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Should You Buy the 3 Highest-Paying Dividend Stocks in the Nasdaq-100?

Key Points

  • Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, and Comcast all offer dividend yields far above their long-term averages right now.

  • Their stocks may be down, but this trio of fallen giants should get back up in the long run.

  • All three companies face flat or declining sales, but continue to generate significant free cash flow.

The Nasdaq-100 index is home to some of the most exciting growth stocks on the market. It includes nine of the 10 largest stocks by market cap. All 10 are members of the trillion-dollar valuation club. At the same time, the Nasdaq-100 also holds some impressive dividend payers.

Generous dividend yields can be very shareholder-friendly -- if they are a conscious choice and supported by healthy cash profits. In other cases, dividend yields can soar as the same stock's market price goes down. Some investors see outsized yields as a shorthand sign of companies in big trouble.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

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So let's take a look at the three richest dividend policies in the Nasdaq-100, as of July 18. Do they belong to perfectly healthy businesses with excess cash to spend, or are they fallen giants with serious issues?

1. Kraft Heinz: 5.7% dividend yield

Food giant Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC) offers the most generous dividend yield in this index today, and it's not a close race.

Kraft Heinz always carried a lofty yield. It has averaged 4.6% over the last five years. But it also soared over the last 52 weeks due to slumping share prices.

The maker of your favorite ketchup, hot dogs, and processed cheese has seen top-line revenues stall in the last six quarters. Kraft Heinz is still a fantastic cash machine, converting 12% of its sales into free cash flow on a trailing basis. That's slightly above the 11% cash profit conversion the company saw six years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the consumer world upside down.

This stock honestly looks undervalued right now, trading at just 10.4 times free cash flow and 0.7 times book value. These valuation ratios are low, even in the conservative space of packaged food producers. The company is battling the same macroeconomic headwinds as everyone else, but with an unmatched portfolio of food brands by its side. I think it's a good idea to lock in this soaring dividend yield by picking up some Kraft Heinz shares on the cheap.

2. PepsiCo: 3.9% yield

I'm not leaving the food market quite yet. The next name on this list is PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), the storied maker of soft drinks and snack foods.

This recent dividend boost is even sharper than Kraft Heinz's increase. PepsiCo's yield has averaged 2.9% since the summer of 2020, with a 34% uptick in the last year.

The company had some inventory management issues last year, and sales have been rather flat since the summer of 2023. I see a world-class consumer goods business struggling to meet its own lofty quality standards.

This situation looks a lot like the Kraft Heinz setup. Opportunistic investors would probably do well in the long run if they grabbed some PepsiCo shares in this extended price dip.

3. Comcast: 3.8% yield

Then there's entertainment powerhouse Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), also providing dividend yields well above its long-term averages.

It's another tale of plunging share prices resulting in rich dividend yields. And once again, I wouldn't say that Comcast is in financial trouble.

The new Epic Universe theme park at Comcast's Universal Orlando resort, opened in late May, should breathe new life into the underperforming theme parks division. The Universal movie studio segment recently scored big hits like Jurassic World: Rebirth and the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Meanwhile, Comcast's massive connectivity and platforms division provides a robust cash-generating base from which the company can launch more ambitious growth initiatives.

I don't mean to repeat myself, but Comcast could also be a great buy at this low point. Sure, the entertainment market is changing at light speed, but the Universal brand is putting up a real fight.

Should you invest $1,000 in Kraft Heinz right now?

Before you buy stock in Kraft Heinz, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Kraft Heinz wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,056,790!*

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*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025

Anders Bylund has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast and Kraft Heinz. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Stock Market Today: WBD Continues Uptrend Amid Ongoing Optimism Over June's Streaming Split Decision


Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD) shares climbed 2.07% to close at $12.84 on Thursday, outpacing broader market gains as investors continue to respond positively to developments regarding the company's linear division spin-off. Trading volume surged to approximately 110.5 million shares, nearly double the 50-day average of 66.7 million, indicating heightened interest and conviction behind the price movement.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both traded near all-time highs but posted more modest gains of around 0.54% and 0.74% respectively. Industry peers showed positive movement as well, with Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) rising 1.99% to $122.21 and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) gaining 0.87% to $34.70, though neither matched WBD's relative performance.

Technically, WBD shares are trading near their 52-week high, reinforcing a bullish breakout pattern that has attracted additional investor attention. The dramatic volume spike of approximately two times normal levels suggests possible institutional participation (hedge funds) as the company advances its strategic initiatives. Today's momentum and trading activity signal ongoing investor confidence in Warner Bros. Discovery's evolving media business strategy.

Should you invest $1,000 in Warner Bros. Discovery right now?

Before you buy stock in Warner Bros. Discovery, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Warner Bros. Discovery wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $674,281!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,050,415!*

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*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025

JesterAI is a Foolish AI, based on a variety of Large Language Models (LLMs) and proprietary Motley Fool systems. All articles published by JesterAI are reviewed by our editorial team, and The Motley Fool takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this article. JesterAI cannot own stocks and so it has no positions in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

AI, Superman, and Solar's Kryptonite

In this podcast, Motley Fool host Anand Chokkavelu and contributors Jason Hall and Matt Frankel discuss:

  • AI stocks in the data center space (including CoreWeave).
  • Winners and losers in energy and solar from Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
  • Ranking the intellectual property of Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast, Disney, and Netflix.
  • Prime Day and other made-up holidays.
  • Stocks to watch.

And Dave Schaeffer, founder and CEO of Cogent Communications, talks with Motley Fool analysts Asit Sharma and Sanmeet Deo about how Cogent's deals with customers like Netflix and Meta Platforms work and what keeps him awake at night.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

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.

Where to invest $1,000 right now

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*Stock Advisor returns as of July 14, 2025

This podcast was recorded on July 11, 2025.

Anand Chokkavelu: Yes, we're talking all kinds of stocks. This week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show starts now. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Anand Chokkavelu. Joining me are two of my favorite fools, Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. Today, we'll talk about stock market winners and losers from the Big Beautiful Bill. We'll pit Superman versus the Hulk, and we'll of course debate stocks on our radar. But first, we'll discuss whether there's an AI opportunity in investing in data centers. Upstart data center company, CoreWeave, again made news this week this time for announcing the purchase of Core Scientific for $9 billion. This allows it to add infrastructure to consolidate vertically as it seeks to gain market share among AI and high performance computing customers. CoreWeave is just the tip of the data center iceberg. Matt, what categories of data center opportunities are out there?

Matt Frankel: First, you have hyper scalers. These are companies like AWS, Microsoft, Desha. They are companies that operate the large scale data centers. They offer computing and storage infrastructures to customers. As Anand put it, there's CoreWeave, which is one of the least understood recent IPOs that I know. [laughs] They rent out GPU data center infrastructures to customers. It's not always practical for companies to invest in all of NVIDIA's latest chips on their own, for example. That's really what they do. There's the REITs still, Digital Realty and Equinix are the two big ones. They own the data centers. CoreWeave is actually a big Digital Realty tenant. Then there's power generation. I know Jason's going to talk about this a little bit later in the show, but data centers consume a lot of power, and it's growing at an exponential pace. These chips that NVIDIA produces, they are power drains. Nuclear, especially, could be a big part of the solution, but solar and other renewables are also in there.

Jason Hall: We're definitely in the land grab phase of the infrastructure buildout for accelerated computing. I think accelerated computing is maybe a better description than just AI. We talk about the Cloud REIT large. As we see more of the companies involved start to monetize things like AI agents at scale. I think that's where these investments are going to pay off.

Anand Chokkavelu: Big question. Do any of these categories interest you all for investing?

Matt Frankel: Well, I'm well known as being the real estate guy at the Motley Fool, so it shouldn't be a big surprise, but Digital Realty is my second largest and my second longest running REIT investment in my portfolio. I'm an Amazon shareholder, and I know that's not their only business, but AWS is the primary reason I own it. I don't own CoreWeave yet, and I think the stock is a little bit pricey, to say the least. But the more I read about it, the more I'm intrigued by the company. As I mentioned, they're a big tenant of Digital Realty, so I have some exposure already.

Jason Hall: The things about CoreWeave that concern me is the stock is definitely expensive. But if the opportunity is even close to as large as we think, it could still work out, but they're going to need a lot of money to pay for what they're trying to do and depending on how much of that is from raising debt versus secondary offerings of shares, there's still a lot of questions there. But, Anand, you've given me a chance to talk about Brookfield here. [laughs] How do I not take that opportunity? But I do think that there's a couple of Brookfield entities that are positioned really well here. I want to talk about the providing the energy part of it. Brookfield Renewable is really in the driver seat here as a global provider of renewable energy on multi decade contracts. It is not just accelerated computing, it's the energy transition REIT large. We've already seen it strike big deals with Microsoft and others to provide renewable power on those multi decade contracts. The dividend is really attractive, too. BEP, that's the partnership, yields over 5%. The corporate shares BEPC, it yields about 4.5%. Since mid 2020, that's when Brookfield Renewable rolled the corporation part out and restructured its dividend. The payouts been increased almost 30%. There's a lot to like here. Beyond the yield, I think it's primed to be a total return dynamo over the next decade. If you don't want to own a company that's in the energy part, you want to own the infrastructure, just take a look at sister company Brookfield Infrastructure. The tickers there are BIP and BIPC.

Anand Chokkavelu: Of course, these aren't the only AI stocks out there. Hi, NVIDIA. Do any other areas of AI interest you guys?

Matt Frankel: I love that. You can't talk about AI and data centers without talking about the chipmakers. NVIDIA just hit $4 trillion today as the day we're recording this. NVIDIA is an amazing business, and it has more room to grow than people think just in the data center accelerator space, which is why they're getting so much attention for good reason. The market size is expected to roughly double over the next five years. That's not even to mention the opportunities they have in chips for autonomous vehicles, chips for gaming and more but I prefer AMD, which is often referred to as NVIDIA junior, but I don't think it should be. It's an incredibly well run company that's been a mistake to bet against in the past. As Intel found out the hard way, just having a dominant market share in an area of chip making is not always enough.

Jason Hall: An area of the market that I think could do really well some of the legacy enterprise software giants. I think there may be underappreciated winners from AI. I'll use Salesforce, ticker CRM as an example. It's really starting to get traction with things like it's data cloud and with AI agents. It's starting to sell. We're seeing really rapid uptake of those things and monetization. It has a benefit, an advantage over a lot of these AI start-ups that are just pure AI businesses. It's already a trusted integrated partner with hundreds of thousands of enterprises. It knows their business, it knows their challenges, regulations, opportunities and that credibility, I think, is an edge that we don't give enough credit to. We shouldn't underestimate switching costs, I guess, is what I'm really getting at. You look at Salesforce rates for about 21 times free cash flow and less than seven times sales. That's a really good opportunity. I think it equates to double digit returns if it can just grow revenue around 8-12% a year over the long term, which I think it can.

Anand Chokkavelu: We started to talk a bit about energy and the need for it with all this AI. Let's talk about the energy industry implications of the Big Beautiful Bill, which was signed into law last week. Jason, can you give us the summary of the energy portions?

Jason Hall: Summarizing anything's hard for me, but I'll try. I think the short version is the incentives for renewables, they're getting gutted, really. There's a 30% investment tax credit or ITC for short. The residential solar and battery systems portion of that had been in place to run through 2032 before gradually declining for a few years after that. That now expires. The systems have to be fully installed and commissioned by the end of this year. The commercial ITC for solar and wind projects was on a similar track, but now it expires at the end of 2027, but those projects must begin construction by July 4th of 2026 to qualify for that 30% tax credit. It also terminates the tax credit for new and used EVs, $7,500 for a new EV and up to 4,000 for a used EV. The purchase has to happen before September 30th of this year, so a couple of months. Lastly, it ends the US regulatory credits around vehicle emissions that automakers buy largely from Tesla. This is a significant and profitable revenue stream for EV makers that essentially is going away.

Matt Frankel: Jason, when you say renewables are being gutted, you're essentially referring to solar and wind, if I'm not mistaken. It's not gutting anything for nuclear power, correct?

Jason Hall: That's correct. These things you get are the pure renewables as we think of them.

Anand Chokkavelu: Let's put a fine point on this with specifics. Who are the relative winners and losers, Jason?

Jason Hall: This could be an hour long show, but I'll try to summarize it here. Thinking about the companies that are most directly affected, I think Canadian Solar, which is a large manufacturer of solar panels and energy storage, and they really largely target the utility market, but also residential is definitely a loser here. In the near term Sunrun, its business model is tied to these tax credits as an installer and to some degree, First Solar is also going to be affected. I don't think there's really any winners out of this when it comes to solar. But I think Enphase is probably still in a better position in the market may believe. Maybe First Solar as well. It's been through these battles before, and it has been a winner over the long term. If you look at wind, GE Vernova has been on a huge run. I love that business, but I don't love the stock right now. Tesla, I think maybe one of the bigger losers that investors haven't really considered. Last fiscal year, it earned 2.76 billion in revenue from regulatory credits. That's largely pure profit. Then there's also the loss of those EV tax credits for buyers. That might be offset from some incentives for US made autos that are part of the bill now that were part of the law, but I think this puts Tesla in a tougher spot. The tailwinds are not favorable for fossil fuels before this. This doesn't really change any of that. There's opportunities there, but not because of the law.

Matt Frankel: The reason I asked about nuclear a minute ago is because that's really what I see as the big winner here. I like some of the nuclear focused utility providers. Constellation Energy is one that comes to mind. One of their stated goals is to have the largest carbon free nuclear power fleet in the US by 2040. Jacob Solutions, they provide consulting and design services to the industry. Ticker symbol is J, so it's really easy to remember. They recently had some really big nuclear contract wins. I'm going to push back on Jason's Tesla as a big loser. One, they're American made cars. They qualify for that new auto loan interest deduction, so that could help offset what they're losing from the EV tax credits. They have a big energy storage business, and AI has not only giant power demands, but very variable power demands, and it's going to create a lot of need for large scale energy storage, and Tesla does that. I think they're worth watching.

Jason Hall: That's the one part of Tesla's business that's done extraordinarily well. Over the past few years, as the EV business has weakened, is that the battery business.

Anand Chokkavelu: Now quickly the big question, is solar still investable, Jason?

Jason Hall: I think so. We have a very US centric view, obviously, and the US is a massive important market for solar. But you look around the world and the regulatory environment is still largely favorable. I think if you're willing to write out plenty of volatility, that global opportunity is still really good. Businesses like Enphase, businesses like First Solar that have been through these battles before, and even a Canadian Solar, where it has a ton of projects that it's been funding to build on its books that the math just got changed for them in some big ways. The valuation is so cheap that I think that there's some opportunity there.

Matt Frankel: Taking a step back, the reason you have incentives for solar energy, for EVs, for all this, is because without them, they're not price competitive with the existing technologies. The gap has narrowed significantly, especially in solar over the past say 10 years as to the efficiency of the products themselves and just how much they cost. Eventually, solar is going to be able to stand on its own without incentives. But like Jason said, you have to be able to write out some volatility because that could be five years, that could be 10 years, that could be 20 years so eventually, it won't matter.

Anand Chokkavelu: After the break, we'll move from solar to something else that gets its power from the yellow sun. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Anand Chokkavelu, here with Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. One of our Brothers Discovery's much anticipated latest reboot of Superman hits theaters on Friday. Hoping the Justice League can one day catch Disney's Marvel cinematic universe and hot on the heels of last week's Jurassic World Rebirth from Comcast. In honor of Summer movies, we're going to rank those three companies based on the value of their intellectual property. We'll throw in Netflix for good measure. Its headline this week was stating that half of its global audience now watches anime. Chokkavelu household certainly does with one piece. My kids have gotten me into it. For those unfamiliar, they have more episodes than the Simpsons. Matt, once again, your four choices are Warner Brothers Discovery. That includes the DC Universe, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Harry Potter, the Matrix, Looney Tunes, all our favorite HBO shows. You got Comcast with Shrek, Minions, Kung Fu Panda. You got Disney with Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Mickey Mouse. Finally, you got Netflix with things like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Squid Game, newer Adam Sandler movies, and tons of niche content. Mentioned anime, you could argue whether that's niche content or not at this point. Whose intellectual property do you most value, Matt?

Matt Frankel: See, I said Disney. All four of these have excellent intellectual property, and I'll give you a more elaborate description there. In my household, you mentioned your household, how you have all these streaming things. We have a streaming service from all four of these. We have the Peacock service, which is a comcast product. We have HBO Max, which is a Warner Brothers discovery product. We have Disney Plus, and we have Netflix. Disney Plus also has Hulu attached to it. I ask myself, which is the least dispensable? I could cancel all the other ones before I'd be allowed to cancel Disney Plus for the other members of my household. Their film franchises are beyond compare. They have a much longer history of building intellectual property than all of these, especially in terms of valuables. Mickey Mouse is so old, it's not even intellectual property anymore. It's over 100-years-old, so I think it's actually in the public domain now. I have to say Disney, although it's a lot closer than I would have thought a few years ago.

Jason Hall: Yeah, if you had have asked me a few years ago, I absolutely would have said Disney, but I'm going to give the advantage to Netflix here. Let me contextualize that. I think the total value of Disney's IP is probably higher, but Netflix's ability to monetize it more effectively all over the world, I think, is even better than Disney's. I don't think any of these businesses in their studios have done a better job of making content that's relevant in more markets around the world than Netflix does. Let's be honest, I was able to watch Happy Gilmore with my eight year old son this weekend and I watched that on Netflix, that's bridging generations right there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Three things. One, Chokkavelu household is very excited for Happy Gilmore, too. Even my wife is in on it. Two, the Steamboat Willie era, Mickey Mouse is free to the world. The other ones aren't. I'm glad I'm not the only one with way too many streaming services, Matt. Let's talk about Last Place. Who are you cutting first, Matt?

Matt Frankel: Well, all those streaming services are still less than I was paying for direct TV a few years ago, so I think I'm doing all right. For me, the last place, it was between Comcast and Warner Brothers Discovery, both of which have amazing intellectual property, just to show you what a tight race this is. Comcast has universal. I was just in Orlando, and the universal theme parks are massive down there. But I have to put Comcast in last place. Just because Warner Brothers, I think the HBO Max acquisition was such a big advantage for them. They have some of the most valuable television assets of all time. More people watch the sopranos now than they did when it was originally on TV. It's a very valuable valuable asset, Game of Thrones. All these HBO shows that are among the highest rated shows of all time are part of their library. In addition to their film studio and all the other assets that we can't name because it's not that long of a show. I'd have to give Comcast last place, although, like I said, there's a good argument to be made for most of these to be in the top one or two.

Jason Hall: Yeah, I think that's fair. I agree with Matt that Comcast is the Number 4 here. But I don't think that's a flaw. It's just the nature of its business. About two thirds of its business comes from its cable subscriptions and high speed Internet. It's built differently than these other companies. I think it's fine that it's a little bit smaller.

Anand Chokkavelu: I will say, just to defend Comcast a little. I was thinking about my parents live in Florida, and it's high time we bring my two boys to Disney World or something like that. Honestly, the Universal theme park, the new one with Nintendo, Mario and the Harry Potter realm, it's close. We might we might prefer that one, but just to give a little love to Comcast and Universal. Jason Hall and Matt Frankel, we'll see you a little bit later in the show, but up next, we'll talk to the founder of one of the top five networks in the world, so stick around. This is Motley Fool Money. [MUSIC].

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Anand Chokkavelu. Dave Schaeffer is the founder and CEO of Internet Service Provider Cogent Communications. Believe it or not, Cogent's the seventh successful company Dave Schaeffer has founded. Shaffer joined Fool analysts Asit Sharma and Sanmeet Deo to discuss how it deals with customers like Netflix and Meta platforms work and what keeps him up at night.

Asit Sharma: Well, hello, fools. I am Asit Sharma and I'm joined by fellow analyst Sanmeet Deo today, and our guest is Dave Schaeffer. Dave is CEO of Cogent Communications. He's also the founder of this company founded in 1999. Dave has grown Cogent Communications into a global tier one Internet service provider. It's ranked as one of the top five networks in the world. Dave is also a serial entrepreneur. He's founded six successful businesses prior to Cogent, and foolishly, he's also one of the longest serving founder CEOs in the public markets. We're delighted to have him with us today. Dave Schaeffer, welcome.

Dave Schaeffer: Hey, well, thanks for that great introduction.

Asit Sharma: To get started, let's jump in. Dave, for our members who might be unfamiliar with the ISP or Internet service provider industry, can you just explain what Cogent does and how it makes money?

Dave Schaeffer: Yeah, sure. Cogent provides Internet access to customers and to other service providers. I think virtually everyone uses the Internet, but rarely understands how it operates. Cogent has a network of approximately 99,000 route miles of intercity fiber that circumnavigates the globe and serves six continents. We then have an additional 34,000 route miles of fiber in 292 markets in 57 countries around the world. That network is solely built for the purpose of delivering Internet connectivity. When a customer buys Internet access, what they are really buying are interfaced routed bit miles connected to other networks. If you tried to sell a customer that they would have no idea what you're talking about. The average bit on the public Internet travels about 2,800 miles. It goes through eight and a half unique routers and 2.4 networks between origin and destination. Coaching carries approximately 25% of the world's Internet traffic on its network and has more other networks connected directly to it than any other network.

Asit Sharma: Yours is a primary network. Oftentimes, we hear of middlemen carriers in between ourselves sending that bit. Let's say I'm chatting with Sanmeet over Slack, sending him some bits as we have been exchanging through the day and him receiving that. But you are, I think we can think of Cogent as being the primary fiber that is the backbone of this information communication network, is that correct?

Dave Schaeffer: That is correct. We operate two very different customer segments, roughly 95% of our traffic, but only 37% of our revenue comes from selling to other service providers. We provide Internet connectivity to 8,200 access networks around the world and about 7,000 content generating businesses. Whether it be Bell Canada, British Telecom, China Telecom, Comcast or Cox. They could be customers of Cogent on the access side, where they aggregate literally billions of end users. Then on the other side, we sell connectivity to large content generating companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, where they use us as their Internet provider. The second portion of Cogent's business is selling directly to end users. That represents about 63% of our revenues, but only approximately 5% of our total traffic. Cogent is an ISP, primarily in North America, where we connect to a billion square feet of office space, where we sell directly to end users. Then globally, we sell to multinational companies, oftentimes using last mile connections from third parties.

Asit Sharma: I always like to understand how exactly the companies I'm looking at make money. For example, for Netflix or Meta, or you pick a content provider, whoever it might be, when they work with you, explain that to me how they buy? Do they buy bandwidth in a package? Do they have a contract? How does that work? When they look to you to say, hey, we want to buy some bandwidth?

Dave Schaeffer: Yeah, so typically, we will provide them connections in multiple markets around the world. They will then have a minimum commitment level, and then above that, they pay on a metered basis. The way in which we bill is megabits per second at peak load over the course of the month. We bill at the 95th percentile, which means if you have a very spiky event that lasts less than 18 hours in a month, you don't pay for that incremental bandwidth but everything below that peak utilization, you pay a bill on a per megabit basis.

Dave Schaeffer: That is the way in which any service provider, whether it be an access network like Telkom South Africa, or a cable company like Rogers in Canada would buy from us. But for our corporate customers, the billing model is very different. For corporate customers, they typically buy in end user locations, not in data centers, and they are paying us a flat monthly fee for a fixed connection that is unmetered. I think of it as an all you can eat model.

Sanmeet Deo: There is a monthly recurring revenue that you get. It's just that with your network or your content customers, it could vary based on their usage. They could dial it up, dial it down, based on, like, this week, actually, they're dropping Squid Game, so they can anticipate they're going to need a lot of bandwidth versus maybe next month, their content late is a little lower, so they won't use up as much versus the corporate customers are paying more of a recurring, not based on volume. Is that accurate?

Dave Schaeffer: Is correct, Sanmeet. Virtually all of our revenue is predictable, even for those variable usage customers, there is oftentimes a very consistent pattern to their usage, and their bills do not vary by more than a couple percent month over month.

Sanmeet Deo: Dave, let's go on to looking at a review of recent performance. 2024 was a great year for Cogent. It crossed $1 billion in annual revenue. Can you just walk us through the highlights of your key business segments, wholesale, enterprise, net-centric? What drove the performance? Also did anything about the year surprise you as you went through it?

Dave Schaeffer: Two things. First of all our Internet based business represents 88% of our revenues across all three segments. We do derive about 12% of revenues from selling some adjacent services. Those being co location in our data center footprint. Optical transport or wavelength services and the leasing out of IPV4 addresses. We did generate about $1 billion in revenue in 2024 and 2024 was a year of significant transition for Cogent. Cogent had organically grown between 2005 and 2020 as a public company with no M&A at a compounded growth rate of 10.2% per year average over that period. We also were able to experience significant margin expansion during that period, where our EBITDA margins expanded at roughly 220 basis points per year over that same 15 year measurement period. When COVID hit, our corporate segment slowed materially because people were not going to offices, and as a result, Cogent's total growth rate had decreased to about 5% and our rate of margin expansion slowed to about 100 basis points. In May of '23, we acquired the former Sprint Long Distance Network, a Sprint Global Markets Group business from T-Mobile. That business was actually in decline and burning cash. In 2024, we significantly reduced that cash burn, and we were able to begin to repurpose some of the flow Sprint assets. In order to facilitate this transaction, T-Mobile paid us in cash over a 54 month period beginning in May of '23, $700 million. In 2024, a significant milestone for Cogent was our ability to take out much of that burn from that business and to actually accelerate the decline in that acquired business, as many of the products that were being sold or gross margin negative services.

Anand Chokkavelu: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. See our full advertising disclosure. Please check out our show notes. Up next, we've got stocks on our radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

I'm Anand Chokkavelu, joined again by Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. This week's been Prime Day week invented out of thin air in 2015 to boost sales. It's almost literally become Christmas in July for Amazon, and to a lesser extent, all the imitating retailers. Got me wondering. Is this the greatest feat of something from nothing marketing we've seen? If not, what's competing with it, Jason?

Jason Hall: I think it's not even something from nothing. I think they stole this idea. Christmas in July has been around literally since the 1900. I think they're getting maybe a little bit too much credit for just being a really big retailer, smart enough to say, hey, we're doing a sale when there was nothing else going on, and people were like, oh, it's a big sale. Well, people kept coming, so it just gets bigger every single year.

Matt Frankel: Before e-commerce, Jason's right, remember the Sunday paper that had all the flyers from all the stores. They'd have their semi annual sales. The President's Day weekend sales were the ones I remember that were the biggest deals ever that really were just meant to invigorate sales in a historically slow time of year. But really, this concept has been applied over and over. Think of how many tourist destinations create random festivals in the worst months to go, like, weather wise. I used to live in Key West, Florida, and the biggest party of the year is called Fantasy Fest. It was created to invigorate tourism during hurricane season. It's a concept that's worked over and over, and this is a big one.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan.

Dan Boyd: I just wanted to jump in here and mention Father's Day and Mother's Day. Surprised that you guys didn't mention those. We're all fathers here on the podcast, so I know that we enjoy Father's Day, but, like, come on. They're nothing. They were just created to sell stuff.

Anand Chokkavelu: You're not going to mention Valentine's Day, Mr. Grinch.

Dan Boyd: Valentine's Day has somewhat historical significance with all the St. Valentine's stuff. I didn't want to go too far into it in my grumpiness Anand, but I guess we can throw that one on the fire.

Anand Chokkavelu: Speaking of Singles Day in China. The Alibaba took that cemented in the '90s. I think less commercy, but then it became more commercy. Two other things, Sears' catalog. Let's not forget. A lot of times Sears really is the Amazon before Amazon we forget about it because we see it at its late phases. It wasn't the first catalog, Tiffany, Montgomery Ward, they beat it to the punch. But when it was going, it was called the Consumer Bible. Then on a smaller scale, I'll give one more. Just shout out to Spotify rapped. They do a wonderful job inventing a thing to get us more engaged. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, who we just recently, Dan Boyd, is going to hit you with a question. We're more likely, historically, an amusing comment. Jason, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?

Jason Hall: How about Church and Dwight? Ticker C-H-D. I don't know if we give some of these legacy consumer brands companies enough talk. What's Church and Dwight? You've probably heard of Arm & Hammer baking soda. But they also own a lot of other retail brands. You might be familiar with Orajel, if you've ever had a sore tooth or you have a baby that kind of thing comes up. They own Trojan, which is another brand that people might be familiar with. But here's my personal. Right now, I have a cold. I'm living and functioning off of Zicam. That's a Church and Dwight product that's really getting me through. Over the long term, it's been a great investment. Over the past 10 years, the stocks returned about 10.5% in total returns. That's underperformed the market, but it's better than the market's long term average. I think there might be something there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, a question about Church and Dwight?

Dan Boyd: Not really a question, Anand, but more of a comment. Jason, you forgot to mention OxiClean in the Church and Dwight product catalog here as a parent of a three-year-old and a nine month old laundry is a very important thing on our house, and I don't think we could survive without that OxiClean.

Jason Hall: I will raise your three-year-old and nine month old with an eight and a half year old who plays soccer. My house runs on that stuff. I'm with you there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Matt, what's on your radar?

Matt Frankel: Well, now what's on my radar is the OxiClean that I have in the closet right there. But as far as the stock, I'd have to say SoFi. Ticker symbol S-O-F-I. Fantastic momentum. They've done a great job of creating capital white revenue streams in recent years. The growth is actually accelerating. They recently announced they're bringing crypto back to their platform now that the banks are allowed to do so. That's going to be a big driver. Not only crypto, they're going a step further. They're going to start bringing blockchain facilitated money transfers across border for free. They have lots of big plans. They recently started doing private equity investing for everybody. Guys like you and me can invest in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI that are pre IPO through SoFi's platform through venture funds. There's a lot going on in this business, and it's still a relatively small bank, and they aim to be a Top 10 bank within the next decade.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, question about SoFi.

Dan Boyd: Well, absolute F to name. SoFi, just terrible. I feel like smart people like them could have come up with something better, but private equity investing is very interesting, Matt, though a little scared to me without the reporting regulations that public companies have to do.

Matt Frankel: I do think it was a natural thing, though, now that all these companies are waiting longer than ever to go public. SpaceX is a massive business. OpenAI has a, $100 billion plus valuation. There's a lot to like there and a lot of potential.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, which company you're putting on your watch list, OxiClean or private equity stuff.

Dan Boyd: I'm going to go with Church and Dwight for some of that beautiful OxiClean.

Anand Chokkavelu: That's all for this week. See you next time.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anand Chokkavelu, CFA has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, First Solar, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce, SoFi Technologies, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Asit Sharma has positions in Amazon, Digital Realty Trust, Microsoft, Nvidia, Salesforce, Upstart, and Walt Disney. Dan Boyd has positions in Amazon and Walt Disney. Jason Hall has positions in Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Infrastructure, Brookfield Renewable, Enphase Energy, First Solar, Nvidia, SoFi Technologies, Upstart, and Walt Disney and has the following options: short January 2026 $27 calls on SoFi Technologies, short January 2027 $32.50 puts on Upstart, and short January 2027 $40 puts on Enphase Energy. Matt Frankel has positions in Amazon, Brookfield Asset Management, Digital Realty Trust, SoFi Technologies, Upstart, and Walt Disney and has the following options: short December 2025 $95 calls on Upstart. Sanmeet Deo has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Brookfield Asset Management, Constellation Energy, Digital Realty Trust, Equinix, First Solar, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Salesforce, Tesla, Upstart, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group, Brookfield Renewable, Comcast, Enphase Energy, Ge Vernova, and T-Mobile US and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Dinosaurs Roar for Comcast; CoreWeave Goes Shopping

In this podcast, Motley Fool Chief Investment Officer Andy Cross and senior analyst Jason Moser discuss:

  • Jurassic World Rebirth delivers for Comcast.
  • CoreWeave finally gets it done for Core Scientific.
  • Oracle makes a deal with the federal government.
  • Two stocks to look at if the market pulls back: Samsara and Howmet Aerospace.

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.

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A full transcript is below.

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This podcast was recorded on July 07, 2025.

Andy Cross: Dinosaurs roar for Comcast while CoreWeave makes an acquisition. Motley Fool Money starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Andy Cross, joined by Motley Fool's Senior Analyst and advisor Jason Moser. Jason, happy Monday.

Jason Moser: Happy Monday, AC. Good to see you.

Andy Cross: Good to see you. Thanks for being here. We got confirmation today that CoreWeave is buying another AI Data Center company, and Oracle is cutting cloud prices for Uncle Sam. We'll also talk about two companies we're keeping an eye on if the price is right. But, Jason, let's start with the summer movies, Universal's Jurassic World Rebirth reportedly brought in more than 300 million globally this weekend, giving a nice wind to Comcast, the parent owner of Universal. This continues that strong summer at the box office that included how to train your dragon also from Universal and Apple's F1. Jason, is this good news for long suffering Comcast shareholders like me?

Jason Moser: [laughs] It's not bad news. Most certainly it's not bad news. Now, Comcast content and experiences studio segment brought in $11 billion in revenue in 2024, along with about $1.4 billion in operating profits. This isn't something from the revenue side that is a tremendous needle mover, but maybe it's a needle mover to the extent that we would say the same thing for Disney. This is the content space that can be very lumpy some years are better than others. If you look at the same segment, the content and experience, the studio segment, we talked about $11 billion in revenue in 2024. That was $12.3 billion in 2022. It ebbs and flows. But this is terrific news. I'm amazed. The original Jurassic Park came out back in 1993. They have pulled a Disney to an extent and have really expanded and stretched out this IP library. I think that is a good sign for Comcast shareholders.

Andy Cross: Jason, 100%. I see this again, this Comcast stock has not done that well over the past couple of years. It now yields about 3.7%. Of course, we have the spin off, the spin out of the media properties called Versant later this year, where they're going to spin off CNBC and USA, MSNBC, the Golf Channel, and a few other properties. I think that's got a lot of investors interested in Comcast, at least for me, those of us who own it. But this is the seventh film franchise of the Jurassic franchise, and that franchise is worth about $6 billion. It is a Disney play, Jason, because they're using that in their IP. They're using the theme parks. I saw promotions all around the world, all around the cable properties for the Jurassic rebirth movie. They were showing older Jurassic movies on some of those cable properties this weekend. I think from that perspective, it does help build that franchise out, and it's going to be a very competitive summer. Disney itself has its fantastic four coming out this summer. We have the much anticipated Superman movie from Warner Brothers coming out this year, but I think it does help build out that franchise that has become more and more valuable to those universal theme parks, including the one that just opened up this year.

Jason Moser: No question. This also plays into that summer blockbuster. We always look to see what the summer blockbusters are going to be. I just think it's noteworthy these results, particularly given the tepid reviews that the movie's gotten. I haven't seen it, and I take criticisms with a grain of salt, but 51% on rotten tomatoes and a cinema score of B from the opening weekend audience. That's not lighting the world on fire from a critics perspective, but clearly the audience loved it.

Andy Cross: Also, Jason, interesting notes over the weekend that Netflix, with its 300 million subscribers, they said at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles this weekend that more than half its subscribers now watch Japanese anime. I found that interesting just because it continues to show the power of the Netflix globally as a brand, and one reason why they're along with YouTube, one of the most valuable media properties out there.

Jason Moser: We've always said they do such a good job with that data. Personally, I'm not an anime consumer, but I think this is a great example for investors, where it's not necessarily wise to extrapolate one personal taste into a potential idea, just because it's not something that you like or eat or watch, it doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity there, and that 50% number globally, really does tell us something impressive about Netflix's market position.

Andy Cross: 100%. When Motley Fool Money returns, CoreWeave goes shopping.

AI infrastructure company CoreWeave announced that it will buy Core Scientific for around $9 billion in an all stock deal. That's about $20 per share based on CoreWeave stock. Now, shares of Core Scientific Jason are down around 20% today to about 15, so the market's sensing something here.

Jason Moser: This is an arms race like we haven't seen in some time. Companies are just rushing to build out their AI capabilities, and this is just another sign of that. But I think it's really noteworthy that Core Scientific shares being down so much today. There can be a number of reasons why something like that might happen. Investors don't think that it will go through, perhaps another bidder comes in. But, AC, I wonder if this doesn't have something to do with the deal structure itself and what it's saying about the market's perspective on CoreWeave, because that nine billion number that's being bandied about, let's make sure we understand. That's just based on the July 3rd share price. Core Scientific shareholders are going to receive 0.1235 shares of CoreWeave for each share of Core Scientific that they hold. But as noted in the release, and this is important. The final value will be determined at the time of the transaction closed. That's not until later in Q4, so I don't know. Do you think this is like a glass half empty view on CoreWeave and whether they can hold their valuation? Because the stock has been on fire since it went public.

Andy Cross: It went public just this year, and the stock's done just fantastically well, and Core Scientific has done very well, although it has a little spotted history. It's one of those sparks back in 2021 that when it came public out there was about $4 billion, and it basically lost almost 100% of its value, had to declare bankruptcy, defile from the markets, came back to the public markets in January 2024. Actually, CoreWeave tried to buy them last year for about $6 per share. Now they're paying far more for that. It does give CoreWeave the vertical integration, Jason, that I think that they need to build out. They're going to add 9 or 10 AI data centers of Core Scientifics give them massive gigawatts of capacity. As CoreWeave is trying to build out its own AI data centers, it does need to continue to build out that capacity. CoreWeave is Core Scientific's largest tenet, so it makes sense from a vertical integration perspective. But I think the market is just saying with a share issuance, so soon after CoreWeave became public, there are some doubts about at what price they're going to have to get Core Scientific into the CoreWeave family.

Jason Moser: Exactly. I certainly understand the market's enthusiasm around CoreWeave. When you're selling yourself as the AI hyperscaler. There is something to that, and this is clearly a company that's playing a big role in the space. They just reported revenue growth, 420% in this most recently reported quarter. But again, and you're right, vertical integration, this is going to be something that really gives CoreWeave more power over its platform and to that power. This is a power play. Through this acquisition, CoreWeave is going to own approximately 1.3 gigawatts of gross power, along with the opportunity of one plus gigawatts of potential gross power available for expansion. A gigawatt is a lot of power, AC. That power is a medium sized city, and you think about the Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam, one of our biggest hydroelectric generators here in the country. That's responsible for about two gigawatts of capacity. You can see how this could really impact CoreWeave if it goes through.

Andy Cross: Prediction time, do you think it's going to go through? Do they have to lower the price, readjust the deal terms? You think, Jason?

Jason Moser: I think it's going to go through. I think that probably the market's enthusiasm is going to remain for Core. You think the stock will ebb and flow here a little bit. My suspicion is it'll go through. Probably not going to end up at that $9 billion valuation at the end of the day because that is pretty extreme for a company like Core Scientific. That's like 18 times full year revenue in 2024. We might see some change in the price there, but my suspicion is it'll go through.

Andy Cross: There's definitely some synergies there and some cost savings, but I think it'll go through, too, but I do think they'll have to readjust the terms.

Jason Moser: [laughs] Exactly.

Andy Cross: Next up on Motley Fool Money, Oracle gives Uncle Sam a deal. Let's move over to news that Oracle is cutting cloud service prices for the US government by as much as 75% as reported this weekend by the Wall Street Journal. Jason, who's a winner here? Is this an Oracle beneficiary, a US federal government beneficiary or a little bit of A, a little bit of B?

Jason Moser: I'm going to walk the fence here and say a little bit of A, a little bit of B. It does feel like both win somewhat here. This feels a bit like taking a page out of the book of Bezos. He was always known for driving down those prices in so many cases. He's got that quote, "Your margin is my opportunity." He's taking that Uber long-term view. AC, I think for federal agencies, they're under this mandate to modernize while also managing tighter budgets at the same time. So the old saying cash is king, I think, in this case, it seems maybe cost is king, and we're seeing other cloud providers follow the same lead, Salesforce has done the same thing in regard to Slack, Google, Adobe. This isn't anything necessarily new. But then I think for Oracle, these discounts can help lock in really multi year contracts. That offers more stability for their business model and revenue prediction. If they can extend those relationships, then you can start talking a bit about maybe exercising a little bit more pricing power down the road if they do a good job. I can see both parties benefiting from that.

Andy Cross: I thought this was a little bit more beneficiary for Oracle when I first started studying it. But then I think the GSA, the General Services Administration is starting to shake their big stick here to try to get some pricing out of some of these big players. It is interesting to me that this is for the licensees, not really for the subscription, and it goes through November. The pricing option goes through November of this year. It does give Oracle a foot in. It's really the first deal the GSA cut for government wide solutions, including lots of areas where Oracle and other cloud titans provide some of those services and compete very heavily. I think it's just more evidence of CFO Safra Catz, becoming more and more competitive, trying to push Oracle into markets. Clearly Oracle has had some nice beneficiaries here in the markets and in their business as the stock is gone really well. It's up 60% the past year or 40% year to date, Jason. It's north of a $600 billion company. Thirty five times earnings. That's almost two times its five year average. What do you think about Oracle, the stock going forward?

Jason Moser: I'm glad you brought that up. It does seem like a little bit of a richer valuation, but going back to Safra Catz, he's looking at fiscal 2026 targets here, cloud revenue growth projected to grow from 24% to over 40%. Then that IAAS, that infrastructure as a service. That growth there is projected to hit about 70%. Anytime you see valuations like that, you have to just step back and say, why is the market doing that? Where's the growth? I think that's where they're seeing some of that growth. Now they just have to deliver.

Andy Cross: I think so, too. I do, again, like this licensing play because as they continue to push more subscription, this does get into the core part of what Oracle has done for so long and done so well for so many years. I think it is a nice foothold for Oracle. I guarantee that GSA is going to be issuing lots of different pricing asks of lots more providers as they continue to manage their own footprint as they push toward to be a little bit more technological savvy at the federal government. Finally, today, Jason, stocks are down a little bit, but passed through all time highs last week. Let's end things with two stocks that we're keeping fresh on our watch list if the prices are right. What are you looking at?

Jason Moser: Everybody loves stock ideas, AC?

Andy Cross: Of course.

Jason Moser: One that I just continue to keep my eye on is a company called Samsara. Ticker is IOT. It's now a $22 billion company, and Samsara operates its Connected Operations Cloud, which is a software platform that connects all of the devices that a company has and its buildings, its equipment, its cards, and other facilities. The platform then establishes this massive network of data and information specific to that company. Now the company's still working its way to profitability. Technically, it's cash flow positive, but stock-based compensation more than eats that up, which isn't uncommon for a company at this stage of its life cycle. It's around 14 times forward sales projections today. Now, when I wrecked this company in the trend service back in the beginning of 2023, it was at 13 times. It's been a bit of a bumpy ride, and the stock has pulled back a little. But when you look at the fundamentals of this business, they just reported first quarter results that exceeded all targets that leadership set a quarter ago, revenue up 32% annualized recurring revenue up 31%. They have 2,638 customers with ARR over $100,000. That's up 35% from a year ago. It is a company that continues to grow and establish a fairly dominant position in its market is what it seems. It really does seem like this is becoming the top dog at its space. I think it's also a company that possesses a lot of those hidden gems traits.

Those principles that our CEO Tom Gardner loves, he's so fond of. You get reasonable, remarkable growth into expanding markets, check. Led and owned by true long-term believers in the company, check. This is a company that is led by co-founders Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket. They own almost 70% of the voting power in a relentless curiosity toward bold technical exploration. That is a double check for a company like this. If we ever see any material pullback in this one, I certainly would be very tempted to add it to my portfolio.

Andy Cross: Jason, do you have any thoughts on these cute ticker names, IOT? [laughs] Does that tend to scare you away from a company?

Jason Moser: Not really. I never would recommend a company on the ticker alone, but you just made me think of core scientific and its ticker cores. It's like the smoky and the bandit ticker. It's funny to see those sometimes.

Andy Cross: Jason, I'm looking at Howmet symbol HWM. It's formerly part of Alcoa. Its history is steeped into high precision metalworking, 90%. It provides 90% of all structural and rotating aero engine components for the aerospace, transportation, and energy markets. These are really super high end precision airfoils and forging, forge wheels and chassis for the commercial trucking and auto space. The stock has doubled over the past year, and it's up almost 50% since the Rule Breakers team over in Stock Advisor, we recommended it just this year. It has these really serious competitive advantages that we love to see. Its patents, manufacturing, the history behind it, its core clients. You don't really want to mess around with replacement parts for these kinds of really high precision manufactured items. It does have some opportunities in the energy space because it provides the blades for the engine turbines that power a lot of the energy that goes into supporting data centers. I do love this business.

It's just the stock has done so well, and while the Stock Advisor team, as well as our Rule Breakers team love buying into strength, I just want to see, I'm not going to criticize anybody for adding this great business to their portfolio. But for me, I'm just looking for a little bit of maybe a market breather before I start looking at Howmet symbol HWM just a wonderful business, $73 billion. It's not small, and it has a lot of room to grow in the aerospace market.

Jason Moser: Plenty of examples in my investing life where patience tends to pay off.

Andy Cross: 100%. [laughs] There you have those two high quality companies in Samsara and Howmet that we're watching. If the markets go on a little bit of a tailspin here in the dog days of summer, maybe they go added to our portfolio. That's a rap for us today here at Motley Fool Money. Jason Moser, thanks for joining me here.

Jason Moser: Thanks for having me.

Andy Cross: Here at the Motley Fool we love hearing your feedback, to be part of that feedback or to ask a question, email us at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. 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 all of us here at Motley Fool Money, thanks for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Andy Cross has positions in Adobe, Alphabet, Apple, Comcast, Netflix, Salesforce, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Jason Moser has positions in Adobe and Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, Apple, Netflix, Oracle, Salesforce, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast, Howmet Aerospace, and Samsara. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disney World Takes a Step Back to Take Three Steps Forward

It was the end of an era at Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Florida resort over the weekend. Muppet*Vision 3D, an attraction that entertained visitors to Disney's Hollywood Studios for more than 34 years, closed after its final guest performance on Saturday night. It's the latest long-running experience to get shuttered at Disney World.

Earlier this year, guests saw its Test Track adrenaline booster ride close down. Animal Kingdom also surrendered some of its capacity in 2025, nixing a few original experiences including the TriceraTop Spin flat ride and the It's Tough To Be a Bug 3D show inside the park's signature Tree of Life focal point.

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The closures will continue, with the Magic Kingdom gated attraction in Florida getting in on the clearance sale. Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Square Riverboat, along with the Rivers of America that both experiences cross, will run dry after July 6. Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin in Tomorrowland will pause the following month, for less than infinity, to see if it can go beyond with its intergalactic target blasting ride.

The endings don't end there. Two of Disney World's most thrilling rides, Dinosaur and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, will close early next year.

There's never a good time to take down a handful of high-volume attractions, but Disney knows what it's doing. It's shuttering a lot of experiences to use the space as a fresh easel for its next generation of experiences. You probably don't want to bet against the House of Mouse.

Disney's leisure business has some surprising momentum right now. The media stock giant came through with a blowout fiscal second-quarter report last month, and Disney's theme parks business was the biggest reason for the stock's 24% surge in May. Its domestic parks and experiences business delivered a 9% increase in revenue through the first three months of this calendar year. Disney's operating profit came through with a 13% gain. The company's announcement of plans for a new licensed theme park in Abu Dhabi also turned heads.

This is a sharp contrast to how its largest rival Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) fared in the same three months. It experienced a 5% top-line slide for its theme park operations with a sharp 32% drop in the segment's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).

Unlike Disney's high-flying shares, Comcast stock rose a mere 1% in May. That's a stunning contrast, and one to monitor now that Comcast opened its Epic Universe theme park a few miles away from Disney World.

A couple taking wedding photos in front of Cinderella's castle at the Magic Kingdom.

Image source: Disney.

There will be a lot of closures this year through early 2026, but this should be a case of addition through subtraction. Disney knows it will upset some fans with retiring some long-running attractions, but it's betting on making things better. In late 2023, it boosted its goal of investing $30 billion on its theme parks and cruise ships business over the next decade to a cool $60 billion.

Almost everything closing now will be replaced by experiences that should be even more popular. In the case of Test Track and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, the two rides will return with enhancements. Test Track's redo promises nods to the original attraction it took over. Buzz Lightyear's makeover is about looking ahead, updating the moving laser shooting gallery with detachable blasters, targets that are more responsive after being hit, and different-colored lasers so you don't get lost in a sea of red dots as before.

The other attractions will open as new experiences. You won't have to wait long for the updated Test Track and a Zootopia-themed takeover for It's Tough To Be a Bug. They will both make their debut later this year. The refreshed Buzz Lightyear dark ride will reopen next year, while the Muppets will take over for Aerosmith as hosts of the soon-to-be former Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Tropical Americas will replace DinoLand at Animal Kingdom in 2027 with an Indiana Jones attraction, Disney's first Encanto-themed ride, and a one-of-a-kind carousel.

The timeline gets fuzzier after that. The closure of Muppet*Vision 3D over the weekend will clear the way for an area themed to Pixar's Monsters franchise, including a suspended roller coaster. The resurfacing of Frontierland's throwback attractions will be replaced by a Cars-themed land, and eventually the long-overdue area dedicated to Disney's signature villains.

In short, Disney has stocked the pond with years of attendance-boosting attractions. When it doubled the segment's budget to $60 billion, the entertainment behemoth mentioned that 70% of that should go to increasing capacity. The balance will go to infrastructure and tech improvements. This is a lot of money, averaging $6 million a year. You have to go back to pre-pandemic times for the last time Disney posted an annual profit larger than $6 million. However, Disney knows you have to keep raising the bar and rejuvenating guest experiences to keep folks coming back.

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Rick Munarriz has positions in Comcast and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Is Comcast's Epic Universe Ready to Take on Disney?

It's been 24 years since a major theme park has opened in the U.S., so Thursday's official grand opening of Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Epic Universe is a pretty big deal for the gated attractions industry. After more than a month of highs and lows during paid guest previews, Comcast was ready for its national -- and international -- close-up.

Epic Universe got off to an encouraging start on Thursday morning. All 11 rides were running an hour into the opening, a rarity for anyone who visited during the previous weeks of technical rehearsals. Outside of a five-hour wait for the signature Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry attraction, the remaining experiences had wait times of 30 minutes or less. An hour later, the buggy Battle at the Ministry ride was down, and the queue was not accepting new guests until the delay had passed.

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A lot of time and money has gone into the park that was originally announced to open in 2023, and the theme park enthusiast community and investors have been trying to figure out if this would boost Comcast's prospects or diminish Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) dominance in this space.

In short, Thursday's refreshingly successful opening shows that Comcast's Universal Orlando resort is ready to become a larger force in the theme park market. It doesn't mean Disney has to lose in the process.

It's a levitation spell

I was able to kick the tires of Epic Universe across three visits in late April.

I saw the park at its best, a day of light crowds and ideal weather, when it closed three hours early for a private event. I also saw it at its worst, dealing with the downtime and ride glitches that will get better over time, but also the lack of shade and plethora of stairs that will only get worse for guests as we dig deeper into summer. I was also there for the first day that experienced a weather delay for paid guests, a problem in Florida, since it shut down all but three rides for more than two hours.

Despite the negatives, I was blown away by the positives. It's not just about the three bar-raising signature ride experiences. The rest of the industry will have to take note of how immersive and detailed and just flat-out gorgeous Epic Universe can be. This summer will be brutal between the heat and perpetual afternoon thunderstorms, but when the weather turns in late autumn, it will be a hard place to resist.

Someone fanning out money.

Image source: Getty Images.

I am happy to be both a Comcast and Disney shareholder. Epic Universe will bring no shortage of visitors to the Orlando area, but the capacity constraints of the new park will find guests checking out other area attractions until it builds out more high-capacity attractions. It's a process that will take years to fully flesh out.

Comcast will be the biggest beneficiary, naturally. The older Universal Orlando parks will gladly take Epic Universe visitors on days when a visit to the shiny new park isn't optimal. Disney could also experience an uptick in traffic if the overall tourist counts to the area spike in the next few quarters.

Comcast can use the boost. Its theme parks business reported a 5% dip in revenue and a 32% slide in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) in the first quarter of this year. Disney held up considerably better in the same first three months of this year. Its stateside parks and experiences segment posted a 9% jump in revenue and a 13% increase in operating profit.

As I file this piece -- three hours into the first day of Epic Universe's grand opening -- Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry is still down. Folks who got in bracing for a 300-minute wait will have to tough it out a bit longer, or abandon the queue and take advantage of the still reasonably short wait times of 45 minutes or less for the rest of the rides. It's too beautiful a park to be stuck in one confined space for longer than anyone should have to, but that's just another reason why both Comcast and Disney are winners on this historic day.

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Rick Munarriz has positions in Comcast and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Walt Disney Just Delivered a Knockout Punch to This Already Struggling Industry

It's official. As was widely expected, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) will be launching a stand-alone streaming version of sports-focused cable channel ESPN later this year, at a price point of $29.99 per month. Its effective monthly price will be even lower for consumers who also subscribe to Disney+ and Hulu.

The launch of this service also likely marks the beginning of the end of the cable television industry as known today, even if it doesn't mean an immediate and complete collapse.

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Here's what investors need to know.

Man looks at a laptop computer screen.

Image source: Getty Images.

Disney is taking on already-battered competition

The world knew it was coming sooner or later -- CEO Bob Iger confirmed it in early 2024. The only question then was the timing, price, and the prospective impact that a cooperative sports-centric streaming package from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery might have on the overall marketability of a streaming service that only included ESPN's programming. That joint venture between Disney, Warner, and Fox has since been indefinitely blocked by a federal court, but Disney is clearly proceeding with its plans to offer an affordable version of ESPN that doesn't require a cable subscription.

That's a problem for cable companies like Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Xfinity and Charter Communications' (NASDAQ: CHTR) Spectrum, both of which were already bleeding cable customers.

The graphic below tells the tale. Xfinity shed another 427,000 cable-television customers last quarter to bring the count down to just under 12.1 million, for perspective, extending a long-lived decline from the 2013 peak of nearly 23 million. Spectrum's TV headcount now stands at 12.7 million customers, thanks to last quarter's loss of 127,000, well down from its peak more than a decade ago.

Cable giants like Charter's Spectrum and Comcast's Xfinity continue to lose customers.

Data source: Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc. Chart by author.

These two cable powerhouses aren't unique in their customer attrition either, even if they are the biggest with the most customers to lose. Consumer market research outfit eMarketer reports the total number of paying cable-television customers in the United States has been culled by one-third of its 2013 peak, with non-cable households eclipsing cable TV's headcount of last year.

The advent of a streaming version of ESPN, however, could prove even more problematic for the cable business by accelerating this attrition for a couple of related reasons.

Ripe for (major) disruption

Again, the cable-television industry was already on the ropes, and as such, makes an easy target for a novel newcomer.

To the extent the cable TV business had any hope for a turnaround, though, it's now been wiped away.

See, Disney's ESPN isn't just a well-known and well-loved sports venue. It's the leading name of the sports-television market, accounting for nearly 30% of the nation's total sports viewership, according to numbers from TV ratings agency Nielsen. Adding Disney's ABC sports-branded programming to the mix pumps that number up to more than 40%.

Connect the dots. It's not just the biggest name in the business. Disney's got size-based leverage to exert in a myriad of ways.

Don't be surprised to see other studios mirror Disney's move, either, albeit with less scale and lower-priced streaming bundles of their sports-based programming.

Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have already shown interest in looking beyond conventional cable for distribution of their sports-centric content, while several standard streaming services like Paramount's Paramount+, Warner's Max, and even Amazon's Prime also air the occasional exclusive sporting event. Most professional sports leagues and even a handful of individual teams now even offer their own streaming packages.

The point is, once Disney blazes the trail, the launch of many other new sports-centric streaming platforms from major studios wouldn't be a major leap.

That's a problem for the cable television industry for one simple reason. That is, live sports is the single biggest reason consumers still pay for cable television. A recent survey performed by CableTV.com indicates that 27% of these subscribers still pay a steep monthly price specifically for access to sports programming. The next-nearest reason is consumers' comfort with conventional cable, although it's difficult to imagine most of these people not being comfortable enough at this point to at least consider an alternative.

Whatever's in the cards, it works against cable companies' bottom lines.

Finally, at a turning point -- or the edge of a cliff

There was a time when content producers and content creators like Disney were in a symbiotic relationship, where the two parties helped one another without hurting one another. That's not the situation anymore. These relationships evolved into competition just a few years back. Now, with Disney's direct foray into the most important sliver of the television arena, it's become a full-blown competition that cable companies can't win -- studios just don't need middleman distributors anymore.

More to the point for investors, what's bad for an already beleaguered cable TV industry is good for Disney, and perhaps even disproportionately better.

Whereas the cable industry only pays Disney on the order of $10 per month per subscriber for the right to air ESPN's programming, Disney will be collecting three times that amount by selling the exact same content directly to subscribers. While sports currently makes up a little less than one-fifth of Walt Disney's revenue and roughly one-tenth of its operating income, both could swell if this new streaming-ESPN venture works out.

Bottom line? Cable stocks like Charter and Comcast were already tough to own. Now they're even less compelling. Conversely, The Walt Disney Company is finally addressing the ongoing shrinkage of its linear (cable) TV arm with a business model it's already proven it's great at. It brings plenty of marketing firepower to the table as well. This just might be the catalyst needed for the long-awaited turnaround from Disney stock.

Should you invest $1,000 in Walt Disney right now?

Before you buy stock in Walt Disney, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Walt Disney wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $635,275!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $826,385!*

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*Stock Advisor returns as of May 12, 2025

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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