Welcome Back to Correction Territory
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Welcome to Correction Territory. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined today by Anthony Chavone. Ant, the market's feeling pretty bad today, but how about you? How are you doing?

I'm doing just fine. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of volatility, which I mean, look, 2023, 20% gain for the market. 2024, another 20% plus gain for the market. I think the market kind of came to this year kind of looking for a sell-off. So I think as investors, just have to be patient. Do this as an opportunity. You know, I think we've been in 21 bear markets or something like that. I mean, we're not in a bear market yet, but we've been in 21 since I think 1928, and we've come out of it every single time. So I think we're in a bear market.

Yeah, I think we'll be fine. We is the U.S. economy, not us personally. You ever notice that when people say there's volatility going on, it never means that stocks are going up?

It's always that stocks are going down. We never get fund volatility on the upside. The last correction we had was July 31st to October 27th, 2023. Since 1950, these corrections happen every year or so. This is the cost of admission for being a stock investor. We're younger in this investing journey. This is actually something I've been rooting for. Some of my favorite companies can go on sale.

Are you looking a little bit more closely at your watch list as we're seeing prices plummet a little bit? Oh, for sure. I mean, there's definitely a lot more opportunities than there were just a month ago. So I think as a younger investor, the longer-term investment horizon you can have, I think that's the better.

We're going to do tariff talk throughout as we keep doing shows. I want to focus on some business earnings, some looks at the consumer. We got that this morning from Dollar General, which reported same-store sales increasing a little more than a percent. Cash flows from operations are up 25%. But the thing that is throwing a wrench in this, Ant, is that earnings per share were about half

of what analysts were expecting. This is kind of a number salad that I'm having a tough time making sense of. What's happening behind these? Yeah, so the earnings per share number was well short of expectations, but that was primarily due to charges related to ongoing store closures and then as well as an impairment charge relative to its pop shelf retail concept, which is kind of like an upscale dollar store type concept. So those are one-time charges that Wall Street's willing to look past. But I think what the

market was really excited about and why the stock is up roughly 5% as we're recording this, is that same-store sales guidance was better than expected. And then the earnings per share guidance for this year was largely in line with what the market expected. So, I think management's positive outlook for 2025, even though their core consumer remains conscious, I think that's why the market reacted so well to this earnings report.

Conscious is one way to put it. This is what CEO Todd Vasso said on the call. Quote,

As we enter 2025, we are not anticipating any improvement in the macro environment, particularly for our core customer." I got nothing smart to say to that other than, yikes, this sounds bad. Yeah, I think yikes is a good way to put it. Some customers are sacrificing on necessities. That sounds pretty bad. Definitely not a good outlook for the economy and the consumer. Many other retailers this earnings season have said similar things.

Simon Property Group is one company that I follow pretty closely. They're one of the largest owners of retail real estate in the world. They've been saying something very similar, in that the lower-end consumer has been in a recession for quite some time. I think the remarks you just mentioned from the Dollar General CEO

It seems like the lower-ranked consumer's purchasing power just continues to be under pressure after years of cumulative inflation have really been making an impact. So, yeah, that's a pretty bleak consumer outlook, for sure. One thing I don't quite understand, you hear consumers are getting stretched.

you'd think there'd be a trade down to Dollar General, but that doesn't seem to be happening. They're even mentioning on the call that store traffic is down a bit. Those same store sales coming from people spending more there. So why don't you think we're seeing that? Why don't you think we're seeing a trade down to Dollar General stores? Yeah, I think Amazon and Walmart have probably had a pretty big impact on the consumer trade down for Dollar General in recent years. They're just becoming bigger competitors in this space. And I think an argument can be made that

They have similar quality products, but offer them at a lower price, especially if free delivery is included in that as well. Dollar General's CEO actually said something pretty interesting on the call this morning. He said, quote, what has really become apparent leaving Q4 and moving into Q1 is the trade down is back, both the mid and upper end trade down. And he continued, if anything, we may have seen it accelerate a little bit in the last few weeks.

End quote. So we've had a lot of retailers come out this earnings season again, and they've talked to the more conscious consumer. And Dollar General seems to be echoing that sentiment as the trade down seems to actually be back for Dollar General a little bit. So if you like dividends, which I know you do, Ant, Dollar General will pay you about 3%.

I know you look closely at dividend stocks. This is one where I looked at with some interest. I'm like, could this be a value play? One thing that would make me hesitant about it is while the stock has gotten crushed, the valuation has slimmed down well below a market multiple. Dollar General is not buying back any shares, which to me signals that management does not think the stock is undervalued. But

I'll throw it to you. You can take one dividend player to a desert island, Dollar General. You can take a different retail stock. Or you can just keep it simple with SCHD, the Schwab High Dividend ETF. Which one are you bringing? Retail stocks have been hard on recession and tariff concerns this year. That's probably a good place to be looking for opportunities.

I think that the Schwab U.S. dividend ETF that you mentioned is a pretty cheap way to get broad exposure to high-quality dividend payers, including some of those retail companies. Some of the largest companies included in the ETF are Coca-Cola, Chevron, Home Depot,

Texas Instruments. Historically, dividend payers tend to outperform the broader market during market downturns. That's definitely been the case so far this year. I think that's probably a good way to get some diversification in what has definitely been a volatile market to start the year.

We got another look at the consumer from research firm Cercana. They found that Americans are spending less at convenience stores. U.S. convenience store sales volume fell by more than 4% over the past year. One problem, Ant, is that prices are rising there. A large bag of chips in Chicago cost $7 at a store where a Wall Street Journal reporter was taking a look. I've noticed it at gas stations myself where I'm like, "Man, these candy bars and bags of chips feel really expensive."

I'm taking this as a sign that maybe these big food companies have reached the limit of their pricing power. How about you? Well, if they haven't reached their limits of pricing power yet, I think we got to be pretty close to that tipping point. One thing we've seen in recent years is that, generally speaking, the volumes for big food companies, they've been flat or even declining, but the prices have gone up substantially. I think that dynamic can only

continue for so long. And then, talking about convenience stores, they typically sell their products at a higher price point because it's essentially a convenience fee that they charge, upcharge, compared to a grocery store. So, that's an additional cost borne by the consumer. And I think we're starting to see consumers push back on that $7 bag of chips. Yeah. And I think there's another broad-scale shift going on that I think some large food company CEOs are hesitant

to acknowledge, to put it kindly. Smucker, which now owns Hostess Brands, was asked about it on their most recent earnings call. CEO Mark Smucker, trying to deal with the impact of GLP-1s and that broader shift to healthier eating, he said, quote, we continue to not see a material impact to the category. So I would guide you back to the comments I just made around a more cautious consumer, convenience channel being down in general, gas prices have been elevated significantly

And so people are just having a bit less extra discretionary change in their pocket." This is one time where I'll just say, I'm not buying this at all. I think there is a large scale cultural shift that's also happening as these prices increase, where people are thinking more about what's going in their food. I'll throw it back at you. How about you?

Yeah. I mean, I sort of agree with Bark Smucker, but I also agree with you. So, I feel like the packaged food CEOs, I feel like they're all saying, pretty much all of them are saying that they're not seeing a material impact from GLP-1s. Now, of course, those CEOs have an incentive to say that, and we should take that with a grain of salt. But for me personally, I'm not so sure that the GLP-1 drugs will cause a meaningful impact for these big food companies. But

To your point, I think the much bigger threat is that cultural shift to healthier eating. Just anecdotally speaking, there's an overwhelming amount of health-centric podcasts and health influencers out there that I think are really resonating with younger consumers. As somebody in their 20s, I've definitely noticed that with myself and my friends. A lot of my friends...

I have completely stopped drinking alcohol and are much more focused on eating healthier, having a healthier lifestyle, a healthier diet. I think that cultural shift is really the thing to watch moving forward and how that impacts the big food companies.

Let's talk about how Hershey's trying to deal with this. Hershey sees convenience stores. That's a big channel for that big food company you follow. They're trying to boost sales across convenience stores by at least 40% with something called a gold standard planogram, which uses data to determine details such as the best mix of king and standard size candy bars on a given store.

I want to get your thoughts on this because to me, this feels like, you know, are we using a Palantir software to determine the best arrangement of deck chairs on board the Titanic? Like you can make this mix as much as you want, but you're fighting against some large scale cultural shifts here.

Yeah. Hershey's convenience store channel has definitely been under pressure in recent months. I've personally definitely noticed a change in their convenience store strategy in recent months. I'm a big Wawa customer, so I got to Wawa a lot.

And I've noticed a few months ago, Hershey advertisements were everywhere. The Hershey bars, chocolate, their sweets portfolio, everywhere. And now they've pulled back on that a little bit. I think a large part of that is that cocoa prices are so high, consumers are price-conscious. And Hershey's really trying to find that balance between offering a good product but also

but offering it at a more affordable price. So you're seeing them things off. You're seeing Hersey offer things like the, the, the big cop where it's a much smaller pride, much smaller, you know, a Reese's cup, but it's at a much more affordable price. So I think that's really what they're trying to target in that convenience store channel.

There's also political pressure happening with, and it's a part of the cultural pressure, but you have Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his HHS secretary. He's got the demand to make America healthy again. He's going to steak and shake and eating tallow fries. He also wants to ban artificial food dyes, and there's calls to get soda and candy off of SNAP benefits, off of food stamps. If that happens, that would not be good for Hershey. That would not be good for Coca-Cola. So,

It's probably good for people's health. But with all of these forces against big food right now, are you still a bull on Hershey? I'm still a bull on Hershey for the long term. And that's because the main driver of Hershey's business, it's chocolate business.

has never really tried to label itself as healthy. So I don't think, you know, chocolate is going to be in the crosshairs to the same extent that something like breakfast cereal might be. I mean, cereal is literally just grains and sugar. And for the most part, it's marketed as a healthy meal. So I think that's probably might be a bigger threat to for the new administration, a bigger target for them to look at. And, you know, when I look at Hershey,

A large portion of their sales revolves around things like social gatherings and holidays, so like Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas. And so I'm just trying to think of myself like, is the fire truck going to stop throwing out candy at the Halloween parade this year? I'm willing to bet against that. So I'm still bullish on Hershey for the long term, but I mean, there's definitely some headwinds that they're facing for now.

Yeah, you're not giving out dental floss in Pennsylvania for this next round of Halloween coming up. We'll leave it there. Anthony Chabon, thanks for being here. Appreciate your time and your insight. Thanks. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University, our game-changing FlexPath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you.

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There are plenty of reasons for a company's insiders to sell shares, but there's really only one reason why they buy them. Up next, Nick Seipel joins me to talk about TKO Group, the operator of the WWE and the UFC. We talk about the company's new boxing league and some interesting buying actions from the company's executive team.

The leader in professional wrestling and mixed martial arts is looking to add boxing to the mix. TKO Group, the parent company of the UFC, WWE, and professional bull riders, is partnering with Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority for the creation of a new boxing league. Nick, I know you follow this company closely. It's your largest personal holding. What are you expecting from this league? Is this something you're excited about as a fellow shareholder of TKO?

Sure. Great to be here with you, Ricky. I think this boxing league, something that was not a very well-kept secret, it's been rumored for the better part of a year that maybe TKO Dana White looking at getting into boxing in partnership with the Saudis. I think this is going to become

One of the biggest boxing promotions, if not the biggest boxing promotion in the world. Sheik Turki, who's the head of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority, has essentially taken over the high-end boxing world the past few years, booking fights with folks like Tyson Fury, Alexander Usyk, Canelo Alvarez going to fight in May, among others, really has gobbled up all the biggest fighters. They're partnering up now with UFC President Dana White, WWE President Nick Khan. Both these folks have

experience in the fight sports business, actually being able to make money in this world, not just throw cash at fighters. I think those folks are arguably the best positioned executives in the world to scale up a new boxing promotion. You're combining really great talent in the fight sports business world with a big pile of money that's certainly very interested in

in boxing, I think they're going to make a big splash. If you look at boxing as a sport, it's really been fractured for the best part of the past few decades. There's lots of different belts, hard to make stars, hard to really follow the sport if you're a fan, but still, there's been lots of demand out there. All you have to do is point back to the fall when Jake Paul fought Mike Tyson on Netflix. 108 million people tuned in worldwide, the most streamed sporting event of all time. It's a testament to the interest there still is in boxing. Also a testament to just how broken the sport is that

The biggest boxing fight ever is a 58-year-old man fighting a YouTuber. But if this new league can create stars and get meaningful distribution, I think it can tap in some of that interest in boxing and really can make a big splash in the entertainment world as a whole. Yeah, I think that's important that this was not the heavyweight championship. This was an exhibition sparring match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson that grabbed so much attention. This is a sport that is having a tremendous amount of difficulty making new stars. Dana White

He likes to do things himself. He likes to be in control of combat sports promotions. He's the boss of the UFC. So why is he partnering with Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority and Shake Turkey to do this?

I think that the big thing is that Shake Turkey, the Saudis, have lots of interest in the sport, certainly throwing a lot of cash in the business, and they would like to go into business with Dana White. Dana has talked about for years that boxing is sports that's broken, needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. But it would cost a heck of a lot of money to get into the boxing business, especially in a world where you've got folks that maybe don't carry the same economic incentives as the other participants out there in the market. If you get the opportunity to kind of

partner with those folks, that cash, and they'll pay you to run the sport. You don't have to worry about fronting the capital. It's really the perfect setup for Dana White to really bring his talents to bear. It's something that you could argue he did in the past with the UFC, partnering up the Fertitta brothers, taking that sport from nothing to one of the biggest fight sports in the world today. One of the key differences between boxing and mixed martial arts right now is the OLLI Act, which there's been proponents of bringing that to mixed martial arts. What it does is

In a lot of ways, it separates promotions from managers from titles. And it seems that a boxing league would fly directly in the face of that. Does the Ali Act have any implications for this league versus the way that Dana White has traditionally run the UFC? It does. If you're going to see a league set up in the way the UFC is, where fighters are exclusively signed to the organization, the organization has its own rules.

titles, the UFC lightweight champion, the UFC heavyweight champion. In boxing, you have independent promotions, the WBA, those sorts of things that put those belts out there. And the Ali-Ak really doesn't allow you to merge the promotion with the belt, that sort of thing. Although I think a lot of folks would say that it doesn't really make sense why you couldn't do the same thing in boxing that you do for the UFC. I think near-term,

you're probably going to see the sport promoted in a similar way to where you've seen boxing in the past. When they have their first event, it's rumored to be in September, likely to see big stars like Canelo Alvarez or folks like that. Maybe folks on the lower part of the card be these folks that are independently signed to this TKO boxing promotion. But long-term, if you see a change in the law, perhaps you see independent, the TKO have its own belts. You also

Perhaps the Saudis own Ring Magazine. They have a belt that's been used historically. Maybe you could use the Ring Magazine belt in place. And of course, maybe you could change the law. Dana White, good friends with the president. Linda McMahon, founder of WWE, former CEO, is the current education secretary. Ari Emanuel, the CEO of the TKO Group, was once Donald Trump's agent. Lots of folks

who can make a phone call and maybe nudge a change in the law. But in any event, they also have the opportunity to just hold these events outside the U.S. as well. I don't think it will be an impediment to the growth of the sport if they don't want it to be. Maybe don't bet against Dana White in a fight. One of the reasons I've been -- I would say two reasons I've really been buying this stock. One is, honestly, talking to you and Jim Gillies about it, the thing you all drew my attention to is the insider buying.

and just how dramatic it's been for TKO. And that's different from a lot of companies where there was a while where the CEO, Ari Emanuel, had set up this automatic stock buying plan. And usually when you see insiders set up an automatic buying or selling plan, it's almost always automatic selling. The other experience I had was I went to UFC Denver last year, and this was like a regular fight night in Ball Arena. The NBA arena in Denver was completely packed.

from start to finish. There was a tremendous amount of excitement where I could see that this sport is really growing. So let's focus on the insider buying, unless you want to spend a few minutes on my time a year ago watching the UFC at ball arena, but break it down for the listeners. What's going on with the insider buying at TKO?

Yeah, so certainly has been a lot of insider purchases, a lot of Form 4s. If you look back over the course of January and February, basically every name you could think of was listed on there. Part of that really comes down to Ari Emanuel, Egon Durbin, the board member and the head of Silver Lake. A lot of those folks had to put Form 4s out there. But really, the purchasing

It was made by Endeavor Operating Company, which is a subsidiary of Endeavor. All those folks have to report because Endeavor is the controlling shareholder of the TKO Group. I think when they started this buying, it owned about 55% of the stock. Now it owns about 60% of the stock. That 10B5 plan over just a few weeks in January and February bought about 300-plus shares.

a million dollars in shares. We've also seen a board purchase recently of multi-million dollars. Certainly, quite a bit of buying. Also, as you mentioned, I'd never seen before a 10B5 plan where you've got folks blind buying out there in the market. Often, you see folks wanting to have that safe harbor to sell some shares.

Lots of reasons why somebody could sell stock. Maybe they have things going on in their personal life, their wife wants to buy a house, what have you. The only reason you want to buy shares in a company is because you think that the stock is going to go higher. Lots of catalysts potentially on the horizon for TKO Group. We've talked about it in the past, the UFC rights deal with ESPN expires.

at the end of this year. You also have the deal in the U.S. with WWE for premium live events, which currently air on Peacock. That deal expires in March of 2026. You've got a couple big rights deals on the horizon that potentially could be catalysts for the stock to move higher. Maybe that's why they're buying. Maybe there's any other reason, but always a good sign to see. Let's talk about the meteorite stuff. ESPN just canceled its deal with Major League Baseball.

This could signal a few things. The first of which is that ESPN is distancing itself almost from some of the live sports business. It doesn't want to spend a lot of money on rights. Why do that when you can have a bunch of sports talk shows that fill up airtime and do okay? The second is that maybe it's clearing the way for bigger deals. It's not doing business with the MLB because it's a stagnating audience, and it's not driving subscribers to the ESPN Plus platform.

What did you take from that, from ESPN canceling its deal with Major League Baseball? Do you think it signals anything for the next rights deal with the UFC?

Yeah, I don't have any concern about the baseball rights deal being canceled by ESPN. Maybe it gives them extra cash for the UFC. But I think the UFC-ESPN partnership has been a great one going back. I think it was 2017 when they signed their original deal. I think it's driven tons of subscribers to ESPN+. It's going to continue, I think, to be an important part of ESPN's offering as they start to offer that over-the-top independent ESPN app.

later this year. I think it just more naturally fits in with what ESPN is trying to do in streaming and can drive more urgency to add subscribers and more consistency to keep them year-round. If you think about it, it's a great big offseason for MLB, whereas there's going to be UFC fight nights and UFC numbered events

all year round. One other thing I will point out on ESPN deals as well that I think is worth noting, in February, ESPN canceled its deal with Top Rank Boxing. They had been in a relationship going back, once again, I believe back to 2017. That deal actually was negotiated by Nick Khan, the current WWE president, who's likely going to be negotiating the rights deal for this new TKO Boxing League.

That deal was canceled between ESPN and Top Rank back in February. Now, their relationship is set to end in August. That lines up pretty conveniently when the first TKO boxing event is set to take place in September. Maybe that is clearing the deck for a potential rights deal for this new TKO boxing league between them and ESPN. While we've talked a lot about the combat sports side of TKO, makes sense given the name,

There's some side businesses. On Location is this luxury ticketing operation that still doesn't make a ton of sense to me, being in this company. The other is Professional Bull Riders, which does make a little bit more sense because you've seen TKO rent out arenas for a full weekend, where they'll do a Professional Bull Riders event, the WWE, the UFC, and then another WWE event. How important are these side businesses to TKO as a company? How much attention are you giving these?

The main driver of the company's revenue and earnings is going to be the media rights deals that they sign for WWE and UFC. That said, I think there's certainly opportunities for these new businesses they acquired from Endeavor. Another one to mention is the IMG Sports Marketing Group that represents all the big sports leagues

worldwide. With Pro Bowl writing, they can package in those deals with cities, as they've already begun to do, I believe, in Kansas City, to book out arenas and maybe get better treatment there. Opportunities to cross-road stars on the different properties. But it's just not going to be as big as boxing, professional wrestling, or the UFC. But I think for these on-location and IMG businesses, I actually think

do make a little bit of sense when it comes to hospitality, promoting the business, selling these ultra-premium events. If you're going to festivalize these weekends as UFC/WWE weekends, being able to add premium hospitality can be value-added. Also, with IMG, the marketing relationships that they have

selling ad deals and sponsorship deals for all the major leagues really gets them lots of tendrils to use those relationships to continue to grow the advertising and marketing business for TKO. While these businesses aren't going to be core to the success, I do think there's some synergies. I don't hate to see them part of the TKO company, but it's not core to the analysis of the business.

As we wrap up, I know you have a large personal position in TKO Group. Why is this a company that you have such high conviction in? Why is this one that you own a lot of shares of?

I've owned TKO Group through WWE going back to 2020, 2021. The general thesis at that time was that this is a company that the content that WWE is in, and by extension, UFC and others, really fits extremely well with streaming. This is year-round content that keeps folks on the platform. Also, it's eventized in a way that folks subscribe to the platform to get access to this content. Maybe you add Peacock

to get access to WrestleMania in the same way that I just added Apple TV+ so that I could go watch Severance. I think this is the type of content that really resonates in the streaming world. You've also got folks leading this business that are among the best at monetizing sports and entertainment assets.

in the world. Nick Khan was one of the most important sports agents working with ESPN prior to taking over the WWE. Ari Emanuel has long been one of the most important and influential agents in Hollywood. I think there's still lots of ability to continue to monetize these

rights, not just through TV distribution, but also through marketing, advertising, and rights fees. I continue to have the same basic thesis for TKO today that I had when we first bought WWE. We've just got more assets under the umbrella and even more talented folks running that playbook. I'm excited to see where negotiations end up finishing out for the rights fees this year.

Nick Seibel, I could go for another hour on the UFC star problem. Maybe we could preview some upcoming matches and pay-per-views, but I think we'll leave it there for this show. Appreciate you being here. Thanks for your time and your insight. Thanks, Ricky.

As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.