The Best One Yet - 🧸 “Elon’s 1st doll” — Mattel’s SpaceX fan-vestor. Coinbase’s 1st insider trading. Snapchat vs Amex.

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Mattel sales jumped thanks to Hot Wheels, but its newest toy partner is… Elon Musk’s SpaceX. A Coinbase product manager was charged with the first ever insider trading for crypto. And Snapchat’s earnings just screamed “Recession,” but then American Express screamed “No Recession” — So we’re going Snap vs AmEx.$COIN $BTC $MAT $SNAP $AMEXFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn 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. It's Monday, July 25th. Welcome back, and today's pod is the best one. Yeah, Jack. T-B-O-I. Now, we heard that Gen Z likes authenticity. So Nick and I stop wearing makeup.

And we can prove it. You can watch our pods all week on Spotify or YouTube. Yeah, hold the blush. Jack, what's our first story today? Mattel sales jumped thanks to Hot Wheels. But its newest toy deal is with Elon Musk. Uh, Barbie dolls and SpaceX rockets? For our second story, Snapchat earning.

screamed recession. But American Express earnings screamed no recession. Amex first Snapchat. Yeah. Who's telling us the truth? Jack, who you got? For our third and final story, a former Coinbase employee was just charged with the first ever insider trading crime for crypto.

And the FBI tracked them down thanks to a random tweet. You never know what a random tweet will do for you. I probably can get you fired. But before we hit that wonderful mix next. Just the perfect mix to kick off the week. I just love we've ripped up this mix, Jack. I'm flipping the page over to week 121 of the hoarder's alman. Things were running out of because of the pandemic.

Jack and I been keeping track for you. This week, it's something we're not running out of. We're not running out of sharks. Sharks, there are enough sharks swimming around the U.S. right now to eat Nemo. Yeties, on Cape Cod, they had 14 great white shark sightings just last week. Basties on Rockaway Beach. They just closed because of shark sightings. Man, Tucket has so many sharks this summer.

How many they got? them named Chad. It's a shark NATO out there, Jack. Freaky laser beams on their heads. Not satisfied. Get this. The Sharkivity app that track shark sightings, it just hit number one in the app store. Number one in the shark tracking app category, we should say. Because there has been a pop of great white sharks off the East Coast that's grown 42% in the last two decades. Apparently, conservation of this formerly endangered species is working. But Jack, with all the sharks hanging out out there, What are the actual odds of getting bin by a shark? Nick and I got your back.

Only one American is killed per year on average from shark bites. In fact, you're actually 47 times more likely to get struck by lightning. You are 30 times more likely to be killed by a coconut than by a shark. You are five times more likely to be killed by the song Baby Shark. We made that last one off. You're probably more likely to get bitten by the person sitting next year right now. We didn't make that one up. But here is the wildest part.

It also happens to be Shark Week on TV this week. It's like the sharks know that they're on TV and they want to watch too. Don't pop the popcorn, sharing some chum, Jack. This year's Shark Week is literally a shark week. Jack, we're going to need a bigger podcast. Just when you thought it was safe to get back into our three-state. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm.

It's the best one yet, but 50% that's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. For our first story, Mattel sales jumped 20% because parents apparently still love their kids. But the big toy deal with Mattel is with Elon Musk.

Before we get into this, Jack, have you seen the pictures from the new Barbie movie set in Santa Monica? Margot Robbie. She's Barbie. She's looking great. Can we talk about who's playing Ken, though? Ryan Gosling is playing Ken and is going full thirst trap on us all. He frosted every single tip on that head of hair, Jack. His six pack has a six pack. It's like the most aggressive method acting we've ever seen.

In the meantime, Jack, it's time to upgrade the Barbie Dreamhouse. Because Mattel, Barbie's owner, is one of the very few stocks that's up in 2022. Kind of shocking. It jumped 4% yesterday too because even if inflation prices pop, people apparently always splurge on two things. Puppies and babies. Puppies. P-U-P-P-Y. People ultimately prioritize puppies. Yeah. Babies and toddlers too. But Jack, what was the top toy this year that actually stole the show? It wasn't Barbie. That movie doesn't come out till next year. Uh-uh. The top toy this year, it's been hot wheels, apparently. Sales are up 26% for those hot wheels little four-wheeled figurines. But here's what Jack and I found fascinating

about the story. It's actually a story that was buried under the earnings report because the real is Mattel's new partner. Mattel is now the exclusive doll maker for Elon Musk. Oh, yeah, we're not talking Elon action figures here, although those would probably sell out faster than his flamethrower. Right, the Mattel and SpaceX deal. That's what we're talking about. Because SpaceX is Elon's rocket chip company.

It's worth $120 billion, the most valuable startup in the U.S. Now, SpaceX right now, they're not doing space tourism like consumer stuff. They're focused on launching satellites for Wi-Fi. That's their business. and shipping up astronauts for NASA. And yet, this multi-year Mattel deal is to make toys inspired by space exploration. Picture a Nerf gun, but it shoots out space dust. Picture of Polly Pocket, but she's like hanging out in a space station instead.

No details yet on what the toys will be. But I'm expecting some alien arrows. Or like an American girl doll named Astrid, who's an astronaut and like bend the space-time continuum. Wilder would... I'll get something for the Potson. Get that for the Potson. Get it for the Potson. But SpaceX is. He doesn't doing this just because Elon Musk has 10 children, although that doesn't hurt.

Yeah, Elon drives toy sales for other reasons. There's some history here, Yetis, because in 2020, Mattel got the exclusive deal to make remote control Tesla cyber trucks for Elon. The remote control car is there. The actual car isn't. And in 2021, Mattel sent Barbie dolls up and a rocket to the International Space Station. I hope Mattel and Elon got a pre-nup. Yeah, I hope so, too, Jack.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at SpaceX? and Mattel. The end goal of any corporation is to have fan investors. Okay, besties, SpaceX, it's not a publicly traded stock yet, but it's trying to follow Tesla's lead. Elon is the CEO, both Tesla and SpaceX. Well, Tesla already has an adoring audience of investors who support the brand and the stock no matter what. We call Tesla's investors fan investors for that reason. Exactly. So SpaceX, they want some fan investors too for whenever they decide to go public. And what better way to win fans of SpaceX than to serve them up some rocket and alien toys? For our second story, Snapchat stock just plummeted and it's a signal of a recession.

But MX stock just popped because they don't see a recession. Can we talk this out? It feels like we should talk this out now. Let's talk this out. Let's talk this out, Jack. What's going on here? On Friday, if Snapchat's earnings were an emoji, they'd be the emoji with waterfall tears. You know what I'm not? Not the single tier. We're talking the whole waterfall. Because Snapchat's stock has disappeared of late. Uh, Yeti, Snapchat stock plummeted 40% on Friday and has lost 90% of its value in just the last year. And all the other social media companies, their stocks dropped Friday, too, because of Snapchat's earnings.

But Jack, there's one word why Snapchat dropped. What is that one word? Ads. It's ads. Snapchat said that even healthy businesses have stopped buying ads on Snapchat right now. If you're not buying an ad, you're not expecting people to spend money. And that's not a good sign for the agreement. companies cutting their marketing budgets could be an indicator of a recession.

But funny thing that Jack and I also noticed right before the weekend on the same day. American Express. Yeah, American Express. What's going on there, Jack? It's a credit card company. They know what we're spending. They don't think they know. They know. Yeah, they know a little bit too well. Hold the judgments. I did mean to buy that. Not a fraud.

It was me. Well, on Friday, Amex announced its earnings too. And Amex's stock jumped 4% the opposite of Snapchat. And the reason is one word. Spending, that's the word. Spending by Americans on travel and entertainment has exploded, according to the CEO. Those are literally the CEO's words exploded. Jack, what's going on with business travel?

Look it. What about the Cabo weekend with your buddy Kelly? Charge it. Can you talk to me about the room upgrade, Jack? Say hello to my fancy friend. Sorry, Capital One. Amex knows what's in your wallet. And it's saying that you treat yourself.

So one company, Snapchat, is screaming recession alarms. The other company, American Express, their data says no session. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Snapchat and over at Amex? No recession today? Probably a recession tomorrow. Yeah, it is. We just heard two opposite, different, totally opposing, conflicting things on the same day. And it kind of messed with us before the weekend.

They're actually not conflicting, though. They're complimentary. Exactly. Because what Amex is telling us is that today, and yesterday we're spending big, especially on travel. MX's CEO literally said in response to a question, I don't see a recession in my numbers. But Snapchat's numbers, they look ahead.

They suggest that a recession is coming tomorrow. A lot of companies think you're going to stop splurging, so they want to save money now by not buying ads. It's a classic case study in a backward indicator and a forward-looking indicator. MX tells us there's no recession today. But Snapchat suggests there's probably a recession tomorrow. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Nick, you got introduced to the Robin Hood app the old-fashioned way, right?

Yeah, I did. My girlfriend now wife's older brother, who was that guy who worked in tech and, like, knew about the next iPhone before Apple did. He told you about the Robin Hood app. You told me about the Robin Hood app. All right. So you signed up because you wanted to buy a stock. Because like it was hard to figure out how to buy a stock when you're 25 and it's 2014. Yeah, back then you had to find a broker.

Call a broker on the phone. Call them pay a commission to that broker. Instead of calling, suddenly there was his app. you just swipe and you could buy the stock. Robin Hood's interface felt as easy as ordering an Uber or snagging a sandwich on Seamus. And it still is. So if you're not a Robin Hood user yet and you want to get started, you can go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and you can choose, get this, a free stock.

That's robinood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply and all investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. Robin Hood, by the way, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, a coin-based product manager has been charged with the first ever insider trading crime for crypto. The victim of this crime is the entire system. Yeti's a little game here you can play with your buddies next to you. How many cryptocurrencies are there on planet Earth?

I don't know, but we went to coinmarketcap.com and counted nearly 10,000. Now, you definitely haven't heard of 10,000. You've only heard of the dozen coins your roommate won't stop talking about. about. Used to not stop talking about it. It hasn't talked about in a while. And if you go to Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, you're not going to see 10,000 cryptocurrencies either. No, the crypto we hear about are probably the ones that exchanges have decided to list. Yeah, when an exchange, like Coinbase adds a new cryptocurrency to be tradable, it's really a validator for that coin. People see that it's listed on Coinbase and they say, oh, this thing must have some value. Great.

They figure if Coinbase listed it, there must be a lot of demand for it, and it must be And that validation, that attracts buyers, and that helps boost the coin. And one person, because of his job, knew exactly which crypto were going to get that validation next. And his name happens to be Ishaun Wahy, a 32-year-old product manager over at Coinbase, who did know what coins Coinbase was about to list. Ishan Wahi knew that tomorrow new coins would be added to Coinbase and the prices of those new cryptocurrencies would probably rise.

Yeah, so Ashan told his brother and his friend, brand and told them to set up crypto accounts with anonymous names. Don't tell anyone. And he told them to buy those coins that were going to be listed tomorrow to make a quick and dirty profit. Now, according to the prosecutors, 14 separate times, he told them to buy a very specific coin because Coinbase was listing it the next day. And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids. Because funny thing, it was all going lucratively well until some dude on Twitter just noticed what was happening. A dude on Twitter noticed because, crypto transactions are recorded on a publicly visible blockchain that anyone can take a look at.

This guy noticed that every time Coinbase lists a new coin, huge amounts are bought the day before by the same account. And that is smoking gun evidence that someone had insider information. Coinbase figured out who it was, set up a meeting to discuss this with Ashan, but Ashan had just bought tickets to a flight to India and had a whole bunch of suitcases packed. So the FBI connected the dots. They caught Ashon before he got to the airport. This is a classic insider trader trying to flee from U.S. jurisdiction. Literally, Jack, this is going to appear in a Series 7 textbook that our kids train for. If the allegations are true, it's illegal what Ashan did.

Yeah, he can't use his insider information as a product manager at Coinbase to beat the market and personally enrich himself. The FBI and Department of Justice are so proud of these charges. They're proud. They whipped up a press release that they want you to put on your fridge. Like literally, this thing is ready to frame. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are all investors? The victim of insider trading isn't one person or a bunch of people. It is trust.

Now, look, we love the markets, but they do have some major flaws, stock and crypto markets included. One goal that every market should strive for is fairness. Well, many think that insider trading, like this coin base guy, is a victimless crime. So like one dude, he made a bunch of money. But there is a victim. The victim is public trust in the system and belief that the system is fair. because these guys had an unfair advantage.

Yeah, for markets to function best, we need to believe that we all got the same shot at making a fortune of investing wealth. But this guy, his brother and his friend, they didn't have the same shot. They made a million dollars in profits easy, according to the charges. And now they may go to jail

because they betrayed the trust of our system. And this charge is a potentially huge win for trust in our system. Justice. Rachel. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the week? Mattel is doing a toy deal with SpaceX.

Because Rocket Toys, they win the hearts of fan investors. For our second story, Snapchat's earnings were worrisome. MX's earnings were encouraging. There's no recession today, but there may be a recession tomorrow. Our third and final story is that a former coin baser may go to prison for insider trading of crypto. The victim of insider trading isn't a person. It's trust. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Jacob Tulsi from lovely Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In the history of naval warfare, there's only been one documented submarine versus submarine underwater battle where one of the subs sank.

Like in the entire history of submarines, you'd think they would run into each other more frequently. We've seen a bunch of movies, but in those movies, the submarine is always going against a ship that's like above the water. Well, except this one time in real life when the British HMS Venturer took on the German U864. It was the first and only sub versus sub underwater battle, February 9th, 19th. A bonus fact, Jack. You got the honors. The British sub won. Long love the queen.

Oh, by the way, quick correction. The one temperature where Celsius is equivalent to Fahrenheit. Yeah, Jack. It's not negative 144. Like I stupidly said on Friday. You did great. I thought you did a wonderful job. It's negative 40.

If someone says it's negative 40 out, you don't need to say Fahrenheit or Celsius. But watch out for that shark. You got to watch out for that shark, Jack. Yeties. We'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, congrats to Francisco and Shay Liddy Rendon, who are kicking off their anniversary vacation in Cancun, Mexico.

Happy birthday to Michael Barbary in Las Vegas, who just lost an incredible 70 pounds. And Brandon and Morgan, they got their eighth wedding anniversary, celebrating it with daughter Flora. Happy 13 years together to Max and Mallory Carranza, who are on a lime farm in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. And Yosi just got his real estate license over in Miami. Happy 25th to Shelby, who also got a new job in his...

moving back to Texas. And Dylan Steinfeld got promoted again at Home Depot. He's been T-Boing for two years, Jack. Happy birthday to Yomilde Moldonado in San Juan, Argentina. And Jenny Lou Mashhoff, happy birthday over in Honolulu, Hawaii. Happy 28th to Jacob Tim in DePier, Wisconsin. And Derek Lewis turned 30 in New York City. Happy birthday to Jamie Sam, who's also starting a new business, Start Something Studio.

Yeah, her co-founder, Jack introduced her to the best one yet. Happy birthday to Natalie Smoores Johnson in Bitterroot, Montana. Delicious nickname. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a tea bar. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time I tried to buy a stock, I got burned badly.

Is this when you wanted to buy a share of Ford? Because you like the chassis over in Detroit? Yes, I had $200, so I bought $200 of Ford stock. I didn't get $200 of Ford stock, though. I got $192. Oh, the commission fees. By the time the stock climbed back to $200, I sold it, but again, I didn't get $200. I got $192 again.

Another commission fee. The stock rose 8%, but I was down on my investment. Because commission fees made small money investing impossible. So Robin Hood came in and killed commission fees. And commissions are still dead in stock and crypto trading, thanks to our sponsor. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and choose a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View their fee schedule at RBNHD.co slash fees.

All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. Oh, and by the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. And the stocks Jack just said are for illustrative purposes only and are not recommendations. So do we know when and where Timmy's wedding is? No, which is going to be a fun thing for us to like Insta out because someone actually email us today and like asked if timmy was real kind of a thing oh we'll we'll insta out that we're at his wedding yeah every time we're about to show him we'll like cut it off or like block him out

our buddy team oh i dropped my phone i love your instinct we exist we're like yeah here's his wedding oh the phone turned off i lost my battery i love your instinct to continue that tease like we'll show we're bachelor's buddy timmy and then like you know a shrimp cocktail goes by it blocks timmy so no one can see him