The Best One Yet - “Bitcoin’s ‘Halvening’ just halvened” — Tesla vs. California. Amazon’s movie theater interest. Bitcoin’s Halvening.

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

After a year of just chilling, Bitcoin is back and demanding your attention with a once-every-four-years event: “The Halvening.” Elon threatened to move his car company outta Silicon Valley, so we’re looking at Tesla vs. The State of California. And a tabloid with PFWTM (people familiar with the matter) reported that Amazon may be interested in acquiring AMC movie theaters… so we break down this fantasy acquisition. 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 Tuesday, May 12. Nick, the snow is melted. The markets are hot. The NASDAQ rose for a sixth straight day. Snackers, we managed to whip up a T-B-O-Y on T-Boy Tuesday. This is the best one yet. Our first story. Yes. Amazon and AMC sitting in a tree. M-E-R-G-G-I-N-G. A tabloid reported over the weekend that Amazon is interested in buying the movie chain AMC. Honestly, at this point, Bezos could just buy the whole company personally. Just call it his personal man cave. We're looking at the strategy behind a potential movie theater acquisition. Snackers, this is straight up acquisition porn. For our second story, Tesla versus the state of California. Kind of sound spicy. Loved what you did there.

Elon Musk threatened to pull the factory and its corporate headquarters out of Silicon Valley because they can't reopen yet. We're looking at the biggest corporate battle of the corona economy. For our third and final story. It's the happening. Jack, it's the happening. Having! Bitcoin had a wild ride a while back, but it's been pretty much chill in the past year.

This thing's like Shia LaBuff, big splash, and then where's he been? Transformers was like a decade ago. What's going on, Shia? Now Bitcoin is going through its most important event in the past four years. The Havening! It's happening! We love saying havinging. But before we get to those stories, happy T-Boy Tuesday, everybody.

We woke up this morning, it felt like a T-Boy Tuesday, so we found a T-Boy Tuesday store. Now, we know about couples who snack together. Great. You ought to love the couples who snack together. they stay together. That's why we have to mention Raven Howard of Charleston, South Carolina. He and his lovely wife, Ellen Hudson, who by the way, that's a double first name, are in their third trimester of pregnancy. So the good husband that Raven is, he gives his wife a back rub every night to make her more comfortable. He does this while listening to snacks. Honestly, Raven, we want to marry you

and we're both already married. True story. It's part of the deal. They listen to snacks daily during the back rub, which caps the massage at 17 minutes. It's a great deal. Wonderful idea. Not too long. Hands don't get too tired, but not too little. Snackers, true story over the weekend, while snacking and back-rubbing, somewhere between the third story and the snack fact, something happened. Turns out Ellen Hudson went into labor. We hope it was something we said that provoked this going into labor. I asked Jack to whip up the takeaways for us. He did it so hard a baby was born. Here's the takeaway for Ellen and Raven. A beautiful seven-pound nine-ounce boy named Hammer. It's a beautiful baby T-boy. We're not sure if his name's pronounced Hammer, which happens to be the English.

English translation of Martel, Nick's last name. Thank you. Orphids pronounced Hamer, which rhymes with my last name, Kramer. Either way, this baby's a T-boy. And what's going on with your family first name is by by Raven, Hammer, Ellen Hudson? This is like they're from Westeros. Congrats on T-boy Tuesday. Congrats Ellen and Raven. Let's get to our stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about to hear rain 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

robberhood financial LLC member fenra slash sipc for our first story shut the door and turn on the fan we found ourselves some acquisition porn turn on the fan amazon and amc movie theater chain a fantasy acquisition is reportedly under discussion. Snackers, the Daily Mail of Britain reported from PFWTM. People familiar with the matter. That Amazon is in talks to acquire potentially AMC theaters, by the way, life goal PFWTM. Now let's be clear. Daily Mail is not reputable journalist. No, this is like way more Firefest than it is Pulitzer Prize. Daily Mail stated its headline of this story in the form of a question. They're like, Amazon acquiring AMC movie theaters? They don't even believe their own headline. I'm Burgundy? But Wall Street did kind of believe the headline because AMC's stock rose 30% yesterday on this

rumor. And honestly, this is like one of those fantasy acquisitions that podcasts like us are dream of covering every week. All right, so let's pretend this is a true story, which it possibly could be. It's a rumor at this point. And PFWTM. But let's talk about why this deal might make sense for Amazon to acquire AMC theaters. All right, the first of three keys here is that it's opportunistic because Amazon is way richer than ever during the COVID-19 corona economy. Jeff Bezos is looking at Amazon stock and thinking, this is pretty much on sale, 60% off from what the stock was one year ago. And if we know Bezos, because we do know he's listening, he loves low prices. This podcast is free, so he may be wanting to buy the dip.

Or maybe Jeff Bezos wants AMC theaters to expand Prime membership into a whole new area. This is the second potential reason for an acquisition. We're talking like free entry for Prime members to AMC theaters, not too shabby for a Saturday night date. Or maybe free entry for Prime members only when it's in Amazon, original movie or something like that. Or maybe like their Amazon go stores, you don't even pay for the jujubis, you'll walk in, boom, they charge your phone before you even know what you're eating. Because it recognized your phone or because it recognizes your face. Exactly, which leads this to our third reason of a potential acquisition, vertical integration. Amazon's in the

movie making business now with Amazon Prime Video. I think John Krasinski has like three Amazon originals at this point. Fellow Brown Bear, great beard. So instead of giving away 50% of ticket sales to movie theaters, which is the status quo today, Amazon originals could take 100% of the ticket sales if they're Amazon's movie theaters. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Amazon? As exciting as this deal could be, we think there are more reasons this doesn't make sense. Snackers, let's look at some prior examples of Amazon acquiring a random kind of surprising physical chain. Back in 2016, it acquired Whole Foods for almost $14 billion. Well, looking at that, still doesn't seem like that much of a success. No. Whole Foods is.

still expensive. Yep. And Prime members get a discount that's quite lame. You get to check out, they're bagging you up. You save three cents on 12 pounds of zucchini. Not prime material. No, and we know zucchini there? Like 40 bucks. Also, movie theaters are just like the anti-Amazon thing to invest in. We're talking rip-off prices for popcorn and asking people to turn their phones off. That would freak out half the city of Seattle. Finally, AMC is just not marriage material. Let's be honest. 11,000 physical real estate theaters, uncertain future, tons of debt. We don't see the data proving it in this situation. Last but not least, this is just the wrong acquisition.

If Jeff Bezos wants deeper Hollywood ties, Jack and I are thinking buy a movie studio, not a movie theater chain. Lionsgate only costs $900 million more than AMC theaters right now, and they're making some good movies. Plus, you got MGM, you got the whole James Bond franchise, and that's just a couple billion more. Now, AMC stock rose 30% yesterday on the rumor. If the rumor's true, it'll probably rise even higher on that news.

But if it's not true, yesterday's 30% gain, we'll probably just get a raise. The name's Bezos. Jeff Bezos. For our second story, Tesla is suing Alameda County for keeping its factory shut. So we're looking at Elon versus the state of California. The state of California. By the way, can we just talk about this? Look outside. This is the worst Musk season in years. We've had three Category 5 musks just in the past month there. First, we'd have Musk the other week when he said that state home orders were fascists. Another Musk when Elon named his boy X-A-E-A-12 Musk. And now we've got a 65% of Musk out there because he's tweet-shamede in the public health department of Alameda County. Let's kick off this story, though, with a civics and

government class coming into session right now. Beuler, Bueller. We got the Constitution, you got the Bill of Rights, but let's focus on the 10th Amendment. The 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people. And that's why you've seen ensuring public safety as power that's been left to the states. And that's a power that's been exercised by a lot of governors issue to stay-at-home orders the past couple months. Who also really enjoy TV time, apparently. True. And Netflix. Now, speaking of governors, California's governors started reopening the state of California last Friday, but he also said local governments could keep tighter restrictions if they want.

Now, that's key because the county Tesla's in has an order to stay shut. So Elon is suing the county government for keeping his factory closed and keeping the 10,000 workers not working. No joke, he's suing like Karen in accounting. No, he's suing Karen, the public health like deputy commissioner of Alameda County, California. He's taken this so far that Elon Musk actually sent workers into the Tesla factory on Monday, defying government orders, and then basically begging to be arrested. The guy basically thinks he's pulling a Rosa Parks here. It's not a Rosa Parks.

It's just a Musk. Here's the thing, though. California Gold runs through Tesla. Tesla's vein. Snackers, the headquarters are in Palo Alto, home of Stanford and Jack. You know what the most common bird sighting is in that area? All birds. Exactly. All the birds. And the main factory for Tesla, its main factory is right across the bay in Fremont, California, just south of Oakland. That's where the model S, the X, the three, that's where they're all birthed and name. And customers, we're guessing that California has more Tesla sales than the rest of the world combined. We actually do, you can see on the highway when you're on 101, Tesla's go by, there's no one in them. There's no driver. And yet, Elon tweets stormed this weekend that he plans to move Tesla's headquarters out of California to Texas or Nevada. Or Nevada. No, Nevada.

If we mispronounce this one more time, Ava Chafini, the great Snacker who DM'd us, we'll get mad at us. Honestly, we're both sorry. And we're sorry. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Tesla in the state of California? Tesla could save a lot of money by moving to Texas, but it could lose a lot of talent, too. Snackers, California is known for a few things. You got higher taxes, environmental protections, innovation, and great pinos. In Texas, it's known for general bigness, cheap labor, McConaughey, and cheap energy prices.

The business incentives are big, low taxes, and you get a free bottle of Tidos when you move your business down there. The Better Business Bureau is sending you a certificate of incorporation and a leader of Tidos. So Tesla can save some money and Elon can get hazed with a bunch of brisket eating. But if Tesla does decide to leave California, it could lose some of the home state love that's contributing to sales in California. Plus, you don't get the incredible. engineering talent that just like grows apparently naturally in the Bay Area. Engineering, mathematics, physics. There's nothing else. All right, it's snacks challenge time. We're a little over halfway. If you're Thomas Baggio and you're planking for an entire podcast, which he did and tweeted at us,

just keep planking. You're almost halfway over. Don't stop planking. Thomas Baggio, incredible time lapse video on Twitter. For our third. final story. This one's kind of wild. We're talking about Bitcoin and we're talking about the having. It just happened yesterday. This is the most important thing to halvin to Bitcoin in the last few years. The happening. It sounds like the next rendition of the saw movies. Or it's a creature Hermione warns Ron about, Ronald, watch out for the happening. It's happening. What it's not, it's not just a stock split. So don't skip to the end of the story because you think you know what this is. It's not a stock split. Snackers. To under

understand the happening. We got to go way back to the source of the Bitcoin. Every Bitcoin. Bitcoin is mined by miners like Zoolander, but less black long. You solve a puzzle, boom, you get a Bitcoin. Talk to me in 30 years. Solving these Bitcoin puzzles, though, requires a ridiculous amount of computer work. One percent of the world's energy consumption is Bitcoin miners mining more Bitcoin. Warning, if you want to mine Bitcoin, do not rest your laptop on your lap while you're mining because you'll get third-degree burns on your thigh. Yeah, because you can always identify the Bitcoin miners out there because they're like, ha, ah, ah.

In exchange for mining bitcoins, miners get 12.5 Bitcoin for every block of the chain that they solve, hence, blockchain. Kind of a cool thing. Solving these puzzles is what makes the blockchain work, and you get rewarded for spending all those money on electricity to mine things. There's a whole lot of YouTube videos to watch if you want to understand this further. Now, the happening happened last night, and it was the halving of the reward. That's right, Nick.

It's happening. you only get 6.25 Bitcoin now for solving the puzzle instead of 12 and a half like before. Now, the reason this is happening is because unlike the U.S. dollar, there's no central bank to be regulating Bitcoin. So Bitcoin self-regulates through these four-year having schedules, which happens every four years. Now, you can call it having or the happening or just having, and it happens every four years in 2012, happened to 2016, happening now, and it's going to happen in 2024. This is the genius work of Elon Musk. Sorry, Kaiser Sozay, sorry, we don't know. the halving limits inflation on Bitcoin. By reducing the incentive to mine, there's less mining

that will probably happen. So the supply of Bitcoin won't go out of control by overmining, and the value of a single Bitcoin will stay relatively high. Speaking of which, Snackers, if you're curious about how much Bitcoin are out there, there are 18.4 million Bitcoin right now, and we're supposed to hit a total of 21 million as the maximum possible. The last Bitcoin is expected to be mined in 2040 based on the halving, having schedule. also way more YouTube videos if you want to learn more. Whip out your Google calendars and just swipe right for a long time and mark the date. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in Bitcoin?

It's all about what's priced in. Snackers full disclosure, even though having has happened before, we don't know exactly what would have happened to Bitcoin because we were recording it while the happening was happening. But what we do know is that this isn't unexpected. It's literally been on the calendar since 2016. This having. Whether the price of Bitcoin go up or down, we literally knew Bitcoin the havinging would cut Bitcoin's mining reward in half. Now, if the entire market knows the same information, then the entire market has probably reacted and planned for that thing to happen.

AKA the event was priced in to the current price of a Bitcoin. That's why Nick's Bitcoin Ben only rose 1% on Monday the day the having happened. Because the price was probably priced in. It's happening. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us and not cause anyone to go into labor listening right now. Amazon is reportedly thinking about buying the largest movie theater chain, AMC. If it actually happens, the stock could rise higher. If it doesn't, AMC stock will probably drop. Tesla is suing its home county, Alameda County, because Elon wants to keep making cars right now slash yesterday.

Tesla could move to Texas, but it might struggle to fill some pretty critical engineering jobs. For our third and final story, Bitcoin just halved. The value didn't get cut in halfed. Just the reward for Bitcoin miners. There are haves and there have-nots, but everyone knew the happening was going to be happening. And it just did happen. It just haven't. So, Jack, time for our snack fact of the day. This one tweeted in by Lauren Lapid in lovely Southern California.

Nice alliteration there, Nick. Disney doesn't sell shot glasses. They're like, nope, we don't sell them. We don't condone shot glasses. Not us. They do sell, though, toothpick holders and other, quote-unquote, mini-glasses, which are perfect for one and a half. ounces of liquids. So Lauren, being a snacker jumped in snack style, ask some Disney employees

why this was. And it turns out because they know there's a huge market for shot glasses, but they don't want to promote alcoholic drinks in kid-friendly areas. But it's a free country. Anyone can put in their toothpick holder whatever they want. Lauren's like, hey, Jenny, you want to go get some toothpicks after work? Wake, wink. Good sir. We'll have a round of toothpick holders for me and my friends. Now, before we go, Jim Wolfe, happy birthday from yourself. Snackers, Jim tweeted in his own birthday to us. He was hoping his kids would submit it because they're Snackers.

But they're infants, and they don't have Twitter accounts yet, so couldn't hit us up. Happy birthday, Jim, hope you're having fun with the family. Snackers, before we go, if you see your buddy, ask them H-Y-H-Y-S-D. Have you had your snacks daily? Everyone should. We'll see it tomorrow. If you know, you know. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon. Nick owns one Bitcoin. His name is Ben.

The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinion. 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 and 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.