June. It's been real.
The Dow just enjoyed its best June since 1938. The S&P 500 gets a participation trophy for its best 1st-half-of-the-year since 1997.
And markets are set to open higher today on word of a trade war cease-fire the US and China agreed to at the G20 summit this weekend.
FYI, here's your traffic warning/update for the mid-week 4th of July (markets will be out-of-office, too).
Who's up...
Pre-used Gucci has found its home... The RealReal is your verified 2nd-hand luxury online mall — it's got 100 real-life human experts checking that the Chanel bag is 100% Chanel, giving Millennials guilt-free, lower-cost, and high-end all in one place. The fashion reseller's shares jumped 45% on its IPO as investors hope a fancy e-thrift-store concept can scale.
Friends ➡️ frenemies ➡️ enemies... A report about Amazon shipping blew our minds — the percentage of packages it ships itself has grown from 17% just 2.5 years ago to 48% today. And it will continue taking more business away from UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service since it ships faster: Thanks to its superior data, Amazon-delivered packages arrive in 3.2 days vs. the competition's 6 days.
Bitcoin rally part II... Attention's been on the cryptocurrency's price jump to nearly $14K last week before settling closer to $11K. And chip-maker AMD has been along for the ride. Late last year, AMD unveiled fresh new products and services for Bitcoin miners and blockchain-thusiasts. If the latest Bitcoin jump feels like a gold rush, then AMD is selling shovels — making money whether the miners find gold or not.
...And who's down
iProblems... Apple shares dipped 2% on word that Chief Design Officer Jony Ive (the man behind the look/feel of the iPhone, iPad, iPod, OG MacBook, and new Apple HQ) is leaving to start his own company. Then we learned that the new Apple News+ subscription service isn't delivering for the participating magazines and news sites — one publisher said it's getting "one-twentieth" the revenue they expected.
Driving off into the sunset... Tesla's head of production reportedly left the company, with brutal timing — this week Tesla announces its production and delivery numbers for the 2nd quarter. It needs to quiet skeptics who wonder if demand for the Model 3 is slowing. PS: There was another report that Musk's building a secret battery lab.
Pets > People... Lucky Charms pioneer General Mills revealed that its snacks biz is suffering, with sales falling 2% last quarter (the CFO admitted that Fiber One bars "fell out of step" with diet trends). Good thing humans are spending more on their pets than on themselves — GMills' pet food sales surged 38% because it acquired Blue Buffalo last year, along with its fancy meal options for Fido (bison, rabbit, halibut, and alligator are go-to ingredients).
AB-InBev acquires Insta-famous White Girl Rosé to get into canned wine
Omg... Budweiser-owner AB InBev just made its biggest wine acquisition ever: Babe Wine. Josh Ostrovsky — aka comedian The Fat Jewish — launched White Girl Rosé in 2015 during the infamous Hamptons rosé shortage of 2015. His goal was to become "the Bud Light of wine." Now it's official.
Bud's been around forever. Keep it that way... ZX Ventures is Bud's in-house venture capital arm that buys stakes in innovative alcohol ventures since that's cheaper than having to innovate itself. It already had a stake in Babe, and just slurped up the very last of it to become the 100% owner. Here's why it made sense:
- Sales of rosé in America rose 8% last year while beer sales have been slowly declining. White Girl Rosé has that trend covered.
- Sales of canned wine jumped 69% — Babe brand's convenient 12 oz cans of wine "with bubbles" are a big reason for that growth.
- Babe aggressively targets the bachelorette crowd (hello "Party Box") with social media marketing that Bud wants to hang with — model Emily Ratajkowski (23M Insta followers) is Babe's Chief Taste Officer.
Bud needs a better summer drink... Your local 7/11 is likely out of non-beer options labeled "spiked," "hard," and "bubbly." The same trend that's got us hooked on LaCroix over soda has consumers wanting lighter, fruitier summer drinks over beer. Bud rival Constellation Brands was showing off its new non-beer Corona sparkling spin-offs in its earnings report Friday. Now Bud needs some bubbles.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Work: Why your day should end at 3pm
- Life: How 1,000 shopping sites from J. Crew to Walmart deceive us with "dark patterns"
- Money: Understanding PE Ratios — How expensive a stock really is
- Venture: How venture capital works (spoiler alert: "timing is everything")
- Crypto: The best emoji-ish, graphic-y explanation of how blockchain works that we could find
- Do: 5 keys to crafting the perfect "Out of Office" message
This Week
- Monday: OPEC (the authoritarian country club for oil producers) meets in Vienna to decide production amounts
- Tuesday: The USA faces off against England in the World Cup soccer semi-finals
- Wednesday: Earnings from Nascar-owner International Speedway Corp. Markets close early at 1pm ET
- Thursday: Markets closed for Independence Day
- Friday: The big June jobs and unemployment report
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Tesla.