The Best One Yet - 👉 “3.3M Americans laid off in 1 week” — Lime'de-horned. Target’s neglected profit puppies. The economic pain begins.

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Fresh after the latest two-trillion-dollar stimulus package, we got news of the red wedding week for American workers — 3.3M filed for unemployment last week. E-scooter legend Lime already pulled out of 99% of the cities it scoots around in, but a new fundraise could drop its valuation by 80%. And you’d think Target is living its best life right now, but a surprise report reveals that its profit puppies are getting no love.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Friday, March 27. Nick, I got to tell you, we've had a nice little run the past few days. Talk to me. What kind of numbers we've working with over there, Jack? The Dow was up 11% Tuesday, up 2% Wednesday, up 6% yesterday.

I'm going to add all that app, subtract the two, carry the 9. That means we've got a 20% gain, and that means you got to whip out the old bullhorns. Technically, we are back in a bull market. It's kind of absurd because the Dow is still down 23% since February. So don't call mom yet. Not exactly. In the meantime, Jack and I whipped up the best snacks daily we have ever done way better than yesterday's.

Snackers, one economic record has been shattered, burned, and publicly humiliated. This one is not fun. Last week was the Red Wedding episode for Workers in America. 3.3 million Americans got laid off last week. So we're doing what Jack and I can do best for this situation. Whip up the context for it. Our second story, Lime E-Scooters, was one of the fastest companies to ever hit unicorns status. Yeah, zero to one billion dollar valuation in like a year, no big deal. In unicorn years,

that's like 12, which is still pretty young. That's a great way to put that. Now its valuation may have plummeted by 80%. Yes, private companies have stocks too. We're jumping in snacks. Also, can we just call that a scooter company? Do we have to say e-scooter? Is it an exacorn at this point? There are a lot of ways we could play around with this. Third and final story, Target. You'd think Target is living its best life right now. Jack and I are literally recording from like aisle six in the home office department at Target. And by literally, we mean totally embellished. Yeah, we completely made that up.

But when you look at what products Target is actually selling, it's a different story. We got another Dickensian tale of two profits. Now, before we jump into that, Snackers, this weekend, we want you to have an activity because we know you need one. You've been cooped up at home trying to get outside, but you've run like the same block 10 days in a row. You're like, is this cardinal following me or what? In the meantime, you're attempting like, you're attempting like,

your eighth souffle in the kitchen that didn't go well seven times in a row. How's your bodyweight home workout doing? You've done push-ups on the same set of the same floor for two straight weeks. Let's be honest, you're not doing the laundry, and that's not necessarily a problem for anyone. Snackers, we have a respite from your daily monotony. Respite and monotony. Jack apparently swallowed up thesaurus for lunch today. We have these snacks madness brackets. You get to vote on your favorite products among 32. Jack and I have selected as the most newsworthy from snacks. This is March Madness style. It's a bracket. You fill it out. You see who's the winner. Let me give you some highlights from the round one showdowns we got going on.

Can we talk round one? Who you got up first? All right. First matchup is Lulu Lemon's yoga pants first Glossier's boy bra. All I know is you don't vote against boybrow. I'm just going to say that out of your first. I'm going to yoga pants for sure. Our second matchup, Chipotle's Chipotle's Chipotle's first Boston Beer Gardens truly Seltzer. Jack, this one's going to divide couple. someone's going to get kicked out of the house and quarantined outside for like a week. Sam Adams never heard of Sam Adams. It's all about the truly self. The third matchup, Jack and I want to highlight here, this is like an old man, young man battle between Ford's F-150 and PayPal's Venmo.

You're going to get in a fight with your dad on this one. He wants the F-150, you want the Venmo. He actually has no idea what Venmo is, so it's an easy one. Now, winners for each of these matchups are decided through live 24-hour Twitter polls. The first ones are live right now at Robin Hood Snacks. You got to vote. Follow us at Robin Hood Snacks. In the meantime, Jack and I have thrown our brackets up on Twitter. Jack, who you got for winning the entire Madness? I got Spotify's podcast winning it all. I'm kind of feeling your vibes. I've got Apple's AirPods winning Snacks Madness. We're clearly promoting our podcast with the selection of the winners that we chose. There are definitely some disclosures involved in this one, I think. Now, Snackers,

we have a blank bracket with all 32 of these products. You can print it out. You can fill it out. You can tweet it out, you can Instagram it. We want you to participate. If you don't have a printer, you can figure out how to mark it up and fill it out on your computer. We've run out of verbs. We do want to peer pressure on this. Print out your bracket. Get it out on Twitter. Hit us at Robin Hood Snacks. Let's hit our three stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. It's snacks about the hearing food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robin Hood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any

securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, last week set the record for most Americans, unfortunately, getting laid off.

It beat the previous worst week by almost five times. Snackers, we're talking Guinness Book of World Records at half-mast right now. This is not a fun. record. It's a record that goes down in infamy. Exactly. Now, what Jack and I found fascinating about this is that stock markets can be a leading indicator when stuff like this happens. If stocks are not doing well, expect the economy to not do well right afterwards. This is a classic weatherman situation. We got dark clouds. That means the rain's coming. The dark clouds happened. This was the rain. So when stocks fell 37% was the low that we had on Monday, we knew that a vicious economic

thunderstorm was likely coming. All right. So now the first rain of economic, Pain is official. It happened yesterday with the weekly jobless claims. 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. Snackers, let that sink in. We're talking 3.3 million people who got laid off in the last week. And that is the biggest one week sacking, to use a British term, by far. Yeah, when we look at the records on this, the record before had been a big number, but not nearly as big, 700,000 in one week. Right. During the recession of like 2009, the layoffs happened gradually, but last week,

3.3 million happened all at once. Oh, and by the way, two weeks ago, the number was just 280,000 Americans filing for unemployment in one week. So the jump last week was 10 times more than the week before. This is the corona economy. Non-essential workers are getting like red wedding style laid off, and it's not a good thing. All right, snackers, that's the bad news. The good news is the stimulus bill, which the Senate passed last night. Yeah, everybody who got laid off gets continued partial pay, and it's part of the social safety net. The point is, we want to avoid these 3.3 million people falling into poverty and despair. You don't want missing rent payments. You don't want missing Carle lease payments.

You don't want houses getting foreclosed upon because all that adds up. Unemployment insurance is part of our social safety net, and it's called the safety net for obvious reasons. Yeah, instead of lives getting ruined, unemployment pays them up to $900 a week for up to four months until the economy returns to normal. And when the economy returns to normal, after this virus has been contained, hopefully all these people can get rehired and, again, not fall into poverty. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are getting, unfortunately, unemployment claims right now?

Tapping unemployment benefits is good, but not getting laid off in the first place is even better. Snackers, now that the stimulus bill is here, a $350 billion pot of money is ready for small and medium-sized businesses to take a bite out of it. Companies can borrow money from their local bank to survive instead of maybe laying off their workers. Oh, and quick reminder from what Jack and I mentioned yesterday, these loans that small businesses get, those become grants if they don't lay anyone off. Which means those become free money if you just promise not to lay off workers during this tough time. We're talking checks from Nana style right up in an envelope.

The hope is to avoid layoffs so that our transition back to the normal economy can be smoother. So when you think about it, the stimulus bill, it wasn't really just a stimulus. Bill. It was a survival until the virus passes, Bill. For our second story, Lyme is the largest East Scooter startup in the world. And its valuation may plummet by 80%. Snackers scooting is the thing trend that we totally missed like mom jeans. We did not see this coming like mom jeans. Mom jeans are in. I'm actually living the high-wasted lifestyle right now. Jack and I talk about this every day. How did we miss mom jeans coming? And when are they going to come out with the mom khakis all right? When are they going to come out with the mom version for guys?

These high-wasted jeans I'm wearing right now, I feel great. We should move on to Lyme. Yeah, we probably should. Now, back to Lyme scooters, which does not have the same Silicon Valley cachet as its rival, bird scooters. Right. Let's talk about Bird for a second. Bird was founded by a former Uber guy in Silicon Beach, aka Santa Monica, and he launched Bird in the top-tier cities.

Right. Meanwhile, Lyme decided to launch in a different city, not top-teer. kind of second tier, Greensboro, North Carolina. Yeah, and he was also dishing out the e-scooters in Key Biscayne, Florida, and South Bend, Indiana. This is like the real America that politicians love to talk about. If you're complaining that the barbecue sauce is too vinegory, then you better leave Greensboro as soon as possible. A parking spot for a bird e-scooter, meanwhile, is like a thousand bucks a month. This is a second city strategy, and unlike Bird, it wasn't cruising around on like the San Francisco Marina just trying to get an asaibol. Now, we're going to take a guess and say

that none of you snackers are listening to this podcast while e-scooter. If you are, you should definitely have a helmet on and you should be doing this indoors. The coronavirus economy has hurt e-scooter companies. Lyme has shut down operations in 100 cities. The only city still operating Lyme e-scooters is ones in South Korea, and good for South Korea for getting their virus under control. Sadly, though, Lyme is just let go of 100 employees and they've cut their job openings also in half. Now, Lyme is a well-funded company. They've raised $765 million from venture capital. A lot of cash. Its piggy bank, though, is almost empty. They're down to 50 or 60 million in cash, which is like not a lot of cash. Threat level midnight. Now, here's the news about Lyme. The company is pushing,

reportedly, the red button, the big red button. An emergency financing. Lime is trying to raise funds at a get-the-snackers, a $400 million valuation for the company. That's down 80% from its $2.4 billion valuation from just last year. Again, this was one of the fastest companies ever to hit unicorn status and grow out that horn, now it may be losing the horn permanently. It's existing investors like Andresen Horowitz, Alphabet, Uber, and Fidelity, they are bumming really hard. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies we're feeling bad for over a line? Private companies have stocks, too.

You just don't see them that off. Snackers, public company stocks, they move minute by minute in the stock market like lines going up and down. You see them every day. Coronavirus has shut down the cruise industry? You can obsessively check Royal Caribbean stock and see every second, whether it's up or down, and buy how much. It's down 75% by the way from its high and the valuation of the company is simply the stock price times the total number of shares. Which for Royal Caribbean means it's worth $8.5 billion right now.

Meanwhile, for private companies like startups, like Lyme, they do have a stock price, but you only see a change like every few months or year. You only hear about the stock price of companies like Lyme when there's a fundraise like there is right now with Lyme when new investors are buying new shares of the company. So Lyme's potential devaluation is a critical reminder right now that private company stock, it can also go down. And unicorns can get dehorned. For our third and final story, Target just issued a very special, very surprising, very unique business update. It turns out Target is fake rich. Snackers, there's like a four out of six chance right now that you're an aisle four of a store loading up on raisins while you're six feet

away from another human being. Pro tip, if you go to a target, it's totally acceptable to just hold up the thing and ask them to scan the barcode without touching. No, it's actually a real thing. You guys should do that. Yeah, yeah, seriously. It's not impolite. It's impolite if you don't do that. It's impolite if you're not all over the barcode.

Now, Targeting out some good news. It read your mind and whipped up a business update for investors before it whips out its earnings update. The CEO opened up and said, we have unusually strong traffic and sales right now. Humble brag understatement of the century right there. Get this. March sales for Target. up 20% compared to last year's March. Jack, let me one up you on that one. Get this. Sales of

Essentials, food and beverages, they search 50% from last year. Horders and non-horters alike could just get a normal amount of toilet paper. They have added Target to the Google Maps speed dial. They're going there so much right now. At this point, you've got a fair claim to adopt that dog with like the red eyeball that they put on all their ads. But despite all those extra sales from Americans looking for their essentials, Target is actually fake rich. Market is fake rich right now. Jack and I noticed that they also warned in the report that they're worried about profits despite all those record sales. They're so worried about their profit situation. They're pausing their plans to remodel 300 target stores. Jack, I don't know why I got to do this then, but I kind of got a one-up year. They are so worried about the profits.

They're pausing plans to add fresh groceries and adult beverages to curbside pickup. Now, one reason they're so concerned. They're spending $300 million in extra costs for the employees who are working late, and the employees, who are like extra cleaning the stores to make sure they're disinfected. Which is extra deserved. They're also giving the hourly employees two hours of extra pay also well deserved. Per hour. But the other big problem that's facing Target right now is that sales of its classic profit puppies have plummeted 20%.

We're talking clothing and apparel. The stuff Target loves to sell, especially Target's own labels that you don't even realize it, those labels are owned by Target. Those private labels owned by Target are like its cutest most adorable profit puppies. For example, we're talking their brand open story. This is a premium luggage brand. Guess who's splurgeon on that right now? Absolutely no one anywhere is splurgeon on that right now. How about all in motion? That's the Lulu Lemon killer that they're trying to launch for active wear. No one is treating themselves to running gear right now when you can wear sweatpants literally 25 hours out of the day.

Except some of us who are secretly online shopping when we shouldn't be instead of working from home. So, Jack, while you're doing retail therapy, what's the takeaway for our buddies over it? Target. Not all product sales are equal. Snackers, a lot of big box stores right now get you in the door with things like groceries and toilet paper. But there's a reason the groceries and the toilet paper and other anti-profit puppies, they're shelved way in the back corner of the store. That's because those anti-profit puppies have a high cost relative to their price. Target's selling a lot of things right now to scared Americans that are barely turning a profit. We're talking toothpaste, beans, ginger ale. They don't make Target rich. And that's why it's kind of fake rich right now.

now. And since everybody's just getting the pantry essentials, nobody is buying the most profitable goods at Target. We're not buying the profit puppies. Jack and you'll whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend. 3.3 million Americans got laid off last week and are filing for unemployment benefits. The stimulus bill wasn't really a stimulus bill. It was a survive until the virus passes bill. Lyme was a $2.5 billion e-s scooter unicorn, but it's been de-horned by the corona economy. Even though its stock is private, it looks like the stock could fall 80%. Third and final story, Target is kind of fake rich right now. Its sales are way up.

So fake rich. But its profits are looking way down. Essentials like toilet paper and cans of beans, they aren't Target's profit puppies. Now time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by fellow New Yorker Mark Rapp and spells Mark with a C. That's important. According to Mark, people tend to think of Cleopatra and like the pyramids of Giza as being in the same era of human civilization.

Egypt is not that simple people. Not that simple. Turns out, though, the Great Pyramid was built 2,500 years before Cleopatra died in 30 BC. A little bit of crazy history context here. That means that the Great Pyramids were older to Cleopatra than Cleopatra is to us. Okay. Sounds like somebody's got a little too much time working from home digging out these snack facts. Our minds were a little blown by that, but now they're a little less blown.

Mark, we appreciate that one. Snackers, tweet us your snack facts. Robin Hood Snacks. Also, fill out your bracket for Snacks Madness. It's going to be a lot of fun. The whole thing's going down at Robin Hood Snacks on Twitter. Honestly, it's the best thing you're going to probably do this weekend. We'll see you Monday. This is Nick and both Jack and I own shares of Lulu Lemon, Jack owned shares of Spotify, and I own shares of Chipotle. Well done. Snacks Madness is an opportunity for the snacker community to have fun during this crazy month of March while we're all working or stuck at home.

Robin Hood Snacks followers vote on their favorite products among the 32 that we've selected. as the most newsworthy. The winners will be decided by the Snackers solely through Twitter polls. Matchup results are not indicative of company stocks, but instead reflective of the Snackers' favorite products or services.