J.D. DURKIN: Good morning, subscribers. Chris Versace and I are back to answer some of your biggest questions on how to make the most of your membership. Chris, good morning.
CHRIS VERSACE: Good morning, J.D. .
JD DURKIN: Great to have you here, my man. Let's kick things off with a talk about weekly podcasts. For members that may have heard them, but say, hey-- or heard about them, but say, hey, I actually don't know where to go, what's the deal here? Where can members find them and tell us what they can expect to hear when they tune in?
CHRIS VERSACE: So the best place to find them is, of course, going to be on the AAP page. We post them once a week, and then we recap them again in each week's roundup. So those are two good places there. If you're traveling or doing whatever, you can't access the page, Apple Podcasts. Spotify podcasts should have them as well. As far as what the, excuse me, podcasts are, they're one of the favorite things that I get to do each week for a couple of different reasons.
One, I can talk to other AAP members about the market share, our conversations with members kind of behind the curtain, if you will. But we also have conversations with CEOs and other parts of company management teams, kind of giving members a non-deal roadshow view on a company, right?
And why I like these conversations, aside from the fact that I ask questions and they get answered, is the understanding that it brings to us for not only that particular company and its position, but the industry that it's in. And we can filter those thoughts back into our thinking, either for existing AAP positions or perhaps companies we're contemplating for the bullpen.
J.D. DURKIN: OK, very cool. And for people who don't know, what is the name of the podcast? What should they be searching for?
CHRIS VERSACE: That's a great question. We try to keep it very simple here. It's called the AAP Podcast.
J.D. DURKIN: There we go, folks. You heard it here. All right, we've got lots of questions on why ChargePoint has maintained its one rating. Chris, remind us what it means to be a 1. And why does ChargePoint get a 1?
CHRIS VERSACE: Continue to get that rating? Great question. So a 1 rating is simply buying now. So if you're a new member, these are the names that you should be buying now. And if you're an existing member and you've got some extra cash or your position is underweight where we have in the portfolio, this is one of the areas that you can comfortably, in our view, continue to buy now.
So as far as ChargePoint in and of itself, let's remember that thesis, right? Rising EV adoption is going to spur a pain point known as EV charging. We also have infrastructure spending dollars that are going to help fund the build-out of the National EV charging network, but we also have private companies that are investing in the space as well, whether it's Starbucks, Walmart, or McDonald's. So we see a rising tide in EV charging.
And I'll give you a data point that we talked about earlier this week. Bloomberg Green, which tracks the developments in the green economy, came out with a study. And it said that 23 countries have passed a key tipping point for EV adoption. And that data point is over 5% of new vehicle sales for EVs. So as it relates to ChargePoint, remember about 25% of its business is outside the US. So we see all of this extremely positive for ChargePoint shares.
J.D. DURKIN: Absolutely. OK, appreciate that context. Now given the state of the markets, Chris, you've made lots of references to your shopping list in recent alerts. You and I even talked about that earlier in the week. What do you mean by shopping list? And how can members better keep track of the stocks that you are most closely following?
CHRIS VERSACE: So think of when you go to the grocery store, right? Before you go, you want to be prepared. You want to know what you're interested in buying. You scribble down your list-- your shopping list, if you will. And that's exactly what we've done with the portfolio, right?
Whenever we add new positions to the portfolio or we have just started a new position, we want to be mindful of where do we want to pick these up because we want to continue to build our position, preferably at favorable prices, because we see either a combination of favorable fundamentals, thematics, or perhaps technicals. So we try to use all of that. So each week, it'd be a company, section-- or, sorry, the portfolio section of the roundup. We always list out the companies that are on our portfolio and shopping list for the coming week. So that's a great place, but we tend to refer to it elsewhere during the week as well.
J.D. DURKIN: All right, there you go, folks. We've got a question from a retired investor about how the club approaches dividend stocks, and how they could play a part in the portfolio in the future. How important are dividend stocks in the portfolio?
CHRIS VERSACE: Well, first off, I love dividend stocks, right? For a number of different reasons. With the AAP portfolio in particular, whenever we get a dividend payment from a holding, it credits our cash. So it actually gives us more firepower to buy other stocks. But, generally speaking, dividends are great because they provide another way to value a particular stock. And in particular, I like companies that have rising dividends, or a rising dividend policy.
The reason behind that is, typically, as dividends get paid and they go higher, that's kind of a step function higher in stock price as well. So they're great. And we always look for good opportunities. If we have the preference between a stock that is in a particular end market, similar exposure to another one, similar valuation, odds are we'll give the nod to the one that has the dividend stream.
J.D. DURKIN: OK, cool. And finally here, remind us what it means if a stock is in the bullpen. We use the phrase a lot. We want to help demystify it for someone who hears it and says, I actually don't really know what that means. What does that mean?
CHRIS VERSACE: So let's go to baseball, right? I think you're a big baseball fan. The Mets, I believe, right?
J.D. DURKIN: Unfortunately, the Yankees, but it's bad either way here in New York these days.
CHRIS VERSACE: OK, so, as you know, when it comes to baseball, they have something usually out in the outfield called the bullpen where they kind of warm-up a pitcher, a relief pitcher that might have to come in and maybe save the day. Now in our case, we're not looking to save the day in the portfolio. Rather, we're just kind of looking at a stock.
Perhaps, the fundamentals are improving. Perhaps, the valuation is improving. We want to keep our eye on it. We may call it in to the bullpen. Sorry, call from the bullpen to the portfolio. Maybe not, right? It has to be the right situation at the right time, but we want to share with members some of the things that we're thinking about, what we're contemplating.
We had McDonald's in the bullpen before we called it up. Qualcomm as well. I think currently, we still have Kellogg is in there. Morgan Stanley. These are some of the names that we're watching, again, for the right circumstances to emerge to call them up to the portfolio.
J.D. DURKIN: I love that. And I wonder if all the stocks in the bullpen have their own entrance music for when you call them out and they're ready for prime time, right?
CHRIS VERSACE: They do, but I'm not ready to share that yet.
J.D. DURKIN: See, I like that. Nor should you until they're ready to come out of the bullpen, right? Because that's when you hear Enter Sandman is when Mariano Rivera takes the field.
CHRIS VERSACE: That is near and dear to my hokie heart.
J.D. DURKIN: There you go, my man. All right, folks that's going to do it for today. Please continue sending any and all questions to aapclub@thestreet.com. Thank you for watching. Thank you. It's nice to have you here, my friend.
CHRIS VERSACE: Love being here.
J.D. DURKIN: We'll see you again soon.