The Best One Yet - “Can we interest ya in a timeshare?” — Wyndham’s $100M mag. Electric Cars’ milestone moment. Georgia’s stock impact.

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

We just saw 5 big updates from across the world that reveal 1 thing: Electric cars are having a global milestone moment. Wyndham Destinations dominates timeshares, so we’re curious why it’s dropping $100M on a magazine. And we’re jumping into how the Georgia Senate runoff election affected all 4 big stock indexes differently.$WYND $SBE $TSLAGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @TBOYJack @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Learn 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, the new Friday. January 7th. I'm feeling business-like right now, Nick. Let's get right to it. This happens to be a T-boy.

It's the best one yet, way better than what we did yesterday. Jack, first story. What the Georgia Senate election means for the stock market. Yeah, all four major indexes, they happen to tell a different story. For our second story, Wyndham Destinations, is the timeshare icon that is thriving mid-pandemic. Jack and I noticed they dropped $100 million. On a magazine. Jack, what do I got to do to get you into this thing? For our third and final story, electric cars just had a global milestone moment.

It's a small world after all, but with Tesla's. But Snackers, we actually had a whole intro plan for you today that was amusing and delightful. Yeah, Jack and I found one. It was a really funny story, honestly. We found out that the CIA just rebranded their website. We thought they looked more like a startup. That was kind of the story. But we're going to take a moment on something else instead. This moment deserves a moment. Before the election in November, Jack and I quoted Philadelphia's favorite son, Ben Franklin. America is a republic if you can keep it. Well, Jack and I whipped out our microphones yesterday to record this podcast just as a mob attacked our democracy by violently storming the capital to obstruct

the typical transition of power that we always go through. We have a 45 president-long streak of peaceful transitions in the U.S. lasting 230 years, but that streak is under threat right now. and I are recording this right now. It's Wednesday afternoon. And to be honest, the reason we switched up the intro on you is because we're angry, we're saddened, and it's because of what we're seeing happen in D.C. at this very moment. It is so upsetting that a handful of extremely harmful lies about election fraud from the president and his supporters repeated so many times. So many times. Has inspired this terrible, unpatriotic act, this insurrection yesterday in D.C. All right. So Jack and I took a few moments. We were thinking about it more.

And honestly, Snackers, we love bring you the facts every single day. We love weaving in our opinions, and we love whipping up the takeaways for you in every single story. The fact is, we hate to say it, but this moment is one of the darkest we've ever seen for American democracy. So Jack and I are hoping it remains just that, a single moment. That's it. We say it every day. Each day should be the best one yet. Yesterday wasn't. Yesterday was not. So Snackers, wherever you are today, whatever you are doing today, whoever you are doing today, whoever you are, make today T-boy. Let's hear 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. The snacks about the air-rain food is 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. It's not a research

report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC. For our first story, we got the intersection of politics and markets. The Georgia runoff elections are showing that Democrats are going to control Congress. We're calling this the undoing of November stock market moves.

Snackers, go back to November 3rd. It was like, I don't know, give her take two years ago. Georgia ended up picking Joe Biden as president, but then they needed overtime to decide who's going to win the Senate in Georgia. Overtime, extra innings, extra time, whatever sports analogy you need to understand. they need it a little more time. Jack, I'm getting Rangers Devils Game 7, 1994 vibes over here. Snackers, since no single senator won 50% of the vote on November 3rd in Georgia, there's a runoff election between the top two candidates for both Senate seats that happened on Tuesday.

We know what you're thinking. It wouldn't happen in my state. Well, it wouldn't happen in your state. This is a Georgia thing. This is a Georgia thing. Our 50 state Snackers have 50 different sets of election rules, like beer pong has different sets of rules. From 13 original colonies. Now you got Rafael Wernock and John Ossoff both ended up winning Tuesday. Both are Democrats, and that is the key. Let's go back two years ago to November 3rd, though, Nick, because we thought Republicans were going to win these two Georgia Senate seats that were elected on Tuesday. And when that happened, Wall Street got all up in a tizzy, super excited because we were going to get this a divided government. On November 3rd, we all thought Democrats, Joe Biden, was going to control the White House, but Republicans under Mitch McConnell,

we're going to maintain control of the Senate. It's one of those counterintuitive kind of thing. Seems like that would mean nothing's going to happen, and that's exactly what business kind of wants. Yeah, gridlock was somehow good for Wall Street. So Jack and I broke down what happened to stocks. For example, back on November 3rd, two months ago, healthcare stocks ended up jumping right after the election.

Because no major health care reform is going to happen with divided government in Washington. And at that same time, back in November, we saw cannabis stocks all start to fall. Weed companies were hoping for national, wide legalization not happening when Republicans control the Senate. And overall, over the last couple months, we've been seeing stocks rise. That precious lucrative Trump tax cut from 2017, that's not going to be undone if there's a divided government. But then, everything suddenly

changed yesterday. Now Democrats have been declared the winners of those two Georgia Senate seats, not Republicans, so we got an undoing. So yesterday was time for the undoing. The stock market reactions from November got partially undone yesterday. Honestly, Jack, can we call Nicole Kidman the actress of our generation? Is that early? Can we say that? Reese Witherspoon or Nicole Kidman. I'm all in on those. It's one of the two. Now, the Russell 2000, that's one of the four major stock indexes.

It's not the one you talk about a lot. It's probably the one you talk about at the least. It ended up rising yesterday. You talk about it the least because there's kind of no-name companies in there. There are 2,000 medium-sized companies. And the Russell 2000 jumped 4% yesterday. And that's because investors are expecting Democrats, to pass more economic stimulus measures.

And that would benefit the smaller companies that take our money after we get it. All right, so you had the Russell 2000 jump big yesterday. Then the Dow ended up rising the second most out of all the indexes yesterday. Because if Democrats pass an infrastructure bill, something they've been wanting for decades, industrial companies would benefit.

On the other end of the spectrum, then you got the NASDAQ, the old tech-heavy NASDAQ index. The only index that fell yesterday because big tech is already sweating. situation in D.C. And that's because Democrats are way more critical in thinking that tech giants probably have a little too much power right now. They prefer medium, large tech instead of big tech. Yeah, this is a marge situation. You want to go with the marge size with big tech on this. And finally, the S&P 500, the best representation of the stock market, they split the difference.

It rose by 0.6%. Yeah, it's the 500 biggest stocks in the market. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the U.S. economy? The top priority of Democrats, in Washington, $2,000 stimulus checks. Tenackers, don't expect like a whole bonnanz of Democratic dream progressive policies coming out of a government that's all Democratic. When we say Democrats took control of the Senate, it's actually 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. Joe Biden can barely break that partisan tie with his vice president. Plus, you got our economy that could be entering a second pandemic recession now that the

virus is surging again. Now is probably not the right time for a tax increase that you may expect from Democrats. now is probably the right time for another round of direct payments to citizens so we can weather this cold winter storm. And because Democrats are more inclined to support people directly than businesses, we're thinking $2,000 stimulus checks. We're thinking $2,000 stimulus checks. For our second story, Wyndham Destinations, the king of the timeshare is buying travel and leisure magazine. There's dropping a hundred million bucks to get millennials to feel like their timeshare loving parents. Jack, what do I got to do to get you on this white sand beach over here?

Two words. Beach View. We got a three-bedroom, cabana, pool, tennis. Are you an ice cream guy? Jack, are you an ice cream guy? Don't you dare? Give me a courtyard view condo. You seem like you get a courtyard view of the ice cream truck. That's what we're going to get you over here. Windham Worldwide Snackers. It used to be the multinational corporation that was into hotels and timeshare. They split this whole thing up. It became Wyndham Destinations, which does timeshares, and then another company, Windham that does the hotels. Two companies, two strategies, two different stocks. That's what we have today. And Windham Destinations, the company we're talking about, they got themselves 230 vacation club resorts. Case in point, the club, Wyndham Bonnet Creek, sounds lovely, Jack. It's not a gated community unless you get lost with Google Maps because they don't know what entrance you're supposed to go through. Which happens. They're like a lot of entrances. But when it comes to Timeshares,

Time shares are honestly, it's all about the Venn diagram situation, right, Jack? I love me a good Venn diagram because this one's got three of those circles with a lovely overlap. You got the Marriott Suite, Airbnb, and the actual home that you partially own. That's basically what a timeshare is. And guess what? For 112th of the price of a condo, you can visit Disney for one 12th of the year. And that flexibility offer of a timeshare is thriving. The stock of Wyndham Destinations has tripled since tanking in March, and they pulled a profit this year.

They didn't just pull a profit. They pulled a $40 million profit when the whole travel industry fell apart, which they're now finally putting to good use. They're not acquiring a bunch of noodles to put in the lagoons of these computer memes. They thought that they would do that. That'd be vertically integrating.

Instead, they're splurging $100 million to buy a media company. Travel and leisure magazine. Your go-to doctor's office waiting room escape. You're waiting for the dermatologist. You end up looking at a spa in Bali. We've all been there. This acquisition is all about direct-to-consumer engagement. because travel and leisure has 20 million social media followers.

And get this, this is what Jack and I thought was wild. Wyndham is so smitten that their timeshares are now buying travel and leisure magazine. They're changing their name from Wyndham destinations to travel and leisure. The company's now called travel and leisure, which makes us think, is this an opportunity to change the ticker symbol? I mean, AWA Y, Jack, away? How about gone? Away would work before the suitcases get it, but we love O-O-O-O out of office. That is gold, Jack.

That is such a good one. That is such a good one. Now, 20% of Wyndham's customers right now are millennials. So, like, not the Del Boca Vista retirees. That's not all of their customers. They're not the snowbirds, as they call them in South Florida. So with this acquisition, Windham doesn't have to spend all this money buying, like, 3 a.m. commercials on TV for some luxurious Barbados condo.

They can do something more strategic. We millennials, we prefer having our money coaxed away from us via a delectable Instagram story. And Wyndham can now do that because it owns travel and leisure. It can also drop a five-page magazine spread of beaches that we always thought we couldn't afford. Because it owns travel and leisure. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Wyndham destinations? One trend that the pandemic hasn't changed, experiences still beat ownership. Honestly, Snackers. Beginning of this pandemic, that entire concept we've been talking about for years, it was under threat. Did you really still want experiences or did now you start to want material things?

Well, travel stocks were down while home stocks were up. Yeah, you splurged $1,000 on a sofa, not on the $1,000 airline tickets. But resilient experience-driven companies like Wyndham, they show that deep down experiences still matter to customers. You still crave experiences like travel, but now maybe you want more flexible options like a timeshare. And with a direct relationship to 20 million millennials on Instagram, travel and leisure can highlight the timeshare experience to us kids. Fewer weekend getaways, more long-term. stays. For our third and final story, we just noticed that electric vehicles had a flurry of absurd global milestones. Five highlights from across the globe. We need Carmen San Diego from this all in one

week. First week of the year. Honestly, Snackers, like usually, Jack, there's like not that much business news this week it feels like, typically. There's not. No. But fortunately, one of us is Hansel, the others gretel. We patched together some cookie crumbs and found a story. Let's kick things off with our buddies in the UK. In the UK, car sales were just sadly at their lowest point since 1992. Last year, car sales there fell by 30% because they were locked down. People were watching season 4 of the Crown, avoiding COVID and not driving. No, you're not at your Scottish estate that time. But electric vehicle sales, those nearly tripled and hybrid car sales nearly doubled last year in the UK. Pretty good electric car stats. But let's jump the North Sea over the fjords to Norway. I hear their lovely

Jack, for the first time ever, get this, Snackers, electric vehicles were the majority of car sales in Norway all of last year. In the U.S., I think electric cars are like 2 or 3% of new car sales. In Norway, they were 54% last year. Wild. So that's Norway and the UK. Let's jump a little further over to China. Jack, what's the car sales situation in China in 2020?

It was a tough year for everyone. China included car sales overall fell by 8% last year, but electric vehicle sales rose by 4%. EV sales were up. Neo, the Tesla of China, the main electric car company there, it saw deliveries double in 2020. There are at 44,000 cars a year, which is still just one-tenth of Tesla.

So we got Neo, the Tesla of China. Jack, how about Tesla, the Tesla of Tesla? The most valuable car company in the world by far, Elon set a bold goal to deliver 500,000 Teslas in 2020. This was an aggressive coal. Some people laughed. Jack, what is the final? number that we just learned last week about how many cars Tesla delivered to get its 500,000 delivery

goal. $499,550 Teslas, he should have bought a Tesla for every member of his extended family to hit that goal. I mean, Jack, at this point, you just call up Oprah. She gives away 50 for you like nothing. It's easy. She doesn't. Let's round this out with our fifth electric car stat. Up the road in Silicon Valley from Tesla, Rivian, an electric delivery van company, they just raised fresh venture capital cash. We just learned yesterday, Rivian is now going to be worth $25 billion, still a private company. That means it's worth like two lifts and almost a Ford. A global milestone moment for electric cars. You need three visas and a passport to cover all this news. Did anyone ever actually find Carmen San Diego? So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in electric vehicles?

2021 will be the year of the electric car because of politics. Snackers, from 2016 to 2020, electric cars grew, like honestly, like entirely on their own. Look, ma' no hands kind of a thing. They just did it themselves. The last time Congress threw electric cars a bone and passed a law to support them was in 2008 during the financial crisis. I said, we were still in college. But the number one barrier to electric car buying, it isn't range anxiety.

And it isn't like Prius fatigue. It's the price. That's the barrier. An electric car, because of the expensive battery, is still $5,000 to $10,000 more. than its gas-guzzling equivalent. And the electric car industry, it's still young. It could use some government support to lower the cost, accelerate adoption. That way, if you want to help out Mother Earth, you don't have to drain Tanya's college

fund. It's kind of expensive to get one of these chargers. But if Democrats can take control of the Senate, then the new majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has already prioritized an electric vehicle bill. That would turn this global milestone moment of this week to the year of the electric car. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? The Georgia runoff elections are forcing markets to undo their November moves. We're thinking $2,000 checks are the priority of a unified democratically controlled government.

For our second story, Windham Destinations married travel leisure and magazine, and took their name too. Experiences in travel still matter despite the pandemic. For our third and final story, electric cars had a great 2020, even though the car industry didn't. So we think 2021 can now be the year of the election. car. Now, time from our snack fact. This one tweeted in by, honestly, a legendary snack factor. I think this is her third, Kelsey Black from lovely Austin, Texas. Nick, the letter J is the only letter not found on the periodic table of the elements. Jack, I think this was a great opportunity where we could have reversed it. What is the only letter situation? This would have been a good

trivia. You know what? I think we should re-record this and do it that way. Well, Jack, what is the only letter not used when listing all 50 U.S. states? I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I that you form this in the form of a trivia question. Please. Well, S is in Mississippi four times. Yeah, it is. No, it's not S. No, it's not S. You're close, though, literally, geographically. The correct answer here is Q. Ding, ding, ding. Q is not in any of our 50 states. We're going to pause because we know you want to double check us on that one. Snackers, we loved being with you today, and we really missed you, and we know yesterday was a hard day. Snackers, we are rooting for America. We are keeping the faith. We hope you do, too.

and we'll see you tomorrow. Make today the best one yet. And before we go, big happy birthday to Juan Carlos Berzines in Caracas, Venezuela. And happy birthday to Chloe in Punta Gorda, Florida. And Whitney Oralana in San Diego, California. And Ali Ortiz in New York City, also known as Manhattan. The city's so nice, they named it twice. And Arkenham in Austin, Texas.

That's Kelsey Black's hometown, too. And Rohit Noghikuri in Sykakis, New Jersey. And Shane Newell in Chicago, he clearly. He's verified he doesn't work in logistics, but Chicago does logistics. Chicago does logistics. This is Jack. Nick and I both on stock of Airbnb. 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 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.