ewsba.se
In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Rachel Warren discuss:
The recent drop for both Robinhood and SoFi.
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.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on a little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly," providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
Before you buy stock in Spotify Technology, 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 Spotify Technology 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 $490,864!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,216,789!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 963% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 201% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of May 5, 2026.
This podcast was recorded on April 29, 2026.
Travis Hoium: Has the AI bubble turned into an energy bubble? Motley Fool Hidden Gems investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm Travis Hoium, joined today by Lou Whiteman and Rachel Warren. We have a lot of news, especially in the world of AI and energy. We're going to get to that in a moment. But I want to start with one of the I think more notable earnings reports yesterday came from Spotify. The market wasn't super happy with what they saw. But, Lou, the interesting dynamic here is Spotify is not saying, we're in trouble. We're losing customers. It reminds me a little bit of Netflix. It's more a matter of how fast are we gaining customers, and is that growth just isn't quite as impressive as it was a few years ago. They're maybe not getting into ads as quickly as investors had hoped, maybe not able to push those prices as high as people would hope. It's become this ho-hum business that you take a step back, and you go this is a great business, but the stock has not done particularly well recently. Are we just entering a new phase for these great companies that are just going to be high single-digit, low double-digit growers?
Travis Hoium: Rachel, when you look at these businesses, and I think Spotify and Netflix kind of fall into the same category, they're winning video and audio respectively. But how do you think about these, and what prices these stocks need to trade at for them to be attractive?
Travis Hoium: Those things seem to be improving for both of those companies, even though the numbers aren't necessarily as high as they once were. Currency has complicated this, too. I think on a reported basis, Spotify's revenue was up 8%. But on a constant currency basis, it was up 14%, so the weak dollar is really changing how we're looking at some of these things. Lou, the other thing that I wanted to bring up is the advertising business, because we know Spotify actually has more ad-supported users than it has premium users. But these numbers are a little bit wild. In the most recent quarter, the premium business generated 4.1 billion euros worth of revenue. That was up 10% year over year. But the ad-supported business 385 million, so less than a tenth despite having more users, and that revenue is in decline. Does that need to pick up for Spotify, for Netflix, for some of these companies that used to be just the premium supported? What can they do? They said they rebuilt their stack that these things should be getting better. We've heard this for quite a while from Spotify. But that seems to be both an area of opportunity and also an area where I don't know, should they just outsource it to somebody that does advertising better than they do, like a Google or a Meta? It seems like there's low-hanging fruit there.
Lou Whiteman: Probably. I don't know why they have to be the master of ads. We've seen Netflix do this. I think we learned this with Yahoo, back in the day, or Tumblr. Ad-supported business isn't necessarily going to be the path to success. I think this is a nice add-on, but no, it's not going to offset. I actually think they have more wiggle on pricing power than they do on ads in terms of a market move. I don't know. Like I said, I'm not a customer. I don't really see them having as much pricing power as Netflix. The algorithms are good, but you don't have that exclusive content. I have to buy Netflix to get Stranger Things. I don't really have to go to Spotify if I want to listen to my stupid ‘90s alternative music. But I do think there is opportunities there more than there is advertising. Advertising is a something they should do, but that's not the answer here to turn it back into a hyper-growth story.
Travis Hoium: It'll be interesting to see what the market thinks about these going forward, I think it's hard to argue that these are bad businesses, but the stocks have not been winners, at least recently for investors. When we come back, we're going to get to a couple of stocks that are also struggling today, Robinhood and SoFi. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.
Welcome back. Two of the big earnings reports for today or at least in the last 12 hours or so is Robinhood and SoFi. Both of the stocks, Rachel, are down double digits as we're recording. These are both still technically growth companies. If you're looking quarter over quarter, maybe things don't look like that with Robinhood. But the sentiment around them have both turned very negative very quickly. When you look at this earnings report and the trajectory of these companies, what do you think?
Rachel Warren: I think it's an example of the shift we've seen and how the market values these high-growth fintech businesses the last few years, right? I mean, for a long time, companies like Robinhood, like SoFi, they had these speculative multiples because they promised to disrupt the banking establishment with viral high velocity trading and lending models, and maybe we're seeing investors re-rating them more like traditional financial institutions, although I think the business models are entirely different. You know, it's interesting, Robinhood, their revenues are still growing significantly. They had about a 47% collapse in crypto revenue. I think we're seeing how much they still rely on volatile retail trading. SoFi, they gave a more conservative outlook, I think, than the market was hoping for. They left their 2026 revenue forecast unchanged. Maybe investors see that as a signal of a slowdown in the latter part of the year.
These are both companies that are expanding their user basis. I think that the market is really no longer willing to pay a premium for potential. They want predictable, disciplined profitability. Robinhood is evolving into a wealth management tool, a quality one, but I think they're finding that maybe the boring growth in subscriptions and retirement accounts doesn't command the same valuation as it did a few years ago. SoFi, I think, is also discovering that maybe being that kind of one-stop shop for finance is a bit of a double-edged sword. They have a long streak of profitability, but their growth is becoming more predictable. It's maybe even capped by the broader economy. These aren't stocks that I own, but I do think if you're an investor looking at these businesses, there are some nuance to what we're seeing right now.
Travis Hoium: I do own both of these shares, so rough day for me. But I think you look at these earnings reports, and what sticks out to me is, are you looking at it short term and based on analysts expectations or what does quarter-over-quarter growth look like, or are you looking at it long term? Rachel said it. The assets in retirement account of Robinhood are up 90% year over year. People say, We don't want you doing all this YOLO trading and prediction markets, and now they move into this more stable business, and the market goes, eh, we don't really like that either. Then you look at SoFi 41% revenue growth. It's hard to match that if you're looking at any sort of financial institution.
Lou Whiteman: Sometimes we're the problem, Travis. It's not the company that's the problem.
Lou Whiteman: But in this case, I'm going to say you're the problem, pal. To your point, nothing is wrong with either of these companies. SoFi First, SoFi's earnings, they were better than fine. They were pretty good. The issue is, we don't seem to be willing to admit that they're a bank. Banks, especially as they grow, have limits to how fast they can grow. That is by design. It is hard to innovate in financial services. I keep making this point, but 99% of what we call fintech innovation is just some new marketing thing. That's by design. Regulators like it that way. If I seem to defy gravity when it was smaller, the denominator made a huge difference there. As they grow, these marketing strategies, just the rate of return on this is going to go down. At some point, we're just going to say this is what they are. They're a bank. I'll note even with today's drop, their multiple to book is double that of Ally Financial. Their forward PE is triple that of Ally Financial. Ally Financial is a really good online bank. There's no red flags. But again, I don't know what SoFi is going to do to change the calculus and turn into some hyper-growth machine that the market wants them to be. It's a similar story for Robinhood. You're paying twice the multiple that you get for Charles Schwab. Robinhood tries desperately to innovate. They tiptoe all over, lines in the sand from regulators.
Travis Hoium: There's a lot of gray areas if you're talking about prediction markets and some of the things like that.
Lou Whiteman: Right. But at some point, they are what they are and what they are is a lot more similar to Charles Schwab than maybe investors want to admit. I think that at some point, either these companies are going to have to discover magic fairy dust, or we're going to have to admit that we know what they are and we know how to value them, and they should be valued maybe at a premium to some of the slower growth ones because they are still faster growth in their sector. But the in their sector thing is the part that I think we've lost track of.
Travis Hoium: These stocks have not done well, but at some point, you have to look at the business, and it does seem like they're both doing very well from a fundamental basis. There's a little bit more volatility in Robinhood, but, so far, it's hard to argue with 40% growth. The question is, what does the market want to pay for those things? AI think that's what Lou is getting at. Eventually, maybe there is some value there, even for somebody like Lou. When we come back, we are going to get to the potential bubble building in energy. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Welcome back. As we talk about earnings season, we have to talk about the hottest stock in the market. Lou, that is Bloom Energy. A few years ago, this was the company that was going to bring hydrogen to everybody. We're going to be making hydrogen out of water. Now it just seems like they are selling these fuel cells that are actually taking natural gas to any data center at any price. Is this just another bubble building around the AI bubble, except this time it's in energy?
Lou Whiteman: To be fair to them, those generators are hydrogen capable. At some point, that could be. But, I think this is saying what we already know on steroids. These data centers are creating a huge problem in terms of energy, and companies that are in position to solve that problem or address that problem are attractive to investors. Stock is up 180%. Year to date, Travis. It's still April, so that's a pretty good year.
Travis Hoium: 180%. Let's go back a little bit further. One year, it is up 1,350%.
Lou Whiteman: That's not bad. We'll take that most years. But, like, not to be the wet blanket here, but a lot of that momentum is tied to a deal to plug into Oracle databases. I don't know if you've checked on Oracle recently, but Oracle is down way big on investors wondering if they should and if they will actually turn those data centers on. I think that's a huge I don't say red flag, but that should be something that we should be aware of, especially when you're trading at 160 times expected earnings. I hope for this. I think we need this. We certainly we know the grid is not prepared for this, and we know there's huge energy needs. I don't know how I can get my little brain around how this makes sense in the long term. I guess, to answer your first question, is there a bubble here? There's a really decent company here and also a bubble.
Travis Hoium: Buying a company like Bloom Energy at 32 times sales. Typically energy stocks don't trade for those multiple.
Rachel Warren: The valuation's a bit rich for me. I think part of it is we're seeing the fact that the market's really waking up to the reality that these AI factories are effectively giant, power-hungry heaters that the current utility grid can't support. Bloom offers this grid-independent solution. Companies can deploy Bloom's fuel cells to generate high-density power right on site. We're seeing them shift into more of maybe an beneficiary in that essential AI infrastructure category. We're in an era, I think, where the most valuable commodity in tech isn't just the algorithms you built, it's really guaranteed access to electricity. We're seeing hyperscalers are willing to pay a premium to bypass the traditional slow-moving energy infrastructure of yesterday, and by providing a way to generate massive amounts of power without a traditional grid connection, they could be positioning themselves as a bottleneck breaker in the AI industry. It doesn't mean I would personally invest in this business, but I do think that driver of the enthusiasm for the stock that we're seeing the need for its solutions, I do very much look at it as a function of the AI era that we're living in, and I don't see that diminishing.
Travis Hoium: Lou let's end on this. You and I have been following industrials and energy for a very long time. Have you ever seen prices like this, multiples like this, and does that ultimately worry you as an investor?
Lou Whiteman: It definitely worries me. Have we seen it? Look, if we're going to see it, we see it in little pockets like this. Again, there's it there there. Bloom Energy has a potentially interesting business, but just always know what you're paying for a company. Valuation is always how quickly can they get there and how many hurdles do they have to jump to get there? If you look at all of the chaos and data centers right now, let's at least wait till the end of the week and see what the hyperscalars say about their roll out plans before jumping in at these levels.
Travis Hoium: What about when you look at the energy market more broadly? Because if you look at a heat map of the S&P 500, tech stocks not necessarily doing great. A lot of companies are struggling in the market, but yet energy is holding things up, and you look at these multiples from Exxon Mobil to utilities, and they're higher than they've been in a very long time. I guess that's what I'm wondering if this is Bloom Energy is like a symptom, but is this a bigger problem that ultimately energy typically doesn't trade for 30, 40 times earnings, and that may eventually normalize.
Lou Whiteman: Also, there was a, um, elephant in the room with the Middle East, too, that is driving up energy prices. I will say this broadly on energy. I don't know if this applies to Bloom. But these are the times that you're glad you have energy in your portfolio. These aren't the times you buy energy. You deal with years of underperformance, so you have that exposure in times like this. I would not be personally running into energy right now. Again, I think this is why these are times where you're glad you put up with the downtimes, not times to rush.
Ally is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Charles Schwab is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Lou Whiteman has positions in Ally Financial. Rachel Warren has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Travis Hoium has positions in Robinhood Markets, SoFi Technologies, and Spotify Technology. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bloom Energy, Netflix, Oracle, and Spotify Technology. The Motley Fool recommends Charles Schwab and recommends the following options: short June 2026 $97.50 calls on Charles Schwab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Earnings Season Hits Overdrive was originally published by The Motley Fool