There were nice companies and great CEOs in 2025, but also some duds. We discuss the stocks on each list and end by going shopping for stocks.
In this podcast, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Rachel Warren discuss:
- Stocks on their Nice List.
- Stocks on their Naughty List.
- Discount stocks on their shopping list.
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.
This podcast was recorded on Dec. 24, 2025.
Travis Hoium: What stocks are on our naughty and nice list in 2025? Motley Fool Money starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I’m Travis Hoium, joined by Lou Whiteman and Rachel Warren. Santa is already starting to deliver presents this year, so we thought it’d be fun to talk about some stocks on our nice list and our naughty list. Lou, I want to start on the nice side. What stocks or executives are on your nice list when you look back at 2025?
Lou Whiteman: It pains me to do this because I am so bored of just leaning into the MAG 7, but here I go. I am going to be my own worst enemy. Tops on my nice list. It’s Alphabet. I can’t help myself.
Travis Hoium: Who would have thought that coming into the year?
Lou Whiteman: That’s it exactly. With the narrative coming into 2025 was they were on the naughty list. A lot of worries about OpenAI and other AI innovations, just destroying that search business. How’d that play out? So much for that narrative. They are coming out of this year. Look, stocks up almost 70%. That’s the best return among the MAG 7. They are the biggest name in autonomous, the biggest name in streaming, no offense, Netflix, and increasingly, Gemini looks like the big winner here. I guess all of the search issues aren’t completely answered, but there is at least a compelling answer to what becomes of this business, and it is very nice, I think, shareholders would say.
Travis Hoium: What else? In the AI space, you got to think, especially if you’re looking at MAG 7, Nvidia still had a really good year after just being on an absolute tear. It’s almost a value stock now.
Lou Whiteman: Santa is not going to criticize someone for just doing what they were supposed to, I don’t think. Sometimes just be a good boy, Johnny. That’s all you’re asked to do. Nvidia, they didn’t surprise anyone. They weren’t like the turnaround story, but look, they went out and did exactly what the bulls would hope, and again, very nice. There is some more speculative stuff, too, if you want to get to, and I don’t want to just do the MAG 7.
Travis Hoium: What executives are on your nice list? Because we have talked about a couple of stocks, but there are some pretty interesting leaders this year.
Lou Whiteman: I’m going to go straight to one of my favorite CEOs, Sir Peter Beck, the CEO of Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab has had a heck of a year. It’s a double for 2025. What I love about it I first bought into this company because I love just the engineers mindset that almost, not block out the public markets. Publicly traded CEO, you have to care. But don’t let investor excitement change your timetable. Stick to building the company you want to build. I haven’t seen him change his long-term vision in any way. He is tops on my CEO nice list, and May 2026 and on may there just be more goodness coming out of his company.
Travis Hoium: Rachel, who’s on your nice list this year? I’ve got
Rachel Warren: a few stocks on my nice list this year. There’s so many, but a few that stand out. MercadoLibre is one. This is the leading e-commerce and fin tech giant in Latin America. This is a region where both digital commerce and financial services are still really heavily underpenetrated, compared to other regions. They have a really expansive and impressive growth runway as adoption increases there. They have an incredible history of consistent and rapid revenue growth, 27 consecutive quarters of 30% or more year over year revenue growth. Mercado Libre, they’re continuing to expand their logistics network. They’re leveraging the power of AI to drive efficiency. Just a fantastic and well run business. Switching to a completely different sector, retail, not the most loved space this year, to be sure but TJX.
Travis Hoium: A lot of retail losers this year.
Rachel Warren: There’s been a lot of retail losers this year. A few of them are on naughty list. But TJX Companies is on the nice list. The parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. They’re an off price retailer. They’ve had a really resilient business model. Their smart buying strategies have paid off, and it’s interesting because we’ve seen that that off price treasure hunt model that they deploy tends to really thrive in various economic conditions. They’ve been a really smart buyer of goods. They’ve been really efficient at sourcing and moving their inventory around, so that’s one in the retail space. Finally, Klarna, in the buy now pay later industry. The fintech company, they recently went public in US. They’re gaining significant market share. They’ve got newly launched partnerships with major retailers like Walmart and eBay. Beyond being a traditional buy now pay later business, they operate as a digital bank in Europe, so really fascinating company and one that I think investors should watch going into the new year.
Travis Hoium: Do you think buy now pay later is going to be one of the big pieces of the future of retail, or is this a fad that is popular right now, but maybe we’ll look back and say that, buying your groceries from Walmart on buy now pay later maybe not a great idea?
Rachel Warren: I don’t think it’s a fad. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this is going to be one of many tools in the consumer’s tool kit. There’s probably a different discussion to be had about how wise that can be from a fiscal perspective, depending on what purchases it’s being used for. But I think it’s also proven to be a meaningful tool for a lot of consumers to spread out the financial impact of big purchases. Like it or not, in difficult macro environments, I think we see usage of those tools increase even more. I don’t think that’s going anywhere.
Travis Hoium: When we come back, we are going to talk about some stacks and our naughty list, you’re listening to Motley Fool Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We’ve talked about the stocks on our nice list, but we also have a naughty list here. Lou, who hasn’t been so good this year in the stock market?
Lou Whiteman: We checked our list, checked it twice, and first off, we got to go to Washington and we got to go to antitrust regulations.
Travis Hoium: No.
Lou Whiteman: They were naughty, and the best thing, though, as we tell our kids, if you’re naughty, you have to see the consequences. They saw high profile defeats in big tech cases. Alphabet, looking at you. Anything to say about them? But also, look at what happened this year with some of the companies that they blocked big deals and what became of those companies? This preserve competition. Shout out to Spirit Airlines. They were unable to be acquired by JetBlue. They did the coveted Chapter 22 this year, Travis. That’s two separate Chapter 11 filings. Great job there, regulators. iRobot. Remember? Remember when they want to sell the Amazon?
Travis Hoium: I remember them. They were supposed to be the future robotics.
Lou Whiteman: Apparently, they were, and so we can’t let Amazon own that. They ended up liquidated to their Chinese vendor.
Travis Hoium: The idea there was Amazon can’t have the data, but now China has it, so maybe not a great win.
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