This Weight Loss Partnership Was a Short One

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser and contributor Matt Frankel discuss:

• Why Novo Nordisk is parting ways with Hims & Hers.
• Waymo and Uber's big Atlanta debut.
• What the potential tax deduction on autos could mean for consumers and companies.
• A financials-related stock that is worth a closer look.

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.

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

A full transcript is below.

Should you invest $1,000 in Hims & Hers Health right now?

Before you buy stock in Hims & Hers Health, 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 Hims & Hers Health 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 $687,731!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $945,846!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 818% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025

This podcast was recorded on June 23, 2025.

Jason Moser: Breaking up is hard to do. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Jason Moser, and joining me today is Motley Fool Analyst Matt Frankel. Matt, thanks for being here.

Matt Frankel: Always good to be here. It's been a while, and I'm glad we get to do these more frequently now.

Jason Moser: Absolutely. On today's show, Novo Nordisk is parting ways with Hims & Hers, Waymo and Uber make a big debut in Atlanta, who wins from a proposed tax deduction on auto loans, and will also take a closer look at a stock on Matt's radar in the financial space. But before we dive in, let's take a look at a few of the headlines driving the market today. Markets are up today as investors continue to digest the news coming out of the Middle East. While a ceasefire is still uncertain, the growing possibility of negotiations continues to keep investors at least somewhat optimistic. Despite recent reports, Starbucks clarified it's not currently looking for a full sale of Chinese operations, though CEO Brian Niccol has confirmed that Starbucks is open to exploring partnerships in the country.

Last week, the Fed voted to hold rates steady, though it appears that sentiment could be starting to shift within the committee members. A recent update to the dot plot showed that nine of the 19 officials favored either zero or one cut this year, while eight saw two cuts, and now two others expect three. On Monday, Novo Nordisk, the producer of the popular weight loss drug, Wegovy, announced that it was ending its partnership with virtual healthcare provider Hims & Hers, and the market didn't like that news at all. Shares of Hims & Hers fell almost 35% on the day. Matt, Hims & Hers' shares have been on a tear recently. It's easy to understand why. The company has grown revenue at about 80% annualized over the last five years, but what does this Novo news signal to you?

Matt Frankel: Just for some background, Novo partnered with Hims & Hers to sell their Wegovy drug, the popular weight loss drug, instead of its own compounded knock-off version, I guess, you would say. The idea was, this is an unauthorized compound. There was a lot of risk that there was going to be a legal battle between the two companies, so they just decided to come together and solve it that way. The partnership only lasted a few months. Generally speaking, by every account at every step of the purchasing process, Hims & Hers was still pushing people toward its own compounded version at, like I said, every step of the way. It's easy to see why they make higher gross margins from their own product than selling Novo Nordisk's version, but that wasn't the agreement. Really, that was what management said in a statement when they described what happened. The real risk isn't that this is going to be a big revenue hit to Hims & Hers. Obviously, like I said, there's higher gross margins from their own product than selling at someone else's. The risk now is that a lawsuit's likely coming next if they continue to sell a knock-off version. That's really why I see the stock down as much as it is. It's not that it's going to have 35% lower revenue. It's that there's a lot of legal risk now that they're not partners.

Jason Moser: This seems to center around compounding drugs, which as you said, these are not FDA approved. Dave Moore, the EVP of Novo's US operations, said regarding the decision, "We expected that the efforts toward compounding personalization would diminish over time when we didn't see that. We had to make a choice on behalf of patients." The bear on Hims would say, "They're just out to make a quick buck." Then the bull would say that they are looking out for the patient's best interests in making certain medications more widely available. Is this becoming a bigger risk for Hims & Hers, at least the perception? I'm not necessarily saying it's the case, but the perception that they're not really looking out for their patients best interests.

Matt Frankel: Honestly, selling a compounded non-FDA-approved drug just doesn't sound very like something like I would want to get involved in in the first place.

Jason Moser: I think I'd want FDA approval personally, but who am I?

Matt Frankel: But it's also a big cost difference and things like that, so I can understand it. Like I said, it's just a real big open question of how much these companies are going to be fighting with each other. It's not that they're not looking out for people. It's just that they're telling people this is not an FDA-approved product, but you can get it cheaper and things like that, but the general push was toward their own product and away from the real version.

Jason Moser: They seem to be at least somewhat clear on that front. Now, we know valuation always matters. While Hims & Hers isn't off the charts, expensive, even after this run the stock has had, it does have a pretty rich multiple at around 60 times earnings or so, even after the sell-off. Does this start looking like an opportunity here, or do you feel like there could be more shoes to drop?

Matt Frankel: Personally, I stay away from heavy legal risk like this. It seems like there's a lot of future growth priced even after they're losing this partnership. It seems like a bet on the stock would be betting on that all these weight loss drugs are going to get even more popular and they're going to be able to successfully continue to sell their own compounded version without any legal intervention. To me, it's a big risk factor right now. There's three things that I won't go near a stock for, and big legal risk is one of them.

Jason Moser: Next up Waymo and Uber's big debut in Atlanta.

MALE_1: This episode is sponsored by PLAUD, an AI-wearable gadget that takes notes of meetings and calls. With PLAUD, you don't have to take notes and make summaries anymore. If you're tired of taking notes, you let AI do it for you. Picture this. You're on Hour 3 of back-to-back virtual meetings. Have you zoned out? Maybe you forgot some key takeaways. PLAUD is your AI-powered meeting sidekick. You let this tiny AI gadget, which is a perfect accessory to your phone, take notes, instantly generate transcripts, and summarize critical points and action items. You can stay focused without frantic note taking. Free your mind for better thinking, engagement with people, and decision making. As an audio geek, I appreciate the software when I tested it out. PLAUD cancels noises and enhances human speeches, making the audio replay clear. More than 700,000 users have joined the PLAUD community since 2024, and more than a quarter million people use this device every day. It's simple. You talk and PLAUD handles the rest. Find peace of mind at work today. Are you ready to work smarter? Type P-L-A-U-D into google and get a discount with code Fool, that is P-L-A-U-D.

Jason Moser: Matt, I know you all talked a little Tesla on yesterday's show. It seems like Tesla's robotaxi debut was not met without criticism, and the technology seems far from perfect, but they say, you got to start somewhere. Well, on Tuesday, Waymo robotaxis became available to Uber users in Atlanta, and they cover approximately 65 square miles around the city, and it should be noted, these Waymo vehicle, they're currently used for Uber passenger rides only, not Uber Eats deliveries. Matt, Uber shares up about 8% on the day, so there's some positive reception there. There's been a lot of conversation about Tesla disrupting Uber and Uber's best days maybe behind it, but it doesn't seem like Uber and Waymo are going away anytime soon.

Matt Frankel: We can get into the Tesla disruption in a little bit, if you want to. It's a small scale rollout. They're starting with a dozen vehicles that are available on the Uber app. It's limited to surface streets. That's another big restriction. They can't go on highways. It's just the latest in what Waymo is doing. They already have over 1,000 vehicles nationwide on the road, San Francisco, Austin. There's a few other places. They have over 100 in Austin right now, selling Uber rides. It is a big step in the right direction. It shows that their rollout is going well. They still aim to launch in DC next year, so maybe you'll be able to take a ride. The rollout's going really nicely. Waymo definitely has the first mover advantage here. When you think about some of the disasters that have happened with other wannabe robotaxi services like Crews like Uber's own that have had pretty bad incidents. Waymo really hasn't had any to that extent. Uber ran over somebody in 2018. That was a death sentence for GM's Crews when one of their cars ran over somebody. Waymo is doing the rollout, and they're getting it right.

Jason Moser: You mentioned that part about the cost side of it. I think Waymo, it's something like three times as expensive as Tesla's technology. Like I said, we did see some criticism of the robotaxi rollout. It seems like it's very early days or I don't know. Maybe you get what you pay for in this case, and I suspect as time goes on, those costs will continue to come down. At one point, Uber looked to partner with Tesla, and Tesla said, "No, thanks." Now, what we've seen in the ride-hailing space is this may not really be a win or take-all market. I think early days we thought it might be, but I tell you, Lyft has shown a lot of resiliency that's hanging in there and it's actually growing. What do you make of this competitive landscape here today?

Matt Frankel: Like I said, Waymo has the big first mover advantage, but don't count Tesla out. Tesla has two big competitive advantages. One is their infrastructure. They have over 60,000 superchargers throughout the country. It wouldn't be that hard to retrofit them to charge cars that don't have drivers. That would be something that's hard to replicate, even for a company as deep pocketed as Alphabet. They also build their own cars, Tesla does. Waymo's fleet is built by Jaguar right now. It's Jaguar I-PACE cars. They have their own vehicles, their own infrastructure. It does have cost advantages, so I'm not surprised they didn't really want to partner with all that going on. Even in the early days, Crews said that this could be a multi-trillion dollar market 20 years from now, but when we're all just using self-driving cars, it could be a massive opportunity long term. You're absolutely right that there's room for multiple winners in this space. It'll be really interesting to evolve. I think the real golden age of this isn't going to happen for another few years. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with slow rollouts when it's cars without drivers that could hit people. I'm fine with taking your time and getting it right.

Jason Moser: There's some serious implications that come with this technology. One last question. I'm going to ask you to choose here, Matt. I just got to do it. We know Waymo is owned by Alphabet. Uber is its own entity. Given the scale of both companies, they certainly have the ability to compete. I think you've made that very clear. How do you view the picture going forward for Alphabet and Uber? Does one of those two stand out as a better investing opportunity today, say, looking five years out?

Matt Frankel: I like Alphabet as the investment opportunity. It's essentially trading like a value stock at this point when you think like forwarders and things like that. The market's not even putting any value on the pre-revenue parts of its business like Waymo. That's on Google and Google Cloud, essentially. You're essentially getting the Waymo business for free when you buy Alphabet. Nothing against Uber, but I'm a value investor at heart, and Alphabet really seems like the way to go.

Jason Moser: Next up, more on the proposed tax deduction on auto loans, and we'll take a closer look at a stock on Matt's radar. Matt, House and Senate Republicans are looking at the idea of a $10,000 tax deduction on auto loan interest as part of the "big beautiful bill" that's being debated in Washington, but when you dig into it, it almost seems like it doesn't really have much of an impact on consumers at all. Can you just quickly go over the nuts and bolts of this proposal?

Matt Frankel: As somebody who no longer has a car payment, I'm opposed to it. [laughs] Seriously. They're proposing that up to $10,000 in auto loan interest per year would be deductible, and that's an above-the-line deduction, so anyone could take it even if they don't itemize. Now, the average car buyer would not get that much. People unless you have a really expensive car, think like 130 or $150,000 vehicle, you're probably not paying $1,000 a year in interest. The average new car buyer pays about $3,000 in interest initially per year, and based on the average marginal tax rate, that's about $500 in tax savings, so it's not nothing, but the $10,000 headline doesn't tell the whole story. Phases out over certain income levels. Even rich people who can buy $150,000 cars probably wouldn't qualify. In order to qualify, a couple of things need to be true. Most importantly, the cars need to get their final assembly in the United States. Doesn't necessarily mean the parts need to be made here, doesn't mean the company needs to be based here. For example, some BMWs are built in South Carolina where I live, but the car needs to have its final assembly in the United States. Keep in mind that this could just offset auto tariffs. Right now, there's a 25% tariff on even parts that come from other places that is hurting a lot of vehicles that are built in the United States. So this is more of an offset, I think, than a big benefit, but there's a lot of investing implications of it.

Jason Moser: Well, let's get to that. If there are investing implications, if this does make it through, who do you feel like could be the potential winners?

Matt Frankel: Automakers that build cars in the United States and auto lenders, too, that I own General Motors. We know that they build some of their cars in Mexico and Canada. They're moving more and more of their production to the United States in response to tariffs. Who doesn't want a tax deduction? People see $5,000 a year tax deduction if you buy a new Chevy Suburban that could be an incentive to go to the dealership if you've been putting it off. Auto lenders, like Ally Financial is one that I own. It's the largest bank that just specializes in auto lending. You can see a lot of people rush to buy new cars if this becomes a law.

Jason Moser: Quickly, to wrap up, we thought we'd go back to our roots and dig into a stock in the financial space that has your attention. What's a stock in the financial space? We're talking banks, insurance, fintech, whatever. What's the stock in this space that you're looking a little bit more closely at these days?

Matt Frankel: This is like a combination of real estate and financial, and it's Rocket Companies, RKT.

Jason Moser: I love it.

Matt Frankel: Because I'm going to be a shareholder. I'm a big Redfin shareholder, and Redfin shareholders have just approved Rocket's buyout of the company. It's an all stock acquisition, so I'm going to get Rocket stock in exchange for my Redfin shares. I'm about to be a shareholder of that. I like this acquisition. I love what Rocket's trying to do, build the all-in-one housing platform. They're very innovative. Today, for example, they just announced that they're creating what they call bridge loans that allows people who have a home to sell to make a nice offer on a new house that doesn't have a closing contingency. Really innovative product. I like their acquisition of Redfin because it really takes away the worst parts of Redfin, specifically, its balance sheet and the fact that it's losing money.

The product itself is very great, very technological, so I love this acquisition. They're also acquiring Mr. Cooper, a big mortgage servicer. They're really doing the best job in the market of becoming the all-in-one real estate platform. Rocket's a company I've had my eye on for a while, and this is really bringing it into my spotlight.

Jason Moser: We'll leave it there. Matt Frankel, thanks again so much for being here today.

Matt Frankel: Thanks for having me.

Jason Moser: 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 are not approved by advertisers. Advertisements or sponsored content are provided for informational purposes only. See our full advertising is closure, please check out our show notes. I'm Jason Moser. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on.

Ally is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jason Moser has positions in Alphabet and Starbucks. Matt Frankel has positions in Ally Financial, Redfin, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Hims & Hers Health, Starbucks, Tesla, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Lyft, Novo Nordisk, and Redfin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.