Hey Snackers,
Date night stress? We noticed a dating app and a restaurant reservation app hooked up to find the perfect spot for your next dinner.
Markets dipped slightly Wednesday as earnings season gets its groove on.
Netflix added almost 7M subscribers last quarter (and is targeting your TV time)
100% of investors should have liked this... Netflix shares surged 10% after releasing its 3rd quarter earnings report. That's better than the previous quarter, when the stock dropped by the same amount. Get a comfy seat on the couch and let's compare:
- Q2 (Apr – Jun): 2.7M new subscribers.
- Q3 (July – Oct): 6.8M new subscribers.
The reason's in the seasons... CEO Reed Hastings explained away Q2's weakness by blaming the new shows, which were duds. But in Q3, all eyeballs were on Netflix's seasons on seasons of new content.
- Bingeable in the USA: "Stranger Things" Season 3 set a Netflix record 64M households tuning in the first 4 weeks after its July launch. And 32M checked out "Unbelievable."
- Bingeable abroad: Since 98% of subscriber growth the past 6 months has been international, Netflix invested in non-English hits like "The House of Paper" (about a Spanish heist) and "The Naked Director" (about a Japanese porn director). "Terrace House" is our personal fave. 130 seasons of non-English content hit in 2020.
Netflix is above the streaming wars... A "benchmark" is the standard you compare your performance to (for LeBron, it's Jordan. For Beyoncé, it's Madonna). Netflix prefers to benchmark itself against old-school cable TV.
- Netflix has over twice as many paying subscribers (158M) as rival Hulu (76M).
- But it gets just 10% as much viewing as old school American TV.
- So although it's miles ahead of streaming competition, it's miles behind TV — and it thinks all this streaming competition will just accelerate cord-cutting.
GM's longest strike in 49 years is about to end — and markets reacted rationally
You're gonna have to fix that carburetor solo... 48K car-crafting General Motors employees spent the last 30 days on strike — GM's longest walkout since 1970. The union and the car giant reached a tentative labor contract after CEO Mary Barra finally intervened last weekend. But here are the key $$$ numbers:
- $2B: That's the estimated hit GM's business suffered while employees picketed.
- $800M: That's the size of the United Automobile Workers union's “strike and defense fund” — it's been paying out-of-work union humans $275/week during the strike.
So what's in the trunk?... Details aren't public yet (and Union members still have to vote in favor of the deal). But early reports show the month-long strike got the union 3%-4% annual raises/bonuses for workers, a $9B investment by GM in American factories, and thousands of new jobs. And temp workers will have a path to become full-time ones.
GM’s stock price during the strike shows that markets are rational... Investors punished GM shares by almost the perfect amount — the same amount as the lost profits caused by the strike. Here's how the numbers break down:
- Losses to GM: $2B. We mentioned that the strike cost the company an estimated $2B in losses while cars weren't being produced.
- Losses to GM's stock: $2.5B. GM's stock price dipped 5% during the strike, meaning the company lost $2.5B in market value (5% of GM's $52B market cap = $2.5B)
Stock markets often seem emotional and erratic, but they can be rational, too.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Worldly: Under Armour unveils Earth's 1st-ever commercial space suit, designed for Virgin Galactic's future voyages
- Payday: MGM just sold off 2 of its top Vegas casinos to bring home $5B
- Bacon: Pork prices in China have surged 70% from last year because swine flu is messing with supply
- TBD: United's CEO admits that "no one knows" when those Boeing 737 Max jets will actually return to flying people around
- Stamped: Sprint and T-Mobile's long-awaited merger is officially approved by the FCC, but it still needs to settle with a bunch of states suing it
- Slower: US retail sales surprisingly fell for the first time in 7 months
Thursday
- Earnings from Morgan Stanley, E-Trade, and Honeywell
ID: 985093