The Best One Yet - “Disney+ > Canada” — Beyond Meat democratizes itself. Pinterest is pre-commerce. Disney’s just too big.

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Disney’s so big that its latest earnings report is a microcosm of the entire corona-conomy. Beyond Meat’s goods are so expensive, it just made a profit — but probably shouldn’t have. And we’re looking at Pinterest shares, which plummeted 12% because investors are wondering when your escapism pinning will make them some money.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, May 7th. Feeling strong about this Snacks Daily, Nick. What do you feel? Are you think, is this like better, same level, maybe a little less, maybe a little more? We got the best one yet.

Our first story. There is no magic in the world since Disney World and Disneyland have been closed since March. Mickey and Minnie shacked up. They're hibernating with Hulu and some Munchago cheese over an Epcot. Disney's earnings report just happened. And it's a microcosmobie. of the coronavirus. Second story, Jack. Beyond Meat is so expensive. It actually turned a profit last quarter. The rent is too damn high. We mean the meat, like the actual thing you eat,

is expensive. Also, the stock is expensive. The whole thing is just really expensive. It's actually a great gift, apparently. Now Beyond Meat announced it's lowering the prices for eight ounces of pea-powered goodies. Fake meat, real profits, kind of a funny thing here. I heard Heinz is coming out with a meat-based ketchup. That's absurd. Third and final story, Dick. Existential question. Can you pin a podcast like Snacks Daily? This is deep. I'm pretty sure it's only visual things. No idea. That would be profound. We jumped into Pinterest's earnings report because you, your roommate, or your significant other, might be pinning on the couch right now. That's cute, but is Pinterest making any money off that?

Before we get to those three fantastic stories, we got to talk FOMO. Yes, FOMO. The struggle is real. Our buddy Timmy has level three stage four FOMO non-stop. If we talked about FOMO and we didn't mention Timmy, he would have more FOMO. Turns out Nick and I actually know the guy who invented the term FOMO. Legendary man named Patrick McGinnis created fear of missing out as a term while he was a wide-eyed country boy student over at HBS Harvard Business School. Patrick actually advised our previous media startup market snacks, which became Robin Hood Snacks, and he's obsessed with the state of Maine. Honestly, you hang out with this guy. He pulls a shellfish out of his back pocket.

It's insane. He corrected the pod the other day because I said L-LB&HQ was in Fremont, Maine. It's Freeport, Maine. Thanks, Patrick. You don't make that mistake around Patrick. But interestingly, Patrick has developed a new concept here. It's not FOMO. It's FOMBO.

FOMO gets all the meme attention in, like, Drake and President Obama love dropping the term. But Fobo with a B is the real enemy of choosing, like, what shirt you're going to wear in the morning? Or, like, you know, like, what dinner invite? going to say yes to out of all the options. Fobo is another acronym. It's fear of a better option. It's when you're paralyzed and can't make a decision because you think something might come that's better. It stops you from developing friendships and it prevents you from scaling your dream startup into like a lucrative exit. It almost stopped us from choosing three fantastic stories for this podcast today. Peloton or Disney. Peloton or Disney. Now a little humble brag here. Nick and I

got an early copy of Patrick's new book. It's called Fear of Missing Out, Practical Decision Making, in a world of overwhelming choice. That new book is embracing FOMO, and it's really about killing Fobo. The takeaway, if you can make better decisions, you'll live better. We just decided that decision. Definitely check out Patrick McGinnis' new book, FOMO.

Also, Patrick, if New Hampshire ever gets in a fight with Maine, Vermont's got Maine's back, always. Except all three would just be a single county in New York State. Let's in 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 are about to hear. Here 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. 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, Disney is a microcosm of the entire coronavirus. It's not too big to fail. it's just too big. It's just really big right now. Now, first of all, tough first day for Bob Checkback, the new CEO at Disney. This guy's calling his agent going, Deborah, what's the vacation plan again? How many of these days do I get?

He took over on February 25th as the CEO of Disney, and he took over from the legendary CEO, Bob Iger. So old Bob is out, new Bob is in, and New Bob is facing an immediate unprecedented crisis. And just like Elsa and Frozen, On her first day of coronation, the entire city of Arundel freezes over, and the whole town realizes she has dangerous freezing powers. He's also pulling a Nemo. First day of school swimming around gets kidnapped by a dentist. Bob, you're welcome for selecting two Disney movie analogies to represent your brutal situation. Also, New Bob, we're officially going to start just calling you, Bob. I actually like New Bob more.

New Bob, actually, let's go back to New Bob. So it's 2020, and Disney, the Corporation is basically a magical flying table with four. legs, one or two of which just got destroyed by COVID-19. Jack and I jumped in snacks out of this earnings report. We're looking at all four legs. First leg, theme parks and cruises. That's right, cruises. You thought things couldn't get worse for Disney? It also has a cruise line. And sales at Disney World cruises were murdered by COVID-19. And so were the theme parks. The second division, media networks, is basically Disney's cable TV channels. And get this Snackers, for every cable bundle that includes ESPN, which is owned by Disney, Disney, Disney makes.

$7.89 a month. Man, the cable TV companies had it so good for so many years. But Corcoran is crushing that ESPN revenue and ad sales are suffering on cable these days. The third leg of Disney's magical table is studio entertainment. We're talking big blockbuster movies. That's all a lot of fun, except movie theaters are completely closed, and that means Disney's blockbusters all on hold. Marvel and Star Wars, they're both frozen. Frozen, pun intended, because that's the only kind of puns we do want snacks daily. fourth and final leg of Disney's table, direct to consumer. This is the newbie on the block for Disney. We're talking Disney Plus, Hulu, which they own, NESPN Plus streaming, which they also own.

This was actually a bright spot of the earnings report. Disney Plus now has 54.4 million subscribers. That's as a Monday, and yes, that's more than the country of Canada. And yes, Canada is the northern neighbor of the state of Vermont, the great state. Snackers add up all four of those legs, some damage, some intact, and profits for Disney plus. Limited 91%. And the second quarter, aka the quarter we're currently in, like as of today right now, is expected to be a lot worse than that for Disney. And hiring, they've had to furlough 100,000 workers. Oh, and they canceled the $1.6 billion dividend check, which was scheduled to arrive in every shareholder's email inbox in June. So, Jack, can you hand us all a big turkey leg and let us know what the takeaway is for our buddies over at Disney? When Disney World opens, that is when we're past COVID-19.

Snackers, Disney is a symbolic company, and the status of its crown jewel, Disney World, is even more symbolic. If Disney World is back open, then the world is back to normal. If Disney World is closed, then we're still in the coronavirus. It's like that website is the L train aft. Exactly. Exactly. Disney will have to be very, very, very careful, though. The lawyers are going to be all over this before they finally decide to open up their theme parts.

You get within three feet of Snow White for an autograph, boom, she infects you. Boom, that's bad PR. and then there's some bad lawsuits for Disney. That would be very, very bad, so Disney's going to be very, very careful. So analysts are watching Disneyland Shanghai, which is scheduled to reopen on May 11th. But only at 30% capacity and only if you're wearing a mask. For our second story, Beyond Meat made a surprise profit last quarter. Huge mistake, huge mistake.

So it's finally cutting the prices of Beyond Burgers. Snackers, we got to address the cow in the room on this one. The meat shortage. Meat packing plants in America have become COVID-19 petri dishes. We don't exactly know why. We assume it's because everyone's just really close to each other in those plants, but a huge percentage of beef and pork processing plants are closed. Yeah, we might have a meat shortage.

Week nine of the hoarder's almanac, get a family pack of North Dakota ground beef because a shortage is coming. Turns out one out of five Wendy's has no beef. I went to five Wendy's last week. One of them had no beef. I had to get chicken. We're going to be telling our kids, the fifth burger I got was just the buns.

No, this is a true story. one out of five Wendy's has no beef. So the president is ordering meat processing plants to remain open, calling them essential and like invoking a defense production act. Maybe if they use the patties in circles instead of squares that would solve their problem. True. Why does Wendy's do that square thing? Just trying to be different. Now let's get back to Beyond Meat because it's facing a classic seesaw situation that you know about Snackers. A little bit of good, a little bit of bad because of COVID-19. Let's start with the good. Jack, serve it up, please, medium-emer. There is no shortage of pea protein. we got plenty of Beyond Meat patties to share with everyone.

Jack's got pea protein popping out of the years over there. And Beyond is making a little bit of nimble adaptation in the COVID-19 era. Yeah, with restaurants closed, they're converting their restaurant-focused meat assembly line to, like, just do grocery stores instead. Not too shabby. That was the good. Yes, now let's get to the bad. Jack, serve it up, please, more medium.

Their meat is really expensive. I just bought two, two packs of frozen burgers to feed my in-laws this weekend. $8 per two pack. That's $4 a patty. You could buy a cow and, like, raise it and send it to college with that much money. With $32 million already unemployed in America, $16 bucks a pound for plant-based protein sound, not a great luck. I'm just more concerned your in-laws are coming up and you're only going to feed them like one patty to survive the whole weekend. This sounds mean, Jack. This sounds mean. I'm going to get a bunch of potatoes for french fries. Now, Snackers, the result of the good and the bad we just laid out. sales for Beyond Meat more than doubled to $97 million last quarter. And it made a quarter-sized profit of $1.8 million.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Beyond Meat? Beyond Meat is way too early stage to be making a profit like this. Now, everyone listening, you know Beyond Meat because you're a snacker, but most Americans don't and the data shows it. We jumped in snack style to the earnings report for Beyond Meat. One little nugget of juicy beef that we wanted to see, 21% is the unaided brand awareness of Beyond Meat right now in America. That means Beyond Meat surveyed a bunch of Americans and asked, name a plant-based meat band, but didn't give any hints. And only 21% were able to mention Beyond Meat. That is not enough. Beyond Meat is young and young companies should be focusing on growth, not profits. They need to try to become a household name, or at least better than 21%. So Beyond Meat is finally lowering prices. It's launching a value pack, more meat, lower price.

So instead of two burgers for eight bucks, it'll be like four burgers for $21. 12 bucks or eight burgers for 20 bucks. Value packs. They'll make less profit, but sales could be higher because barbecue season's coming, even if you're six feet away from everyone. Grow today, make profits tomorrow. That is the growth company playbook. Beyond is finally using it. All right, it's snacks challenge time. We have a correction to what we said yesterday. We said the best snacks challenge run ever was 3.1 miles. That was a mistake. Completely wrong. Kim Tomasick and her husband, Zach, they did 3.18 miles. Snacks challenge record. They're competitive runners from Buffalo, New York. and they just set a high bar.

It's time to turn around, by the way, because we're rolling halfway through the pot. Couples who snapped together for our third and final story, Pinterest shares dropped 12% yesterday. Even though it's the app you're using to prep your nest. We're talking about the Hufflepuff of social media companies right now. It's nice. It's not too aggressive.

It's not particularly smart, but it's not doing anything sinister, that's for sure. It's definitely not winning those quidditch cups. No, and you all know the social media company that's Slytherin House. Let's be honest. let's leave an awkward silence. And moving on.

Investors, though, focused on Pinterest growth when it came to the earning. So Jack and I jumped in Snacks. I'll check it out. The number of users checking in monthly jumped 26% to $367 million for Pinterest last quarter. That sounds big, sounds like a whole content, but it's actually the same growth rate as last year. It's more than Twitter, but it's not an acceleration from last year. All right, so that's the users. Let's look at the money. Revenue growth, the rate slowed.

And it's unprofitable still. None of that look good. All of it needs some Marie Kondo working up. Now that is all that investors care. Those two bullet points Nick and I just listed off. That's why the stock fell 12% yesterday. But Jack and I wanted to get more numbers. So we looked at engagement. And we actually thought that was a fascinatingly bright spot. Because of the Corona economy and many people being stuck at home all day, Pinterest serves as an opportunity to escape. It's your digital dreamland. You wake up, you build a whole thing of what you wish you were doing when you're not doing it. My wife is pinning modern carriage-style homes in the countryside, which is like her dream life. We're looking at like 12 types of throw pillows to cover our sofa

because apparently it's the only thing to change things up when you're watching so much Netflix. And everybody's looking at gluten-free banana bread recipes because we're all stuck inside and just want to like pretend we're not. What's your secret ingredient? What's your secret ingredient? Oh my God, 12 pictures of nutmeg. It's nutmeg. Thanks to that escapism through Pinterest, this coronavirus, the engagement numbers last quarter were insane compared to last year. Snackers, get these numbers of 50% increase in virtual events. Virtual events sound pretty intriguing. This is when you like crowdsource an idea for a baby shower with friends live on Pinterest. Jack, are we going with the peonies or are we going with the daffodils behind us?

Well, we're a tulip family. Now, trick question you do both. 60% increased in the number of Pinterest boards created by pinners. And a 75% jump in engagement on those Pinterest boards. And he can't pass. People be pinning. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Pinterest? Pinterest is a new term we're coining. Pre-commerce. Not e-commerce. No, yesterday, Snackers, we spoke with you about Wayfair, whose stock searched 600% in the last couple months. Because of treat yourself affordable online furniture purchases to upgrade your current COVID-19 bunker. That's what was going on with Wayfar. But Pinterest, it should be complementary to everything we just described about Wayfair. Before you buy that chestnut bedside table, you can test the idea in a troll-free social media company

called Pinterest. It's perfect. Pinterest should be the pre-commerce to all the above e-commerce. The engagement last quarter shows that it could be, but the growth in finance shows it's not translating to revenues like they want. Jack, and you'll whip up the takeaways for us over there. Disney is a four-legged magical stool, and at least one or two of those have been crushed by COVID-19. When Disney World opens, the disease closes. We also like stool more than table. We made it change there. We made a little switch there. For a second story, Beyond Me is finally lowering prices. It's focused on growth, not profits like it should be. For our third and final story, Wayfair is e-commerce. Pinterest can be its pre-commerce.

It's the troll-free hufflepuff of social media getting lots of engagement right now, and that's what we're focused on. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in from Samarth Chala in Singapore, Singapore. There's been a lot of chatter about the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which was the deadliest in history and infected a third of the planet. But interestingly, Samoth points out, didn't originate in Spain. During World War I, Spain just happened to be the country talking about it most. They had a free press and were reporting on it.

Neutral country, and you know, half a life is just showing up and talking. They spent the last hundred and two years saying, it wasn't me. It wasn't us, actually. Snackers, love being with you. Remember to share your favorite parts of snacks daily. H-Y-H-Y-S-D. Have you had your snacks daily? See you tomorrow.

If you know, you know. This is Nick and both Jack and I own shares of Beyond Meat and Jack owns a put option on Disney. 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 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.