Industry Focus

There's reason to believe that they will. It's been nearly eight years since the financial crisis, yet Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is still earning half as much money as it should be given its size. In this episode of Industry Focus: Financials, The Motley Fool's Gaby Lapera and John Maxfield discuss the role that Bank of America's 2008 purchase of Merrill Lynch plays in its subpar profitability. Thanks to Audible for supporting this episode. Get a free 30-day trial at audible.com/fool.

We discuss stock splits, the strategy behind them, and why Facebook announced they were using C shares to offer investors a 3-to-1 split.

If Tesla Motors plans for growth and its new Model 3 weren't ambitious enough, it now wants to make it all happen by 2018. Plus, earnings from Royal Dutch Shell, BHP Billiton & Vale's nightmare situation, and we dip into the mailbag.  

Discussing the details behind the FDA's negative vote on Sarepta's DMD drug and Gilead Sciences' sliding hepatitis C sales.

At $3.8 billion, Dreamworks founder and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg called the buyout “the deal I’d always hoped would come along.” But after a major restructuring and string of box office disappointments for the animation studio, is Comcast getting its money’s worth?

Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting is often referred to as “Woodstock for capitalists.”  Join us to learn why… from someone who was there!

We call on old Industry Focus host Nathan Hamilton to run through Apple’s recent earnings report and provide some perspective on how the company has changed in the past year.

What we got right and what we got incredibly wrong in our predictions for the energy sector two years ago.

Some things never change – and in healthcare, we sometimes feel like we’re talking about the same stuff year in and year out. Join us as we cover some stories that were a big deal in 2014, check in on how they’re going now, and predict some major trends in 2018.

We welcome fellow Fool Mark Reeth this week to look back at some of the top consumer and retail investing stories from his time covering the industry.

Industry Focus: Financials gets in its time machine to check in with David Hanson, one of the former hosts of the show. Gaby Lapera and David chat about his investing hypotheses for mega banks from two years ago and whether or not they still hold up. Is everything different? Have things changed at all? Tune in to find out.

As companies start to report earnings, we take a look at some of the big themes from the energy, industrial manufacturing, and airlines sector. Plus, investors fight back against excessive CEO pay and whether you should be excited about the Saudi Aramco IPO on the New York Stock exchange  

Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel are two of the most successful tech investors around; tune in to learn their secrets.

Make more profit-friendly decisions by developing a specific and repeatable process for evaluating stocks.

The sporting goods industry has become the latest example of how competition and disruption are forcing everyone from big box chains to mom and pop stores to adapt to the new world order in retail.

Bank stocks are up, but only because the largest U.S. banks did less bad than Wall Street expected. On this financials edition of the Motley Fool’s Industry Focus podcast, host Gaby Lapera and analyst Jay Jenkins try to make sense of the good, the bad, and the downright ugly first quarter numbers at the nation’s largest banks.

We swear capital allocation is sexy! On this episode we explain what it is, the different strategies businesses use for maximizing shareholder value, and profile two companies – one that has done a great job... and one that hasn’t.

Peabody Energy's Chapter 11 filing this week has led to many saying "it's the brutal coal market", but we take a look at why there is much more to the story. Plus: dividend cuts at National Oilwell Varco, Alcoa's earnings, and what's on our radar.

Intuitive Surgical's robotic surgery and Illumina's DNA sequencers are reshaping healthcare.

The state of Macau in 2016: a look at how bad the regulations have hurt, and how a few companies are working to recover.