Online Resale Jumped 23% In 2024, With AI Tools Driving Growth
A secondhand clothing processing center operated by ThredUp, the online resale marketplace for ... More apparel, shoes, and accessories.
A record number of Americans bought secondhand apparel in 2024, and more than half of those shoppers made a purchase online, according to the 2025 ThredUp Resale report.
ThredUp, an online resale platform for women's and children's clothing, shoes and accessories, has been tracking the evolution of the resale market since 2013, with an annual report. While each report has shown steady growth in consumer acceptance of, and demand for, secondhand apparel, this year's report, ThredUp's 13th, signals that resale is positioned for a period of accelerated growth.
AI tools ThredUp, and other resale platforms, began using in 2024 are making it as easy to search and shop online for secondhand apparel as it is to shop for new merchandise. The growing integration of social commerce and resale, along with price concerns triggered by tariff policies also are expected to boost secondhand sales.
The U.S. secondhand apparel market grew by 14% last year - its strongest annual growth since 2021, and five times the growth rate of the overall apparel market, ThredUp said in its report, which is based on research by GlobalData, including surveys of consumers and retail executives.
U.S. online resale had even more dramatic growth in 2024, up 23%. Online resale is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 13% over the next five years, and double, to reach $40 billion by 2029, according to the report.
Globally, the secondhand apparel market is expected to reach $367 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 10%, according to the ThredUp report.
In 2024, 58% of shoppers bought secondhand, up from 52% in 2023, which was the first time in the history of ThredUp reports that secondhand shoppers exceeded 50%.
An even greater percentage of younger shoppers - 68% of millennials and Gen Z - said they shopped secondhand in 2024.
Of those younger shoppers, 48% said secondhand is the first option they look for when they shop for apparel, up 7 points over the previous year.
'It's kind of wild to think that in the younger generations, it's not just that they're shopping secondhand, but that it's the first place they're going,' Alon Rotem. Chief Strategy Officer at ThredUp, said in an interview. The shift in acceptance of secondhand apparel is happening broadly, 'but it's happening even more pointedly with the younger generations,' he said.
Rotem said a number of factors are driving growth in resale, among the most significant of which are artifical intelligence tools that make it easier for consumers to more easily shift through all of the online secondhand offerings and find exactly what they are looking for.
'You have shopping innovations that make it easier to shop secondhand, so it feels more like shopping new,' he said.
Three new ways ThredUp has been leveraging AI over the past year are with enhanced image search, style chat, and improved response to written search requests, Rotem said,
Image search allows shoppers to search for a secondhand item using a picture they uploaded from the internet, or that they took of something they saw on the street, and match it to ThredUp's inventory.
Style chat, Rotem said, functions as an AI style expert that can help a customer put together complete outfits.
ThredUp CEO James Reinhart, in an interview last August, called the recently launched AI tools the 'most compelling product' in the history of the company, and game-changer for ThredUp.
In ThredUp's fourth quarter earnings call with investors March 1, Reinhart said 'We continue to believe that AI disproportionately benefits ThredUp relative to other marketplaces and retailers, and that generative AI can significantly enhance the secondhand shopping experience.'
Reinhart also said on the call that ThredUp launched automated digital measurements during the quarter, which will improve the shopping experience for customers and result in improved conversion, lower returns and increased customer retention.
The AI advances in the resale industry are mirroring the rapid adoption of AI across the retail universe.
Consumers also are showing broad acceptance of AI shopping tools. with Adobe reporting earlier this month that AI-driven traffic to U.S. ecommerce websites has been doubling every two months since September.
Social commerce also is driving secondhand growth, Rotem said.
'It's the fastest growing way people are shopping online,' he said, and consumers are sharing videos about their secondhand finds and celebrating the fact that they found a great secondhand item. 'All of those things are normalizing secondhand resale and driving and contributing to that growth,' he said.
According to the ThredUp report, 39% of younger generation shoppers made a secondhand purchase on a social commerce platform over the past 12 months. Of those, 62% made a purchase on TikTok or TikTok Shop.
Executives from the top 50 fashion and retail brands were surveyed for the report, and 38% said they currently allow customers to shop secondhand through a social commerce platform. Another 48% said they are considering integrating social commerce in the future.
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The Economic Mood Brightens
In this podcast, Motley Fool analysts David Meier and Asit Sharma and host Ricky Mulvey discuss: Why Americans are feeling better about the economy. The headwinds facing Okta, and fundamentals for long-term investors to watch. A retail roundup with a look at stocks including Abercrombie & Fitch and Pinduoduo. Southwest implementing baggage fees. Two stocks worth watching: SentinelOne and SoundHound AI. Klaus Kleinberg, former CEO of Siemens and Alcoa, discusses his book Leading to Thrive: Mastering Strategies for Sustainable Success in Business and Life and finding companies with sustainable competitive advantages. 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. Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI 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 $656,825!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $865,550!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 This podcast was recorded on May 30, 2025. Advertisement... Ricky Mulvey: It's tough to be a retailer. This week's Motley Fool Money radio show starts now. From Fool Global headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joining me on the Internet today. It's Motley Fool Senior Analysts Asit Sharma and David Meier. Fools, great to have you both here. Asit Sharma: Hey, Ricky. David Meier: It's great to be here. Thank you. Ricky Mulvey: We've got a retail rundown, a slowdown for a leader in cybersecurity, but let us start with the Big Macro. President Donald Trump has paused 50% retaliatory tariffs on the European Union until July 9th. Consumer sentiment has rebounded in the latest survey, the first note of optimism in five months. Asit, make sense the tea leaves. What are you seeing in the Big Macro? Asit Sharma: Well, you're right, Ricky, the conference board showed that consumer confidence via their index increased about 12 percentage points to a reading of 98.0 this month. That's pretty confident. What do I read into this? Well, as you also pointed out, we've had five straight months of declining consumer confidence. I think consumers are ready for a sign, any sign that they can go out and spend again. Don't ever underestimate the optimism of the US consumer. That's what I've learned in many years of doing this gig. Now, what am I looking at beyond that? Because truth be told, maybe that confidence is a little fragile, given the fluctuating and volatile times we live in? I'm looking over at Japan. Some stirrings in the long-term bond market there may have a lesson for the rest of the world. Japan notoriously has a very high ratio of outstanding debt to its annual GDP, its gross domestic output. We do, too, not quite as bad as Japan's, but they're seeing a little bit less demand for their debt, which means that the Bank of Japan is having to raise interest rates. The government is having to raise interest rates to attract borrowers. That's a situation that we could find ourselves in the not-too-distant future if we don't get our fiscal house in order here in the US. I think maybe concerns over our debt are going to just grow this year as these big spending bills wend their way through the Senate after the House. This is something I'm looking for as a summer conversation that we'll likely be having right here, Ricky. Ricky Mulvey: Consumer confidence up, keep an eye on those interest rates. David, the odds of a recession in the US happening this year have fallen precipitously on prediction market Kalsi from almost 70% at the start of the month to about 40% right now, 70-40. That's quite the drop. Do you think this optimism is warranted? David Meier: Maybe in the short term, after all, there's another pause on the tariffs. What does that mean? It means that there's not going to be a big shock to our economic system, at least for another 60-90 days. You can be happy about that in the short term, but we don't know what's going to happen once these deadlines hit for all the pauses that are out there. My guess is that there's probably a 50% chance that there will be some tariff on Chinese goods when that pause gets lifted. We'll see what happens with European tariffs. But, consumers and investors are happy to quote kick the can down the road. Consumer confidence is up. The market continues to grind higher, but let's revisit these risks in the second quarter earnings in July. Ricky Mulvey: David, if you ever need a good comeback for someone, you can be happy about that, in the short term, is a great one to use. Asit, before we get to the business stories, what is all this macro data that we've been talking about for the first few minutes? Does it mean anything for the type of investing we do here at The Fool? Asit Sharma: I think it means something, Ricky. Foolish investors are spongy. We like to absorb information. That doesn't mean that we're gonna act. As a sponge myself, I'm not looking for someone to come ring all this information out of me, but you have to keep apprised of the data. Doesn't change your focus on businesses, staying invested for the long term, finding great companies, trying to hold those companies over a long time. But you have to be aware. Sometimes the big picture does change enough that you have to start making changes around the edges. Just ingest it, don't necessarily have to act on it. David Meier: Completely agree. You need to be aware. Ricky Mulvey: Let's stick with our sponge, Asit Sharma. Asit, Salesforce agreeing to buy Informatica for about $8 billion earlier this week. This is a deal that Salesforce has wanted to do for some time now. Informatica is a data management company. One example is if you're a large company with customer data across a bunch of systems, Informatica will help you consolidate it and give you one view of that. That's what Informatica does. Why does Salesforce want this business for $8 billion? Asit Sharma: Ricky, I like the way you describe that. That's an app description of what this company brings to the table. It is very much into looking at where data originates, tracing it, making these maps of where the data is. It's also good at something called metadata cataloging. In other words, its systems can understand after a while, if you, Ricky, are a customer in a process flow, and may I'm on the other end of the transaction. It can keep up with lots of tags about different data that flows through an enterprise. Now, why is this important? Why would Salesforce care about this? Well, we all have heard how much Salesforce is into the AI agents game. It wants to put AI agents at your fingertips. You enterprise workers, knowledge workers who are out there listening today. How can they do this better is if they swallow up a smaller company like Informatica, which helps those agents act with better transparency, get to the data they need, show that that's traceable, and in general, be more confident with the information they're passing back to you, information worker. This is a crucial step to undergird what Salesforce is already good at with its AI agents. I think there's something here for the investing community to give us a decent grade. It's a strategic acquisition, that's for sure. David Meier: I think one thing this does is it actually integrates well with some of the other data-centric companies that it's bought, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, Tableau. As it is spot on. This is all about making its agents as productive as it can for its customers. I think this is a good acquisition for them. Ricky Mulvey: David likes it, and I spoke with our colleague Tim Beyers about this acquisition earlier this week, and he was bullish. He liked that this acquisition is all cash, and the valuation is a little bit less than when Salesforce first pursued it. Asit, how do you think Salesforce shareholders should feel about this one? Asit Sharma: I think they should feel pretty good, Ricky, because as Dave mentioned, it fits well with other pieces, and you can criticize Salesforce for having so much of acquisitions that it's undertaken just to grow. I mean, it's got $51 billion of goodwill on its books versus total assets of about 103 billion. That's a lot of intellectual property they've paid or overpaid for over the years. But I think this one should make you feel like they can remain competitive in this AI space, where it'll become increasingly difficult to be differentiated from your competitors. What gives you that differentiation in today's world is having access to data or being able to do great things with that data that competitors can't. This makes a lot of sense if you're a Salesforce shareholder. But again, proof is in the pudding. You need to have this help you grow revenues and that all-important operating margin that Salesforce has been improving over the last three years. Ricky Mulvey: Let's move to earnings. Shareholders were displeased with OCTA, David, the identity management company that likes to make me do two-factor authentication at inconvenient times. That's what they do for money. This is a company that beat estimates and maintained guidance, little bit of tariff pullback, but what are investors so fussy about here? David Meier: I think investors are fussing over three things, near-term growth, near-term growth, and near-term growth. In all seriousness. It was a strong start to the year, but analysts question why the full year revenue growth guidance and why its current remaining performance obligation growth weren't higher. I mean, if you started off the year strong, why pull that down a little bit, or maybe why not make it as high as investors might want to see? It's a valid question because the guidance actually implies that growth is going to slow in the second half of the year after such a good start. But management stuck to their story. They're saying, Hey, there's just too much uncertainty for us to make a stronger forecast right now. Ricky Mulvey: This is a company, I think, with some strong fundamentals. When you look at that GAAP gross margin, the gross margin that accountants like, it's 77%, net revenue retention rate. While that's slowing is 106%, that means that existing customers are doing more business with OCTA, but, yes, that rate of growth is decreasing a little bit. When you're looking at the results, are there things in here that the long-term foolish investors should be concerned about, or maybe more green shoots to focus on? David Meier: I think the first thing we need to do is understand that ACTA is actually the leader in identity management, and that market continues to be a critical part of cybersecurity, and it's growing. Its new products are gaining traction as we're starting to see, the company is starting to scale, margins are expanding. Cash flow generation is solid. Frankly, at six times forward sales, this is a very reasonable multiple for a stock which is still near its 52-week highs even after the pullback. I see this as an opportunity. Ricky Mulvey: After the break, we're looking at retail stocks and seeing if there's any deals on the rack. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey here with Asit Sharma and David Meier. Right now, we're going to focus on retail stocks, starting with Abercrombie and Fitch. Abercrombie posted Wednesday morning, and the results were not as bad as investors feared. Yes, David, there was a slight decrease in operating margin outlook, shout out to the tariffs, and Oh, no. But ANF in total is still posting comparable sales outlook. David, what did you see in the results here? David Meier: I see a company that is performing better than the market was anticipating, hence the nice jump today. Look, sales and earnings came in stronger than expected for the quarter, and management actually raised their guidance for the full year slightly, which was not anticipated by analysts and clearly not by the market. As we've said before, there's a lot of macro uncertainty out there, and lots of companies are calling it out. In today's environment, that's about as good as a company can do. Ricky Mulvey: I worked out a thesis for Abercrombie and Fitch about a month and a half ago with Jim Gillies, and yes, I did it here on Motley Fool Money. One thing I mentioned was the buybacks. You like to see management buying back stock when multiples are down. Abercrombie took out about 5% worth of their stock in this quarter, and yes, they had the cash to do it. They didn't take out debt. When you look at that, is that a smart allocation move? Can I take a victory lap here on the show? David Meier: Dude, you should be running around that track with a big old flag saying victory. Yes, that was well done. Kudos to management for being very opportunistic with their repurchases, because that's not something that every company does well. The stock was significantly lower in the first quarter, and they took advantage of it. The other thing it does it's another valuable lesson about having a strong balance sheet. It gives companies optionality. Ricky Mulvey: I had to do some AI work with Abercrombie and Fitch, especially looking at their supply chain. They got factories all over the world. 5% of their workers are in China, which is really the center of the trade war. They've got more factories over in Southeast Asia, and that's something I liked was seeing that distributed supply chain. For investors looking at retailers, how should they be thinking about supply chains right now? David Meier: I think you're spot on. You need to find out where they are, because that information is available. Then, the other thing I think we need to do is to pay attention to any company that gives an estimate for what they think tariffs are going to cost. We've recently saw that from Deckers Outdoor, the maker of UGS and Hoka shoes. Now we see Abercrombie saying, Hey, we think it's going to be about 50 million for their business. Look, any piece of information like this helps analysts model the future. Again, with uncertainty, all that information helps. Ricky Mulvey: Let's move to Pinduoduo, Asit. I'm giving you a stock that investors were a little more sour on than Abercrombie and Fitch here. This is the parent company of Temu, where our engineer and colleague, Dan Boyd, loves to shop. Boy, oh, boy, does he like to buy little shiny things at very cheap prices, and then who knows what he's going to do with them? But, man, Dan loves Temu. Sales still growing for this company, but net profit falling 47%. Yikes. That's the Trade War in action, Asit. What'd you see in the results? Asit Sharma: Yes, it is, Ricky. The results show me a few things. One is that the and again, off again trade war is really starting to hurt confidence in management. Management here has a few headwinds that it's trying to work through. One is that competitors like and Alibaba are fighting back after just a really good run by Temu for example, is a great part of Pinduoduo. Then what we have is the de minimis exemption, which went away. In the first part of this trade war, the Trump administration took away the ability of companies like Pinduoduo to send goods of small value into the US without the imposition of tariffs. Now, after repealing that, they imposed a tariff, which was pretty high. Then, again, long story with anything you talk about in tariffs. Those are now down to a not-so-blistering 54%. Which simply means that it's going to be really hard for Pinduoduo to sell these cheap goods into the US through Temu. Now, on the other hand, you've got some subsidization going on from the Chinese government to spur consumer spending, and that benefits more its rivals than it does Pinduoduo, which operates something of a third party platform in China, so it can't directly participate in those subsidies, and it's having to keep its merchants happy who have always felt that they're squeezed by Pinduoduo, so it's having to invest in those merchants. You add all this up together, and you have this drastic decrease in net income. I'm not surprised on what level. I think that, going forward, it's probably going to even out among all the Chinese retailers as the consumer in China begins to adjust, and I think they'll spend a little bit more next year, so not out of the woods, but not terminal either. Ricky Mulvey: Asit, have you ever bought anything on Temu? Asit Sharma: No, I'm no Dan Boyd. I have many times thought that I should. I'm a thrifty guy by nature. I buy books and pencils, and most of the times I get those locally. Ricky Mulvey: Advice for investors who want to dip into a category like this because a Chinese retailer that is at the heart of a lot of this tariff war trade negotiations, this is a hated category. The PE ratio has been depressed quite a bit. Some investors may look at that and see a company that's still growing sales, taking a hit on the margin, and think, maybe I want to take a dip into this hated category right now. Be a contrarian. What say you to them? Asit Sharma: I wouldn't discourage that. I would almost say look more toward Alibaba. The Chinese big conglomerates are really good at doing tech as well as retail. Alibaba has its hands in so many tech investments. Ten cent is similar, although it's not really as much of a retailer. If you're looking for something that is getting beaten down on the retail side, why not stick with an Alibaba? You have more chances to win in the long term. Ricky Mulvey: Then while retail indexes have recovered since a rough start to the year, not all of the valuations have recovered. Maybe there's some deals still out there. We'll start with David. Are there any retail stocks in the bargain bin that you think are worth investors' attention, or maybe even a full price company, something like an on-holdings, where you're not getting any discount on the shares, but still a strong company to hold for the long term? David Meier: One company that I'm looking at is going to be Best Buy, which actually will report earnings on Thursday, May the 29th. The reason is because I want to actually get more info about the environment. If there was ever a company that was going to give me more information about the impact of tariffs, it's going to be Best Buy. I'm looking there first for information, and then I'll start looking to see if there's any others in the retail bargain bin. Ricky Mulvey: Asit, how about you? Asit Sharma: Ricky, I think investors can still get the MAX for the minimum at TJ MAX or its parent company, rather, TJX Companies. This is a business that has a lot of discipline in its global buying teams. They're great at buying through all environments. Surprisingly, the tariff environment isn't affecting them as much as you might think. Solidly run company, great balance sheet, great brands under its umbrella. I might look their symbol, TJX. Ricky Mulvey: Fellas, we're going to see you a little bit later in the show, but up next, we've got Klaus Kleinfeld. He's the former CEO of Siemens talking about what investors should look for in turnaround stories. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Klaus Kleinfeld is the former CEO of Siemens and ALCOA. When you're the leader of a multinational company, you've got to learn how to manage your energy. Kleinfeld is also the author of Leading to Thrive, mastering strategies for sustainable success in business and life. We talk about his book and how to look for companies with sustainable competitive advantages. Much of your book is focused around this idea of energy management, and many people think about just time management. We've talked about energy management a bit on the show in previous conversations, but when you were leading multinational companies, is there anything you wish you knew at that time about energy management that you know now? Klaus Kleinfeld: Well, fortunately, I learned early enough but still late in my career about energy management. I could apply that in a good part of my business life, at least in the last 10, 15 years. But I was an addict of efficient time management before, as somebody who was born and raised in Germany, always used to discipline use of time. I think energy management is a very important concept, which was one of the reasons why I wrote the book. The question is, how does that work with energy? You wake up in the morning, and hopefully you have a lot of energy, but it burns through during the course of the day. Every time you have to use willpower, you actually use some of the energy resources. That's one thing that I think most people don't fully understand. You have to recharge it. Then comes the question, how do I get energy? What is energy? It goes back to the simple things like body, mind, and soul, and I distinguish in the mind between the emotional and the mental side of things. The body part, the physical energy part, is relatively well understood. But there are concepts like breathing, sleep that are not so well understood. But on the emotional side, many people think the emotions are brought onto you by somebody else, not realizing that you yourself allow an emotion to be created in you, and you can learn a lot of tricks, also from the high-performance world, how you can control. Same thing on the mental side. Mental is all about focus. How many times have we seen that great leaders see an opportunity when others see a challenge. There's tons of those stories. Then comes this thing that we almost never talk about in the business world. It's the spiritual side. I don't know whether you have in your friendship group. I do, people who actually have realized at some point in time that they feel very empty and they are lost in a certain way. I was most surprised that in the business world, people burn out much earlier, whereas in the sports world, you see people basically being at the very top for much longer. I personally love tennis, and if you look at tennis, how this has changed over the last 20 years. The top players are way older than they ever were. But when you look at the tenure of CEOs, it's way down. Ricky Mulvey: Something surprising in your book, as well, is that as a leader, you were actually looking for people who are quietly cynical in meetings, making a cynical remark, and making other people laugh. There's a read on that, which is that leaders want cheerleaders and people who are positive about the mission going on. I'm sure there's a story there, as well. If you're in a meeting with people, why are you looking for someone who's quietly making cynical remarks? Klaus Kleinfeld: It's not that I'm directly looking for those, but I have had the pleasure to heavily involved in many turnarounds. You get injected in this. It's usually combined with a ton of changes that are there to happen. You are the new kid in town, and you go into a meeting, you describe what you think needs to happen, and you suddenly realize that you hear some giggling in the background, and you realize that there's one person who probably had said something that made everybody else giggle. Why am I looking? Typically, what I have learned is I then go seek this person out and say, hey, look, I want to introduce myself. Just want to hear what were your thoughts on what I was talking about? Because what I had realized in people who are cynical, this are very often people who are very knowledgeable in the organization, because to be intelligently cynical, you need intelligence to make other people laugh. Usually, the dumb jokes don't have that much of an impact on people, and people say you're just an idiot. But somebody who can make a good cynical comment typically understands the industry often understands the business, and you can learn from it. I try to involve the person in a conversation and just learn. What happens is that very often I do learn from the person for instance that things like that have been tried out before, failed, and then I can get into a conversation. Why did they fail? What can we do different to have it not fail, or are there other approaches? Number 1, I learn something. Number 2 also is, if you then can involve the person and say, here are the reasons why I think we should do it, and this is how I would do it, which avoids the issues that you are implying. You can win the person over. The moment you win the person over, this person has a followership and is known as somebody as who's cynical. If this person changes, in a change environment, the followership that person brings you is enormous, because people around there know this is not somebody who would kiss the new boss's ass. This is somebody who usually stands up against the person quietly, though. The impact of winning a larger crowd over to basically be behind this, also not just with their head on with it but also with their heart. Ricky Mulvey: That's a look behind the scenes at turnarounds. We were talking from the investing side about how difficult it is for investors to get into turnarounds, often because in the financial media, people get excited about them as soon as you hear about a CEO change. Starbucks is a recent example of that. We were also talking about Nike and the troubles going on at Nike, where they have to win back their distribution partners after shutting them off to pursue their own strategy. One of the themes of it, as I was talking to my colleague Jim Gillies, about this is it takes much longer than many investors want to believe that a turnaround story is going to take. Having been in the middle of it, is there anything you think investors should know, especially on the retail side? We're talking to people who are investing a few hundred bucks a month in the stock market that they should know if they're looking at a turnaround story in the market. Klaus Kleinfeld: What do you need for a good turnaround? You can say, I have a short-term turnaround, I need a big gun, and I tell them, hey, you know what? You follow my orders or else. But if you want a sustainable turnaround, that's usually not how it works. You pretty much have to start from what value do I create for the customers. The value for customers is relatively simple. You have two dimensions. You either do something for them that increases their revenues or decreases their cost because in the end, they all want a higher profitability. You really have to understand as well as possible, what is the offering? How can the offering be improved? That's one thing. The second thing is you also need to understand what is the motivation of the team? How good is the team, the quality of the team, and how do they work together? Because in the end, and I have seen again and again, the only sustainable competitive advantage you have in a business is the talent and the way they work together. Both of these things, this is the magic. The third thing is, you just have to take a look at the cash flow. Don't trust any EBITA numbers. In the end, it's cash. I think with those three-dimension customer people, and cash, I would always look at that as my first true north to understand, does that work or does it not work? By the way, one other thing that I've seen again and again, that investors fall for the great storytellers. I've seen many times a great visionary, so to say, that a great vision is only as good as the implementation, and a great vision, if it's not translating into success for the customer, basically burns to people out and people will not follow anymore. They follow for a first moment, but then they lose interest because they see we're not winning. The moment people see we're winning, they will follow. Ricky Mulvey: You mentioned people as a sustainable competitive advantage. For our audience, that's pretty tough to identify. You can look at glass door reviews. Sometimes those can be gamed a little bit, let's say. Klaus Kleinfeld: Let's put it that way. Ricky Mulvey: It's incredibly difficult for us investors to know what's going on inside of a company, especially we don't have research teams. We're in it on our own. It's still important to find sustainable competitive advantages. How do you think about those? What are some ways that our listeners can find companies with sustainable competitive advantages? Klaus Kleinfeld: Well, I started with customer advantage. That's pretty easy for investors also to figure out. Number 1, many of the investors have knowledge about the industry and understand what does the industry need, and how do the offerings today and in the future fit this? It starts with that. I can highly advise the better you become with evaluating that and checking the box on that, the better off you are. I would always talk to some customers and also some competitors. They also have good information about that. That's one thing. The other thing is on the people's side, most companies these days have investor days or invite investors. Typically, it's not just the CEO, but definitely also the CFO and CTO and some of the top leaders. First of all, attend those meetings. Secondly, I would not be shy as an investor to say, I would encourage the leadership in the next investor meeting to bring on your first line management. Before that, I'd like to have probably a better CV. I've seen many people do that, but if you feel that they don't do it, then you can ask for it. The third thing is, which I personally, as a CEO, have always done is factory visits, facility visits, and just walk-throughs. It's very interesting. I think it's hard to fake a good walk through because you can see how people look from the shop floor, look at the leaders. Do they look away? Do they wave at them? Does the leader know anything about them? How does the leader deal with the others? I think if there's an offer to visit some facilities, I would always hop on it and potentially even ask for it and say, hey, you know what? Is there a chance to visit some of your facilities? You've been talking about these great things, can we see those? Can we just invite a few folks, 10, 20 folks. I'll pay for my flight myself. I'll come. I think most companies actually would enjoy investors doing that because it also makes the conversation between investors and the company much better. Ricky Mulvey: As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about in Motley Fool, may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. On personal finance content follow us on Motley Fool editorial standards, and we're 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 in our podcast description. Up next, we've got radar stocks. You're listening. It's Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined again by Asit Sharma and David Meier. Fools, a momentous thing happened this week, and that is that Southwest has officially ended its two-bags fly free policy. Unless you've got the right status or the right credit card, it's now $35 for your first bag and $45 for your second bag. I know how I feel about this as a consumer, but we'll keep it on the investing angle since this is an investing show. Asit, good idea, bad idea for Southwest long term? Asit Sharma: Bad idea. Ricky, I discussed this at length with Dylan a few months ago, and we talked about unit costs and all metrics in this industry, and maybe Southwest had to do this. But the more that I've sat on it, the more I thought, Look, guys, cut your costs somewhere else. Do you have something that's inextricably tied to your brand? That's why people fly Southwest. What are you doing to this brand? I've actually landed on the other side from it's ambiguous to, No, this wasn't a great idea. Ricky Mulvey: You've made me a brand promise, and now you're breaking it. David, do you feel the same way, or are you looking at those baggage fees and thinking, Man, they need to get that cheddar for the shareholders? David Meier: No. I frequently fly Southwest, and they can put whatever baggage fee they want inside the price of their ticket. That's what they already do. It makes me feel good as a traveler to know that my big old snowboard on the way to Denver doesn't cost me anything, even if it does cost me something already. I do not think this is good for their brand. I think this is just a money grab. Frankly, why would you want somebody to now try to be a price shopper when you usually have very good prices to begin with? I don't understand this. Ricky Mulvey: Then quickly, before we get to radar stocks, because rehearsals and airplanes are hot in the streets right now, Asit, open seating, that's going to be gone from Southwest in a little bit, but quickly, in the meantime, while Southwest does have open seating, how are you going to keep someone from sitting next to you on your next Southwest flight? Asit Sharma: It's real simple, Ricky. Just look six seats ahead of me when I'm seated. Everyone who's coming toward me, smile at them really big from six seats away. They look away. They look back at you. This guy is still smiling at me. What is going on here? I usually can just curl up on the next two seats when I do that. Ricky Mulvey: Let's get to stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass. Mr. Dan Boyd is going to hit you with a question. Asit, we'll keep it on you. You're up first. What are you looking at this week? Asit Sharma: Ricky, I am putting a tiny company called SoundHound AI, symbol S-O-U-N, on my radar screen. This is an AI stock that briefly had meme status. What it does is it provides voice technology. I think what's so interesting to me about SoundHound is that they've got their own foundational model for AI. In-house, they've built this great model which can articulate human speech. It can really analyze voice patterns. The technology is so good that they're using it now in drive-throughs. Some major quick-services restaurant chains are using it. They're selling this to original equipment manufacturers in the auto industry. Companies that could work with these great big tech companies are choosing to work with SoundHound because their technology is so good. You can also use it on your phone as an app to identify sounds and music in particular. I find that a lot of fun to hear a song and try to figure out where it's from just by opening this app, Shazam like in that sense. This is a company that's, again, very tiny. Revenue was only 29 million this past quarter, but that was up 151%. This company is going to have losses for a while, for at least the next 3-4 years, but it is one of the companies that I've seen that seems to have its own unique value proposition out in AI Land, so it's worth following. Ricky Mulvey: Dan, I think I heard AI there four or five times. That better get your attention. Maybe a question about SoundHound. Dan Boyd: Losses for the next 3-4 years sure does sound good, Ricky. You'll love to hear that. Can't wait for yet another product out in the market that can't understand me when I shout into my phone agent. Ricky Mulvey: Asit, a response to Dan's insult. Not really a question about SoundHound. Asit Sharma: Valid. I have this experience myself with so much of the tech I use, so I'm not going to be disingenuous here and try to get all used car salesmen on Dan. Time will tell. Ricky Mulvey: David, what you got this week? David Meier: The stock on my radar is SentinelOne. The ticker symbol is S. This is an almost $7 billion company that continues to gain traction in the cybersecurity market. Its specialty is endpoint security, which is the protection of individual devices that connect to networks. One of the interesting things about this company is it's been marketing its AI capabilities since before its IPO in June 2021, before AI was seriously hot. The stock has pulled back since its high-flying IPO, and the company still expects to generate about 20% annual sales growth and recently turn cash flow positive in fiscal year 2025. It also reports earnings on May the 28th, and I want to revisit the company to hear what management has to say in terms of its vision for the future. That's because it trades at a much more reasonable valuation at just under six times forward sales, which is close to its 52-week low. Ricky Mulvey: Dan, a question, comment, or even a backhanded compliment about SentinelOne? Dan Boyd: It's a cybersecurity firm. There's not exactly, I don't know, a whole lot of shine on that apple. It's just nuts and bolts to me, personally. But hey, they're located in Mountain View, California, which is a nice part of the United States, so I can't hate that. Ricky Mulvey: David, not enough shine on the apple for you. David Meier: You're exactly right, that cybersecurity is a very competitive market. But the interesting thing is, that means there's room for all competitors. With SentinelOne, focusing on the endpoint, they have carved themselves out a nice little niche. As they continue to gather more data from the customers that it has, as well as data from the new customers, its AI capabilities only get stronger. Ricky Mulvey: Dan Boyd, not a lot of room on your watchlist. What's going on the watch list this week? Dan Boyd: Let's go, SentinelOne, Ricky. Ricky Mulvey: That's going to do it for this week's radio show. I'm Ricky Mulvey. This show is mixed by Dan Boyd. Thanks for listening. Asit Sharma has positions in Salesforce. Dan Boyd has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. David Meier has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Ricky Mulvey has positions in Abercrombie & Fitch. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Best Buy, Deckers Outdoor, Nike, Okta, Salesforce, Starbucks, and TJX Companies. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group, and Southwest Airlines. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The Economic Mood Brightens was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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Elon Musk has emerged as a highly vocal critic of Trump's "big beautiful bill." The sweeping budget proposal could add $2.4 trillion to the US deficit, the the CBO said this week. Here's what top economists have been saying about the legislation. Elon Musk has departed his role as a "special government employee" in Trump's White House — and he's using his time outside the administration to hammer the GOP spending bill that's a cornerstone of the president's agenda. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination," Musk wrote on X earlier this week. Trump responded by saying Musk's criticism of the legislation is "disappointing." President Trump's tax bill will likely face a vote in the Senate in the coming weeks after passing the House in May. It would reduce the tax rates of lower-income workers, particularly those earning less than $107,200, and eliminate taxes on tips, social security, and overtime. The bill would also cut spending on social programs like Medicaid and SNAP benefits, which provide food assistance to low-income Americans. Like Musk, investors and economists are seemingly concerned that the bill will cause the national debt to balloon and further widen the US budget deficit. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that it would grow the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade . Trump and his allies have pushed back, arguing that higher economic growth from lower taxes would help boost government revenue. Here's what top economists are saying about the bill. Despite the lower tax rates for low earners, Swagel said in a May 20 letter that the bill would negatively impact poorer Americans. "CBO estimates that household resources would decrease by an amount equal to about 2 percent of income in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033, mainly as a result of losses of in-kind transfers, such as Medicaid and SNAP," he wrote. "By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly because of reductions in the taxes they owe." McBride, along with several colleagues at the non-partisan Tax Foundation think tank, said in a May 23 report that while the bill would support economic growth, it wouldn't be enough to offset the revenue loss from tax cuts. "Our preliminary analysis finds the tax provisions included in the House-passed bill would increase long-run GDP by 0.8 percent," the report said. "The bill's tax and spending changes would increase the 10-year budget deficit by $2.6 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the deficit would increase by $1.7 trillion over ten years before interest costs." It continued: "The bill's tax provisions alone would reduce federal tax revenue by $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the revenue reduction would fall by nearly 22 percent to $3.2 trillion over 10 years before added interest costs." Six Nobel Prize-winning economists — including Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Peter Diamond, Paul Krugman, Oliver Hart, and Joseph Stiglitz — said in a June 2 letter that the bill would worsen wealth inequality in the US. "The combination of cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting higher-income households means that the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income. Given how much this bill adds to the U.S. debt, it is shocking that it still imposes absolute losses on the bottom 40% of U.S households," the letter said. "The House bill addresses none of the nation's key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them," it added. Rogoff, former chief economist at the IMF, cast doubt on the notion that the bill would boost growth in a piece for Project Syndicate this week. "Trump and his acolytes argue that his "big, beautiful bill" will supercharge economic growth, generating enough revenue to make up for sweeping tax cuts. But history offers little support for such claims," he wrote. "While both Democratic-led spending sprees and Republican-backed tax cuts have fueled the growth of US debt over the past two decades, tax reductions have accounted for the lion's share of the increase. Moreover, the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves was already discredited in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts led to soaring deficits rather than self-sustaining growth." He added: "Will America's rising debt ultimately trigger a full-blown crisis? Perhaps, but a continued upward drift in long-term interest rates is more likely." Lachman, a former IMF official who currently works for a conservative-leaning think tank, said in a June 4 post that rising bond yields, a declining dollar, and appreciating gold prices could be harbingers of an economic crisis brought on by Trump-driven policy volatility. Trump's tax bill is adding to investors' fears due to its inflationary implications. But one of its clauses undermines confidence in the reliability of the returns on Treasurys, he said. "That bill includes a clause that has to be sending shivers down foreign investors' spines. According to Section 899, the US Treasury can impose additional taxes of up to 20 percent on income earned by foreign entities from countries that enact taxes deemed 'unfair' to US interests." Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
