Time for Another Edition of the Market Cap Game Show

Today we have a rematch on the Market Cap Game Show.

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This video was recorded on Dec. 22, 2021.

David Gardner: A lot of people, when they first think about stocks, tend to lock in on the share price. Maybe this was you or maybe this is a friend of yours. They will say, well, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is at $3,355, that’s expensive. By contrast, the same mentality when looking at penny-stocks can get a lot more excited. Some penny-stock they’re seeing promoted by someone, perhaps some ne’er-do-well, and they’ll think, wow, the stock is at $0.33, not 3,300, like Amazon, $0.33. They’ll think that’s the one to buy, the one at $0.33, because if it just reaches a dollar, you triple your money. If from the earliest days of the Motley Fool, we’ve tried to get people focused not on the price per share of the company, but rather on the market cap of the company. The price per share of a stock tells you almost nothing. It’s the price to buy one share of the stock.

But how many shares does the company have outstanding? In math, we multiply to multiplicands together, I hope to have my term right to reach a product, but the price per share is only one multiplicand. If you don’t know the other one, you can’t do any meaningful math or figure out much of the world around you. Fools with a capital F know that you need to know the shares outstanding and then multiply that by the price per share, and now you know the actual full value of the company, its full price tag, its market capitalization, market cap. Well, to teach this lesson inexorably and unforgettable, we invented a game, that’s what I do. The date was August ninth, 2017. We’ve been playing every quarter since. You’re playing too. You know this. We previewed it last week. It’s that time of the year again. That time of the quarter, again, welcoming back Brian and Brian. You only on this week’s Rule Breaker Investing.

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. What a wonderful experience. It was last week, the very rare, in fact, the one-of-a-kind two hour plus Rule Breaker Investing podcast. If we’re going to go that long, something special must be happening, and to have the cameo appearances we had from our guest stars taking you through some of the best voices on this podcast in the year that has been. That was really awesome, and I want to thank Rick in particular for yeoman’s work. He is going all-out anytime we do a one-hour podcast. If we’re doing a two-hour podcast with 10 different guests and all kinds of transitions and some music too, you bet he is working extra hard. So thank you again, Rick Engdahl. That hardwork continues this week and of course, into next week when we have our year-end Mailbag. I will mention, I did wonder a lot on Twitter whether Frank Reich appearance on this podcast last week, when we talked about the phrase winners win. Whether that had anything potentially to do with the Indianapolis Colts, upsetting the AFC football conference leader, New England Patriots on Saturday night, just a few days ago on national television. Congratulations to Frank and Mike Colts. I’m excited, of course, to be playing our game this week. Brian Feroldi and Brian Stoffel were on this show three months ago, the Brians. For those who remember, for those who may have been playing along #DidYouBeatBrian? #DidYouLoseToBrian? I’ve always loved the ambiguity. They tied five to five. On last week’s Besties Show, I had them back. We briefly played a teaser, one question of the Market Cap Game Show. Those who were paying attention will remember, the Brian Stoffel made the right call. Of course, we selected Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY), Brian Feroldi guessed outside the range.

It guessed below the range given, but it was in the range. In a sense, we created tie breaker if needed for this week’s show. We’ll talk about that a little later if it comes back up. But mainly what I wanted to do last week in the middle of our Besties was give you just a taste and a reminder of what is always four of my favorite podcasts to do each year, the Market Cap Game Show. Yes, that’s what’s happening this week. This being a holiday tradition, especially the fourth one of the year. I’m imagining, even if this isn’t true, don’t disabuse me of my allusion. I’m imagining that you’re near a cozy fire. That you have multi-generations around you and your family, and rather than have all visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads together, nope, you’re listening to this very podcast. You are playing the Market Cap Game Show together by the fire with cider, as I’ve said before, hard cider, hard or not, and all are welcome, all can play. This game was designed from the ground up to make it so that you can play along and learn and have fun with us.

Anytime I have two Motley Fool guest stars, we’re always going to have fun and we’re certainly going to have fun with Brian Feroldi and Brian Stoffel as they return the battle of the Brians two. They tied last time. Let’s see what happens this time. Now before we get started, I want to mention next week is, your mailbag and we have already recorded the mailbag. We had a lot of fun with your items. I think there were nine of them, some great Twitter Hot-takes. I think it’s going to be a really fun end of the year show next week, the final week of 2021. Of course, our December Mailbag for Rule Breaker Investing. Our email address is rbi@fool.com. Do avail yourself of it. Drop us a note. You don’t have to do it near the end of the month. We started looking in January emails we received in December for the January mailbag. But if you’re hoping to be on next week show, bad news, we’ve already fully recorded it yesterday. But I hasten to add, it is a fresh show never before heard. Rick Engdahl and I continue our undefeated streak of always putting up a new fresh podcast every single week without repeats. Well, the top of the show, I hope I did the math already for you and explained market cap. I hope a lot of my fellow Fools at this point know exactly what market cap is and why we care about it.

But let me make sure we all know how this game works because we do have a lot of new listeners near the end here of 2021. You should know that I will turn to one of my contestants and ask him, he doesn’t know what’s coming, he doesn’t know what stock we’re talking about, the ticker symbol or the market cap. I haven’t given them anything to study on. It’s just a general knowledge game. But I will turn to them and ask them a question. The question is ultimately, what is the range of market cap that you want to specify for this company? let’s take an example.

How about Etsy? Etsy these days is at $222 a share as I quoted on the Internet live Tuesday, December 21. Etsy the stock is at 222. It’s got about 125 million shares outstanding. If you do the math, the market cap of Etsy multiplying 222 times a 125 million or so. You don’t have to do that in your head. The market cap is 27 and a quarter billion. If I were asking you the market cap of Etsy as I will be Brian, very shortly. You don’t have to answer exactly 27 and a quarter billion. You can give a range. You can say somewhere between 20 and 30 billion and then your opponent, your fellow contestant simply has to decide, is it inside that range, you gave up 20-30 billion or is it outside that range? So the fun choice, when I ask you to specify the range, you have a choice how tight or wide you want to make that market cap range. You might make it easier or harder for your contestant. The person who says inside or outside the range is ultimately the one who drives the game.

Because if they are right, they get a plus one. If they’re wrong, you get a plus one. We go through 10 companies, 10 stocks, 10 market caps. However Brian or Brian do against each other, you are playing along too. Every time you can say inside or outside the range at the right moment, hold yourself accountable. Good news. You can get 10 out of 10. If you do, I sure hope you will tweet that out where @RBIPodcast on Twitter. We’ve had fun with this over the years. #IBeBrian, #ILostBrian, #10OutOf10. Whatever you score, let the world know if you’re proud of it, even if you’re not. It’s even funnier when you’re not. But that’s how we roll on social media with the Market Cap Game Show. I hope the intent of the game is clear. I hope the content of the game is clear, and I say without further ado, let’s welcome in our guest star contestants. Hi, guys. Great to have you back. Happy holidays. I’m looking forward to the Market Cap Game Show.

Brian Stoffel: Happy holidays, David.

Brian Feroldi: Pleasure to be back.

David Gardner: Brian Feroldi, I’m going to turn to you first alphabetically. Brian, could you briefly remind us, what have you done for the Motley Fool? How are you spending your time these days? What is a holiday tradition that the Feroldi’s keep that others might want to try?

Brian Feroldi: At the fool, my primary contributions are Fool Live. I’m a regular guest on the Industry Focus podcast and I do some writing for the premium services behind the scenes. As for the holiday tradition, we do most of the normal Christmas stuff that you would expect. However, one thing that my wife does have to give her full credit for this is throughout the year. She writes down some of the family adventures or things that happened throughout the year. She puts them into a little jar, and then typically at the end of the year, Christmas time, we go through and pick them out. It’s a nice reminder of all the things that the family did that year. We also always try and look one year ahead, and we sit down and we say, what vacations do we want to take this year? Who do we want to spend time with? What local activities that we want to do? We do a brief overview of the year ahead planning, and that’s something that I look forward to every year.

David Gardner: That is awesome. Brian, how old are the kids these days?

Brian Feroldi: Trick question I know, 11, 9, and 7.

David Gardner: Well, what a wonderful conversation for them to partake of both the reflection back on the year that was and then thinking ahead to what we could be excited about the year ahead, maybe I will try that. Thank you, Brian. Brian Stoffel, a delight to have you back. What do you do in and around the Motley Fool, and what does the holiday tradition that you keep that others might want to try?

Brian Stoffel: Well, my contributions to the Fool are very similar to Brian Feroldi’s. Motley Fool Live is a big chunk of it. Then working on premium services, sometimes you might see my name on something, sometimes you might not, and it’s been a while since I published on fool.com, but I still enjoy doing that when I get a chance. As for a family tradition, like Brian, I have to give credit to my wife Alley because she’s the force about around making sure that happens. Is every year we get a thankful tree and it can be anything. One year it was a cardboard tree. Last year it drove me crazy, but it was sticks collected from outside, put in a pot. This year I got to choose and I chose holly like the plant. What you do is we make leaves as a family and between Thanksgiving and sometime around the end of the year, we fill out things we’re thankful for and then you just hang them on the tree. It’s right by our dinner table, and so when dinner time comes around, we remember to do that. Then by the end of the year, your tree is full of extra leaves. One little tip I will give people, if you use holly, you’ve got to keep watering that thing a lot because right now it’s pretty close to a leaf list holly tree of real leaves. It’s just our leaves that are on it.

David Gardner: That’s great Brian. How old are Stoffel kids these days?

Brian Stoffel: They are eight and three.

David Gardner: Wow. You guys have a lot of overlapping. You have a wonderful YouTube channel. You guys are developing some stuff outside the Fool as well. Do you ever do parenting conversations or talk or tips?

Brian Stoffel: We should, but I feel like it wouldn’t be in terms of tips, would be like, “Hey, people give us tips.”

Brian Feroldi: Here’s what didn’t work at our house.

David Gardner: Well, a hint, if you guys want to develop it, go with a mail bag because people right in and give you great ideas. That’s something that will happen next week on this show, the final week of the year. Well, without further ado, let’s get started, gentlemen, the Market Cap Game Show. I’ve already set out the rules and why we do this. Let’s go to stock number 1, I’m going to turn to Brian Feroldi, first. Brian, do you guys have a pet around the house?

Brian Feroldi: We have a pet fish. We are a house devoid of pets. We love animals, but we like it when our neighbors have the animals and we get the experience all the outside with none of the work.

David Gardner: Who named the fish?

Brian Feroldi: My youngest daughter named the fish. She asked us for a fish for a year and we let her do it.

David Gardner: Is it a big or a small fish?

Brian Feroldi: Just the betta fish. It was the lowest maintenance requirement and all that we could possibly guess.

David Gardner: I remember when our kids were the same age, we also got a betta fish. Those little suckers are popular. Well, I was hoping you’d say a dog, because the ticker symbol of stock number 1 is DDOG really doesn’t have much to do with pets in the end. But since this Cloud services monitoring company, which is a longtime Rule Breaker pick, since it took on the name Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) and they’re in the logo. I thought we would maybe open up with the dog but forget about pets. Brian Feroldi. What does data mean to you in your life?

Brian Feroldi: It’s been said that data is the new oil and take what you will have that phrase. But there’s no doubt that the rise of data capturing data, storing data, analyzing data is going to play an enormous and increasingly important role in the way that business functions and companies that provide tools that helped back to happen are just going to thrive.

David Gardner: Well that of course, naturally leads us to discuss the market capitalization of Datadog. Now this is a stock that’s been in our services for several years, hasn’t been public for that long, I should say maybe just a couple of years because guys, I think Datadog came public in the fall of 2019. It’s been on the public markets for a couple of years. Definitely been a winner. But without specifying too much before we get to the market capitalization. Turning now again to Brian Feroldi. Brian, what is the range of market cap that you’d like to give Datadog ticker symbol DDOG?

Brian Feroldi: Well, I know that Brian and I both own this stock. Both really like this company’s competitive position and it has been a fantastic performer. Very high revenue growth, high margins, founder-led, so much to like about this business, even though it was a company that when I first read the S1, I was like, “I hate the name Datadog.” It doesn’t sound that good [laughs] Boy, was that initial impression wrong? I’m going to say, I know that this company trades at a sky high valuation and that lots of high growth stocks have been hurt badly over the last couple of months. But I think that Datadog has held up pretty well. I’m going to say that this company has roughly a billion dollars in revenue. I’m going to put a 45 price-to-sales ratio on that and say it somewhere between $42 and $53 billion.

David Gardner: Somewhere Brian Stoffel between $42 billion and $53 billion. Senyor Stoffel and all of us playing at home inside that range or outside that range.

Brian Stoffel: Well, I wrote down what I thought it was as soon as you said Datadog and my guess right in the middle of Brian’s range 48 billion was my guess. I’m going inside.

David Gardner: You are right. In fact, the market cap of Datadog is $49.45 billion. You guys both on the stock, you are both doing pretty well because Datadog, in the three months since we last spend time together on this podcast, last quarter’s Market Cap Game show up from a 140 to 166 or so as we record on Tuesday, December 21st. It strikes me guys, that not a lot of peers in Datadog’s industry or even among a lot of the innovative companies that we’re following as shareholders and observers, not a lot of them are up over the last three months. This is one of them.

Brian Feroldi: It’s been one of the few bright spots. One of the things that they published that I think is really interesting, is every quarter they’ll give you the total number of customers, and usually they’ll tell you how many customers are using 2-plus or 4-plus tools, but they’ll give it to you as a percentage. Now, this is a little bit wonky with math, but if you take that percentage and multiply it times the customers in that quarter, you can see how fast the number of customers that have four of their tools is growing. To me, that’s the needle in the haystack, that’s my metric that I like to watch.

David Gardner: This is one of those companies that has a very high dollar base net retention rate. This is a company where if you started paying them 100 bucks two years ago, you’re probably paying 179 bucks now, and you’re not the only one. This is a company that consistently rates among the very highest there. That’s why I think all three of us have favored the stock so much over the last couple of years. A lot of happy Motley Fool members are listening to us right now. There haven’t been a lot of happy stocks last month or so, a lot of us have seen some of our favorites, have maybe a third of their value lopped off. That’s been true over the last month or so for the stock market, but Datadog ain’t one of them. I’m going to score one for Brian Stoffel. That was stock Number 1 Datadog, well done guys. Let’s move on to stock Number 2. I’m going to turn back to Brian S and ask you Brian, do you have any friends who are realtors?

Brian Stoffel: I don’t have any friends who are realtors, but I do have an aunt who is a very accomplished realtor.

David Gardner: By what measure in your mind is she accomplished?

Brian Stoffel: She does a really great job. She’s cornered the small market that she’s in. Everybody knows her. If they want to sell a house, they go to her.

David Gardner: That’s a great way to become prominent within real estate. There is no question about that being there and having done that and having been around to be associated with the zip-code or a neighborhood, I’m not a realtor myself, but seems a great strategy. Now, some companies enable realtors to become better known than others. One of them is Zillow Group (NASDAQ: ZG), and the ticker symbol is ZG. This has been a dynamic company to follow, to say the least guys, I see you both looking heaven word, putting your hand on your Chin thinking about where Zillow Group could be trading these days, because Zillow Group began as the site everybody used on the Internet to check the estimate of the house across the street or in the new neighborhood you’re moving into.

Zestimate was the key phrase that was the buzz, and that’s how Zillow started, and it was an ad-based model. But in recent times, we saw the company begin to use it’s data to buy real estate. It wasn’t just for realtors to advertise themselves, Zillow was in the game itself, and in a pretty tough announcement, not so long ago this year, the company announced it was exiting that business altogether. Not-great optics, probably. When you say we’re going to do this dramatic, daring, I would say, rule-breaking thing, and then inside of two years, pull out of it all together with some losses to show. I know we all know that Zillow is not at 52-week highs. But we’re not all about 52-week highs and lows, we’re just about the market cap. Let me turn back to Brian and ask you, Brian, what does the range of market cap for Zillow Group these days? Ticker symbol ZG.

Brian Stoffel: I’m going to go between 13 billion and 19 billion.

David Gardner: Seems like a pretty good guess to me. I hope your aunt is listening. If not, you’ll need to point her to this podcast. Did she ever used Zillow, to your knowledge?

Brian Stoffel: I have no idea. I really don’t. She sees on the cusp of retirement, so I’m not sure if it was anything she ever really got into.

David Gardner: That strikes me as something. If you do happen to see her around the holidays or maybe you make a call to your aunt, uncle or checking with family, you could find that out and she’ll have something to listen to as a consequence. I hope she will be proud of her nephew, but we need to turn to Brian Feroldi to find out. Brian, the range that Brian specified was 13 to 19 billion. Brian Feroldi, everyone playing at home, inside or outside that range.

Brian Feroldi: This is a stock that I own, have owned for many years. While I believe it’s up from the IPO price, I know that when Zillow made the announcement that we’re getting rid of the eye buying business, the market did not like that, it’s been a dramatic sell-off. When you said Zillow, I wrote down eight billion, and my gut tells me it’s 10 or maybe under, so I’m going to say outside the range.

David Gardner: It was inside that range. I also feel is if Zillow having lost so much value, this is a stock that was at $200 a share in February of this year. It’s at 60 right now, gentlemen. That is an absolute blood letting for one of the better known Internet companies, a stock that we have recommended and held, I do myself for years. Still happy overall, we still have a pretty low cost basis if you’ve been in and around Motley Fool Rule Breakers for a long time. But wow, that’s volatility, Volatility Thy name, the ticker is ZG. The market cap of Zillow Group is 14.3 billion. It was in Brian’s range of 13 to 19 players at home. If you said inside that range, give yourself a plus 1. I’m going to give Brian Stoffel a plus 1. Brian Stoffel, you have taken two nothing lead. Well done, sir. 3-2-1. Go. How about a quick line for your aunt?

Brian Stoffel: Happy holidays, Mary.

David Gardner: Beautiful. Let’s move on. Stock Number 3. Turning now to Brian. F. Brian, was there a kid at your school who did good, most likely to succeed? Was that you?

Brian Feroldi: No. I’ve always been at the top, say, 10 percent academically. But we had a kid in my school that just was brilliant. He was an engineer, he was a doer, he barely paid attention in class and eased all of these tests. [LAUGHTER] He went on to Goldon Engineering School. He founded a company when he was in there, got sold. We said he was going to be the most successful and we were right.

David Gardner: That is pretty amazing. It does seem like we take a vote of who is most likely to succeed in our high school classes before we graduate or maybe it was the valedictorian. But sometimes it can be shocking, sometimes it’s not who we were thinking, and sometimes those people, by the way, drop out of school. For example, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, people who don’t even tolerate the academic environment for much longer. But it’s fun to reflect back on now that we’re all in our 30s, 40s or 50s or so these days, and think back to those high school classes, and who do we think was going to start. At least in my experience, often the people I thought would start actually have gone on to start. Just the story you told Brian is true of my experience as well.

Like you, I had the pleasure of going to school with some talented people, and one of them was Willy Walker. Willy Walker was one year behind me at St. Alban School in Washington DC. Willy Walker, since 2003, has been the CEO of Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD), the ticker symbol is WD. Now, this is a stock that I’ve never actually picked. This is more of a Tom Gardner stock. It’s a company that is Washington DC-based. Willy was right there in our school, right in between classes with us, but he’s done just a spectacular job with his family’s company. In fact, this is a multi-generational family company. Walker and Dunlop basically finances commercial real estate owners. If you own commercial real estate, Walker and Dunlop is there to provide services for you to finance and grow your business, and they’ve been doing that pretty well. The ticker symbol is WD. I don’t know if Willy was voted kid most likely to succeed in his class at St. Alban School, but he certainly has. Let me now turn to you, Brian, and ask you, this is a company I’m thinking you don’t study everyday, am I right about that?

Brian Feroldi: I’ve read the write-ups on the Fool on it. I know that some of the particular does think the world of really, just like it seems like you do. I also know this stock has done pretty damn well. I have not looked at it in a few years though, so this is going to be a guest for me for sure.

David Gardner: Maybe you’ll be inspired to look at it after the show. But I also mentioned, Willy has the Walker webcast. It’s something that he took up maybe a year or two ago, and has grown a nice audience, and has people in and around the business and real estate world on. You can Google it and find it on YouTube, you can see his work on a regular basis. Really good guy. I was in class with his older brother Taylor, and a shout-out to Taylor Walker, and congratulations to the Walker family for this company. Brian Feroldi, what is your range for market cap for Walker and Dunlop, ticker symbol WD?

Brian Feroldi: I have a strong feeling. It’s got to be between 5.6 and 13.7 billion.

David Gardner: All right. 5.6-13.7 billion. Brian Stoffel, have you ever looked at Walker and Dunlop?

Brian Stoffel: No. When opportunities come up to write about different Motley Fool picks that we help out with, I always avoid Walker and Dunlop.

David Gardner: [laughs] Is there a specific reason Walker and Dunlop or is this just an industry thing?

Brian Stoffel: It’s an industry thing.

David Gardner: I admit this is not an industry, I know very well as well, which is in part why I have missed this successful stock pick of the last several years. Well, Brian Feroldi said 5.6 to 13.7 billion. Always love the specificity there, Brian. Brian Stoffel and players at home, is Walker and Dunlop inside that range or outside that range?

Brian Stoffel: I think it might be below that range, but I’m going to say inside.

David Gardner: You were right that it was [laughs] below that range.

Brian Stoffel: If it’s between four and 5.6 billion, I’m going to be really upset because I wrote down four billion as my low-end.

David Gardner: Some people say, go with your God in life, Brian Stoffel, and it is $4.53 billion. [laughs] This is a stock at about $142 a share as we’re recording and gWiz two years ago it was about 60, so it’s more than doubled. In fact, for a more predictable business, I don’t want to say this is an easy business to run about financing a big business like commercial real estate doesn’t necessarily take a lot of daring do a crazy talk on the part of the CEO to run things well. Stock touched 80 at the start of 2020, I think we all remember that COVID was announced somewhere around March at least in the United States. It was already around the world before then, but the stock dropped from 80-20 then, so it’s up seven times in value from its COVID lows last summer 2020. It’s been a remarkable performer, but more broadly, 5, 10 years ago the stock was at 10, so it’s about 140 today. Yet, gentlemen, still at a pretty low market cap and one of the insights we have had that the Market Cap Game Show over the years is, if you thought the market cap was, 13.7 billion and you find out it’s only four and a half, maybe that is one to put on your watch list. Well, let’s keep moving. Makes it a little bit more fun because it’s now 2-1. Stoffel was threatening a blowout if he gets three leads. Brian Stoffel two, Brian Feroldi one. Let’s move on to stock number 4. Brian Stoffel would you say you’re good at learning from your mistakes?

Brian Stoffel: When they hit me over the head hard enough, yes.

David Gardner: [laughs] Can you think of an example, let’s say from stock picking history or research where you got one wrong, either you underestimated or overestimated?

Brian Stoffel: Overestimated and I think that not understanding the importance of the moat. This goes back a number of years, but even the Whole Foods I go there and I think it still is a great business, but I completely underappreciated how easily players like Costco (NASDAQ: COST), Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Kroger (NYSE: KR), Safeway could give into natural and organic goods and reflected in what happened to the stock once they did.

David Gardner: That’s a good example. All of us are learning machines, that’s what humans do. We observe and we hope our heads not in the sand and we adapt, we try new things. You guys have learned a ton over the years as have I simply by studying innovative companies. There lessons on their own, so I think you are probably really good at learning from your mistakes, although we’re about to find out because three months ago we covered this very company, so we have a return and Brian Stoffel, you blew it that day. We’re going to see with this one, I don’t want to put you on the spot. I did randomize the stock, so it’s back.

NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE), the ticker symbol is NEE. I’m not going to say where you thought the market cap was three months ago right now, we’ll certainly talk about that shortly. But I think a lot of us will remember this is a long time Rule Breaker stock pick, but this is a company that’s based in Florida, but really it’s not just Americas, but the world’s one of the largest producers of wind power and solar power in the world. It also owns Florida Power and Light. That was the cash cow that really sprung this business. But very innovative management team, good stock, good company, good performer, long-term. Turning right back to you, Brian, I think it’s hilarious that I randomize this stock and you just speak to it. How could I not lead off with a question I did? Are you ready to put some range on the market cap for NextEra Energy ticker symbol NEE.

Brian Stoffel: I’m going to improve my point here because I said If I could hit over the head hard enough, [laughs] and when Brian I tied last time, I lost my motivation to go learn. If you would have won, it would have been a different story. But, if I remember correctly, I underestimated by an order of magnitude, I think. I’m going to give a wide range here. I’m going to say between 130 and 170 billion.

David Gardner: Between $130 and $170 billion. Brian Feroldi, do you remember talking about the stock three months ago?

Brian Feroldi: I do. I remember Brian, I think he estimated between 30 and 50 billion and my gut thought was around a 100 or 120. If memory serves correctly, I remember both of us were surprised at just how big this company really was. I’ve wrote down when you said NextEra Energy 180 billion, and this company might even be in the $200 billion range, although I have not looked at it stock price at all. I guess just for fun, I’ll say outside because I think it’s bigger than 170.

David Gardner: That ties the game indeed, and you guys both put much better numbers on it this time and congratulations. I would say Brian Stoffel, you do learn from your mistakes and you really didn’t make much of a mistake this time. The range of market cap for this company that you specified was 130 billion to 170 billion. It’s market cap, as we speak is 178.94 billion [laughs] just above that range. In fact, the stocks done pretty well this past quarter since we last talked about it three months ago this week, it’s gone from 79-90. Let history show that the initial call you made on it last time, Brian Stoffel was 43-74, and then Brian Feroldi said that your gut feel was it’s $100 billion company. You said outside it was 164, then it’s now 179 today. This is a very substantial company.

Brian Feroldi: Yeah, that’s what it was. It was 164 it must be what my brain remembered.

David Gardner: [laughs] Well, those were really good calls. Part of the fun of the Market Cap Game Shows, even when you to make an amazing call, you’re gaming the range a little [laughs] bit, or you’re getting gamed by the other guy, the range. It’s really not fair. In some ways, it adds a gamer dynamic to what should just be straight numbers game, but that’s what makes it fun and we’re tied it to. Onto number 5. Speaking of tie breakers for 22, a tie is about to be broken, turning back to Brian Feroldi. Brian, do you have any friends?

Brian Feroldi: Yes. [laughs]

David Gardner: I needed to finish that line. Brian Feroldi, do you have any friends who are realtors?

Brian Feroldi: I have a friend that’s a realtor. In fact, I was just texting with her this morning because another friend said they were interested in real estate in Rhode Island. They live out of state and she’s saying, “Do you know any realtor, so I sent along my friend’s name.”

David Gardner: I think almost all of us once you’ve been in the professional world for maybe 10 or so years, so maybe you’re at least mid-30s, you probably know a realtor I would think even if you’re not related to a very talented one, as our friend Brian Stoffel is. Brian F levels last time you moved.

Brian Feroldi: 2011, sheer luck we happened to buy our house at the exact bottom of the market. Happy where we are and over here for now 10 years.

David Gardner: That’s awesome. Do you think you’re going to be there another 10 years?

Brian Feroldi: If the right opportunity came up, I think we’d be willing to move, but we’re not leaving our town.

David Gardner: Wonderful. Having visited you in your neighborhood, hanging out a couple of years ago playing a board game when we came through Rhode Island in the summer, a very fond memory and I think a lot of us hope to find a place we can stay and not feel like we’re balanced in our families around all the time. But there are lots of different demands in life and lots of unpredictable curves. I’ll hope that you can stay where you are. But that would make Redfin Corporation (NASDAQ: RDFN) maybe a little bit disappointed ticker symbol, RDFN, because let’s face it at its hard, consumer-focused real estate businesses want you move. The more you and I move or want to rent or open up something or change it up, the more transactions happen, the more transaction fees happening. If you’re Redfin, you’re trying to do it a little bit different than the industry traditionally has done it. Brian Feroldi, have you ever looked at Redfin stock?

Brian Feroldi: Not only have I looked at Redfin stock, Brian Stoffel and I take stocks that we’ve never researched before and we do so live for about an hour. Was it a month ago we did Redfin? [laughs]

David Gardner: Perfect. Again, I randomize this stock list, but we always get to some interesting companies and a lot of us have connections in different ways to these companies. I’m delighted to ask you then Brian Feroldi, what does the market cap range you have for Redfin Corporation ticker symbol RDFN?

Brian Feroldi: This is where it gets the game within the game because I’m guessing that both of us are going to be right in the same range [laughs] for what we think this company is worth. I also know that Redfin is a growth company and it stock did nothing for a couple of years after it came out and then at 2020 it just went bananas and like five bags. But I’m pretty sure this company has been sold off hard in the last couple of months, just like many other growth companies in its phase. My gut feel is I have to go in a pretty tight range here that I normally would, so I’m going to say 2.9 billion to 4.4 billion.

David Gardner: 2.9 billion to 4.4 billion. Brian Stoffel, I can read body language. We’re all seeing each other using Zencastr actually to do this podcast. I see you seems like you’re pretty impressed by what Brian just put out there.

Brian Stoffel: I went with the percentages instead of my gut last time and I just missed, so I wrote down 4.7 billion. Brian, just being a pain in my butt by going to 4.4. But I’m going to follow my gut and say outside.

David Gardner: Wow, that’s three in a row for Feroldi, it was inside the range 3.88 billion. The stock, by the way, trending down since three months ago from 50-39. Certainly has been a Rule Breaker darling for many of us. The stock came public guys in 2017, I think, and it ran up to about a four-bagger by early this year but it has lost so much value to the point now where it’s about dead even with the S&P 500 from its IPO. It’s about doubled from its IPO but that means this is a stock well down from its 2021 highs, is basically dropped from 100 to about 40. It feels like Zillow, even though it didn’t do what Zillow did to earn what Zillow has done. It’s a really interesting company to keep looking at.

Brian Feroldi: One thing that really impressed I think both Brian and I when we were researching Redfin was just how consumer-friendly they were. So much that both of us essentially said, “And we’re done.” Investing in the business is one thing, there are some big risks here, but at the consumer level, the next time I buy or sell, Redfin is going to be my first call.

David Gardner: Well, let’s move on to stock number 6, I turn to Brian Stoffel. Brian, what’s shoes are you wearing right now, and are they your go-to?

Brian Stoffel: Well, since we work from home now, I’m wearing my slippers because [laughs] it’s cold here in Wisconsin. When I’m inside they are definitely my go-to.

David Gardner: I see our friend Brian Feroldi holding up something that look like moccasins or something slipper-like himself in Rhode Island.

Brian Feroldi: You got that right, I wear slippers non-stop in the wintertime.

David Gardner: Okay. That probably wouldn’t be true if we were going to offices. Is it safe to assume that you guys would not be in slippers at the office?

Brian Feroldi: The Motley Fool was a pretty generous place.

David Gardner: It’s true. In fact, our first Chief Technology Officer surprised some external guests like Biz-Dev people when he had no shoes on at all. We’ve done that, we’re open to that at The Fool, we’re open to a lot of things at The Fool. Maybe we could go to work at Fool HQ in slippers and then it would become the in thing. Comfortable shoes I think matter a lot to us as humans. We probably don’t recognize as frequently as we should how important our feet are to our health, our long-term health. Sometimes something that feels really comfortable isn’t necessarily great for your foot, sometimes it’s that firmer, harder thing. I’m not a podiatrist, I’m not going to be somebody who speaks authoritatively here, but I did once pick a stock that’s done OK. Ticker symbol is SKX, the company is Skechers (NYSE: SKX). I picked it for Motley Fool Rule Breakers, it was September of 2015. I’m really sorry to say if anybody goes back and looks at a stock market chart in the last six years you’ll see a massive spike in the months leading up to our cost basis for Rule Breakers and then a huge drop and the stock really didn’t return to 50 where we got it in 2015 until recently. But I don’t want to say too much more because I might be giving away some of the facts to my very bright contestants, and I’m not just talking about the Brians, I’m talking to all of us listening to me right now. I’m going to leave it there and not talk too much more about the stock but I will return to Brian Stoffel and ask you, Brian, do you own any Skechers yourself, not stock here I’m talking shoes?

Brian Stoffel: I don’t, but my daughter does.

David Gardner: Why do you think she owns Skechers?

Brian Stoffel: Because, honestly, when you go to the shoe store they are the ones that caught her eye and they fit and she liked how they were in. For me on my side, they were affordable so I think all those things combined.

David Gardner: This is ironic, definitely not planned, but I am wearing my pair of Skechers right now as we do this podcast. I didn’t think about that this morning before I randomized the stocks that we’ll talk about but, yeah, I think they are really comfortable, they are very affordable, they’re also very light. They’re like shoes that are surprisingly non-dense. It almost feels like is this a shoe that I’m holding or is this just air in front of me? I’m not talking about Nike Air. Yeah, Skechers, I’m a fan even though the stock has definitely been an underperformer for Rule Breaker members. Although if you’d picked this up a few years ago, you might be sitting pretty happy with your cost basis. I’m not going to say anything more though about the stock because I want to turn back to Brian and say, Brian, I see Feroldi up three, two over you so let me turn and to ask you your market cap range for Skechers, ticker symbol SKX.

Brian Stoffel: My range is going to be 5.3 billion to 11.2 billion.

David Gardner: 5.3 billion to 11.2 billion. Brian Feroldi, before you come up with your answer, do you have any quick thoughts or opinion about Skechers or shoes in general?

Brian Feroldi: I’m not much of a shoe guy myself and I’m pretty sure there are Skechers in my house and like Mr. Stoffel over there, they belong to my kids and I’m pretty sure they were chosen because they were the right color. That’s pretty high up in my kid’s choice when it comes to clothing and footwear. I have not followed this company at all. I do know for a brief period of time it was a red hot stock, it had everything going for it. I’m really glad you said it was not going well recently.

David Gardner: That helps you a little bit. If it helps you anymore, the stock from 2012 went from about five to its peak of 50 in 2015. It did briefly retouch that recently although it’s fallen back down with a lot of the market. Anyway, yeah, you’re right it was a tenbagger in a three-year period.

Brian Feroldi: My gut wants to say that this was a company that will be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The fact that the lower range here is 5.3 billion, I was thinking two, three billion so I’ll go under and say outside.

David Gardner: We’re tied again. Brian Stoffel makes another good call in his market cap range. Skechers tips the scales as we speak at six and a quarter billion, $6.26 billion well within that 5.3-11.2 range. Brian Stoffel, maybe you should buy yourself a pair of Skechers to celebrate.

Brian Stoffel: I agree. I might need to go out and get one.

David Gardner: If you did, what color?

Brian Stoffel: Blue. I like Blue.

David Gardner: Awesome. I was going to go with sparkly pews. Although admittedly guys, showing you just over the air here, I wear blue Skechers so I’m with you. [laughs]

Brian Feroldi: I’m I the only one that don’t know what color pews is? [laughs]

David Gardner: I’m glad you asked. It’s a word I just remember, I thought it was such a funny word when I was a kid. It is a color and I’m looking it up real quick and my friend dictionary.com has this as they dark red or purple-brown in color. I think the reason pews is funny is because it’s like three different colors and you can call almost anything in a certain wide range of the spectrum pews, so there you go sparkly pews. You know every company featured today is listening to our market cap game you know the Skechers people are hearing us right now, sparkly pews people. All right, well we’re tied three all let’s move on now to stock number 7. Brian Feroldi, have you ever been to Minnesota?

Brian Feroldi: I never have and it is on my to-go-to list. All the lakes out there, the Twin Cities, and a good friend of mine from college just relocated to the Twin Cities from Colorado. It is a place I really want to go but I do have a hard time convincing my wife to vacation North of where we live.

David Gardner: I appreciate that. Now both of you guys, since I know you’re coming to us this week from Wisconsin and Rhode Island, you were comfortable with cold. Maybe Brian Stoffel in Wisconsin a little bit more, cheese heads a little bit more than the Rhode Islanders. I won’t say, but Minnesota is a beautiful state and I will admit that I visited a number of times and it was always in the summer. [laughs] Because it’s a beautiful place to play golf in the summer or watch a Minnesota Twins baseball game, but I really haven’t ever gone in and braved the true cold North in Minnesota. But it is a great state, one of the 50 proud to have them in the union. The name of that state is, of course, implicit in the historical name of company number 7.

That’s 3M Company (NYSE: MMM), Minnesota Mining, and Manufacturing, I’m pretty sure that’s what the 3M stand for, the ticker symbol is MMM. One thing you have to like about 3M stock, we’re about to find out what the market cap is very shortly, but one thing you have to love about 3M stock is the dividend yield of these shares today. With inflation tipping the scales over five percent for the first time in a few decades, it’s nice to think you’re getting a 3.43 percent dividend yield from the stock keeping you pace with inflation right now. I sure hope that inflation is more of a flash in the pan we shall see, but 3M of all the companies we’re sharing, I think this is the big dividend payer of these 10 this week. We’ve got the three, three tie, it’s about to be untied again, I’m going to turn to Brian Feroldi and Brian, what is your market cap range for 3M Company? That is its official corporate name, 3M Company, ticker symbol MMM.

Brian Feroldi: This is not a company I’ve looked at recently. I put this in that category of like a Johnson and Johnson, a General Mills, very big, dependable, slow-moving, high-quality, low growth business that’s a play on total return. I know it’s huge, I know it’s enormously diversified, I know it’s very well-run, I know that it grows at a modest rate. I think it’s over 100 billion, I don’t think it’s over 200 billion. I’ll say 112 billion to 142 billion.

David Gardner: One hundred twelve billion to 142 billion for the 3M Company. I’m just going to give a quick fact here as Brian Stoffel scratches his head on this one and all of our listeners around the family hearth thinking about whether they’re going to go inside or outside that range. This company has formed as a mining venture in the year 1902 in Two Harbors, Minnesota, I’ve never been there. The goal was to mine corundum but this failed because the mine was anorthosite, whatever that is, and anorthosite is basically worthless. I love the stories, I’m a total sucker for corporate histories, I think they should be taught in the schools. Academia should have chairs in every university teaching corporate histories, I think it’s a great unexplored part of our education today. But I love finding out how companies started especially hearing how they just did something crazy or silly and then morphed and morphed again and 3M Company is obviously an example of that. The maker of the post-it notes started by a failed mining enterprise in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Brian Stoffel, everybody at home, is the market cap of 3M Company inside or outside the range of $112-$142 billion?

Brian Stoffel: I’m going to say outside, I think it’s bigger.

David Gardner: You are right, and yet you kind of were wrong. It’s actually smaller. [laughs] But you were right. That’s part of the beauty of the Market Cap Game Show. You don’t always have to be right to be a winner. That was a pretty darn good call by both of you. But Brian Feroldi, the market cap of 3M Company today is 101.51, [laughs] basically 102 billion or so. The call of 112-142, pretty solid, and yet it was outside that range just a little bit lower. Once again, guys, this is a company where you thought it was bigger than it actually is. Now, the stock has been sleepy. It’s over the last three months, since we last played the Market Cap Game Show, we did not do this one together three months ago. But three months ago it was at 177. It’s drifted down to 173 today. It’s as Brian Feroldi described it is a mainstay of American business. I like it. It’s been a stock pick of mine in the past, because I like the innovation that this company has been capable up for decades, and it’s not that easy to innovate at a big scale. They tend not to have the one big widget, the iPhone that’s going to come along and transform the whole business.

They just do tons of little innovations, and they add up to $100 billion or so about a century later, and yet not the most dramatic or exciting company. But that’s why I was talking up the dividend yield. Before we move onto stock Number 8 with Brian Stoffel ahead 4-3, I do want to note because I looked this up, a north of site, which was that the nothing they weren’t hoping to find in their mind that they probably overpaid for at the start of this company in North of site. Prominently represented rock samples brought back from the moon, and it’s important in investigations of Mars, Venus, and the meteorites. We all learned a little something extra this week on the Market Cap Game Show. Well again, still full for Feroldi 3, let’s move to company number 8. Turning to Brian Stoffel, who was just right by being wrong but was right. [laughs] Let me ask you, Brian, I know a big part of your frameworks and your thinking are around anti-fragility.

A lot of us will know that concept if you’ve read Nicholas Nassim Taleb, and you’ve made a lot about that. You connected his ideas into how to think about businesses that are themselves anti-fragile, that can do really well even in down periods, let’s say. I’m not trying to put words into your mouth, but having actually not read Taleb’s book, I know you’re all over it. You know much more about this than I do, but my school-boy understanding of books I haven’t read, and that’s one thing I took away. But I’m curious, Brian Stoffel, could you give us maybe a shortlist of, let’s say, three of the most anti-fragile stocks in your mind. Doesn’t even have to be the top 3, but just on the Mount Rushmore are the top 10 of anti-fragile stocks, what are a few that come to mind for you?

Brian Stoffel: Well, Amazon is definitely number 1. They try things. If you want to go back and read Jeff Bezos’s letter about one and two way doors and how you make decisions is a brilliant representation of anti-fragility to me. Another one I would throw on there is Axon enterprise, maker of body cameras and tasers. I think that they are the perfect marriage of wide moat and optionality. In other words, the wide moat can prevent the negative black swan, and the optionality gives you exposure to a positive black swan. If I had to choose one more, I’d have to go with the company that scores the highest in the framework, which is Mercado Libre. Because it has become much like 3M, much more than what it started out as.

David Gardner: Well, those are great companies and all companies I admire, and in fact had picked and own myself. Maybe I understood anti-fragility before Taleb even did it yet you guys know much more about it than I do. I do like the concept though and certainly, if we’re going to buy stocks, gentlemen and hold them for long periods of time, we need to have competitive advantages that are sustainable. We need to be pretty amazing. Whether it’s through every business climate like this company that we’re about to talk about, I think is or just good enough in good times that we can swim through the bad ones. Well, Stock Number 8 is one of those companies that changed its corporate name, but the ticker symbol persists. At some point I think they should probably rectify that. But Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), which didn’t make your shortlist just put out here, Brian, but I easily could have heard you say this company’s name because I know it has to conform to a lot of the things that you look for in investing and for me as well. Alphabet of course, still rocks the Google ticker symbol GOOG. I know you are starting to ask yourself, what does the market cap range? I’m going to give for Alphabet ticker symbol, GOOG. If you are asking yourself, it’s about time to answer that.

Brian Stoffel: It’s funny you say that because Alphabet was the one company that was on the tip of my tongue that I didn’t say. When we had our check-in last week about the highlights of last year, we talked about the gamification of this. Here we go. Brian Feroldi, I wrote a report this morning that asked for the market cap of Alphabet. But what am I going to do? I am going to go from between 1.42 billion to 1.85 trillion. [laughs].

David Gardner: This was the rare time where I had my ref’s whistle out and I was about to throw a flag.

Brian Stoffel: Oh my goodness.

David Gardner: In honor of the game, we’re going to ask you just to restate that before any of us can make a guess.

Brian Stoffel: 1.45 trillion.

David Gardner: At 1.45 trillion.

Brian Stoffel: To 1.85 trillion.

David Gardner: To 1.85 trillion. The human mind has a hard time even distinguishing between billion and trillion for lots of important reasons. But there are a thousand billions in a trillion, and it’s hard to wrap our minds around that. Yet, as you gentlemen know there are a number of public companies today that now have trillion plus dollar market caps. Without giving any big spoiler here this is one of them, but of course I’m not going to speak to the actual range given. I think we can all appreciate. Let me see if there are 10 figures in a billion. I guess there are 13 figures in a trillion. This is a 13 figure market cap. We like to abbreviate you scientific notation, just taking a couple of decimals. Thank you for doing that for us Brian Stoffel. Brian Feroldi, and all of my players at home the stated range of market cap for Alphabet today, ticker symbol GOOG is 1.45-1.85 trillion. Brian, players at home, is it inside or outside that range?

Brian Feroldi: Well, my gut was going to say that the market cap was two trillion. I know that Brian is playing mega mine games with me on that upper bound range there of 1.85 trillion because that’s going to get down to how far below its all-time high is it? If he looked at it this morning, depends on what the stock is doing today, which I don’t know, I think the market is up today. Based on that, I’m going to say outside, and I think it’s 1.9 trillion.

David Gardner: You nailed it. I hasten to add of course, that we are recording this now the afternoon of Tuesday, December 21st, when you get this fine-tooth comb combing through gigantic numbers of market cap, and these gentlemen are that on-point taking out to a decimal, we have to remember our listeners are hearing this well at the earliest, probably Wednesday evening and then Thursday the market will trade, etc. Players at home give yourself a gold star or a plus one if you’re anywhere near here because this is a stock that we can’t know where it’s going to trade Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. With that said we’ve reached a dramatic juncture because we’re once again tied. The market cap for Alphabet is 1.955 trillion [laughs] as we record over the past quarter.

By the way, the stock is up from 2,700-2,846. But who’s counting? It’s one of those stocks that’s up over the last few months. Many of our innovators, as we’ve already talked about, are not up over the last three months Alphabet is though, and Alphabet does feel pretty anti-fragile to me. Part of it is that ironically, it’s innovating and failing as much as any company out there at scale, probably, maybe more than any company out there. But Biogen being so well diversified and having that huge cash cow of the basic Google business that will not fail anytime soon, it’s allowed itself to fail and become more anti-fragile. I see you agreeing, Brian, is there anything you’d like to add before we move on to stock number 9?

Brian Stoffel: Just that they’re moonshot projects. That is, they just need one to hit for it to make a difference to shareholders. None has really, we keep hearing about Waymo, but nothing has hit yet, I’m curious to see what the next 10 years bring.

David Gardner: Maybe they will find an incredible use, speaking of moonshots, for a north of site, maybe they will start to mine it from our moon and Mars and it’ll all lead to the future, and it’s all brought to you by Alphabet, [laughs] we’ll see. Well gentlemen, this is an interesting moment because you’re tied four to four. Ironically, perhaps and anybody who is listening last week already knows this, we decided that the Etsy teaser from last week’s show which you guys played, would serve as a potential a pre-ending tie breaker for this week show. I regret to say if you’re a Feroldi fan that Brian Stoffel won that Etsy tie breaker, which means this, if you guys tie this week, and it very well could happen finished five, five three months ago, we’re at four four right now, we’ve already decided ahead of time that Brian Stoffel will win. Therefore, my friend Brian Feroldi, you will need to win these next two in order to win this Market Cap game-show.

Brian Feroldi: But David, that’s using GAAP accounting. If we use non-GAAP, [laughs] Brian Stoffel really only gets a half point for the 3M answers.

David Gardner: That whole idea of a tiebreaker is an anathema to this game really, but we didn’t think it was going to happen. We were having fun last week. We said why not do this in case for some reason this ended up five to five. While just keep playing, keep your eye on the ball and keep playing to the best of your ability. Anyway, I hope it goes six, four or four, six on its own, but it could very well go five five. Let’s get the stock number nine. Turning to Brian Feroldi. Brian, let’s play word association really quickly. You ready?

Brian Feroldi: I’m terrified.

David Gardner: I’ll give you a word or phrase and you’re going to give the first thing that pops into your head. Here we go. Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD).

Brian Feroldi: The app.

David Gardner: Interesting. Now, giving yourself a little bit more time, going another direction. What else much you’ve said about Robinhood?

Brian Feroldi: Rob the rich, feed the poor.

David Gardner: Good one, merry men, etc. It’s a phrase, it’s actually a board game that I’m putting under the tree of one of my friends this year. The adventures of Robinhood turned into a story-based campaign board game. Robinhood has been a bad movie a number of times in theaters, occasionally a good movie. I thought the Russell Crowe version was pretty good. But I mean, Robinhood for investors is an app on your phone where you trade stocks, where you open up a brokerage account, especially for younger people. It’s big go-to for a new generation of people who are just getting started investing. Robinhood has been loved and vilified at different points over the last few years for making investing fun or easy or trading gamified, if you like. There are positives that we three conceded that and there are some downsides that we can see that as well.

Robinhood is not stock number nine, but it is a reminder that in order to become an investor, you’re going to need to open the account somewhere. Sometimes when people ask me, Dave, how do you get started investing, I start saying, well, you start looking at this for this coming this. They would say, “But how do you actually start investing?” You need to open an account and a brokerage for Fidelity (NYSE: FNF), Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) or whatever, or maybe Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR). Ticker symbol IBKR, this is not only a Motley Fool stock pick of some vintage, but it’s also a common destination for many of our members who might have opened up accounts at Interactive Brokers. So whether you’re at Fidelity, Interactive Brokers or Robinhood in the end, we’re all putting our money somewhere and then trying to figure out how to allocate it. What companies do you want to be a part-owner of? I hope, for a meaningful period of time as opposed to trade. With that said, Interactive Brokers Group, the Ticker symbols I mentioned, IBKR, Brian Feroldi. What is your market cap range for Interactive Brokers?

Brian Feroldi: This is my broker and it’s Mr. Stoffel. No, he has a different broker than me, so I’m very familiar with the company’s product.

David Gardner: Excellent. Little bit home team play here.

Brian Feroldi: True. One reason I like it is it’s far more complicated and hard-to-use than other ones. It’s such a pain to log into that it prevents me from [laughs] trading more often. But that’s a big positive. I like about this company.

David Gardner: Brilliant.

Brian Feroldi: I do know that the founder of Interactive Brokers, his name as Thomas Peterffy or something along those lines. I remember that he owns a huge amount of this company, like maybe half of it. He is a multi-billionaire that lives in Connecticut. I know the company itself has been stealing market share for many years. But I don’t think it’s all that huge. I’m going to say I’m going to give the market cap range of 8 billion to 14.5 billion.

David Gardner: 8 billion to 14.5 billion for a company that doesn’t advertise that much. A lot of us know Fidelity or Schwab. We know Robinhood, even though it’s an upstart, not as many people, probably know Interactive Brokers. Players at home, Brian Stoffel, 8 billion to 14.5 billion ticker symbol IBKR, inside that range or outside that range?

Brian Stoffel: I had written down 5-12. He didn’t help me very much. I’m going to say outside, it’s smaller than 8 billion, which means that it’s probably bigger than 14. [laughs] But let’s see how it all plays out. [NOISE]

David Gardner: Indeed it is. It’s actually quite a bit larger than that. It’s again, not a stock I picked before. A lot of Motley Fool members know this company, use this company. I didn’t know that its market cap is $32.45 billion.

Brian Stoffel: Oh my goodness.

David Gardner: This is a big financial services player and you can see why a lot of people feel safe having their money there. I’ve always felt better thinking that my money, whatever banker brokerage it’s in, if it has a much bigger market cap, then a banker broker with a tiny little market cap, I feel like my money is probably safer. Some people, in addition to a complicated user interface, Brian, some people maybe just appreciate the solidity of this company and I’m happy and sad at the same time to announce that we’re still going to play stock number 10. But this match, in one sense is over because Brian Stoffel you just put up a fifth point and you already have the tiebreaker. With that said, Brian Feroldi. If you were to tie 5, 5, a lot of people are going to say it’s disputed and that [laughs] tie breaker was just that movie trailer. A podcasts earlier last week. It wasn’t part of the game. We’ll see.

Brian Feroldi: Brian was wrong again, but you got the point.

Brian Stoffel: Not to mention that two of my five points have come in the wrong direction but I’ve still gotten it correct.

David Gardner: But who’s counting?

Brian Feroldi: Me, I’m counting.

David Gardner: Well, the final stock of this market cap game show of this year Ticker symbol. I’ll go right to it. It’s TRUP. Brian Stoffel. Do you have a pet around the house?

Brian Stoffel: I do not. I like to say my three-year-old is the closest thing I have.

David Gardner: [laughs] Did you grow up with pets?

Brian Stoffel: I didn’t. We had our home that had three boys, and we were always doing sports and things. It wouldn’t have been good for a pet.

David Gardner: Brian Stoffel, why do you hate animals so much?

Brian Stoffel: I don’t know, but I do.

David Gardner: Well, if you did have a pet around the house, even a beta fish, you might consider getting pet insurance, which when I first heard about it sounded like this crazy thing, like who would actually get that ten years ago. Then over the last ten years, pets have become family members. We all want to have our health insurance for each other and grabs and yeah, our fish these days it seems like, Trupanion (NASDAQ: TRUP) Ticker symbol T-R-U-P is a company that, well, they had a lot of foresight and positioned themselves well to be a leader within this field. Again as stock, I don’t know much about, but I randomize this list. I don’t need to know every company. You guys just need to know the market caps of every company. Let me turn back to the animal-hating Brian Stoffel. I’m sorry, Brian. [laughs]

Brian Stoffel: That’s OK.

David Gardner: You’re still basking in the glow victory so we can have a little fun with you. Brian Stoffel, what is your market cap range for Trupanion?

Brian Stoffel: Maybe go 3.3-6.6 billion.

David Gardner: 3.3-6.6 billion. I will mention this stock has been really good over the last quarter. We’ll talk briefly about why in just the last few weeks. But Brian Feroldi and players at home, let’s not going to home here. Stock number 10, the range is 3.3-6.6 billion. Brian inside or outside that range, Trupanion?

Brian Feroldi: I’m going to say I think that that range is really good. Prior to its recent run-up, I remember that this company is about a $3 billion business, and like you said, it’s been good recently. That range is thumbs up.

David Gardner: You are correct, which leaves us at arguably a tie, arguably. Five to five asterisk with, you have to give a head nod to Brian Stoffel for his remarkable. [laughs] You weren’t even expecting me to launch this on you in the middle of the Besties absolute last week. [laughs] But we are going to play the game tie breaker. But you guys both once again did wonderfully and your great sports and taught us a lot through this hour together as well. You do finish five to five. We’re going to give it to Stoffel because of the tiebreaker because I try to be a personal by word. But I do want to say it’s been a remarkable performance for Trupanion stock up 80-125 in just the last three months. It sounds like at least one of us, besides me, knows why this stock has run up very recently. Do you want to say why?

Brian Feroldi: I actually don’t know why, although I know is that roughly with the market capitalists.

Brian Stoffel: That they have a partnership with Chewy (NYSE: CHWY).

David Gardner: That’s it. Chewy, obviously the pet food company. Another good Rule Breakers Stock announced Trupanion as it’s preferred partner within this space, the stock shot up and then actually gave a lot of it back in just the last ten days or so. It’s been interesting to follow this company, but yeah, at a market cap of 4.76 billion, solidly within that 3.3-6.6. Well, I want to thank you both again for both your good nature and your good stock-picking smarts, and yeah, your market cap savvy as well. We’ll start with our winner. Brian Stoffel. Brian, thank you so much for being with us this week on the Market Cap Game Show.

Brian Stoffel: Thank you, David, and I look forward to a time in 2022 when we can try and have an outright winner.

David Gardner: Brian Feroldi, a lot of us, our hearts are still with you. We feel like you at least tied this one.

Brian Feroldi: Yeah.

David Gardner: Those two, thank you very much once again for joining me on the Market Cap Game Show and happy holidays to you, sir.

Brian Feroldi: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here and I promise I’ll be a good sport while I’m being recorded.

David Gardner: Well, in conclusion, from the Stoffel family, from the Feroldi family, from the Engdahl family, and from the Gardner family. We wish you the very best of holidays. Stay safe out there. Wash your darn hands. Maybe have that conversation if there’s anyone that you would feel regretful if you didn’t have that conversation, have that one and have a wonderful holiday, which sometimes for some of this means time away as well. Next week, it is your Rule Breaker Investing mailbag, the final one of the year, some great stories, some new music, other treats to come. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Charles Schwab is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Brian Feroldi owns Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Datadog, Etsy, Zillow Group (A shares), and Zillow Group (C shares). Brian Stoffel owns Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and Datadog. David Gardner owns Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Zillow Group (A shares), and Zillow Group (C shares). The Motley Fool owns and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Chewy, Inc., Costco Wholesale, Datadog, Etsy, Redfin, Trupanion, Walker & Dunlop, Zillow Group (A shares), and Zillow Group (C shares). The Motley Fool recommends 3M, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, NextEra Energy, and Walker & Dunlop, Inc. and recommends the following options: long January 2022 $1,920 calls on Amazon, short December 2021 $70 puts on Interactive Brokers, short February 2022 $65 puts on Redfin, and short January 2022 $1,940 calls on Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.