The Best One Yet - 🍰 “Choco Caramelicious Cheesecake w/ crumbled Snickers” — Cheesecake Factory’s craziness. Nike’s metaverse shoes. The Fed’s taper.

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

The Cheesecake Factory just had its best quarter ever because it’s doing 24/7 cheesecake takeout. Nike’s newest trademark is for virtual sneakers — it’s their 1st step into the Metaverse. And the Fed just cut the economy’s allowance, but Wall Street’s OK with it.$CAKE $NKEGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformLearn 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, November 4th. The Dow is sitting happy at 36,000 points. There we go. Nothing satisfies Wall Street more than a nice square number of thousands. 49,000 you're up next.

If you know, you know. By the way, this is definitely our best pod ever, Jack. This is the best one yet. This pod's a T-boy. Yeah, it is. For our first story, the cheesecake factory is on pace for their best year ever. True story. Cheesecakes taste best through a mask?

Yeah, it's all thanks to 24-7. and chocolate-licious cheesecake, that is the hero product. Our second story is about a Nike trademark for sneakers that are so futuristic you can't wear them. This is wild. You can only download them. Yeah, Nike, it's taking the first step for you into the metaverse. For our third and final story, after 21 months.

21 months. The Federal Reserve Bank is cutting the economy's allowance. The taper hath begun and stock markets, they aren't throwing a tantrum? Okay. That's great news. Fantastic. We'll take it. All right, the pod's done.

There we go. What else do we got? Snackers, we got a little bit more. Today, Thursday, it's the new Friday. Yeah, Thursday's the new Friday. Ipsifacto Friday, Friday is the day you celebrate the wins. Here's a win to celebrate. Champagne, champagne, people.

It has rebound. Bubly is back, baby. Bubly is back. Champagne sales, they plummeted 20% last year. By most measures, 2020 was a terrible year. It was a terrible year. Unless you were Tiger King, there wasn't much to celebrate last year. But Bubbly poor.

are on pace for an all-time record in 2021. Snackers, we jumped in snack style. We're talking 305 million champagne bottles are going to be sold this year, it looks like. We're talking about revenge decadence. Oh, yeah, waiter. We'll have another, please. Yes way. Sparkling Rose.

Here's the key snackers. You aren't just celebrating and back to celebrating these days. You are celebrating the little things, too. It's not just weddings, bar mitzvah, some 21st birthday parties. Now you're celebrating the laundry. Nothing's day. You're celebrating the day. Dishes. Nothing shattered. And you're celebrating the books. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Andre.

What would you say, Jack? It feels like more good news. Well, people wouldn't be celebrating unless there was something to sell. This is a toast to humanity's happiness. Mo bubbles, less troubles. Extra Prosecco, what the heck? Let's do our three stars. Let's toast our three stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something illegal out the way. The snacks about to hear ain't food. It's ear candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not. But 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, the Cheesecake Factory, just made a shocking turnaround after doing the opposite of what all of its competition was doing.

And it's all thanks to the cheesecake. The uniqueness of the cheesecake. By the way, Jack, the most. Polarizing them desserts out there. It's like the candy corn of cake. Cheesecat. Are you pro-pregants? We haven't even discussed this. We haven't even shared one together. I love the crust most. Yeah. Okay, the crust is good. I'm more of a buttercream guy. I like the Susie cakes. I like the Alice's teacup. It's like a chicken nugget. The crust is the best part. I would take the butter over the cheese. Now, the pandemic crushed sales of the cheesecake factory's

restaurants. Sales fell by half. You know, you couldn't celebrate Nana's 70th birthday with 70,000 calories like you want. They're like, would you like your chicken carbonara with meatballs? and steak. They're like, what? Basically, this entire company is the Olive Garden mixed with Willy Wong. There's 308 restaurants on this chain. Each one basically looks like Versailles. It does. The decor is opulent. There is a freeze. Jack, I'm sorry, I'm looking at a Corinthian column right now. But during the pandemic, they were closed, losing millions of dollars a week. So, Cheesecake Factory stock, it's down 33% from its all-time high. Understandable because the pandemic is still here. And yet Jack and I noticed that Cheesecake Factory is on pace for its highest annual sales

ever. A restaurant chain, which like isn't as packed as before the pandemic. We didn't say like doing better sales. We said doing its best sales in the history of cheesecake. Yesterday, they announced their third quarter earnings and sales are up 8% over the pre-pandemic era, despite a surge in COVID cases because of the Delta variant. So Jack and I got curious and then we were fascinated with This, it turns out that cheesecake was the hero product of the entire pandemic. According to the Wall Street Journal, cheesecake is now doing twice as much takeout as they did before the pandemic. They're doing $3 million to takeout each one of their restaurants.

Takeout has become half of their business. And guess what? It turns out that the number one takeout order over at the cheesecake factory is the cheesecake. So even though they're socially distancing in restaurants and not sitting nearly as many diners, they're more than making up for it in takeout sale. Cheesecake has become the ultimate takeout product. We thought chicken wings were the perfect pandemic delivery item because, you know, they're fast to cook,

there's few ingredients, and they're super portable and delicious out of a styrofoam container. But get this, cheesecake, it's even better than chicken wings could ever thought they could be. Cheesecakes are made in advance, so you can just put them in the fridge, and you don't even have to cook them, so no worries about them getting cold. Here's the wildest part about cheesecake.

It's not just a dessert anymore. cheesecake has become an around-the-clock indulgence that everyone's enjoying. The restaurant tells us that people are ordering banana cheesecake in the morning for brunch parties. Yeah, and people are ordering delivery at 10 p.m. for caramel pecan cheesecake cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. This is the best development cheesecake factory could have ever asked for. It's a 24-7 delicacy. We're basically telling you that cheesecake has become oxygen. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the Cheesecake Factory? Cheesecake Factory did the opposite of the competition during the pandemic.

it got more complex and it worked. Throughout the pandemic, Jack and I have been telling you about how restaurants they've been streamlining, KFC, McDonald's, Taco Bell, they've been cutting down their menus to keep things simple. You wanted to make it easy for the staff, which was working during the pandemic, short on supplies, you simplified the menu. But get this, the Cheesecake Factory did the exact opposite. They started adding stuff to their menus. Get this, they added an item during the pandemic called Chaco Carmelicious cheesecake with crumbled snickers. You need a break because that was a mouthful, Jack. That was just a lot to say. Give me some cheesecake. I mean, oxygen.

And according to the Wall Street Journal, the Cheesecake Factory is also focused on making running the stores more complicated, not simpler. Like the Olive Garden, which I can tell you about from experience, cheesecake factory restaurants, they all must follow a 500-page restaurant manual that corporate provides. That's right. There is a 500-page restaurant manual. manual, which includes micromanaging you on how to cut strawberries and 12 steps you must follow to serve the tea at the cheesecake factory. Here's the worst part.

They have 42 words that they encourage servers to use when describing the cheesecakes to the customers. One of those words is yamilicious. Jack, have you seen the other words on this thing? Scrumptious, soaked, amazing. These are the only words you can use to describe the cheesecake. Soaked? I'll be honest.

I don't want a cheesecake that tastes like soaked. Cheesecake factory does things their own way. And it's working. It's working. at record levels. For our second story, Nike just quietly filed a trademark for a new type of sneaker that's not even wearable. Nike's virtual shoes might be your first step into the metaverse.

Okay, Jack, I feel like we could open up here on this. If you're curious about what a company is planning before they announce it, there are a couple of things you can check out Snackers. Check their job board. Yeah, that shows who they're hiring, who's joining the team. Or check their trademark application. That shows what they're building, which will be. probably be built by whoever they're about to hire. So trademark lawyer Josh

Gerbin posted on Twitter that Nike appears to be building virtual sneakers. Jack, can we pull up Exhibit A, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office serial number 9709663666. What do we got? Nike Inc. based out of Beaverton, Oregon, applied for downloadable virtual footwear in virtual worlds. Ifso facto, Nike wants to sell virtual you virtual Air Force ones. This is a big deal because it's literally and figuratively your first step in the metaverse. Rarely, Jack, do we get the literally and figuratively in the same story? Whether it's your Fortnite or Roblox avatar today or your virtual self in Zuckerberg's

metaverse tomorrow. Yeah, here's the reality, Snackers. You can't be naked in Zuck's virtual world, the metaverse. You want your avatar looking good, just like you want your real self looking good. So, Jack, if I do the virtual run in a Metaverse in my Nike sneakers, do I burn real calories? Yes. No? Both.

The best part about the Nike sneakers you can buy virtually in the Metaverse. Here it is Snackas. They never get dirty. No, they don't because they're existing only in the virtual world that has been created by Facebook. The better part about Nike Metaverse sneakers. Yeah. They never give you blisters. And that's because you never have to try in a different size.

They're all the same size. No sitting down, trying them on and going through the awkward return process. Wild world would live it in. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies doing virtual things over at Nike? Expanding to the Metaverse will look a lot like expanding to a new country. Now, Snackers, you're probably not ready for virtual life in a virtual world, but companies are starting to get ready. If you build it, they will come.

Nike actually filed seven different trademarks, not just the one for selling virtual shoes in a virtual world. So Nike isn't just protecting the shoes. It's also protecting virtual versions of the swoosh logo and the just-disc. do it slogan. It looks like Nike wants a whole business line of virtual sales. And they don't want some kid on Fortnite selling knockoff Air Jordans. So we're thinking that Nike is taking the exact same steps its international expansion team would take, but it's doing it for the Metaverse. It protects its brand if it enters a new country. So it's protecting its brand now

because it's entering a new world. Zuck hopes that his Metaverse becomes an entirely new economy just like a new country. So companies are starting to treat it that way to. Nike, one of the first. For our third and final story, the Fed is tapering down its economic boosting bond buying spree. AKA the Fed is cutting our allowance. What was your allowance, by the way? Inflation adjusted. What are we talking about? No, inflation unadjusted. It was $10 a week. Yeah. And I only got it if I showed my dad where I spent all my money from last week. First of all, it sounds like your dad like is the guy running the cheesecake factory manuals over there. Second, I assume kids these days are getting like 200 bucks a week, given the price of everything. Given the price of robox these days.

I do a wilder some robox. Now, Snackers, the rest of us, we've actually all kind of been getting an allowance lately. And it's all coming from the Federal Reserve, the Central Bank of the United States. Look, mom, dad, I'll take out the trash, you just throw me some Ethereum. The Fed has been buying bonds every month, basically as a monthly allowance for the entire economy. Yeah, the first time they did this was 2008 after the financial crisis when the economy needed cash. It was called quantitative easing. The Fed printed huge sums of money to purchase a ton of long-term bonds. And it was like allowance for the account. Yeah, it was like an allowance because that cash made the financial system flush with money because banks got to offer extremely

cheap loans, which got people to start businesses. And that led to increase borrowing, increased spending, increased investing in stocks, and it all drove economic growth when we needed it. It was like an allowance and it was a blast. Now, to no one surprise yesterday, the Fed announced a change. Yeah, the Fed is changing things up. They said, you know, that allowance? We're going to start tapering it down a little bit. We're going to cut your allowance, America.

Because since the COVID outbreak snackers, the Federal Reserve, our nation central bank, has spent $120 billion a month to buy bonds. And yesterday, they said they will cut that allowance to $105 billion a month and cut that even further by $15 billion less. every month. So allowance will end in June. Now, the Fed is cutting the economy's allowance in one part to reduce inflation. Yeah, they want to prevent the price of everything from going up like every single day. And this is one way to do that. A $14 smoothie bowl is too much for a smoothie ball. If there's less money, then there's less demand and less bidding up of prices that causes prices to go up.

And less pricey smoothie ball. But some have wondered if this tapering, the slow reduction of our allowance, would upset investors? Would investors throw out? a taper tantrum and cause stock prices to drop. So did we get a taper tantrum? Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies in the entire U.S. economy? Wall Street did not throw a taper tantrum because it's mature. Yeah, Snackers, there wasn't a taper tantrum. Stocks didn't drop.

In fact, stocks actually rose yesterday to new heights. Part of that is because the Fed has been hinting for weeks, like very clearly that this cut of our allowance was happening. But a key reason investors aren't upset to lose their allowance. it's because they feel all grown up. Yeah, the central bank thinks the economy is strong enough. It doesn't need as much support for mom and dad anymore. So stocks didn't throw a taper tantrum.

In fact, they did the opposite and they rose to all-time highs. You did good. You did good. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Cheesecake factories takeout operation of cheesecake is incredible. Sales are at record highs because cheesecake did in its own way. It did things more complex. sees virtual sales as its next big growth driver. Yeah, it's prepping a metaverse expansion just

like it would prep a foreign country expansion. The Fed is cutting its quantitative easing by 15 billion a month. Yeah, we lost our allowance. It's called the taper because the economy doesn't need so much allowance. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Derek Mankin from lovely Akron, Ohio. Trivia. Yeah. What country does France share its longest border with? We know you're thinking. You can't whip out the Google Maps on this. But you're thinking Spain. You're thinking Italy.

Maybe Belgium. The Belgium's always sneak in there. I was thinking German. Some might. None of the above. It's actually Brazil. As in like Brazil and South America, not Europe. France's longest border is with Brazil.

Yeah, because France also controls the French Guiana province in South America, the country of French Guiana. French Guiana is part of France. If so facto, Brazil is France's biggest neighbor. We're talking France's longest border is a few thousand miles away from Paris, France. Snackers, you look fantastic today. Jack, would you say today's pod was, I don't know, was it scrumptious? Was it yam malicious?

Would you say today's pod was soaked? Today's pod was scrumptralesant. Snackers, if you have a snack fact or if you want a shout out on the pod, then check the links in the episode description here. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Sam Henderson from Atlanta, Georgia. Happy birthday, Drew Gad, in Atlanta, Georgia. And also happy World Series to both of you and the whole city of Atlanta.

The Braves won their second World Series ever. There you go. But meanwhile, Luke Tupus over in the Philippines, happy birthday to you too. Happy birthday Nancy Enriquez in Orange, California. And Rose Belt Gonzalez in Huntsville, Alabama. And Mark Whitbrot in West Hartford, Connecticut. And happy birthday to Navendra Kuell over in Queens. Happy birthday to John Osborne in San Jose, whose whole family snacks together.

It's healthy. You got to do that. Oh, and by the way, Jack, Amanda Oliver, all her students. and got A pluses on their latest exam in Pittsburgh. What about the bell curve? There we go. Fairly, the limit doesn't exist. And goofed and gollas,

congrats on the family reunion over in Toronto. Happy anniversary to Dr. Alan Bramovitz and his wife in Chicago. And Brianna and Cassandra, enjoy the vacation over in Jamaica. Just relax. Enjoy the vacation. And to anyone else celebrating something today, drink some champagne. Make it scrumptious. This is Jack.

I own stock of Roblox. And Nick and I both own some Ethereum. Robin Hood Snacks, newsletters, and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and do not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, cryptocurrency, or investment strategy in any account. This is not an offer or sale of a security, not a research report, and is not intended

to serve on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robin Hood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Give me some cheesecake. I mean oxygen.