Hey Snackers,
We hope your week is as effortlessly successful as a duct-taped plantain: the banana taped to a wall that sold for $150K at Art Basel last year has been donated to the Guggenheim... without the banana.
Stocks fell for the 4th week straight, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained as Big Tech shares jumped on Friday and House Dems prepped a $2.4T stimulus.
On the pod: Vail Resorts' ski/board mountains shut down in March, but the stock is up 40% since. Our 15-minute pod whips up a pre-season snow report.
Amazon's latest (shocking) product is a flying drone roommate
Sounds like a mashup of 1984 + The Circle... Bezos was clearly doing some reading this summer. Amazon's hardware strategy has achieved the creativity level of a dystopian novel (congrats). At its big hardware event on Thursday, the Zon unveiled new products just in time for the holidays. If your wishlist includes giving your home ears, a mouth, and all-seeing eyes, Amazon's got just the thing. In order of least threatening to borderline terrifying:
- Echo: A new line of orb-shaped Echo speakers with improved response time for Alexa voice commands (she's listening). The kids version looks like an adorable panda.
- Echo Show 10: Amazon's new smart display video monitor tracks you as you move (for pacing on Zoom calls). You can also use it as a remote camera "to check in on the dog."
- Always Home Cam: Amazon's new $250 Ring camera is a drone that flies around your house recording you.
Stealing your roommate's pad-thai... Don't even think about it — Bobby is Always Home, even when he's out. The new drone cam uses a map of your house to independently fly around and patrol strange noises (hmm) when activated. Then, it casts the footage back to your phone. Amazon bizarrely calls this “privacy you can hear” (because: drone sounds).
Convenience = control... The more convenient a product is, the more consumers have increasingly let it control their lives. Apple controls our communication lives with iPhone. Amazon controls our shopping lives with Prime. We're willing to give over our personal data (and our $$$) because of the immense convenience these products provide. But Always Home Cam tests the limits of privacy concerns over actual value.
Who's up...
Dunkaroos are back... General Mills makes Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, and everything else you ate when you were 12. GM's sales popped 10% last quarter — surprising, since cereal sales have fallen each year for the last decade. Instead of hitting the bagel shop pre-work, you're pouring Cheerios at home. But GM's terrified you'll return to pre-pandemic eating ways, so it's doing some "Relevant Innovation" with new products like: Starburst-flavored Yoplait and Go-Gurt Slushies (niiice).
Not the chewy bar... GoodRx is a price comparison app for prescription drugs that offers pharmacy discounts. It raised a healthy $1B in its IPO from "VIP" institutional investors. Then, the stock soared 53% Wednesday after going public on the Nasdaq (for the rest of us). Unlike most tech IPOs, GoodRx is profitable. In the 1st half of 2020, it made almost as much profit as it did in all of 2019. It's the #1 most downloaded medical app because it's filling two major healthcare gaps: lack of affordability and lack of simplicity.
...and who's down
Just can't seem to hash it out... Aurora Cannabis had a buzzkill year. The Canadian pot producer lost $2.5B last year and expects another sales decline this quarter. Shares sank 30% on Wednesday to a 4-year low and are down ~80% this year. Aurora has grown much more cannabis than there's actually demand for, and lower prices hurt sales. The pandemic-buying pop appears to be over, so rival Canopy's stock also dipped.
They see me rollin'... Rough week for Nikola. First, short-seller Hindenburg dropped a bombshell report accusing the e-truck maker of being "an intricate fraud." Example: a truck that Nikola described as "In Motion" in a video was actually just... rolling down a hill. Then, the SEC and the DOJ started investigating. Then, Nikola's founder resigned as Exec Chairman, potential partners reportedly stalled talks, and the stock got downgraded. Finally, Tesla claimed Nikola stole its truck designs. The stock plunged 22% for the week.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Shop: 29 psychological tricks companies use to make you buy more (the medium popcorn was all a lie).
- Dress: The science behind WFH dressing for Zoom — apparently what you wear while working actually matters (oops).
- Solve: How Bill Gates approaches problem-solving — don't reinvent the wheel, adopt it.
- Watch: The best 50 movies on Netflix right now, in case you're 70 episodes deep into a Slovakian soap opera.
- Eat: What are superfoods, really? Here's 34 to add to your diet (from goji berries to, uh... popcorn).
- Achieve: The 5 characteristics of true grit that make you better equipped to handle life's challenges.
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This Week
- Monday: Earnings expected from Cal-Maine Foods (aka America's largest egg producer)
- Tuesday: The first presidential debate. Earnings expected from Micron
- Wednesday: Earnings expected from Enerpac
- Thursday: Weekly jobless claims. Earnings expected from Pepsi, Constellation Brands, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Conagra Brands
- Friday: We find out the unemployment rate for September
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Amazon, Apple, and Google
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