The Best One Yet - “Dunkin’ stealthily went fancy” — WWE’s XFL problem. Twitter’s record surge. Dunkin’s premium coffee strategy.

Episode Date: February 7, 2020

Dunkin’ announced earnings, but we’re focused on the subtle hints that it’s transforming into a fancy coffee chain. World Wrestling Entertainment stock dropped 9% and we’re blaming the XFL situation. Twitter shares surges as the social network tries to convince you it’s in the most healthy shape of its life.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 next daily. It is Friday, February 7th. Yeah, this is the best one yet because markets rose on news that China is cutting the tariffs in half. Not going to lie. Didn't know where you were going with that one. I was hoping this was the best one.

I couldn't tell by your vibe there, Jack. This is the best one yet. We're starting off with the WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment. The stock, it's called WWE. It's the ticker symbol and the company name. It's beautiful thing. The stock dropped 9%.

This is a media company that could face a big problem with its cousin. The XFL. launches on Saturday. Nothing. The extreme football league. Fake about this. The blood, the sweat, the tears. It's all real.

Second story. Duncan's earnings report confirmed something for us. It's becoming a fancy coffee chain. But don't tell anyone this is a secret operation. No one knows about this. Don't upset the Duncan hard course.

Honestly, Jack and I are like the only people have picked up on this. Third and final story. Twitter had its best day in nearly three years. It's trying to convince you it's taking better care of itself. We're talking like spa day vibes over here. Corporate self-care.

A little bit of mudmatch. is so in right now. But before we jump into all that, Snackers, we got to talk about the T-Boys. The Best One Yet Awards. We're up to, I think, our fourth award now. Yeah, we're up to our fourth. Our third award, which just won yesterday was Best Foreign Firm. Spotify.

Yes. Podcasts. It's true. Now, the winners have not had very long acceptance pieces. No, no. In fact, we're waiting for them to, like, reach out to us and thank us for the award. There's actually been no acceptance features. Adam Newman is MIA apparently.

Adam? We know you're listening. But the latest award is going to be for best product in a failing role. Best product in a failing role. All right, Snackers, we're going to have the poll up on Twitter at Robin Hood Snacks for best product in a failing role. Here are the nominees. Snapchat for Spectacles. Everyone's got it like a friend who doesn't have one.

There's been three versions of spectacles. I've never even seen. No idea what they even look like. Second nominee, Harley Davidson, Electric Motorcycle. Harley made a motorcycle for millennials who are affluent. Okay. Who like motorcycles and who are environmental warriors. Do a little Venn diagram there and you get nobody.

There's no overlap. It doesn't work yet. For the third nominee, Jack? Facebook for Portal. Yeah, you've seen the ads. They show families who are like in love with their family. No family is this perfect. In the depths of the privacy crisis for Facebook, they made a camera that goes in your living room.

It's kind of creepy. And the fourth and final nominee for Best Product in a Failing Roll, Baby Yoda, Holiday Toy, 2019. That one self-explanatory. You know we're talking about Snackers. Remember to vote at Robin & Snacks on Twitter. 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 is air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robin Hood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. Nope. 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, member Fenra slash SIPC.

For our first story, Jack Machiato. No one even knows what that means. Duncan is evolving into a premium coffee chain. But the evolution is absurdly subtle. You can't even see it. It's like the mountains that emerge out of nowhere over 12 million years. you think of Duncan, do you think of a 64-ounce styrofoam cup of Boston cream before your 6 a.m. hockey practice outside Ravilla.

Where are these peewees going to start the game already, Martha? Duncan, though, wants to change that image to someone strolling out of restoration hardware on Newbury Street after a lovely day of shopping. And you need a quick Duncan oatmeal latte because your Canada goose is warm, but it's April and it's Boston, so it's negative disease. It pretty much sums up the whole thing right there. The premiumification of Duncan. It's happening. And Jack and I have been picking up on the... the clues. One, they're investing

$60 million to replace their industrial coffee vats. Yeah. With like a higher-end brewer. You know what we're talking about? We're assuming this looks like what they got a blue bottle, which is like some kind of like artisan coffee contraption. They had like an architect come in to put this thing in. Cookie crumb number two. The nitro brew, they rolled out to their menus and the

oat milk latte is coming this spring. Cookie crumb number three, styrofoam cups, they're ending. No more in April. Those are the ugliest parts of Duncan besides the gallon of cream. And they put in every coffee? But those are going to be banned permanently starting in April. But wait, there's more. Jack and I noticed some more subtle moves that Duncan's doing, not just what they announced

in their earnings yesterday. Like a buddy who's trying to subtly upgrade his wardrobe by like suddenly wearing Henley's instead of just T-shirts. You're like, okay, what's going on here? Your chest is showing a little bit of hair and we can see it through your shirt. Is that product in your hair name? Is that Henley's on your face? Last year they dropped the word donuts from their name because donuts are not high-end.

They've also got a new espresso recipe, a new espresso recipe. a new espresso cup, and they're making their baristas go through espresso training and certification. That's like a modern-day GED. You got to get an MS-M-R-P kind of degree in espresso. And finally, they're killing the Kool-Aida ice coffee, you know, the coffee Kuladas? I think there were like 30 people in Wayland that named their kids Kulata last year. Now, we're just waiting for them to end their hazelnut syrup pumps. They're like, you want three pumps or four pumps.

These pumps are so big. Someone orders Hazelnut. You got to get so big. Susie to help you because your back hurts if you're going to pump it. This guy wants two pumps. These hazelnut pumps, honestly, they look like oil spills. Now, the key for Duncan is to do this gradually and without fanfare. Right, they don't want to alienate their Duncan hard cores.

And yesterday's earnings report for Duncan shows that the results are happening. The best sales improvement in six years. Espresso sales surged 40% compared to the year before. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Duncan? Premium coffee is a habit hook. A habit hook. If you hook someone with a habit like coffee, you can control their daily habit. And guess what? People are willing to pay a lot of money for coffee. It's an expensive and profitable habit. That's why Coca-Cola just acquired Costa Coffee chain, which is an entire chain out in Europe.

It's why Starbucks just scaled its reserve premium coffee locations. Those places are like five-star. I want to live in one of those places. And it's also why JAB Holdings, a mysterious German company. It could be JAB. Acquired crispy cream, Einstein bagels, Peets, Green Mountain Coffee from Vermont, and Pret-a-Manger. Premium coffee is a habit hook. For our second story, Twitter just enjoyed a record quarter.

But it's focused, not on profits. No, no, no, no. It's focused on convincing you it's in a healthy place. It's in a good place. Throw in a little kelpsey mask on. Is that what you're thinking, Jack? Cucumber honey mask. Someone told me the other day,

if you mix walnut oil with leachy nuts and let it sit for three hours, you're going to look great. You're going to shine. Twitter investors on Wall Street are pretty pumped because the stock rose 15% yesterday. That's like one of the best day. I think it's like one of the best days in nearly three years. That's because they hit the billion dollar mark for revenues in a single quarter. In one time ever.

Quarter, they got one billion dollars from revenues. That's big. It's just like a nice round number. And the CEO, Jack Dorsey, he's like, yeah, we got the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coming up. Cheching. And in November, we have a presidential election. Cheching. And for both of those things.

You'll be glued to things you shouldn't be glued to, aka Twitter. Exactly. Now, we looked into this earnings report a little bit more, and here's what fascinated Jack and I. It looked a lot more like a doctor's report. They're trying to convince you that they're like on a keto diet and they're cleansing their body. I never felt better. Swear to God. Haven't touched chocolate in three years, but I'm feeling great.

This is no joke, Snackers. The earnings report mentioned the word health eight times. Bear in mind, this is a social media like tech company, right? Yeah. They're talking about the word health. They mentioned the word profit. only five times. Are they talking about like HR benefits? No, no, no, no. Like with healthiness? They're acting as if

they're going through like a mindfulness thing, as if the whole company went on a Zen retreat to Tulum. All right, spoiler alert. Social media health is about the number of trolls. Yep, the amount of harassment, a problem. The number of graphic videos of violence being posted on the platform. Not fun stuff. The misinformation campaigns from China, Russia, and North Korea. All that stuff is unhealthy. That's all unhealthy. So Twitter's is trying to show you it's focused on getting rid of all that. a.k.a. it's in good health.

Right. AKA, it's not going to be that harmful to society slash democracy. So if you scroll through this earnings report a little bit more, you notice they've got a little bit more evidence about how healthy they are. One specific metric that they track is the number of violations of the Twitter terms of service. Apparently there was a 27% drop in that over the last quarter. So that means like fewer instances of harassment to the point where the person clicked like, I'm being harassed. Twitter was so excited about this. They got there like design team to whip up a little whistle icon graphic on the charts. It was actually, it was charming.

This is thanks to millions of dollars of investment in machine learning. Yes. Basically, tech that can read through a whole bunch of tweets and be like, that one is definitely harassment. Let's take that guy down without even a human having to intercede. Plus, they're going to double down on that. They're paying up 20% more hiring over the next year because they need more of these moderators. I think Facebook has 40,000 content moderators. These are human beings who look through like questionable posts.

They could be their own country at this point. It's kind of a dark place, though, the job they have. Also, Twitter is doing a lot of specific 2020 stuff that is aggressively focused on keeping election coverage super healthy. Back to those content moderators, though. They're basically sleuthing through trolling. Like, not a fun job. It's not a fun job at all. Okay.

Had to double underline there. Wait, one second. Do you want to go back to the content moderators at Facebook Jack? Are we good? Back to the election initiatives. They're tagging candidates for public office with like a very clear badge so you know this is really the person who's running for office. They are removing deep fakes or any kind of altered video because they don't want you wondering if that is actually the politician. Is that actually Bernie Sanders skinny dipping in Lake Champlain?

Is that Igor over in Chechnya doing a little like version of this? And finally, of course, they ban political ads altogether because they don't even want to deal with like lies uttered by politicians and ass. So Jack, do a little Ujjayi breathing over here. and can you let us know what's the takeaway for our buddies over Twitter? What Twitter lacks in size, it makes up for it in health. Twitter focuses on monetizable daily active users. That's the core metric it focuses on. It's the number of users who log in every day, who they can show ads to.

And that specific metric jumped by 21% to 152 million tweeters on a daily active basis. 21% is very solid growth. Most of that is abroad. Yeah. Because if you're an American and you're not, using Twitter net, you're probably not joining Twitter at this point. They added 7 million users in the last quarter. Only 1 million were actually in the U.S.

Now, you also need the context that Twitter is a niche service. Snackers, get this context. When it comes to social media, Facebook has 1.7 billion daily active users. Again, Twitter had 152 million. Snapchat has a little more than Twitter at 200 million, and TikTok has 700 million, a lot bigger than Twitter. Twitter can't match others' quantity. But it's making up for it.

in quality. And lack of trolls. For our third and final story, the WWE, world wrestling entertainment, just got body slammed again. And the questions this time is about the XFL. The stock dropped 9% yesterday. And yes, WWE is a stock. We're talking Hulk Hogan, The Rock,

John Cena, the macho man Randy Savage. China, the woman, not the country. Basically... Did we mention Dwayne the Rock Johnson? Your wrestling name is... I think it's the street you grew up on, paired with an ingredient, you're allergic to. I don't think that's true.

I think someone told me that one. Now, the WWE bred all of those celebrities that you may know. Vince McMahon created this empire out of a unique American entertainment focused on speedos, athleticism, and soap operas. Yeah, and none of the guys have any body hair. I've noticed that. It's amazing. Yeah, they're all, like, very well-shaged, full body.

It's one guy who's got a lot of body hair, though. There's always one. Now, we're talking about World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE. Vince McMahon is the CEO. Yes. And the headquarters are in Stamford, Connecticut. You're like driving on I-95. You see like a Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Bank of America, Fairfield Country Club.

And then boom, WWE. Seriously, we've all seen this if you've driven 95 up the Northeast Corridor. But just like your local bodega, this is a family-owned enterprise. Vince McMahon owns 42% of the shares of WWA. His wife, Linda, daughter Stephanie, and daughter's husband, Paul Triple H. Levesque. Don't mess. They own 90% of the voting. stock. That sweat equity

they got there. What the McMan's want, the McMan's get. We just wanted to say sweat equity on that one. Now the business of WWA, it's a triple threat. Yeah, but so far it's not an international threat. Jack and I jumped into the last earnings. It breaks down in a few key ways. Here's how they're making money. First is media.

WWE Network. It's like a Netflix for wrestling, 24-7, $10 a month. Live events. If you have a local convention center, you can probably go Saturday night. It's pretty entertaining. One of our Snackers right now has been hit by a steel chair. If you're lucky, you get hit by a steel chair.

You'll get hit by blood or a steel chair. Then you've got the consumer products. toys, backpacks, Halloween costumes. Halloween backpacks. Now, the stock is down 50% in the past year, despite those three awesome divisions. And it fell another 9% yesterday, so Jack and I jumped in. The reason. Investors were hoping for good news yesterday about the WWE's expansion to the Middle East and to India.

But instead, Vince McMahon said those are subject to considerable. You never want to hear those terms put together. That means it's not happening anytime soon. Oh, by the way, the co-presidents of WWE, they left the business last week without any explanation. Not a good sign. Never a good thing. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at WWE? The XFL could be a huge problem for the WVE.

We're talking about the XFL Football League. Sounds like it should stand for Extreme Football League. We looked into it that. It's not officially the Extreme Football League. They want you to think that, though. X is very, very sneaky there. They want you to think Kentucky Fried Chicken, but they're not. They're not making any guarantees.

Here's the thing about the XFL and the WWE. They're different companies, but they have the same target customer and the same owner. Vince McMahon. The last time the XFL launched way back in 2001, it failed, like right away. They had teams like the New Jersey hitman. And they had a player named he hate me. It was a kind of aggressive thing. Now, back then, the WWE was actually 50% owner of the XFL.

But this time, WWE, the company isn't involved. Except for Vince McMahon. The mutual owner. Vince McMahon only. owns the XFL and his family controls all of the WW. Now, last time in 2001, the XFL was like the NFL on steroids. This time, though, it's actually just like a football league that happens during the office season.

It's kind of just like the NFL's younger cutoff. Yeah, so the NFL's off season is right now, and the XFL kicks off on Saturday. Eight teams, four games. Could create some problems for the WWA. We got some questions about the WWA. For example, will Vince McMahon, the CEO, WWE, neglect his WWE baby to launch the If the XFL needs cash, will Vince have to sell his WWE shares to get that cash to finance the XFL?

Will WWE stars wrestle XFL players? And what's the speedo situation? Will XFL players play football against WWE Starr? Will the XFL players have body hair or not? A lot of questions. So these are the questions. W.W.Shaerholders are concerned. Jack and I had too much time yesterday.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend? Duncan. Donuts. I mean, Duncan. Don't even do that. Duncan. Wiencee piece of the high-end coffee market. So it's subtly ditching its Red Sox hat, cutting out the loose jeans, heading over to Beacon Hill.

To Beacon Hill for an oatmeal latte instead. Twitter had one of its best quarters ever, and the stock rose 15%. What Twitter lacks in size, it makes up for an online troll patrol, aka health. Online social media. Third and final takeaway, Jack? The WWE struggled because delays in uncertainty in its Mideast and India expansion. the XFL kickoff this weekend, that could be a problem for the WWE. Time for a snack fact of the day. This one came in from Shearin Lodi over in Chicago, Illinois. Great snacker.

Perfectly apropos, which no one knows what that means. It just means appropriate. Why don't we just say it's completely inappropriate? Now, this year's Oscars Swag Bag, which only goes to nominees. It's not for everyone who attends the event. You can't just go to the Oscars. If you get nominated for a T-Boer, you get mentioned on this pop. Yeah. If you get nominated for Oscar, congratulations. That's a real thing. Yes, but you also get a swag bag that includes a gift certificate to a 12-day Antarctic yacht cruise. And in case you were unsatisfied with that, they're also giving you hydrogen-infused water. Which is weird, because I think the H-2-O is hydrogen. You can't get this one past us, Oscars.

You can't get this past us. Now, the swag bag is worth $215,000. Must be nice. There are a few more things in there. Again, must be nice. Must be really nice. Snackers. I loved having you with this this week.

Jack and I feel like you guys look just, you looked great this week. And we have to say, we are here because you have shared us with your friends. Which is incredible. So this weekend, keep on sharing your snacks with your friends. Snacks daily has no ads. No. We don't advertise anywhere. We grow because you tell your friends about it.

Thank you so much for that. And if you could do one more this weekend. To one more friend. One more person just talking about snacks. If everyone does it, we double in size. We'll promise you Mondays is going to be a better pod than the day. See you then. 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.