The Best One Yet - ⌨️ “Apple failed at something” — Walmart’s record. Starbucks treats itself. Apple’s subtle product unveil.

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

While it looks like nearly every stock has fallen, Walmart shares just hit a record high — we repeat: Record high stock price during this crisis. Apple just issued a subtle press release for new products that basically admits 1 big failure. And Starbucks has a couple billion dollars in extra cash, so it decided to treat itself… to more stock… of itself.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 Thursday, March 19. Snackers, guess what happened yesterday? Talk to me. The Dow basically erased those amazing gains we got from Tuesday. Which happened to have erased Monday's loss from Monday.

This is the most wild trading we have ever experienced in our days of watching the markets. Yesterday, trading had to be halted again. That's because the S&P 500 fell 7% like right away, causing the circuit breaker to stop for 15 minutes. calm down everybody. Remember, that's the circuit. Meanwhile, off Wall Street, back in D.C., the Senate passed the coronavirus relief plan. And then last night, the New York Stock Exchange said, hey, tomorrow, human being traders, you don't have to come in. We're going to keep you away from each other and let the computers take over trading. That means temporarily we're going to be getting no more of those photos from CNBC of like middle-aged guys touching their faces and getting

looking very concerned. It's always the same three guys in those pictures. They're great guys, They're great guys. They're all ex-athletes. For our first story, Jack, which happens to be part of the best snacks daily ever. This is the best one yet. Nick, you know how everything seemed to fall yesterday? Jack, are you serving up a exception over here? Yeah, I sure am.

Walmart stock rose yesterday. Snackers, it actually hit a record high. We're looking at this Rudy Rudiger e-commerce moment for America's biggest retail. Second story, what do we got, Jack? Apple is doing something few companies are brave enough to do. It's making a product announcement. With coronavirus, who signed off on this? The new MacBook is all about fixing Apple's Achilles' heel.

Jack and I are jumping to Apple's failures like the keyboard. Third and final story, Starbucks has a couple billion bucks in cash. Okay. So it decided to treat yourself. It's treating itself on itself. We're looking at shared buybacks. Yeah, seriously, this is how companies treat themselves. And it's a really weird time for share buybacks.

But before we jump into all that wonderful stuff, Snackers, imagine a world for a second without coronavirus. No stock market crash, no economic shutdowns, no bailouts. No sick people, no quarantines, no coughing, no Netflix. Plenty of toilet paper. Plenty of Purell too. A lot of Purell for days worth of Purell. Some people have been living that alternate reality for the past months.

And we've found those people. They are the German contestants on the German Game Show version of Big Brother. This is a classic German entertainment move. Just basically look at what America was, what was popular on TV 10 years ago in USA, and then make that popular today in Germany. These German contestants snackers, they've been secluded in Germany for the show since February 10th, without outside contact. And then just recently, the show producers were like, we've got to let these guys know.

There's a global pandemic. They did a mid-season live show behind a very thick pane of glass where they said, hey, by the way, things have gotten a little different from when you started the show. Now, the contestants on Grosse Bruder, which is what they call it in Germany. Great name. They have not been practicing any social distancing. No, they haven't had to because they've been secluded, but they did an episode yesterday that involved two contestants chained together. Yeah, it was like a full-day challenge of like anti-social distancing.

First of all, contestants, welcome back. We've got a couple suggestions for you. Well, check out the 15 last episodes of our 15-minute snacks daily podcast. You'll get catched up on a few things. Also, wash your hands immediately and keep washing them. Don't stop. Let's hit our three stories. You're tuned in to snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way.

It snacks about to hear ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robberhood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any securities. Nope. 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. Robahood Financial, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. For our first story, one stock just hit a record high. Jack, can we talk about Walmart? Can we please talk about Walmart? In a second. Right now, I'm freaking out that the bushel of arugel that I got, isn't it enough? Jack, you got to find some dirt, stick one root in there and water it once a day. We went over this earlier.

Don't have time. I'm on the way to the grocery store. I've bought like a full basket of peanut butter and jelly. Snackers, if you don't have six cabinets full of Skippies and you're not sponsored by Justin's almond butter right now, we don't know what to do. moment of grocery panic, Walmart is sitting there and they're like, how do you like me now, America? Walmart has 1.5 million employees. They're basically like Olympic worthy to like submit a team. They've got 4,769 stores. Oh, and by the way, they've put up a pretty good online delivery setup that they want to tell you a little bit more about. Let's open with the news. There was a survey conducted on March 13th. Fundate. A third of American shoppers in this survey had, bought groceries online in the past week. That's a lot. Not only that, nearly half of those shoppers

were first-time online grocery buyers. That is a lot. And of those first-time online grocery buyers, 58% of them did it on Walmart. That's a lot. That is a lot. The next closest was Amazon in terms of first-time online grocery buyers during this coronavirus panic. And they were only 14% of shoppers. By the way, Target was number three. And that news about the survey and people like really being into Walmart's online grocery, that shot the stock up 3% yesterday while the rest of the market was tanking. Snackers, wherever you're sitting right now, get up for a second, get some fresh air, open a window because we're about to throw more shocker information at. Get this, 56% of Walmart sales. And by the way, Walmart has the biggest

sales of any company in the country. Biggest retail on earth. Fifty-six percent of those sales come from groceries. Not from like socks and like plastic toys that are going to hurt you. We're in groceries. Walmart is America's biggest grocery store. And while you've been splurging on like frozen soups over the last week, Walmart's been splurging to digitize its entire grocery setup. Walmart's been like Rudy Rudiger practicing e-commerce, not getting any game time. So hard for him. But guess what, Nick? It is 3.2,000 locations that will let you order online. Then it will bag the groceries and meet you in the parking lot so you can just pull over. Now that's if you're kind of lazy, but if you're much lazier than that, you can access their 1.6.

thousand locations that'll cruise the aisles, bag the groceries, and then deliver to your door. Most important of all, 90% of Americans, Walmart loves bragging about this, by the way. 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart. Snackers, look out your window again. Odds are there's a Walmart like waving right back at you. There's like an older guy in a blue vest. They're like, hi there, 90% of America. Come on in aisle 6. We'll be friends for the rest of time. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over a Walmart? Walmart is number one during coronavirus. for a bunch of reasons. Snackers, Walmart is like the player you created playing Madden NFL 2013. It's got 99 ratings on everything except for like nothing. It's got 99 awareness,

99 speed, 99 strength. This thing's a super player. It's got delivery again that reaches 90% of Americans. And while parents are working from home and their kids are not at school wreaking havoc at home, delivery is key. Walmart's prices also, they're insanely low. Well, COVID-19 is expected to cause an economic recession, so low prices is pretty key. Oh, and by the way, those bananas also come with the side of t-shirts and maybe a basketball. Yeah, you can buy anything at Walmart. So while you're quarantining yourself, it's pretty nice that if you go to Walmart, you can buy everything for the whole month. You can add all this up, but double down on the fact that they've got this grocery delivery that's taking off online. And that's why the stock just hit a record. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is down 29, after yesterday's drop. Walmart's eating groceries are making their moment. For our second, Story Jack, we got to FaceTime more often on this thing. Apple just did something no other company is doing. It unveiled a bunch of new things while everyone's hunkering down. This kind of came out of nowhere. It was an extremely un-Apple event. Tim Cook's like, hello, Cooper Tino. Anyone here from out of town?

Oh, nobody here. Okay. There were no lights, no magic, no dark turtleneck black shirt, a simple press release from Apple. So Jack and I got together and we went through that Apple press release for you to share with you what they actually wanted to share with the world. Okay, the first new product is fashion. They got a spring lineup of Apple Watch wristbands and new phone cases because you don't want to quarantine yourself in last season's wristbands. Don't be that guy.

Everyone knows there's that guy. The second product was a futuristic toy. We're talking an iPad Pro. Sounds fancy. That has a LIDAR scanner. May I just note the L. in LIDAR stands for lasers. And it comes with a bionic chip. Sounds like a prop in a Steven Spielberg movie. Have you noticed that every Apple product in the commercial, they're showing it doing something way more

advanced than you need it for? Oh, great. I can use this MacBook Air to man a submarine after it's 3D printed off the computer. And all you really need the iPad for is to check Yelp reviews on the restaurant and like leave a bad review. Now, we were unimpressed with both those things, but Jack and I decided to amuse ourselves and continue on reading. And we found something that we were actually excited about from Apple. The new MacBook Air has a new keyboard. It's actually called the Magic keyboard. And this excited us because we've got to go back on a little journey five years ago.

That's when Apple switched from having a scissors keyboard, their name, to a butterfly keyboard, also their name. The butterfly keyboard was a vain attempt to make their MacBooks look thinner, sleeker, sexier. Little did they know, this would be a classic Icarus flying like a few gigabytes too close to the sun. A bunch of keys on the butterfly keyboard just don't freaking work. No, we're talking about you click, you tap, you touch these things, and the A and the T and the Z, they don't happen unless you like slam the computer.

I'm getting a bunch of rogue spaces and periods. It's incredibly frustrating. Turns out these butterfly keyboards, they've been Apple's surprise failure. We actually have something to share our Snackers. Nick and I are both victims of this butterfly keyboard. Jack, I don't know if I want to... I just need a moment. Nick, I had to turn in like...

two of these MacBooks, but only after struggling for months and months of writing research for snacks daily, writing the Robin Hood Snacks newsletter, so many errant periods in extra spaces. I'm not going to lie, I just, I still have trouble talking about this. This is actually led to multiple lawsuits for Apple, and Apple even came forward and apologized something it rarely does. Snackers, this has gotten so wild that in this year's Academy Awards, one of the winners even mentioned how bad his Apple keyboard has been. was forced to launch a keyboard service program. Those are capital K, capital S, capital, P. The real thing. Because that's a proper noun. It's the whole division they're using to fix these

keyboards. Each one costs like up to $475. We're talking they got like an alpha team of Alperl geniuses at this. They've got like a separate section in the store in the back where you got to like check your ID and bio scan in. Meanwhile, Nick and I are going to launch a GoFund me for all the wear and tear on our wrists and fingers from those extra spaces. I got so much car. tunnel after Jack and I do one of these pods, I stick my left hand in a freezer because of these Apple keyboard. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Capo? Apple's not perfect. It actually has a bunch of F-ups on its resume. Snackers, some venture capitalists, they have portfolios of companies they didn't invest in. They call them anti-portfolio. Similarly, Apple could fill a mini Apple

store with a bunch of bad product failures too. For example, we put together a list for you. Let's talk Apple Maps. Apple Maps when it rolled out was so glitchy, it forced every iPhone user. Yes, I want Google Maps to be my default. It made it our default. Another product here, HomePod. Hey, Alexa, which of our friends have actually bought one of those like $300 home pod? Hey, Jack, this is Alexa. I have 28% of the smart speaker market. Home pods only have 4.7%. Big swing and a miss by Apple to get into the smart speaker business. Jack, another Apple fair. Can we talk Project Titan? I know what Project Titan is because I'm kind of obsessed with self-driving cars. Nobody else does because Apple never launched their self-driving cars.

Snackers, this was Apple's secret project for self-driving cars that they spent a lot of millions of dollars on and had 200 employees working on. They actually spent a billion reportedly. Also, can we mention a single song on that terrible U-2 album that was downloaded to all of our iPhones? No, we can't. No, we can't. This is the most valuable company in the United States, but it's had a few F-ups. For our third story, Jack, Orange Moka or not Orange Moka? Orange Moka. Starbucks just decided to spend $2 billion on its own stock. This is highly questionable timing for a splurge like that. Let's talk about this. Most companies, they're saving right now. Starbucks is spending $2 billion on something completely non-essential.

Oh, you heard you got triplets coming. That's adorable. Yeah, that's why I'm spending $1,000 to become a Scottish lord technically with a little bit of land. Oh, what's this? A dime I just found on the sidewalk. Oh, man, I should go in and spend like $7 on some oat milk latte chino triple. That's the life. Starbucks is kind of leading right now, and it's got some bad news I had to share yesterday. Yeah, in the United States and Canada, which is the meat and potatoes of Starbucks's global business. Starbucks is basically cutting off the K, the S, and the R and getting down to just

because it's delivering through Uber Eats to go and drive-thrues only in North America. That's right. You're not allowed to go inside. You're not allowed to sit down. You're not allowed to use their free Wi-Fi and their free back. authors. We're talking drastic measures because the U.S. and Canada, get this, are 71% of Starbucks revenues. They are taking serious action affecting their core business to prevent people from hanging out and spreading COVID-19. But then the corporate financial baristas over at Starbucks

whipped up some good news for us. In China, Starbucks has opened 90% of its stores, which had previously been closed because of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Also, Jack and I notice something a little funny here. They're also still working on something called their China Innovation Park that they've splurged $130 million on. Yeah, Starbucks issued a press release yesterday. They mentioned the shutdowns in the United States. They mentioned the openings in China. And then all they mentioned about the China Innovation Park was that it would be state of the art. Right. That's the only words they use. Nothing about people familiar with the matter, PFWTM. It sounds like a Disney World Frappuccino situation. No, it's like the founder of Jurassic Park who's like, we sped no expenses.

you got some bad news and you got some good news. You add that together and kind of overall, you got good news for Starbucks. Yeah, because right after announcing that good news and that bad news, they're like, by the way, we're going to spend $2 billion of our cash on our own shares in a share buyback program. That's because Starbucks has made so much profit over the years. It can spend that money and it kind of can do that in three main ways. All right. The first way you can spend your profits from previous years is you can issue dividends to shareholders or buyback stock, which is basically like when you treat yourself. And Starbucks did $12 billion of treating itself last year.

Meanwhile, the other option is it can pay down debt, which is like kind of the responsible thing to do. No pressure Starbucks, we're just saying this is kind of the responsible thing to do. Well, Starbucks has a really good credit rating, and there's like no pressure to pay down debt, so they're not really interested in doing that. The third option you can do with your profits, and by the way, remember, you can do this at home,

is invest in growth. Personally, if you like, you know, send yourself to master school to get a master's degree, that's kind of investing in yourself. And for Starbucks, they're investing in their own growth through a massive expansion in China. Jack, I'm just trying to figure out where I can go to this master school that you mentioned. The final option, you could just not spend the money. Exactly. You could spend the money on dividends or share buybacks. You could spend your money on paying down debt or you can spend your money on investing in growth. but no one is forcing you to spend your money right now, Starbucks.

There's kind of a global pandemic going on. A lot of companies are just saving, which brings us to our takeaway, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Starbucks? Starbucks is showing confidence while everyone else is super nervous. Snackers, you probably notice that like pretty much all companies are canceling the treat yourself initiatives they could have done, like share buybacks or dividend payments. On Sunday, all the big banks canceled their share buyback programs because they'd rather save money.

Right. They want to save money right now as COVID. COVID-19 escalates. Starbucks, though, just announced they're treating themselves, treat yourself style, to even more shares. This is like you get the mocha frappuccino. Then you pop across the street to 16 handles and you get a froyo to take home. Starbucks hopes that by buying back its own stock, it'll eventually increase the stock price because each remaining stock will represent a slightly bigger slice of the pie that is Starbucks.

So Starbucks must think that its own stock price, which is down like 40%, in the last couple months, is a bargain, so it's buying its own dip. Starbucks is showing confidence while everyone else is nervous. Jack, can you find that slamming salmon shirt and whip up the takeaways for us over there? Walmart's 3.2,000 delivery and curbside pickup ready locations. Mouthful. They're kind of perfect for the coronavirus. A lot of people are going from early adapters to mainstream users trying out grocery delivery

for the first time. With Walmart. Second story. Second takeaway. Apple quietly unveiled the new. keyboard for its new MacBook Air at a low-key product on Val yesterday. Even the most valuable company in the United States can have some mess-ups. Bird and final story, Starbucks is showing confidence while everyone else is nervous. Really, Starbucks? You're going to splurge $2 billion on a stock buyback.

Okay, you can do your own thing over there. This is a perfect time to add an extension to my house. Sounds like a good time to splurge. So time for our snack fact, which by the way, Snackers, this one's from Kelly Mink, but it's also unprecedented in Snacks Daily History. From the entire Mink family in Chicago, I'm catching some Von Trapp family vibes here. Oh, on top of that, they got a little help from Kelly's friend Jackie who joined the Mink family to distribute this snack fact to us. Okay, correction. I'm sensing some Theon Greyjoy vibes from this Jackie joining this dark family. This is our first ever snack fact family submission. We got to talk to Lightning Bolt, Jack. Turns out a bolt of lightning coming from the sky, probably thrown by Zeus.

Good guy. Has a whole lot of energy. And the Mink family. family decided to translate the amount of energy in a lightning bolt to the amount of bread that that energy could toast. One bolt can toast 100,000 slices of bread. Now, you're wondering how many slices is 100,000 slices? It's 4,500 loaves of bread. Oh, you're still hungry? Curious about sandwiches? We did that calculation for the minks. It's about 50,000 regular sandwiches. How many open-face sandwiches is there? Well, if it's one really big sandwich, it could just be one really big for breadjack. Basically, a lightning bolt can have a lift of sandwiches toasted anytime. Snackers,

we also got to give you a little update on the story we ran yesterday. Yesterday, we implied that the check you might get from the federal government in this stimulus program, it could be up to $4,000 and a half thousand dollars. Right after we recorded the podcast, we learned the numbers probably closer to $1,000, and the check could come on April 6th. Just like Mom always said, life is about expectations. So we wanted to give everyone the updates. Snackers, if you bump into a buddy, stop bumping into buddies. You're supposed to be self-quarantining. But if you do run into anyone, let them know they should be listening to Snacks Daily. This is the time for it. And ask them H-Y-H-Y-H-SD. Have you had your snacks daily? We'll see you tomorrow. If you know, you know.

The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only, is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA SIPC.