In this episode of Motley Fool Rule Breaker Investing, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner welcomes Motley Fool analyst Yasser El-Shimy and longtime Fool producer and personality Mac Greer for 10 companies spanning cloud software, credit cards, Norwegian energy, sleep apnea, community banking, rare-earth minerals, biotech real estate, and 78,000 miles of pipelines.
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A full transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on Sept. 23, 2026.
David Gardner: The price per share of a stock tells you almost nothing. It's one number. But how many shares exist? In math, you multiply two factors. Price times shares outstanding. Without the second of those, well, you can't do meaningful math or understand much of the market. Fools with a capital F know that price times shares equals market capitalization, a company's actual price tag.
To make that lesson stick, we invented a game. On August 9th, 2017, the Market Cap Game Show was born, and we've played it every quarter since. You're playing, too. Against my guest stars, against your spouse, your kids. Can you outscore my talented contestants? It's that time again: 10 new stocks, three guest stars, two of my favorite Fools, longtime Motley Fool producer and personality Mac Greer and all-star analyst and advisor Yasser El-Shimy, and you.
Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.
Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. This is the Market Cap Game Show played here in September 2026. For the 43rd time. Joining me this week are Mac Greer and Yasser El-Shimy, and they will be competing for one of our coveted four seats in our upcoming 2027 March Market Cap Madness Final Four, headlined by defending two-time defending world champion Emily Flippen.
Of course, the third player, and to us the most important, is you. That's right. You, our dear fellow Foolish listener. Just a quick reminder to you as we play along: the market cap is a simple way to measure the value of stocks of public companies. You simply multiply today's share price by the number of shares outstanding, and that gives you the market cap.
These days, market caps range from $4 trillion or so. At the high end, companies like Nvidia and Apple, right down to, well, it can be a quite low number in some cases, and no spoilers, we might have some of those today.
As my producer Bart begins to crank up our signature Market Cap Game Show music, let me just remind, especially new listeners, new players, how the game works. I'll be mentioning a stock. Neither Mac nor Yasser knows what stock is coming. I'll turn to one of them and ask that Fool, to state a numerical range within which the market cap falls, his best estimate. The other contestant and you playing at home, we'll simply say, "I agree," meaning it's accurate, the stock's value falls inside that range, or "I disagree." I think it's outside that stated range. You simply agree or disagree, and if you get it right, give yourself a plus one.
Now, we did add one new rule. For the first time in Market Cap Game Show history, we played it last time I liked it, so we're going to stick with it here. It's the King-Sharon rule, which essentially means that when you, one of my two contestants, Mac or Yasser, when you decide the other guy is wrong, it's outside his stated range.
You can now say, "I think it's higher than that. Or lower than that." If you do that and you're right, you get an extra half point. You have an opportunity to bet a half point if you're confident you know which direction the stock was outside your opponent's stated range. Now, if you're wrong, well, you're going to lose a half point.
You'll still get a half point for saying "outside," but that is the King-Sharon rule. Gentlemen, any questions about that?
Mac Greer: Clear as day?
Yasser El-Shimy: No questions.
David Gardner: Excellent. That's the Market Cap Game Show. We're focused on the real market caps of real stocks. Nobody knows the next stock that's coming. A perfect score would be, well, it used to be 10, but now I think it's something like 12.5. Yasser El-Shimy is a senior investment analyst at The Motley Fool who covers a wide range of companies, especially small- and medium-cap and international markets. He works as the advisor for global partners, The Motley Fool Service for International Investing. Yasser has a background in political risk and policy analysis as well. In his free time, Yasser, you like to garden, play squash, watch soccer. Study Italian. Welcome back, Yasser El-Shimy.
Yasser El-Shimy: Hi, David, I'm so happy to be back. I have had a very long losing streak on this show. I'm hoping to turn it around this time.
David Gardner: I appreciate that, Yasser. You have also won in the past. Let's get started. Yasser, I want to start our September 2026 Market Cap Game Show with a question to you about work. Think back across all the jobs you've had in your life. What's one job or one particular task within a job that you hope never to have to do again?
Yasser El-Shimy: Oh, my God. I don't know if it qualifies exactly as a job, but I did a PhD, and part of doing a PhD was writing a dissertation, basically a book-length paper arguing something nobody has ever argued before. It was not exactly something that they trained us for. They didn't give us a manual on how to write a dissertation. It was more like, you've taken enough classes. Now go write a dissertation. That was probably the most challenging job I've ever had to do in my life. No guidance, no manual. Just figure it out.
David Gardner: Title of your dissertation, Yasser.
Yasser El-Shimy: Here's a funny part. I made a decision as I was writing that dissertation that once I'm done, I'm going to host a dissertation burning party afterwards because I just hated the process so much. The process took such a toll on me and so many years of my life that, I actually spent something like six months working on a desk over 12 hours a day just to write. One of those times I got out of my chair, and I literally tore my calf muscle.
David Gardner: That is horrific. But wait, what was the topic?
Yasser El-Shimy: The topic was civil-military relations and the relationship to democratization. Now you thought the funniest, not the lightest stuff.
David Gardner: Have you thought much about it since?
Yasser El-Shimy: Over the years, sure, but thankfully, ever since I joined the Fool, I have not had to think about it.
David Gardner: I'm glad to know that. There are probably some things that almost nobody loves doing at work, filling out expense reports for a lot of people, maybe choosing benefits. Requesting time off, completing performance reviews, and increasingly, a lot of those mundane moments of working life happen in one place, which brings us to Stock No.
1. Workday, ticker symbol WDAY, provides cloud software that companies use to manage their people and their money, human resources, payroll, financial management, spending, planning. More than 11,500 organizations use Workday, including more than 65% of the Fortune 500, representing more than 80 million users under contract.
These days, Workday is increasingly building AI agents into those same everyday business processes. Yasser El-Shimy, what is your stated market cap range for Workday? Ticker symbol WDAY?
Yasser El-Shimy: My stated market cap range is 28-38 billion.
David Gardner: Twenty-eight billion to 38 billion. Yasser, is this a stock that you own yourself?
Yasser El-Shimy: It's not a stock I own, nor have I covered. However, I'm familiar with The firm and what it does.
David Gardner: Mac, do you own some WDAY in the Greer folio?
Mac Greer: I do not. I'm not familiar with Workday, and I would bet heavily on Yasser. I'm not a betting man, but not just for this question, but for the entire game. [LAUGHTER] If I could bet, I would bet on Yasser.
David Gardner: I understand. But you can't. You have to compete against him. Yasser, players at home, and Mac said 28-38 billion. Mac, do you want to agree with that range or disagree with that range?
Mac Greer: I'm going to disagree.
David Gardner: You have disagreed. Would you like to press it? King-Sharon rule, by saying you think it's higher or lower or just leave it be and enjoy a point if you're right? Yes. I'm going to go higher. I think there is a lot of work. There are a lot of days. I'm going higher. [OVERLAPPING] We're doing this, by the way, on the first day of autumn. How about that? It's the autumnal equinox. Players at home. If you also disagreed with Yasser's range and said, "It's higher than that." Give yourself a point and a half, because Mac, you are right. Workday, market cap, 45.36 billion. Not a bad guess at all. Yasser, how confident were you when you threw out your range?
Yasser El-Shimy: I would say I was about 80% confident. I think the stock was recently actually within that range, and it has experienced a bit of a spike lately, but I purposefully went under because I was trying to trick Mac. [LAUGHTER].
David Gardner: Brilliantly done. I would like to point out, not that Mac would probably want me to do this, but I went back and checked Mac's last appearance on this show, and he was competing against Emily Flippen, our world champion. I believe Emily may have won that game 9-1, which means, Mac, you have already outscored your entire output in the first question answered this game.
Mac Greer: Can I quit now or?
David Gardner: No. [LAUGHTER] By the way, here's a number that gives you some sense of just how much invisible work flows through Workday. Company says its platform now generates about 1.4 trillion transactions a year. That's people, they're clicking request vacation, but they're also doing an enormous flow of personnel, financial spending, planning, activity occurring behind the scenes at thousands of organizations around the world. Mac, 1.5. Yasser zero. Let's move on to Stock No. 2. By the way, all of these market caps are as of market close Tuesday, September 22nd.
Mac Greer is a long-time producer with The Motley Fool. He works on our quarterly call. Premium podcasts, stock reveals, and Fool events. He's also responsible for booking some of the greatest guests in Motley Fool history. Mac, just a quick rogues' gallery of some of your bookings for The Motley Fool over the years. Mr.
Rogers, Billie Jean King, Weird Al, Loretta Lynn, the San Diego Chicken. I have to cut you off right there. You could keep going, but that's pretty great. I got to be part of a lot of those. Mac, thank you for all you've done for the Motley Fool over the years. Outside The Fool, Mac enjoys spending time with his family, going to and thinking about Costco.
Navigating his beagle's separation anxiety. I'm not sure we'll get into that this week, but maybe we will and driving stick shift. Welcome back Mac Greer.
Mac Greer: Thanks, David.
David Gardner: Stock No. 2, Mac, you've spent much of your career communicating with people for a living, radio, podcasts, video, live events. Take me back to the Mac Greer of, let's say, 1995. What part of how you and I communicate professionally today would absolutely astonish Mac Greer in 1995?
Mac Greer: 1995. I was working for a nonprofit here, working with high school students for the Close Up Foundation and talking about civics education, taking them around DC. We'd go to New York. We'd go to Williamsburg.
David Gardner: Nice.
Mac Greer: Just setting the stage here. Well, there's a whole Internet thing that's happened since then. I'm going to say the Internet. Just the Internet.
David Gardner: Well, one of the greatest changes in our working lives in part, thanks to the Internet, is that somewhere along the way, a meeting stopped necessarily being a place that you would go to. One company has done so much to make that happen. It's company name today, something pretty close to a verb. Let's Zoom.
I'll Zoom you. We're on a Zoom. Of course, there was a moment in 2020 when an awful lot of us were zooming an awful lot. Zoom Communications. Ticker symbol ZM, founded in 2011, started out trying to make video conferencing simple and frictionless. Today, well, it's a bit broader than video meetings. Mac Greer, what is your stated market cap range for Zoom Communications, ticker symbol ZM?
Mac Greer: I should know this, because I'm a shareholder. A sad Zoom shareholder.
David Gardner: I understand. It hasn't been a great few years.
Mac Greer: It has not been a great more than a few years.
David Gardner: You're right. [LAUGHTER] It got a Zoom bump, didn't it?
Mac Greer: It did.
David Gardner: It had our recommendation on it. It was on fire.
Mac Greer: What's the top part of the bump called? Because that's where I bought it.
David Gardner: The peak.
Mac Greer: Yes, the peak. That's the word I'm looking for. I'm going to say 50-100 billion.
David Gardner: Pretty broad range. 50billion-100 billion for Zoom Communications. Yasser, have you ever used Zoom before?
Yasser El-Shimy: I use it every day. Almost every day.
David Gardner: Fire me. That's such a ridiculous question. [LAUGHTER] Mac has said 50-100 billion. Yasser, players at home, would you like to agree with that range or disagree with that range?
Yasser El-Shimy: It's funny because if you look at my notes, I was trying to guess with Mac what the market cap might be.
David Gardner: That's the best practice. You're writing right along with your opponent as he's thinking. I like it.
Yasser El-Shimy: One number I wrote was $100 billion, but that was the start of the range. I thought it might be higher. I'm going to disagree with Mac and go for higher.
David Gardner: Disagree. Yasser, you've said higher. The correct answer is the market cap for Zoom Communications. Remember how it hasn't done that well the last few years? $26.54 billion. The good news for Yasser.
Yasser El-Shimy: Did I say higher?
David Gardner: You were right to disagree with the range. You do get a point minus a half point for thinking it was even bigger than that. Friends, it has been a tough few years for shareholders.
Mac Greer: It has been. That's half what I thought.
David Gardner: Zoom founder Eric Yuan knew this business before starting Zoom. He was one of WebX's founding engineers. He stayed after Cisco acquired WebEx, and eventually he left Cisco in 2011 to start his own video communications company. Zoom meetings launched two years later. I should mention that The firm isn't actually called Zoom Video Communications anymore.
In 2024, it changed its corporate name just back to Zoom Communications, reflecting its effort to become more than just a video conferencing product. The score is Mac 1.5, Yasser one-half. Players at home? How you doing? Keep it up. Let's move on to Stock Number 3. Yasser, I'm going to give you a phrase. I'd like you to tell me what comes to mind.
Are you ready?
Yasser El-Shimy: I'm ready.
David Gardner: Status symbol.
Yasser El-Shimy: Status symbol. Luxury car, luxury watch, maybe a purse.
David Gardner: I agree. Those are all good examples. A status symbol. Something that people acquire or wear, drive, as you said, carry, or do, partly because it communicates status. Mac Greer, same question to you. What's a status symbol you notice out there in 2026?
Mac Greer: I think a watch because you don't see watches. I was going to say Crocs. But then I realize that maybe that's just me.
David Gardner: I love my Crocs.
Mac Greer: Do you go Crocs with socks? Because I go Crocs with socks.
David Gardner: I love the phrase.
Yasser El-Shimy: But I'm not sure what's status. [LAUGHTER] You're exactly communicating.
David Gardner: I agree that I don't wear my Crocs thinking that people think I'm rocking my Crocs with socks.
Mac Greer: I get looks.
David Gardner: You do.
Mac Greer: But no, I would say a luxury watch.
David Gardner: Very valid. I guess part of what we just did is we just raised the possibility that sometimes the object itself, the status symbol itself, isn't especially valuable. It's what everybody has agreed that that object means. For decades, one company has been particularly good at turning a little rectangle of plastic or, these days, sometimes metal.
Into exactly that, American Express, ticker symbol AXP, one of the world's largest payments companies, unlike Visa and Mastercard, American Express operates what is known as a closed-loop network. It issues many of the cards. It runs the payment network itself. It maintains direct relationships with the merchants accepting them, and surrounding all of that is the membership ecosystem, rewards, travel, airport lounges, dining, experiences that's helped make cards like Platinum and Centurion brands unto themselves.
Stock Number 3, is a throwdown.That's right.
It's throwdown time. Pencils out, Fools. Yasser and Mac will now write down their best market cap range for American Express, ticker symbol AXP. Once they share their ranges, players at home, your job is to pick the contestant you think made the better guess. You simply say Yasser or Mac. If you're right, score a point.
Now, as they think of their guesses, a bit more on how this works, if only one of them gets the market cap range right, well, of course, the correct guess wins the point, but if both are right. Well, then the contestant with the tighter range takes the point, but what if they're both wrong? Well, I can't now recall for sure whether that could ever have happened on this show before.
But supposing this ever should happen, if they both miss, we measure proximity. It's the Barker protocol. Whosever nearest parameter is closest to the true market cap will win the points. We do this twice every show. Let's do it. Stock Number 3 is American Express, and I'll now turn to Yasser. First, Yasser, what is your stated market cap range for AXP?
Yasser El-Shimy: Four hundred to $500 billion.
David Gardner: Four hundred billion to $500 billion. Mac Greer, what do you have written down on your orange post-it note?
Mac Greer: I have 150-200.
David Gardner: One hundred and fifty to $200 billion. Players at home, your goal is now simply to say, who you think has it right. I'm going to give you three seconds, and then you're going to say their name. Ready, three, two, one. You said it. It just so happens American Express falls in between both of my talented guests' ranges, which technically means neither of them got it right. But then the question is, who got closer? The market cap, as of Tuesday, market close, for American Express is $206.02 billion. Mac, your 150-200 was awfully close, and you get a point.
Mac Greer: That's a six. That's a 206.
David Gardner: You're lying. [LAUGHTER] Mac is referencing his handwriting on the orange Post-it note, and your zero doesn't at all look like a six. But it's good enough for a point, Mac, because that was a pretty darn good guess.
Mac Greer: I'll take it.
David Gardner: Again, if you said, Mac, give yourself a point. Long before American Express moved money, it moved stuff. I had to go back and look this up. I had forgotten. The firm was founded in 1850 as a freight forwarding business. It was transporting packages and valuables across a growing America. It didn't introduce its first charge card until the 1950s. That's a full century after The firm started. Here's a wonderfully obsolete-sounding Amex innovation that some of us probably both of you guys, but at least Mac, because you're the oldest in this room. I know you're going to remember this wonderfully obsolete-sounding innovation, the American Express Traveler's Check.
Mac Greer: Absolutely.
David Gardner: The year was 1891. They invented them back then. You can't buy new ones anymore, but old American Express Travelers' Checks still have no expiration date, Mac, and can still be redeemed.
Mac Greer: I'm old enough to remember if you traveled to Europe, like in the '80s, the first time