Campeonato de Capacidade de Mercado 2026: Loren contra Emily

In this episode of Rule Breaker Investing, David Gardner hosts the finale to this year’s Market Cap Madness between our Motley Fool analysts, with defending champion Emily Flippen facing off against Cinderella challenger Loren Horst. From elevators to hotel loyalty programs to the strange ways we all think about “blood,” this one takes a few delightfully unexpected turns along the way.

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This podcast was recorded on March 18, 2026.

David Gardner: Round 1 of our March Market Cap Madness two weeks ago saw Cinderella upstart Loren Horst, who's never once yet lost a Market Cap game show, unseat former world champion and Motley Fool Chief Investment Officer, Andy Cross, by a score of 6-4. Then last week, Emily Flippen took on Bill Barker in a rematch of their epic Emily Flippen 1 semifinal a year ago. Once again, Emily prevailed. Such is the madness of March. This week, it's for all the marbles. Undefeated Cinderella, Loren Horst, is back. Reigning world champion Emily Flippen is back. Here you are. You're back, too, for the March Market Cap Madness World Championships. Are you ready to get your market caps on? Let's get ready to rumble. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.

Emily Flippen: It's the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner.

David Gardner: Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. It's our 2026 March Market Cap Madness World Championship with me in studio, our Loren Horst and Emily Flippen with their jester-shaped thinking caps on to see who can out-market cap the other for the grand prize, Loren, Emily, and you. The third player to us, the most important, is you. You're playing along, too, with your spouse or partner, your kids, or your stock market-loving mates who group around the office water cooler as we get ready to crank up our Market Cap Game Show music.

Let me just briefly remind, especially our new players and listeners this week, how this game works. I'll be mentioning a stock. Neither Loren nor Emily knows what stock is coming. I'll turn to one of them to talk a bit about whatever stock they didn't know was coming, and that Fool will do their best to state a numerical range within which the market cap, the value of that company, falls. Now, the other contestant and you playing at home will simply say, I agree, meaning that's accurate. The stock's value falls inside that stated range. Or I disagree. I think it's outside that range. You simply agree or disagree. If you get it right, give yourself a plus one. That's the Market Cap Game Show. We're focused on the real market caps of real stocks, 10 stocks. Thus, a perfect score in the Market Cap Game Show would be 10. Loren Horst, Emily Flippen, congratulations to you both, and welcome.

Loren Horst: Thank you, David.

Emily Flippen: Thanks, David. Surreal to be back.

David Gardner: It is, indeed. Emily, I don't think we've ever had a repeat world champion. A lot of us are cheering you on. Loren, you self-styled yourself the Cinderella candidate, and so far, you've looked like a favorite.

Loren Horst: Yeah, usually, Cinderellas, they have a good start, and then they're knocked out in the second weekend. Let's see if we can keep the momentum going.

David Gardner: Then, Loren, let me turn to you first. Loren Horst is an investment analyst at The Motley Fool, working primarily on the team, Rule Breakers side of our flagship stock advisor service. His time at The Fool started as a temp on the member services team a decade ago, followed by a stint as a product manager working behind the scenes on many of The Motley Fool services. You can find him sharing his thoughts and encouraging newbies in our community as TMFLorenHorst. He holds a degree in economics from Allegheny College and resides in Washington, DC, with his wife, where he enjoys video games and rewatching ‘90s cartoons. Loren, have you rewatched anything in the last week?

Loren Horst: Catching up on “Hey, Arnold” right now.

David Gardner: Let's change gears, Loren. Did you enjoy math growing up? Did you have a favorite math teacher?

Loren Horst: Did I have a favorite math teacher? I did enjoy math growing up. I would have to give a hat tip to Mrs. Rank. Had her three years in high school. She was my AP Calc teacher. She was great.

David Gardner: It sounds like you may have been in a math classroom in high school, roughly, I don't know, 15 years ago, something like that.

Loren Horst: I have a feeling I know where this is going, and if I need to age myself, I am of the TI-83 generation.

David Gardner: That's interesting, you'd mentioned that there is one constant in classrooms. Back then, I assume it's smartphones now, if kids are even allowed to have them, one object sitting on every desk that kind of defined the experience, whether you loved it, or you just tolerated it, TI.

Loren Horst: I'm TI-83.

David Gardner: TI-83. Stock number one is Texas Instruments, ticker symbol TXN, founded in 1930. The company is now one of the world's leading manufacturers of analog and embedded semiconductors used across industrial and consumer applications. But perhaps more famously, TI introduced its first handheld calculator in 1967, helping pioneer the category that later became ubiquitous in classrooms. Loren Horst, what is your stated market cap range for Texas Instruments ticker symbol TXN?

Loren Horst: This is one I have not looked at very closely, but you did mention that it's involved in semiconductors. Its business isn't entirely just high school graphing calculators, of course.

David Gardner: By the way, where are all those calculators now? Is there like some dump heap somewhere with just massive piles of calculators? I have two at home. You still get them on eBay. That probably, in some way, factors into your market cap range that you're coming up with now, Loren.

Loren Horst: Yeah, there's got to be some value there in the shelf life, but I think it is actually bigger than what my initial feelings might have been, what my instinct was. I'm going to throw out a range of $110 billion to $160 billion.

David Gardner: $110 billion to $160 billion. Emily, body language, which I read. I would say, okay, I wouldn't give myself more than five out of 10, but it looked a little bit perplexed.

Emily Flippen: Perplex is the word. I'm mostly kicking myself as somebody who grew up in North Texas, where Texas Instruments is based out of. I knew so many people whose parents or siblings worked for Texas Instruments, and I've unfortunately spent none of my professional career studying Texas Instruments. I think I'm as equally maybe dumbfounded with this question, as it seems like Loren is being, although it's possible Loren is just playing some mind games over here.

David Gardner: Emily, you are officially disagreeing.

Emily Flippen: I'm officially disagreeing.

David Gardner: Give yourself a plus one, because Loren, he had a pretty generous range. It was on the other side of that range. It was $177.50 billion. Texas Instruments is a big dog company. Founded in 1930, as I mentioned. We're just a few years away from the centennial celebration of instruments in Texas. The company didn't just popularize calculators; it actually helped invent the integrated circuit. History will show that TI engineer Jack Kilby built one of the first working microchips in the year 1958, that was a breakthrough that later earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in the year 2000. By the way, the stock was $54 a share 10 years ago this week. It's now about $194 a share. Not bad, tripling over the last 10 years for a company that big.

Emily Flippen: That feels like a very dirty point on my part because Loren's guess was much closer than my own, but I guess that's how the Market Cap Game Show goes.

Loren Horst: I think I had three points last time against Andy from this fashion, of guessing outside and then being on the wrong side.

David Gardner: Let's see if you can both keep that up, constantly getting rewarded for being on the wrong side of the fence. Let's move on to stock number 2. Emily Flippen is an advisor at The Fool, where she helps lead the stock advisor team with fundamental research on companies, particularly those that exemplify our Rule Breaker Investing traits. Outside of her work at The Fool, Emily costarred on Season 45 of “Survivor” a few years back and is presently on the celebratory Season 50 of “Survivor,” which just started this February. Emily may or may not have overcome past failed attempts to train her cats. On one of her past appearances here on the Market Cap Game Show, I shall always remember this December 2024, she got married later that afternoon. Emily, welcome back.

Emily Flippen: Thanks, David. Good to be here.

David Gardner: When you think about, you just mentioned it, Emily, growing up in Texas, what's a place or setting that really stuck with you? Why that one?

Emily Flippen: Oh, gosh, I mean, so many options here. For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind, I think for any Texan, at least the place that came to mind first when I was a kid, the rodeo, of course. My parents would always take me out to Fort Worth to see the stockyard to go to the rodeo. When you're a kid, I mean, that's just mind-boggling.

David Gardner: Loren, have you ever been to a rodeo?

Loren Horst: I don't believe I have.

David Gardner: Nor have I. I love that you've done it, Emily. Obviously, you did it as a little girl. It imprinted itself on your memory. Is this a place you went back to?

Emily Flippen: A few different times, yes, although I have to say, as an adult, I haven't been back as much as I want to. If I could convince some of my friends to go relive those memories, I would.

David Gardner: Stock number 2 is Trimble Incorporated. Ticker symbol TRMB. Trimble provides positioning technology and software using GPS, geospatial data to help industries like construction, agriculture, and transportation measure, map, and manage the physical world. I admit my transition from your rodeo to this company was a little lame.

Emily Flippen: You did your best.

David Gardner: Thanks. Trimble's technology, by the way, used to guide tractors in modern precision agriculture. Sometimes those things are driving themselves these days. But farmers can plant crops in perfectly straight lines with sub-inch accuracy. Emily Flippen, what is your stated market cap range for Trimble, ticker symbol TRMB?

Emily Flippen: My stated market cap range for Trimble is $7.5 to $15.7 billion.

David Gardner: $7.5 to $15.7 billion. Seems like a fairly generous range. Loren, I should mention off the air before we started, we were reflecting back on a mailbag for this podcast, an episode some months ago, where one of our mailbag writers let us know that based on statistics he's gathered over the Market Cap Game Show over the years, the percentage move is to disagree. Now, that's just on its own, objectively interesting. But since we all shared that ahead of time, I've noticed that the ranges for the market caps have gotten a little wider. Are you feeling any of this?

Loren Horst: A little bit, just because, as you said before the show, now that we're aware of it, we're going to play differently because of it. But there's also the question of this is the championship round. These are on this day, maybe the two best players of this game. Will our ranges just be more accurate, or will we end up being on the wrong side of the disagree several times?

David Gardner: We're in too deep to notice. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which I studied in college, reminds us that the very act of observing something like that ahead of time changes the nature of the thing that you're observing. We'll see what players at home right now and Loren think of Emily's $7.5 billion to $15.7 billion range for Trimble. Loren, are you feeling agree or are you feeling disagree?

Loren Horst: I think, and this might just come down to the numbers that Emily chose, $7.5 to $15.7. I've noticed, for myself, I tend to repeat numbers when I'm just throwing something out there, and I really don't know. I'm going to hope that she did the same, whether that was deliberate or just throwing numbers ou