things that I put in their accounts in 2008. But, yeah, happy to have done so. Let's move on to stock No. 8. Emily, do you own a car? I do own a car. I thought you did, because you drove over here to Full HQ Studios today. I did drive. Yes, I did.

New? Used? Do you want to talk some about your -- do you like your car? Used car, yes. I'm not a car person. I think cars -- this might be some fighting words for our listeners here -- I think they're a waste of money. They're a depreciating asset. And the less time I spend thinking about my car, the less time I spend in my car, the better. So, I drive an old, used Honda Civic.

Sounds very economical. Is it getting the job done for you? It is getting the job done, I will say. It was dicier when I was commuting into the office every day, although I would occasionally metro in when possible. But now that I'm working remotely, I mean, it barely gets used as it is. How'd you find that used car?

Oh, that's a great question. I believe it was a trade-in at a dealership, actually. So, this was an in-person sale. This was not a classic digital, I guess, CarMax purchase, if we're maybe headed that direction? We're headed that direction, but not to CarMax. Actually, we're headed to a company that I personally had never heard of. The few Motley Fool recommendations it's had, none has really worked out so far. But CarGurus,

ticker symbol CARG, the Boston, Massachusetts-based automotive research and shopping website. CarGurus, by the way, a camel case name.

Not everybody knows camel case. Let me briefly explain. We all know uppercase, we all know lowercase. But if there's one of those words like iPod, where it smashes two things together and then capitalizes that second word, if you really picture it and think about camels, this is the technical term camel case. So, CarGurus is one of those public companies that has a camel case name with a capital

Gee, Emily, you don't really look like you have a lot of familiarity with CarGurus, ticker symbol CARG. I don't. I'm relatively familiar with CarMax. And I will say, I feel like if you're the company that comes in and is, I don't want to say ripping off, I think that's strong words, but let's say benefiting from the awareness of your larger competitor, who I would assume is the larger competitor in CarMax, and then adding guru onto it,

I would have to imagine your market cap may be a little bit smaller. It might be. And we're about to find out what you think, because Emily, I'm going to ask you now, ticker symbol CARG, what is your stated market cap range for car gurus? Again, at the risk of being horribly off base here, I feel like this has to be a micro cap. I mean, I can't tell you a single person in my life who has

ventured to a car guru website, nonetheless made a purchase from car gurus. So, I'm going to give this a market cap range of $350 million to $2.5 billion. $350 million to $2.5 billion. And now that I have my mathematical scales recalibrated, I know that that is

$2.15 billion range, not $21 billion and not just $2.15. Bill Barker, players at home, Emily just said $350 million to $2.5 billion. Bill, have you ever come across car gurus? No. Again, I'm holding out the possibility that you're just making stuff up right now. I will say, as I came across this company, and again,

A few Motley Fool services have recommended this. I know some of our listeners actively use the site and knew about this company, but it sounds like all three of us are somewhat mystified by car gurus. I'll have a little bit more information once we've settled the score on this one. Bill Barker, Emily said $350 million to $2.5 billion. Players at home, Bill, do you find yourself wanting to agree or to disagree? The only thing that has been working is to agree. And it's a nice...

pretty large range. So I'm going to have to agree. All right. That same halftime speech, that recalibration of strategy, Bill, sticking with it,

And yet, it didn't work this time, because CarGurus is bigger than any of us thought. Not that much bigger, but $3.31 billion is the market cap for CarGurus, which puts Emily at $5 and Bill at $3. Of course, two more stocks are coming. This company was founded in 2006.

by one of the co-founders of TripAdvisor. So, CarGurus starts off as just an automotive blog where people could post reviews, ask questions about local dealers, types of cars, etc. Then dealers start noticing it, start expressing an interest in advertising on the site.

And the rest is history. Today, the site connects dealers with buyers with auto inventory right on the site. So, you know, it's kind of like TripAdvisor, but for cars. And if that market cap is correct, and I, of course, assume it is correct, I think that would make it larger than TripAdvisor as well.

You have to admit, I hadn't looked at TripAdvisor in a while. It is still a public company, Emily, and now looking at its market cap, it's $1.88 billion, about half the size of CarGurus.com. So, the co-founder of TripAdvisor arguably may have made more off CarGurus at this point than off TripAdvisor, although TripAdvisor had some great days as a leader in a much larger company back in the day.

Just checking it now before we move on to stock No. 9. CarGurus IPO'd in 2017. It doubled at one point. Then it lost three-quarters of its value at another.

And today, 2025, pretty much sits right about where the stock IPO'd eight years later. As I mentioned, The Fool has a few recommendations on this one from a few different services. None has really worked out. Well, it did work out for Emily, because Bill's new strategy of always agreeing with Emily on this one, it was close, but it backfired on you, Bill. And you can't rely on that one this time, because we're turning to you for stock No. 9. Bill,

Roughly, how many superhero movies would you say you have paid in-theater tickets for over the past 20 years? Roughly. Ten. Not that many.

Maybe more. And if you're including tickets I've paid for children accompanying me, more than 10. But I was just thinking about the movies themselves. So are you a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Sure, yes. Are you a fan of DC Comics? Also, yes. All right. Give me a couple of your favorite superhero movies. For those who may not have watched these yet, give us some recs. You know, the one that stands out,

most was the first Spider-Man movie because it was the first time anybody really got it right. The effects had caught up with the imagination of the writers and the comic books, and they were able to deliver something that

felt dramatically more like you wanted to experience a comic book story. I think that was March of 2002. So if I'm right, 23 years ago this month-ish, when Tobey Maguire's first Spider-Man movie came out. Yeah. I think the crowd cheered at the end of it, which you don't get often enough in movies. I would say that. And

Yeah, I'm dating myself because there are a lot of great ones that have been done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Superman II also stands out as something that was good fun, well executed, and delivered. The effects weren't nearly what they became, of course, but Christopher Reeve could do Superman. Wow, yeah.

And Superman has been redone pretty successfully since then. And some of these, like Spider-Man has been redone, then redone again, then redone again. And at this point, some of us, I can't speak for Emily or for Bill, but some of us aren't as interested in

In going back to yet another superhero movie, does that describe you, Bill? Are you just as open as you were in 2002, or are you a little bit tired? I don't go to the theater at all for anything, but when I do, it's most often for something that

should be experienced in a theater like an action movie, like the Marvel Universe. Well said. Well, Bill, stock No. 9 is The Walt Disney Company, which is behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since it bought Marvel more than a decade ago. And really, in many ways, has done tremendous work in service to Marvel fans worldwide with all of the many

Great stories brought to the silver screen, and maybe occasionally even more than we wanted to see maybe in recent years. But Disney, of course, a business much bigger than just Marvel movies, but that's how I thought to start the conversation. But Bill, let's now turn specifically to Disney stock. It's Emily Five, Bill Three. I'm not saying the pressure's on. I'm not saying that. You don't need to say it.

And I'm wondering, Bill Barker, what is your stated market cap range for the Walt Disney Company ticker symbol DIS? I

And once again, guessing mostly blindly, but it's not what it should be, is my first feeling about it. It having been one of these things I referenced before about adding to my kids' portfolios in 2008. The days since then have not been the equivalent of Google or many other stocks. It's true. They've fallen on, not hard times, but certainly the pandemic affected their lives.

cruise lines and the amusement parks, and they've built back some of that. It's been a tough, underperforming decade for Disney. Yeah, they over-invested in some of the Star Wars and Marvel streaming shows. Anyway, I think $160 billion to $220 billion. $160 billion to $220 billion. Just on the face of it, before you say anything else, Emily, does that strike you as generally plausible or directionally off in some way? Definitely generally plausible.

I just can't figure out if Disney would be smaller or larger, which is an embarrassing thing to admit when the range is admittedly a pretty generous range. But this is a business that I, for better or worse, follow as part of Stock Advisor. It's a foundational stock for Stock Advisor members. And even throughout its past decade, as you mentioned, of underperformance, we've held conviction in this company, especially through the turnaround that has been Disney+, where they did, to Bill's point, over-invest in a lot of their streaming services.

But the business has firmed up a lot, even if investors haven't necessarily given that appreciation over the last couple of years. The pandemic was just devastating. It was. Expectations were high coming out of it. And when that didn't manifest the way that it manifests for the Netflixes of the world, I think there was skepticism, especially as their most profitable businesses, which was their cruise lines and their parks, saw decreased traffic through the pandemic. All focus was on the streaming services.

But all segments of their business are profitable now. That much I know. Bill, it seems to me Emily knows this company pretty well. Far better than I do, yeah. We're about to find out. Emily, players at home, $160 billion to $220 billion. Do you want to agree with Bill or disagree with Bill?

I'm going to disagree with Bill, and I don't know if I think it's larger or smaller, but I think it's different. The nice thing is you don't have to know that in this game to play along. Players at home, if you agreed with Emily to disagree with Bill...

You don't get a point because Bill nailed it with his range. It was fairly generous, Bill, $160 to $220. And Emily was right. It was all close. $177.70 billion for the Walt Disney Company, powered a lot in the last couple of decades by Bob Iger, the present CEO who returned in 2022. But that Iger magic has

Faded. The stock is a bit below where it was a decade ago. Well, Iger was the one who put into practice a lot of the initiatives around streaming that eventually got his successor, JPEG, into trouble. So, I've always thought the irony was a little thick that he came into Disney to fix the problems that, I would argue, he started in the first place. But certainly, the business has firmed up. So, I have to give Iger credit for that.

There are different interpretations, but I would put Iger in the category of enjoying the experience of having an easy act to follow because nothing really went right for JPEG.

It's true. And the stock, as I mentioned, is below where it was a decade ago. This is a long, long hold for many of us around The Motley Fool. I first picked it in June of 2002. It was three months after Spider-Man came out with Tobey Maguire. And part of the reason I liked it is because people were saying, it's a fad. Superhero movies can't catch on. This is just a one-shot. It was a good movie, but don't you see what happened to the Michael Keaton Batman movies back in the 80s?

Like, this won't keep going. And fortunately, it really did. That $1.80 cost basis that we have was not because I ever picked Disney. It's because I picked Marvel. And, oh, by the way, also Pixar a few times. So, we have Disney on the Stock Advisor scorecard a bunch of times, and we never actually picked Disney.

Disney. But yeah, being undercut by Netflix with Disney streaming services, the cable cord cutting has ESPN with substantial subscriber declines. Pandemic, fortunately, over now. But Emily, you're pointing out this business is firming up and maybe people aren't noticing yet. It has been. And the pricing power they've had around their parks has been absolutely incredible. I always hesitate because I wonder how far that can go, especially in a tighter economic environment. But long-term, I think Disney's IP, its visionary management,

as well as just the moat that it's built around, the Disney brand, is something that has a lot of value. I think you're right, and I'm not going to go back on Mission: Space. And you shouldn't.

The brand lineup between Star Wars and Marvel and Pixar and Disney itself. They've got so many properties that are going to be ones that are going to be around for decades and maybe centuries. We'll see. Yeah. Well, it's always fun when the game's close. And since Bill just scored that point, it makes it 5-4, which feels a lot like last week at this point to me,

Emily, if you win stock No. 10, you will advance to our World Championship next week. Bill, if you win, we will go to a tiebreaker. Let's see what happens. I'm going to turn back to Emily here for stock No. 10. Emily, thinking back over the years, what's the earliest photo of yourself that you ever remember sharing online?

Oh, gosh. I go back to when I created my Facebook profile for the first time. And I had, as a kid, taken an educational trip to Australia. And I got the opportunity to pretend kiss a crocodile. I mean, its snout was closed, but I did hold it up, you know, tiny little baby alligator. I did kiss it. And that was my profile photo on Facebook for an embarrassing long amount of time. So that's the one that comes to mind. That's a great one. How old, roughly, were you of that life-changing trip? Oh, that's a long time.

That's a great question. I was in middle school. And it's anyone's guess how old I was in middle school, because I can't tell you. Emily, do you have photos from your time on the island in season 45 of Survivor? More than I would like to admit. I mean, I know you couldn't eat for two weeks, but you were allowed to take selfies? I was not allowed to. I was surrounded by cameras 24-7. And every week before the episodes would air, I would get an email link to a Google Drive where all of these photos for the episode would be stored. And I'd get a little sneak peek about...

Exactly how malnourished and dirty I looked on the island during that week's episode. You and everybody else. Well, today, only one more question in the same direction. How often do you find yourself scrolling through memories or being reminded of what you were doing five or ten years ago by a certain platform?

I particularly like to avoid social media platforms for exactly that reason. I can get emotional, I can get nostalgic. And the less time I spend thinking about the good old days, the more time I spend thinking about the good days hopefully to come, the better my life is. Well said. Bill, is social media a time-taker-upper in your life? No. It certainly has been, and I've recognized to a degree

Now that you're older but wiser? For differing reasons, I just separated from both Facebook and from X, and occasionally go back. But then I say, "Oh, that just wasted a lot of time." Wasted a lot of time enjoying the time I was wasting. But yeah, to a limited degree, I've made conscious efforts to not spend any time on social media. Well, stock No. 10, and it's a big one,

This show, we've actually had a few, including Alphabet earlier. We've had some real mega caps randomly this week on the Market Cap Game Show. Is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and oh, by the way, WhatsApp, too. And of course...

By the process of elimination, discerning listeners and fellow contestants are very likely anticipating this. Stock No. 10 is a throwdown. Yep, we'd only had one so far. This is the final stock of the show. Unless it's not. So, pencils out, fools. That's right. As we speak,

Emily and Bill are both thinking about what is their most accurate, tightest market cap range they could give for Meta Platforms, ticker symbol META. Players at home, you know, you just have to, after having heard both of their guesses, you just have to side with the right one by calling out their name when I give you a chance. Alright, well, their pencils are down and they're both smiling a little bit.

I am surprised -- I was just saying offline to them -- by how many mega-cap stocks we've had. And to think that our two throwdowns were Alphabet and Meta Platforms, again, random, but I'm glad it randomized that way. It just has made for a very interesting week for the Market Cap Game Show. Emily, turning to you, what is your stated market cap range for Meta Platforms, ticker symbol META?

The concerning thing about having these mega caps as a throwdown is that I'm realizing now as I'm looking at my range that my range is a $300 billion range. And even if I'm directionally accurate, it might not be tight enough to win. But fingers crossed, my range for Meta is $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion. $1.500 trillion to $1.8 trillion.

8-0-0. 8-0-0-trillion. 1-5, trillion and a half to trillion and eight-tenths. Bill Barker, what is your meta platform's range? I added, at the last minute, a digit. But that's my range. Bill has just turned his card to Emily and to me, and he wrote down 1.53 to 1.80.

trillion, which is astonishing because you're both so close. But Bill, you at the last second tightened your range. That makes you odds on to get this one unless it's just below $1.

You're 1.53 and still within EMILY's. This is very interesting. The only reason I did that, because I wrote 1.5 to 1.8, and then I think last time when we were doing Alphabet, you asked for a second digit. I had actually gone 1.97 to 2.1 for there, so I had actually gone that extra digit, and had not even thought to do so this time around.

Maybe that's worked out for me, maybe not. Really interesting. It's kind of like Price is Right where somebody says, one cent to capture everything. A little bit of gamesmanship going on here. So, players at home, say it. Three, two, one. Do you want to favor Bill or Emily? Three, two, one. You

You said it. And if you said Bill Barker, give yourself a plus one. This is unbelievable. We're taking this out to multiple digits because Meta Platform's market cap is $1.53 billion.

051 trillion just just inside Bill's range out to a few extra decimals. This is an astonishing tie. Wow. Well earned right there. I

I need to just walk. That's where you just drop the mic and leave. The problem is, we can't let you, because we now have a tiebreaker. Bill and Emily, at the end of 10 stocks. This happened last week, too. These players are really good. Bill and Emily are now going to be given an 11th tiebreaker stock. It will, by default, be a throwdown. So get ready to get your pencils out again and

Some Barker gamesmanship might enter, so watch out, Emily. I'm going to be adding three digits to everything. Players at home and players here in the studio. Stock number 11. We're near the end of the show. I'm not going to be cute about this one. Is service now. Ticker symbol N-O-N.

Many Motley Fool services all over this one. It's been a long-term winner as Bill and Emily think about ServiceNow. Some of us probably own this stock. If you're a Motley Fool member, you may well, and you're probably smiling because it's been a long-term winner. But for those who don't, let me stall for Bill and Emily and give them extra information briefly by giving you a few sentences as to what this company is all about. ServiceNow provides cloud-based software that helps businesses manage and automate services

their IT operations, their customer service, and internal workflows. Its platform centralizes the data, it streamlines your processes, it reduces the complexity of enterprise-level tasks, it makes companies more efficient.

So essentially, ServiceNow simplifies how large organizations manage work, improving productivity, ideally across teams and departments. Again, the ticker symbol is NOW.

Our tiebreaker stock is ServiceNow. I'm going to turn this time first to Bill. Bill, what is your market cap range for ServiceNow? Take it out to as many decimals as you like, friend. No decimals. $60 to $69 billion. $60 billion to $69 billion. Emily Flippen, what is your stated market cap range for ServiceNow? $55 to $73 billion. $55 billion to $73 billion. I have to be right.

players at home, it comes down to this. Are you going to agree with Bill or are you going to agree with Emily? Three, two, one. You said it. And if you said Emily Flippen, give yourself a plus one because both of you, so good at this game, both of you were way off. I don't believe you.

At the end, ServiceNow's market cap -- I actually had to just double-check to make sure I wasn't wrong -- is $168.12 billion. When I mentioned that this has been a really good stock pick for Motley Fool members who've held it for a long time, this company

Yeah, 12 figures. So, $168.12 billion now. Emily, at her high end of the range, said $73 billion. Bill, you were at $69 billion. So, Emily was closer to the $168 billion. But I see some skepticism. Well, I don't know if

We'll have to roll the tape back as to how this was defined. The midpoint of my range is $64.5 billion, and the midpoint for Emily, if I'm doing the math right in my head, is $64 billion. You're doing the math exactly right. So, I'm just going to argue for my case here. I totally appreciate that. And let me say, the official rules of the Market Cap Game Show is it just looks at the parameter that's closest. But

That's such a good point, Bill. But her lower parameter was further away. I know, but it's just the word. And yet, I just love, truly, how close you both were to each other, and yet still off by $100 billion.

So, let me start by congratulating Bill Barker for a fantastic Market Cap Game Show comeback, etc. And in an alternative universe where they use the midpoint of your final guess to be what scores for you. And Bill, we've evolved this game show over time. How we play it today is very different from how it started with Matt Argersinger and

in 2017, it might be that we should reconsider in future. This could be the Barker, what's a good phrase? The Barker gambit? Barker rules? Barker rules? Barker protocol. It's just you've got to define things, because Emily was the closest to being right and the furthest away from being right simultaneously. It's also true at her lower end. It is absolutely true. So I will grant Bill his Barker protocol point, and we will put the rules...

under future consideration as early as next week if, in fact, this is the better way to play the game. But the way we played it is the way I've ruled it." And so, as a consequence, Emily, six, Bill, five, you both were tremendously close to each other, and yet so far off the actual market cap of ServiceNow. I just want to establish that my understanding of the rules is completely influenced by

how they would allow me to win, not based on any logical reasoning. That's fun, Bill. I will say, you were quick on the math, and you absolutely are right. Yours was 64.5, hers was 64, so you were ever so slightly closer by one measure. And so, first of all, thank you both. The final accounting, as I mentioned, Emily, six, Bill, five. But,

Emily and Bill and I know that we're not playing this game for each other. We're playing for you. How did you score, dear fool, dear listener at home? We hope you outscored all of us. On social media last week, Vince Granieri on TwitterX tweeted out he'd scored nine, which would have beaten both Matt and Andy. So, yeah, the purpose of the Market Gap Game Show is to make more popular, I'm never going to say as popular as Jeopardy!,

but to make more popular market caps the real value of stocks on the market that most people don't understand, except that you, you do understand, because you just listened to us for an hour talk about market caps. Let me turn to Bill Barker. Bill, a final line from you for this episode.

I think I was just -- we were so far off on that last one, and I like to attribute it -- and you don't have this excuse -- to having turned 60, that that was why I gravitated toward that range. So, I at least have an excuse for just how awful my final guess was. A tight range, less than half of the actual market cap.

And a final line from you, Emily. See, now, I was just trying to throw it, and clearly that didn't work here at the end. I'm teasing. I said at the beginning of the show I was likely going to be $100 billion off at some point, and I am disappointed that it happened to be the tiebreaker question. That won it for you, which makes it a remarkable ending. Thank you.

Well, again, we hope you scored at least a few points this week as well. Maybe beat one or both of our competitors. You know, the phrase so close yet so far seems so apt to describe our tiebreaker. Bill and Emily, you distinguished yourselves and helped make the world a bit smarter, happier, and richer as a consequence. And Emily, we will see you next week for the World Championship. Bill, Emily, thank you and Fool on! Fool on! Fool on! Fool on!

As always, people on this 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. Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing at rbi.fool.com.