Unexpected Stock Picks and Looking to the Future

In this podcast, Motley Fool contributors Rick Munarriz, Jason Hall, and Travis Hoium dive into stocks that they are willing to give up their Fool card for. There's also a look at how they think the percolating market matters of today will play out a year from now.

They unpack:

• Unlikely stocks that they are championing right now.
• Potential buyout chatter for PayPal.

Note: This podcast was recorded before Netflix stepped back from its attempt to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Feb. 24, 2026.

Rick Munarriz: Why does the shortest month of the year sometimes feel like the longest? You don't have to wake me up when February ends because Motley Fool Money starts now. I'm Rick Munarriz, and today I'm joined by fellow analysts Jason Hall and Travis Hoium. We're going to take a look at the potential bidding war for PayPal, and a new wrinkle in the Warner Bros. Discovery buyout battle. But first, we all have a type. We all have the kind of stock that we gravitate to as an investing style or an industry. Sometimes we find ourselves falling for an unlikely, if not outright surprising investment. Maybe it's a stock that isn't actively followed by most of our fellow Fools. It's OK to venture out of your comfort zone on your radar. This is a safe space, so it's time to fess up. What are you willing to give up your Fool card for?

Jason, let's start with you. I will admit that over my 15 years as an investor and as a Fool, I've certainly become more Tom than David, and that means that I might not have to give up my full card for this one. But the stock that I'm going to talk about is one that Tom actually sold out of almost all of his services in 2024, and that's Live Oak Bank shares. What do you like about Live Oak? It's a combination of specialization, but also extremely high-quality origination. This is a bank, and it's a little bit of anachronistic because they count on the people that give them capital, the depositors, to be a different group than they're lending to. Their depositors are basically online savers. They pay high yield and their online savings and CDs, but they lend to small businesses. But it's the combination of specialization and extremely high-quality origination that I really like. Lenders make mistakes by either going into markets they truly don't understand or just kind of staying at the table or staying on the dance floor while the music's playing, and then making bad loans as a result. Live Oak's founder and CEO, Chip Mahan. He's like one of the OGs in online banking. But it wasn't just building the tech and the platforms and moving banking out from behind the teller desk and moving it to the Internet. It was also building lenders that don't make bad loans. For Live Oak, it lends to small businesses, but it just focuses on specific verticals, and it actually builds out a team of in-house experts on those verticals before it starts to ramp up its lending. As a result, not only does it lend responsibly, but it has another benefit, especially against community bankers and also against a lot of large bankers that don't really do the same thing. Let's say you're a vet and you own a couple of vet clinics, and you want to borrow some money to improve your technology. There's a very good chance that your Live Oak banker has helped a dozen other vets do the same thing. That's a very important resource. That's a value add that you get. It's also one of the largest Small Business Administration lenders. That's big value. It gives it an edge against a lot of small banks that just don't know the process the same way. And it's also great for investors because the SBA loans are backstopped, and that reduces the risk.

Travis Hoium: Great. What makes it different from the other stocks you've got out with before?

Jason Hall: It's interesting because this is a big bank. It's a multibillion-dollar valuation company, and they've got billions of dollars in assets under management. But I've never really had a lot of exposure to small businesses. The combination of tariffs and trade pressures and inflation over the past year, we've seen that that impacts small businesses in far outsized ways compared to enterprises. That exposure is something that I haven't gone through before. But here's the funny thing that's happened over the past year. Mahan and his team have shown their chops. Shares almost 20% over the past year. That's handily beating the market. If we look at, like, from the tariff tantrum lows, the stock is It's basically double the S&P 500, so it's a business that's really delivering well in the tough environment.

Travis Hoium: What about you, Rick? What are you willing to risk your full card for?

Rick Munarriz: I was initially brought into the full. Tom Gardner brought me in a little more about 30.5 years ago, but then I eventually gravitated to David's Rule Breakers Newsletter service. I've been a growth investor all along. Contrary to what I'm usually looking for, I like Upbound. That's UPBD. It's a company that you all know better as Renta Center because they have more than 1,700 renta centers around the country, and that is their main business, but they have a couple of things cool other cool things about them, too.

Travis Hoium: All right, what's so attractive about Upbound?

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, five years ago, they bought this company called ASIMA, and this is a platform that they're letting others. Obviously, their business is rent-to-own. There's a rental community that isn't going anywhere. A lot of people that don't have the high credit scores, you need to be able to buy furniture at traditional furniture stores and appliances. They provide that. But a neat acquisition five years ago, they bought ASIMA. With that, they're able to provide this platform that they use to other businesses. They're able to use a strength of theirs and actually help a lot of smaller Indie business come along. A year ago, it acquired a company called Brigit, B-R-I-G-I-T, which is actually a very popular app with millions of users that helps people budget. It's a great ecosystem where they have a proven model. Now they're able to help other people do what it does. Almost a shop of IIS situation, and now they have this app to help people improve their credit scores and become better budget-minded people. It's just a quality company all around.

Travis Hoium: Why is it worth giving up your full card for?

Rick Munarriz: Here's the thing. This is a company that right now, again, I'm a growth investor, but you can buy Upbound for five times their forecast for forward earnings, five times earnings, has a dividend yield north of 7%. The stock's taken are beating over the past year, making it this attractive stock. No, it's not this dynamic growth stock, but revenue has been in the high single digits for about two years now and accelerated to 11% in the quarter reported last week. I think it has a lot of cool things, but definitely a value stock in every sense from me, a growth investor.

Jason Hall: Travis, you're not getting off the hook here. What's your stock?

Travis Hoium: One area that I usually stay away from is medicine and healthcare. For a number of reasons, it's not necessarily my expertise. I don't like pharmaceutical companies, let's be honest, they're gouging most of their customers in what they're buying. I hate paying those doctor bills when you're in there for 15 minutes, and suddenly you're spending $400 or something. But there's a disruption story in healthcare. It's volatile. It's controversial. It is his and hers.

Rick Munarriz: Yeah, and it's very controversial. This is one that I very much struggled to get behind myself. I know you're a bull on it, so the floor is yours. What do you like about the stock?

Travis Hoium: Well, to be clear, this very much falls in the Rule Breaker category, or what I like to call as asymmetric opportunities. All that means is, look, if you buy $100 worth of stock, all you can ever lose is $100. But it could become NVIDIA, where you're looking at, what is it? 75200 X return over the next 20 years. That's the upside potential for these rule-breaker kind of companies. I think his and hers has that in spades. They are doing things completely differently than the status quo in healthcare. They're taking those expensive and time-consuming doctor visits, the trip to the pharmacy. Jason, you've got a little kid. You know, that you don't just walk into a pharmacy, get your stuff, and walk out. There's always some sort of pain in that process. They're going direct to consumer. They fall under this telehealth category. I don't really like that terminology, but you're going directly into the app, you're answering questions. I got my labs done by them last year, so I know more about my health than I would in some ways than going in to a traditional doctor. Now, they've been known as an ED company in the past. They're now known as a GLP one company. That's gotten them in hot water. They recently got into a lawsuit with Novo Nordisk. That is really what's been the attention of the market over the past couple of months. But the long term story is, if we look at this company is going over the next 10 or 20 years, is that they're doing things in a much more consumer-friendly way than anyone else in healthcare, and their incentives are lined up with increasing access and lowering costs. No one else in the healthcare industry can say that.

Jason Hall: Well, I guess it's all out there now. Coming up next, it's time to board a time machine that goes only 365 days into the future.

Rick Munarriz: In January of 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance became encased in the ice in the Weddle Sea. Through determination, grit, and savvy, Shackleton would lead his men through a brutal winter, then over hundreds of miles of Antarctic ice, followed by 800 miles across some of the roughest waters in the world. It is one of the most extraordinary and inspirational journeys in the history of exploration. Find this story and many others at the Explorers Podcast available wherever you get your podcast or at explorerspodcast.com.

Jason Hall: A couple stories are breaking this week, but that's this year's news. It's time to party like it's 2027. I'm going to bring up some timely topics, and I want your takes on how you think the situation plays itself out on February 24, 2027. Let's start with PayPal. The Fintech pioneer moved nicely higher on Monday in an otherwise down market, following a Bloomberg report that it's been approached by other companies looking to either buy it out entirely or pay for one of its businesses. Where are we a year from now on this, Travis?

Travis Hoium: They should probably be bought out. This is not a business that the market particularly likes, and you look at the stock price earnings multiple, price of free cash flow between seven and eight. Cheap stock. Somebody, PE, another company would want to buy them. But who actually buys them? It's a profitable business. It's not an exciting business, but strategically, they should be on their own because they want to serve as many companies as possible. Maybe it makes sense in Big Tech, but can Big Tech actually pull that off? I don't think so. I bet there's still a solo company, and this is still just kind of a ho-hum stock. Jason?

Rick Munarriz: I think there's gonna be interest for buyers. I do think maybe to a certain extent PayPal's board is looking for a buyer, but that buyer is going to be PayPal. Alex Chris was not shown the door as CEO because his strategy wasn't working quickly enough. That's why he was pushed out. But the decision to replace him with Enrique Loris is I don't think this is about innovation. They've brought in a CEO from a commodity hardware business, a price-taker business at HP. If there's a part of PayPal's business that's at risk, it's not really, like, the innovative part of it. It's more like the cutthroat price taking the non-branded payments business. That's more like what Loris ran. I think if we really look at what Loris brings to the table, it's that focus on efficiency and also being a buyback machine. During his tenure as CEO at HP, they brought back like 37% of shares. PayPal is a buyback monster already. They bought back about 20% of shares over that same period, but a lot less. Here's where I disagree with Travis while also agreeing with Travis. I think we are going to see accelerated share buybacks, but I'm not sure it's going to be with debt. The company already has 12 billion in debt on the books, but it has over 10 billion in cash, with a market cap of about 39 billion. There's a lot of needle-moving capacity that's already on the balance sheet without having to take on more debt to do it.

Travis Hoium: Also reporting this week claims that Paramount Skydance is ready to raise its bid for Warner Brother discovery above its previous offer of $30 a share in cash. Netflix still wears the engagement ring. Where do you see this love triangle a year from now? Jason, let's start with you.

Jason Hall: Well, my hope is if we continue to see Skydance raise the bar and raise the bar, and raise the bar, Netflix Management Board forces Warner Bros. Discovery to make a decision. We don't want Netflix to walk away because as shareholders, there's the cost of breaking the deal. But if Warner Bros. Discovery breaks the deal, it's, you know, there's some financial implications for them that's doing it. I also think there's more downside risk. To Netflix that investors realize because as much as there's value by adding all of this content, it doesn't fix the real problems. The thing that's stealing eyeballs from Netflix right now is not people watching movies on other platforms, and it's not having HBO. It's all of the short-form content on Instagram and TikTok, and YouTube shorts that's continuing to grow. My hope is that they kind of draw the line at some point, and I do think they end up still winning the deal, but hopefully they show some discipline on the financial side along the way.

Travis Hoium: Yeah, I think there's a lot of noise here, but Netflix ends up pulling this off. It really comes down to it's not just about the price. It's about, are you actually going to be able to close the deal? When you go in and you buy a house, if you say, Hey, I offer you $1 million, and don't worry, I'm good for it, that buyer should be very skeptical over your offer unless you actually come with a note from the bank that says, Hey, Rick's actually good for this money, so that's the real question is, is Paramount actually good for the money? Because Paramount itself does not have the funds to do that. Guess what? Larry Ellison, who is, you know, really the backstopper of this. This stock is down 50%, I think it is right now. He may not want to write a $100 billion check to buy all of Warner Brothers' discovery. If you're Netflix, you got to say, Hey, look, we have not only a really good offer, but it's not worth going after an extra couple of bucks a share on a deal that may not close because if you get two years down the road and the deal doesn't close, that's a really, really bad deal for Warner Brothers discovery. They're in a really tough spot.

Rick Munarriz: Coming up next, one final ride to 2027. We began the show talking about three unlikely stocks that each of us finds attractive right now. It's time to make it interesting. Outside of the stock that you brought to the table, which of the other two stocks do you think will deliver a healthier total return a year from now? Jason?

Jason Hall: I'm going to try to not make my friend Travis angry here, but I continue to the thing I struggle with his and hers is I think their incentives today are still a problem, where they are so wired to prescriptions. Like, I really think that that's an issue now, and that's holding me back. I think the disruption story is true, but I want to see more of that disruption play out where their economics become more aligned with consumers and less with just pushing more prescriptions. That's a concern that I have today. And as much as I'm holding my nose to do it, because let's be honest, I have a major problem with companies that have a history of basically predatory lending, which, over the long term, that's what rent-to-own businesses have had.

Rick Munarriz: You don't want to pay five X for your new TV?

Jason Hall: Exactly. Something that's going to depreciate by 70% as soon as I walk out the door, and I'm paying a four X markup. I don't love that, but I'm also a sucker for a deep value business that's doing really well, and I think that's what we have with Upbound Today. Holding my nose doing this.

Travis Hoium: I unfortunately have to go with Live Oak Bank here. It's at least a known commodity. I think they're a good operator. But I guess I agree with Jason here that Upbound business just isn't necessarily something I want to be in.

Jason Hall: Yeah, Travis. I know I put you in a horrible position to pick my stock after I just trashed yours. I apologize.

Rick Munarriz: I'm going to pick Hims and Hers. First of all, the company was growing really nicely before the noise even started, and I like to see convenience and lower prices win out at some point. Well done. Also, I like symmetry. All three stocks get a bone at the end. Jason, Travis, thank you for indulging me today.

Jason Hall: Thanks, Rick.

Travis Hoium: Yes, it's fine.

Rick Munarriz: As always, people on the program may have an interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool Editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For Jason Hall, Travis Hoium, and the rest of the Motley Fool Money team, I'm Rick Munarriz. May your days be Sunny and your life, Motley Fool Money.

Jason Hall has positions in Live Oak Bancshares and Nvidia and has the following options: short May 2026 $40 puts on PayPal. Rick Munarriz has positions in Netflix, PayPal, and Upbound Group. Travis Hoium has positions in Hims & Hers Health and PayPal. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends HP, Hims & Hers Health, Live Oak Bancshares, Netflix, Nvidia, PayPal, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk and recommends the following options: long January 2027 $42.50 calls on PayPal and short March 2026 $65 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.