There is No (Convenient) Alternative
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Dylan Lewis: I'm Dylan Lewis, and I'm joined over the airwaves by Motley Fool analyst Asit Sharma. Asit, thanks for joining me today! Asit Sharma: Hey, Dylan! Thanks for having me! As we catch up on the news this Monday morning, the macro picture stays very much in the headline. Market starting off the week down a little bit after ratings agency Moody's downgraded U.S. debt on Friday. Asit, S&P Fitch had downgraded U.S. debt several years ago. Moody's finally joining them. Is this a symbolic change, or is this a substantial change?

I think it's in between, Dylan. They changed the debt rating from capital A to lowercase a, or AAA to capital A, lowercase a1. That's a slight difference, but it is a notch down. It does join its peers, which had already taken the U.S. out of their top-tier rating bucket.

What does it mean? Moody's pointed to higher interest rates and, of course, the burden of our increasing debt as a country. These are long-term things. Interest rates have been elevated now for a few years, and the debt has been around -- it feels like it's been around since I was born -- only gotten more out of control. This shouldn't be a surprise to investors. In fact, after some initial

I think, sell-off in the futures this morning, things stabilized. The market realized, well, everyone knows the situation the U.S. is in. It is still by far the preeminent currency in the world, the reserve currency. There's still a lot of advantages to the U.S. It's not like it's a terminal problem, but one more sign that, really, from a policy basis -- and this is going across multiple administrations from both parties -- we've got to address

our debt. There are some other things you can read into it as well. A little bit of the volatility in the rollout of the tariffs that the Trump administration has passed through is playing into this as well.

I like that you talked a little bit about the long arc there. Moody's in a statement said, "This is successive U.S. administrations and Congress failing to agree on measures to reverse the trend of larger annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs." This is a problem that has been building for quite some time. It seems like both the rating agencies and the market are looking for some sign that deficit

will get under control, and that would rebuild some of the confidence in U.S. debt and make it a little bit easier for the U.S. to operate. I think that's exactly what the market is looking for. When you go back to the last time the U.S. got its ratings cut from basically just flawless credit toward us today, which is still pretty good credit, it's just not thought of as being risk-free anymore.

It was more about the inability of policymakers to even pass resolutions so that we can fund our own government. That was really what shook the markets last time around. Now, this is acknowledging that we can't run these deficits forever. As a country, we've got to find a way to bring our debt relative to our GDP, our output, back in line. It's a little high just now. It's not something that we can't solve.

We could do this, but what it's going to take is some pain. And one thing that politicians don't like to pass downstream is sacrifice, pain, burden, because they feel like they might not make it back into office when they're up for reelection. And this is the key problem.

in the U.S. economy, it's not really about the deficit. It's about politicians who are scared to come clean with the American public and say, "Hey, we've got to make some sacrifices somewhere, because this isn't sustainable." When creditworthiness comes into question, we typically see yields on debt go up. We are seeing that. The 30-year Treasury spiked above 5% in the wake of this news. We talk about the federal government being the foundation for borrowing and for debt in the United States.

What does it mean when something like this happens for companies and for borrowing in the grand scheme of corporate finance?

It's tough, because corporations utilize debt in two ways. We're all familiar with companies issuing bonds to finance expansion or maybe just to reshape a balance sheet. Everyone understands that only the best companies can access the bond markets at will when interest rates get elevated. But corporations use a lot of commercial paper, too.

Short-term interest rates rising has made commercial paper more expensive. Even the everyday functionality that lots of corporations use as a form of liquidity becomes more expensive, which means then downstream, they've got to keep more of their own capital in their Treasury accounts. CFO somewhere is saying, "I don't know if we can spend all this on capital investment this year. I need more money in the bank because I'm not paying X percent more interest on our overnight paper."

It has all these weird follow-on effects that we rarely think about as investors, but it's a slow drip-drab of problems, just as in the real world for us, you see that five

that 5% threshold being crossed for the 30-year. And then you're trying to buy a house, and you're like, whoa, what happened to long-term mortgage rates? It looked like it was getting better. This is way too much. I'm going to hold back now, and maybe I'll keep renting for a while. So we all feel it. Corporations feel it, and citizens feel it.

It's the financial Rube Goldberg machine. It starts off in one spot and just works its way through everything else. Totally. You can't understand how it works looking at it. After the tariff escalations in early April, there was this Sell America concept, the Sell America trade, that got a lot of noise in the market. This seems to have stoked that a little bit. For the longest time, for certainly most of my investing life, the acronym has been TINA.

There is no alternative to investing in the U.S., and that the U.S. market in particular is risk-free debt. Even with all these concerns, Asit, is there really an alternative? As people are seeing these headlines, is there somewhere else that investors are going to be looking to part their cash other than U.S. Treasuries, other than the U.S. stock market? Dylan, there is no convenient alternative. Let's put it this way. If

Governments want to take the trouble, if corporations want to take the trouble, if the U.S. public, which is a big buyer of U.S. debt, wants to take the trouble, we don't need to buy these bonds. You can go buy German bonds, which are perfectly safe and almost seem attractive. While the German government has its share of political problems, it doesn't seem near as chaotic as we have been over the past six months or so.

It's just something that, as technology increases, corporations find it easier to look elsewhere. The markets are pretty liquid in Europe. Even some investors are looking to Asia to place money. I think in the future, what we're going to see is countries like China, which has for a long time said they wouldn't mind breaking the dollar's dominance, cooperate with

other BRICS nations, and there's a whole chain of countries that want to be in on BRICS, by the way. I think you'll see that, especially on the sovereign level, governments will take the trouble to

utilize other currencies, A, for trade, and B, for what you're talking about, which is to park assets, to park sovereign assets instead of in the United States. Do a little work and spread them out amongst a host of other countries that in the past just didn't seem viable. But as global trade, which is not going backwards, albeit temporarily,

from U.S. tariffs, the long-term arc of that is, it's a very globalized society that we're going to live in from here on out. It is something that governments can consider. Now, to our advantage, you can't do this overnight. We've got time to fix the problem, but come on, people! Come on, policymakers! We need to solve this!

and soon. It's been a busy week for Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant. He has been taking questions on the country's debt, but also talking to leadership over at Walmart after the company made it clear in their earnings release tariffs mean higher prices for consumers coming soon. Asit, we were talking before we got on air about how the tariff story and Walmart ties very directly into the deficit story and what we are seeing with U.S. debt. Walk me through that.

Walmart is a company that does about $680 billion worth of business in a year. That's the top line number, the revenue number. It also enjoys a really favorable tax rate, as all U.S. corporations do. The corporation's got a tax break in the previous Trump administration, and that was set to roll back. What's happening now is, of course, we have this year's legislation, and it looks like those tax cuts will actually stay in place.

There are some theories out there that point to how tariffs are related to the deficit, and that the imposition of tariffs is one way to bring money back into the country. I would say that Secretary Besant would argue that it's not really about taxing the consumer, but it's having corporations pay their fair share once tariffs are imposed, which

Actually, it brings up something that many of us miss. When you read the headlines, it's all about, "China should eat the tariffs," or, "The U.S. citizens are going to eat the tariffs."

Actually, that party there is the intermediary between this foreign country that exports the goods and us who buy them. That's a place like Walmart. By the Trump administration's eyes, Walmart should absorb this. I think President Trump used the word "eat," that they should eat the tariffs. He points out that they have billions of dollars in profits.

Now, before I get to those profits, we'll just take a step back here and say that this is one part of the puzzle to potentially reduce a deficit, which is to raise money by the imposition of tariffs. Now, it's not going to solve the problem because there are so many trillions involved, but it's one more way to bring in some revenue to the federal government. The two are related in that way. Getting back to Walmart, though, this is a disciplined company.

didn't get to be the biggest company by sales on the planet by being undisciplined or not being focused or bending to anyone. Just ask Walmart suppliers. They know how to play hardball.

I'm thinking about this. I don't know what the future is going to bring, Dylan, but I will say that Walmart has a very good argument to hold the line here, maybe, and push back against the Trump administration. It's about basic economics. Walmart may sell so much each year, but their operating margin is only 4.3%.

What that means is, the Trump administration is very correct to say they're making billions of dollars, but they got this absolute scale where the revenue is so high, just a little bit of profit brings in billions of dollars to the bottom line. What happens if you break that equation and suddenly Walmart has to absorb 30% increases from the biggest flow of where it gets its goods that we buy?

They don't have a lot of wiggle room. Very quickly, you could see, if they just yielded wholesale to this proposition, all of that would evaporate and they would be negative. They'd be losing billions of dollars. I think this sets up

a very interesting dialogue. I don't know how much of it is going to be public. I think Walmart would prefer, as you and I were chatting before the show, for this not to be in the public eye. They would have these conversations behind the scenes with the U.S. government. But it does set up an interesting push and pull to see where that line is, where I think Walmart may concede a little bit and telegraph to the administration, "OK, we'll try to absorb some of this."

But they have to stop at some point because ultimately, they understand who really calls the shots. And that's the shareholders. They're not going to like that share price going down. They're not going to like seeing profits evaporate.

Closing us out today on the news roundup, the S&P 500 is welcoming a new name today, crypto exchange Coinbase joining the index. This feels like a little bit of a milestone moment for crypto, another step in legitimacy. It's kind of fitting, in a way. Coinbase is joining the S&P 500 because Discover is leaving it.

So, an Old Guard financial services company being acquired by Capital One. I love the symbolism of that asset. And just in terms of narrative arc, it is as chef's kiss perfect as I could possibly structure it. Right. It's like, the thing that was the technology back in the day is being urged out the door, "Come on, Grandpa, it's time for you to go. You've got the new thing here."

Coinbase, you have to hand it to them. Whether you're a believer in crypto, this market over the long-term, they have been very key in driving the industry forward. They talk a lot on their calls about this, driving not just their top line, but utility across the whole ecosystem. The fact that when they discuss their earnings now, they talk not just about

a global spot market for crypto, but also a derivatives market for crypto and the growth of stablecoins. All of the language of their earnings calls, Dylan, is just showing how far that they have come as a business and how there's become a sort of financial asset in the crypto world. So we always thought that, and we being crypto,

myself, maybe, and a few other people that I talk to, because I'm not super knowledgeable about crypto. The folks that I have conferred with this on have always thought that utility was going to be the greatest driver, in that all the crypto assets, derivative assets, digital assets that would make it would be very useful in some ways. But I think that the fact that Coinbase has joined the S&P 500 is a testament to

just having a financial asset, something that people can turn to instead of, say, gold, had its own existence out there, and not everyone saw that. The trading volumes prove that out. Now, let me just argue against myself for one second. You can say they've made it. Congrats to them, they've joined the club.

I still think so much of this is driven by the success of Bitcoin and the trading volumes associated with that one asset. That's a risk with this business. It always has been. It may be that way for a long time. If you see another crypto winter, could this be one of those companies that joined the S&P 500 very quickly? If it felt like it was plateauing or even sagging a bit, yeah, that could happen, too.

Yeah, I think the reality is, if you are a crypto lover, if you are a crypto hater, if you own the index fund, you now own crypto exposure. It's as simple as that. Yeah, totally. Whether you like it or not, you're also a crypto investor, so there. You and I, fellow crypto investors. Asa Sharma, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks a lot for having me, Dylan.

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Coming up on the show, times are tough for restaurants. Industry expert and principal at Technomic, David Henkes, joins my colleague Ricky Mulvey to talk through why more consumers are brown bagging it and what successful restaurants are doing right.

David Henkes, Senior Principal at Technomic and a global food and beverage industry trend watcher. Thanks for joining us again on Motley Fool Money. David Henkes: Sure. Thanks for having me, Ricky. I appreciate it. It's a tough time for restaurants. As soon as I saw this story last month in The Wall Street Journal, especially, I think it's continuing to play out in earnings for a lot of the large restaurant chains.

which is that people aren't going out to lunch nationwide. The number of lunches bought from restaurants and other establishments fell 3% in 2024 from the year before to 19 and a half billion. But that is important in context because that is fewer than were purchased even in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. Now people are going back to work, but fewer are going out to eat. David, any, any reflections on what's happening here?

Well, I think there's a couple of things that you have to take into consideration. And the context for this is that the restaurant industry is struggling right now. There's been a lot of traffic issues. And so when you talk about sort of the decline of lunch,

and the absolute number of meals consumed for lunch, you've got to look at it in the context of the broader industry, where last year, if you look at the numbers that we publish or I think most other industry trend watchers, last year finished very weak for restaurants in particular. Big players like McDonald's had significant issues with traffic. Their sales numbers were much lower than they were in the last couple of years.

And so, I think focusing on just lunch sort of muddies the broader context, which is that consumers have really pulled back from restaurants over probably the last 12 to 18 months. When you look at the inflationary environment and menu price increases, menu prices are probably about 30% to 35% higher than they were pre-pandemic.

And what that's caused consumers to do, even before the current situation that we've been in with the tariffs and all of the economic uncertainty that we're sitting in here today, is that over the last 12 to 18 months, consumers have really noticed

higher prices and have pulled back. And so when you talk about lunch, lunch is one of those, I guess, easy day parts where you can replace it with a meal brought in if you're brown bagging, if you're going into work. Certainly when you look at office occupancy, we're getting back to sort of pre-pandemic levels, but we're still not back there.

And so there's a lot of bigger dynamics that are going on. And I think I've said a number of times that it's harder than ever to profitably run a restaurant in today's environment than in the 29 years that I've been doing this at Technomic. And so the lunch part is concerning, but I think the broader concern is just the consumer pullback that we've seen across the entirety of the restaurant industry.

I have a theory on the consumer pullback and it hit me when I was at a fast, casual Mexican chain that is not Chipotle. And I went up to order and there was a screen that I was ordering at. So there was like one cashier on the other side, but I was ordering at a screen. And then I do my order and it says, do you want it to 18, 20 or 22%?

And this is being asked to me by the screen. And now I'm doing an algorithm in my head, algebra would be a better way of putting it, where I'm ordering at a screen, not with a human, but I know there's people making my food and I know someone has to bring my food, but I also have to bust my own table. And I think the food away from home cost may not account for the wider spread tipping culture, especially for fast casual dining, which increases it significantly.

I think even more. I don't know if tips are considered in the 30% from five years ago. No, no. Actually, those are just menu prices. You're absolutely right. I think the U.S. has a tip fatigue problem among a lot of consumers right now. I think that happened during the pandemic, when every restaurant that was open, and we wanted to support restaurants and service workers. People

We're willing to tip extra. And so we sort of developed this tipping culture during COVID, which really has sort of stayed with us. And so when you talk about menu price increases, and listen, labor costs are one of the top two costs that restaurants have, and they've continued to rise, and minimum wage pressures and all of that that are going up. And so there's no question that restaurants, if they can, they'd love to push a little bit more of that back onto the consumer.

Historically, though, fast food or limited service restaurants haven't been a tipping establishment, tend to find it in full-service sit-down restaurants. And so I think

where people three, four, five years ago were happy to tip, they've gotten very fatigued by that. And I think that's an additional pullback that we're seeing, where in addition to all of these higher prices that you're seeing just on the menu and maybe some additional fees or things that are now on the menu, you are also being asked to tip everywhere for a coffee, for a muffin. Obviously, you're tipping the machine, basically, when you're ordering at the kiosk. And

And I think a lot of people certainly look at the economics of running a restaurant and say, why can't you pay a living wage to your workers so that it's not being pushed back to me? And it's challenging because the economics of running a restaurant are really hard. And to the extent that you can offer those tips and hopefully drive some of your employee satisfaction to a greater extent, then that's a win for the restaurants. But it really has turned off a lot of consumers, for sure.

The winners and losers are not even here. Is this still a big problem for the major chains that you follow? Is the pain more acute for the smaller restaurants that don't have that ability to negotiate with suppliers quite like a Chipotle can?

Yeah, I think, listen, I think the pain is being most acutely felt by the smaller mom-and-pop independent restaurants. Just because, you're right, they don't have the financial wherewithal, the negotiating power, they don't have the ability to invest in technology and some of the things that help alleviate some of these cost concerns.

But listen, we just released our chain data on 2024. We tracked over 1,500 chains. We published the top 500 of them in what's

called our Top 500 Report. And chains had probably one of the worst years that we've seen in the last, I don't know, decade. I mean, chains were only up about 3% last year. It's a substantial slowdown from what we've seen. And so I think this consumer pullback is real and it's impacting certainly the independents. And I think from a margin in profitability, we're seeing that from independents, but it's certainly hitting the chains. And last year you had over 30 restaurant company bankruptcies.

And that's continued here into the first quarter of 2025. And so, the big chains aren't immune from it. And it really then, I think, the exception kind of proves the rule when you see great performers like a Texas Roadhouse or a Chili's who are just killing it. Those are really the standouts. But the sort of rank and file of a lot of chains, up to and including McDonald's and some of the other ones, are really struggling in this environment. And the consumer pullback is real.

I mean, even Chipotle was surprising to me. I want to get to Texas Red House and Chili's in a sec. I probably eat at Chipotle once a week, so I'm definitely biased there, but I can get a good bowl of food for $12. I know what I'm getting, and yet fewer people are going there because of the price increases. Now, I know they've increased prices, but...

But that one, even where there's a really strong perceived value there, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, is experiencing that decline. Are you seeing any traffic numbers or same-store sales data that is surprising to you as a trend watcher here? I think we're increasingly seeing winners and losers. Some of the things that have been most surprising to me, again, Chili's, the last two quarters, have posted

basically right around 31% same-store sales. That is unheard of for high-flying chains, much less a legacy casual dining chain. And so Chili's is one that we just continue to look at as executing on all cylinders. They are doing phenomenally well. I think Taco Bell is one that they posted 9% same-store sales this most recent quarter, first quarter, after being up 5%, 4%. But they've been doing really well.

You know, McDonald's was down about 3.5% last quarter. Starbucks continues to struggle. They were down 2%. So, a lot of what are the biggest chains in the industry are having value issues. They're having traffic issues. Some of the smaller chains, and some of them don't publicly report, but we've been very high on a lot of these sort of beverage players, Dutch bros.

some of these non-Starbucks coffee or beverage chains that are doing really well. Last year, we saw a bunch of these chains that just did really well. Seven Brew and Swig, which does the dirty sodas, things like that.

So I think it's a tough time for legacy brands. And I think consumers are voting with their wallets. And they're trying to say, you know, I have fewer dining occasions today than I did a year ago. And so I want to pick those establishments that are my favorites or that I know I'm going to get a great value. Value, by the way, is not necessarily lowest price, but they want a great value.

And so we're not in a situation where a rising tide is lifting everybody anymore. We're in a situation where the industry is flat to maybe slightly down, and you really start to see those winners that are standing above and beyond everybody else because of what they offer to the consumer. And so

I think same-store sales are certainly part of it, and you can look down the list and see who's performing. But the ones, again, Chili's, Taco Bell are the ones, just as I'm looking at. So, you can look at maybe a handful of chains that are outperforming in this market. But for the most part, it's flat to down when you look at most of the big public company chain reports and what their same-store sales are.

Dutch pros is the one that continues to surprise me. I went there one time. I think I got like a chocolate covered strawberry mocha. Saw on the menu they have a 9-1-1 drink where you can get six shots of espresso in one drink.

But people like it. I see lines outside the door at like 8 o'clock. Anyway, Chili's. Chili's is the incredible one to me. 31% from a year ago. And I think they were growing since then, too. Three for me deal. Can't go wrong with that. I think you get like chips and salsa, burger, fries for $10. And I was pretty happy with it. But...

This is one where you look at Chili's vs. Applebee's. Applebee's is not enjoying a similar level of growth, even though on the surface, you would think they're having a pretty similar offering. What has Chili's been able to figure out in this environment that many other chains have not? We've done a fairly deep dive into Chili's.

Actually, some of our sister publications have awarded the CEO with Restaurant Tour of the Year. Obviously, they're doing a really great job. They are relevant to, I think, the younger consumers. I've got a couple of kids in their 20s who Chili's is now on their radar again. Ten years ago, if you asked a younger person to go to a chain, they would have been like, "No way, there's no chance."

They've become relevant again. A lot of that is through their social media marketing. Certainly, the value promotions, the margarita promotions they run are really successful. But they do a great job of having a barbell strategy. And so, they do have a lot of sort of low-priced or value-oriented type things, but you can also have a premium experience if you want.

And I think there's a lot of chains doing that, and I don't want to over-commit to that's why they're doing well, but I think they've just remained relevant. And I think the big part of what they do is,

I've talked a lot about the general manager and how important the general manager is in setting the tone for the service, the overall experience that patrons have when they come in. Because a lot of your experience is not just how much you paid or what the food was, because a lot of these casual dining chains are kind of in that ballpark. But it's also the experience you have through servers,

And Chili's has done a great job of really giving their general managers sort of the ability to fix things within their own restaurant. And they've invested heavily in their GMs and the labor situation and training, I think, in different ways than some of their competitors have. Because you're right, Fridays, Applebee's, right? I mean, some of these other casual dining chains that you would say, they all play in the same

sandbox, if nothing else, they are not doing nearly as well. Chili's last year was up 15%. If I look at Applebee's, they were down 6%. Friday's was even lower. Chili's has done a great job through relevance, through marketing, social media, menu development, menu relevance.

and service and ambiance to really set the tone for what a casual dining restaurant should be in 2025. And then as we close out, I saw on X, your X account, that key lime pie is in your top three desserts. Okay. Citrus with dairy, a little controversial. I was surprised to see that. Key lime pie, happy to see it show up, but it's not something you really crave. So I guess, you know, you got a wild mind here, David. What's your top three desserts?

I love a good cheesecake. And in my mind, that key lime pie is sort of an elevated. I know they're not the same, but it's it's sort of the same type of experience with a little bit of a sour. And, you know, I was down in Key West about a year and a half ago, two years ago, and I had some of the the fresh key lime, you know, the birthplace of key lime pie. And it was it was just delicious. And so I think if I had to look at my top.

Three, that's a great question. I'm not a big sweet guy. I'm more of a savory guy. My wife really loves the sweets and I'm kind of more of a kind of salty, savory type things guy.

you know, brownies, ice cream. I like, I'll eat it. But I think, I think key lime pie is just, it's definitely up there for me. What, I mean, what's the, obviously it's controversial. You don't appreciate it. What's, what's your top dessert or, or I appreciate it. I'm a sweets guy. So I appreciate the key lime pie. No disrespect to the key lime pie. I'm going, uh, I think, you know, I don't think Dolce de leche gets enough love. I love, I love Dolce de leche. Great. Um,

And I'm going to take Jenny's Take 5 ice cream. Okay. Great ice cream, very specific. And then the classic s'more. When you're building up to that outside time, you got a campfire going, s'mores are coming, that's when the hype cycle's coming. So I'll go with those top three. I'll tell you one other thing that I will throw in, and I was just in Europe on vacation a couple weeks ago. The gelato in Europe is phenomenal. And so I might put that just...

It's got to be a very specific gelato because the stuff you get here in the States is not as great. But if you're over, and I was in Portugal and Spain, and some of the gelato that I had there was just second to none. It was phenomenal. I really got to travel to get the desserts you like. I got to go to Key West and I got to go to Europe. You're making it tough on the listener. David Hankus, Senior Principal of Technomic. Thank you for your time and your insight. Appreciate you joining us on Motley Fool Money. Thanks for having me, Ricky.

Listeners, a quick programming note as we wrap up today's show. This is my last Monday episode here in the host seat. I'll be wrapping up my time here at The Fool later this week, and I have one more radio show ahead of me with the team this Friday. I've been lucky enough to be here over a decade and been honored to be one of the many voices here at TMF

that you turn to for a Foolish take on what's going on in the market, whether it was here on Motley Fool Money or way back in the day on Industry Focus. I'm going to miss chatting with our analysts and hearing from you all in our mailbag and on our voicemail, but I'm excited to flip over from host to listener. We talk about it often here, time is the most valuable thing you have. It's the biggest tool in your investing life, and it's the most valuable resource in your personal life. Thank you for all the time you spent with me over the years.

As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out the show notes. For the Motley Fool Money team, I'm Dylan Lewis. We'll be back tomorrow.