The Best One Yet - Facebook launches a TV device, Corning Glass owns your iPhone screen, and FedEx’s 13% stock drop

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Facebook just announced a $149 Portal TV device to let you video chat while binge TV-watching. Corning Glass is located in a small town in upstate New York, making the glass on your iPhone — it just snagged a $250M investment from Apple. And FedEx fell 13% on its worries about the global economy, which makes it a “leading indicator.”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, September 19th. The best one yet. Coming at you right now, Snacks Daily. Best Snacks Daily. Jack's wonderful mix of stories here.

I'm actually shocked. What are you shocked about? I don't know. I was part of the decision process. The first one is Facebook. Get this. Facebook wants to be in your living room with a new TV device. It's called Portal TV.

It's called Portal TV. It's not a TV. It's a camera speaker thing that you plug into your TV. And it makes your TV like Mark Zuckerberg's fifth appendage. This is kicking off the living room roars. Second story, Corning Glass. Have you ever heard of it? Have you heard of it? I have. It's in upstate

New York. My Uncle Ed used to work there. Great guy. It's passionate about glass, but it stock fell 7% last week, despite the biggest news it's like ever had. Fun fact, you're staring at Corning Glass right now and you don't even realize it. We'll get to that in the story. Third story. FedEx's earnings aren't just about FedEx. No, they're

basically an earnings report for Planet Earth. FedEx's earnings report is a leading indicator about the global economy. And we're going to jump into it because it just happened. But before we get into all that, we're doing some Ujai breathing here. Gotta get a little Ujjayu in there. There's a story in the New York Times

about a yoga chain in New York City. It's called... What's it called, Nick? I don't remember what it's called. It's called yoga... It doesn't matter what it's called. But what matters is that the workers there, the yoga instructors,

they're dealing with low pay and irregular schedule. Yeah, and they're trying to organize the first yoga teachers union that we've ever heard. And we're totally pro this. This makes a lot of sense. By the way, yoga chain is called Yoga Works. By the way, favorite yoga class for me?

Power Pinyasa flow. Favorite yoga class for Jack? Two-hour restorative yoga with chimes. The whole thing is like a long chavisina. I went last week, an hour of chavisna. If you're not doing chavisad of a majority of the time, you're not doing it right. Nick, intentional rest is different than sleep. So, for the yoga teachers at the chain, we got to talk to you.

If you're going to ask for more pay and better scheduling, there are a few other key things you should be asked for. You should ask for some extra perks. For example, Shavasana can last at the most six minutes and then I'm out of you. And you can refuse to readjust more than three people. You deserve the right that if someone walks into class after it has begun, you get the right to evil either. Right. If they're going to walk in late, who are they? What are they doing?

And lock those people out. Finally, if you have to instruct yoga during a full moon, you deserve overtime. And you don't have to do it. They can't make you. It's a full moon. We're huge yoga fans. It heals the soul, strengthens the body, boost the mind. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get some.

Snacks about to hear ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family. It's all informational just so. 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. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, the Living Room Wars have officially commenced. We got Facebook versus Roku versus Comcast. Yes, this story is about three companies. But first, let's talk about the wars and business currently underway. Where isn't there a war? Streaming wars.

You got the breakfast wars. The pizza wars with Pizza Hut versus Papa Johns versus Pizza Hut. You got the shipping wars with Amazon versus everyone. Amazon versus Walmart versus Target. And then you got the retail apocalypse, which is less of a war and more of a massacre. So the first story we're talking about is Facebook. It just unveiled the TV portal yesterday. Let that sink in.

Facebook unveiled. a major hardware advice called the portal. Well, they already had the portal. That was a little tablet, like an iPad thing. And now they enleased, like, a lot more versions of it, but this TV version got Jack and I super curious. It has a camera, and it has speakers. And you plug it into your TV,

and it lets you have video chat through your TV. Basically, you're going to like, it's going to follow you around the room because it is facial recognition. So you'd be like, I'm over here. And then you're like, oh, my God, I'm over here. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm over here. Oh, I like your mic for you in there.

So if you're cooking dinner and you want to talk to your work, wife. Humble brag by Jack. It is pretty good at cooking. All right. Keep it going. This thing will, like, follow you as you go from the sink to the oven to the refrigerator, and you'll be able to have a video chat the whole time through your TV and this mic.

So Facebook had a product that already did that. It was called the portal. It already came out. This one, this TV is coming out in November at $149. But the kicker of a feature is watch together. Yes. You get to watch Game of Thrones and have like a little picture and picture thing with your FaceTime, with your wife.

Let's say Jack's cooking up that three-course meal that apparently he did all by himself. No big deal. And his wife is somewhere else at the time, which, like, I don't know what's going on there. She's great. She probably just finished yoga. She's an instructor. Well, right now, they could be watching the show from two different places and interacting via the TV.

In fact, what will the portal do? It'll quiet the audio down while you're watching so that, you know, you don't miss the show and you don't miss the conversation. It's as if she's right there on the couch next to you. And there are a couple other features. They got, like, augmented reality. Your face turns into a cat. This is also the essence of Facebook's mission connecting people.

Well, we know what you're thinking right now. Do I want Zuck in my room? No, you probably don't. In fact, they have built in your distrust for Facebook by giving the camera a little privacy shots. Highly technical device here. What do they have? It's a little plastic thing.

It covers up the camera. Yeah, that's it. That's cool. Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg himself famously put a post-it note over his MacBook's camera. Right. By the way, Zuck, you know, we know your pod listener. We appreciate your love of snacks daily. We're welcome to chat with you anytime.

Let's shift to the second company here, Comcast. Yes. Slightly less sexy situation. It's a big cable and telecom company. Right. They've got a streaming box already called the Xfinity Flex. Right. If you have Xfinity internet or Xfinity cable, that is Comcast.

So what they announced yesterday is that if you're a cord cutter and you're no longer using Comcast for anything but the internet, they will send you one of these for free. Now, that is only after you turn down their seven attempts to get you to upgrade to the double plan. Hey, it's Rob from Xfinity. What do I have to do to get you in this $200 a month plan? So once they failed their cross-celled to get you in the double play, they'll be like, here, take this Xfinity Flex, which plugs into your TV and makes it so you can watch Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and other things. Now, those are the first two companies in the living remorse. The third, though, here is Roku. Well, first of all, that Comcast Xfinity Flex, it sounds a lot like Roku's dongle, which makes a dumb TV, a smart TV.

Which is why Roku, which whose stock had been up, like, quadrupled so far this year, it fell 14% yesterday. Yes, Roku is getting crowded out by Comcast and FisphiFes. Facebook and its core biz. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Facebook, Roku, and Comcast? The streaming wars are now the living room war. Exactly. In the hardware software life of the streaming wars, it was Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Firestick, Comcast flex, Google Chromecast, those are all the things that make your TV streamable. Then in the content category, you got Apple TV Plus, just announced recently, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, HBO, Peacock, ESPN Plus. We didn't even mention Hulu. And that was just what's happening in streaming. But what Facebook TV just did, or sorry, what

Facebook Portal TV just did is kick things up a notch. It's now non-streaming entertainment like FaceTime with your wife. Exactly. That kind of engagement that's not just about watching the Game of Thrones. That's key and that kicks these up to a living room war. Facebook wants the living room. Roku's not happy about it. For our second story, Corning Glass is the company you haven't heard of, but you stare at it daily. But sit down. It had two big press releases in just 12 hours. I drop a little bit of history on your brain. Well, I love a good epic. How about I tell you about the C.H.

Have you heard about the Stone Age? Great epic. Have you heard about the Bronze Age? Good epic. Can I introduce you to the Iron Age? There's the Gilded Age. Let's talk about the Glass Age. We are in the Glass Age.

And Corning is loving it. Corning is all over it. On their website, they can't stop talking about the Glass Age. They're talking about these high-tech glasses. They're like, what used to be brittle, you can now fold like a piece of paper. They've got like a pump-up video here about Glass. Yeah, with like a bunch of paradoxes.

The future is a challenge, and the challenge is a future. Corning Glass founded in 1851. We're talking pre-Civil War. It's a publicly traded company. Still located in upstate New York. And they were involved with Thomas Edison making the light bulb in the 1870. They were involved in making glass bottles in the 1930s. For Coca-Cola. Potentially.

Wind shields for Ford and General Motors in the 60s. And now they do smartphones. today, the glass that you're touching right now. Yes. When you zoom in on something, you are tickling Corning's glass on your screen. You don't touch an iPhone. You don't touch Apple. You touch Corning every day.

The company is still based in Corning, New York, which is a population under 11,000 people. Corning, run with that as your slogan, by the way. They've got a great museum of glass in that town, by the way. So the first bit of news was the earnings report, and it announced that TV makers are ordering less glass for the screens. And that caused the stock to drop like 7%. Then the second piece of news came out. And this one was huge.

Bigger news. We wouldn't be covering this if it wasn't the second piece of news. Apparently they got a huge investment from Apple. Apple, based in California, the iPhone maker. Right. Because every iPhone generation that has ever been around, it's used corning glass. From iPhone 1 all the way to the iPhone 11 Pro Max extra thing. Exactly.

And even though Apple just did all this, the stock fell. And we'll get to that in a bit. But first, let's talk about Apple's advanced manufacturing fund. It's a $6 billion fund that only invests in U.S.-based suppliers. to Apple stuff. And Apple bragged on Tuesday, it has supported 2.4 million American workers across all 50 states. This Apple manufacturing fund is part venture investor, part PR spin situation. Yeah, they're basically like, yes, all of our iPhones are made in China. It's very true. But we are supporting the U.S. economy with this $6 billion fund by investing in companies like Corning. So Jack and I

noticed that Apple's fund has invested $200 million in Corning before. It just invested another $250 million dollars in Corning, the little glass maker in Upstate New York. It's not a pure, like, charitable donation, though. No. They're helping Corning develop the damage-resistant gorilla glass, which decks out your iPhone. You know that glass we keep obsessing over on your phone? That's gorilla glass. It's an actual type of glass that Corning has invented.

And it has been Corning's profit puppy. 19% average growth year over year for the past 10 years. So what is Corning going to do with this money? Apple's hoping they finish up this, like, wireless charging glass that could go on the back of your iPhone. so that you put your phone on your bedside table and it charges. There's also a lot of focus on Corning creating like a folding glass. Everyone's curious about Samsung's folding glass phone. They're folding smartphone.

I got to be honest, full disclosure. I don't see the benefit. I don't either, but Nick, you have huge pockets. Some people might need to fold their phone. So, Jack, what's the takeaway of our buddies over a Corning? You got to look at the revenue breakdown. Exactly. 13% of the revenues from Corning, they come from that Apple-style glass that they've been pumping out.

That means 87% of corning has nothing to do with that second press release about Apple. We're talking other big profit puppies like telecom firms that need to create glass for when they're building out fiber optic cables. Yeah, like the cable that connects Europe with the United States under the ocean, that could have corning glass. Or TV makers who need it for screens. We mentioned before that they're expecting fewer sales from them. That's why the stock fell 7%. Investors just ignored this Apple News. The Apple News was sexy, but 87% of corning was not sexy.

And revenue breakdowns matter. For our third and final story, FedEx, its stock just dropped 13%. It's most in a decade because of leading indicators. It's a leading indicator situation. Now the backdrop for FedEx, it's not having a fun time right now. Now it's been tough. First of all, Amazon used to be a customer. Now it's a flat out competitor.

Now it's competing with Amazon. It's having to Amazonify itself. Which means work seven days a week year around and eliminate snack bars from the office. And by the way, they got to raise prices because wages are rising and they got to pay their employees more. tough time for FedEx. Not fun to be FedEx. And then yesterday, it cut its profit guidance for 2019 and for 2020. And then they came out and said, look, global trade is weakening.

So we got to cut what we expect for profits. So FedEx's weakness was caused by the Express Unit, which is basically international cargo shipped by FedEx planes. But I way prefer saying Express Unit. The stock fell 13% after they announced the news. Now, the CEO during his conference call after the earnings report was not a good ship. He was bumming. No.

I can't find like a smoking gun line of depression here. Someone get Fred Smith, the CEO of Margarita already. Fred Smith said the global macro economy continues to soften, and we are taking steps to reduce capacity. Now, when you want to know what they're doing along the way and how they're processing and thinking about this, this is basically what they're thinking. Well, this could affect jobs if you and I are thinking about how this could affect our economy. If fewer companies are shipping things, which is what FedEx just said, then fewer companies are feeling good about. the economy and the future of business. And they're making fewer investments, which means they might hire fewer people. Exactly. So they're big implications. And Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies

over FedEx who, again, could use a DACR. This FedEx report is a leading indicator about our economy. Exactly, a leading indicator, a signal today that suggests how tomorrow is going to be good or bad, in this case not great. You might have heard the expression in the news, a canary and a coal mine. It's kind of an outdated expression. Yeah, it is. It means you bring a bird into like a cave And the bird will notice first that there's like bad gas in the air. What pet stores? And it will start like squawking and then you'll leave because the canary and the coal-bunk. All these pet stores in like West Virginia area.

That's a leading indicator kind of thing. We think a more contemporary approach to a leading indicator. Definitely. We got some ideas here. Is like first moment that the date begins. Oh, the date begins. You're going to the concert. You know what they say to you?

What do they say? They say, you know, I've got a big day of work tomorrow and I kind of hate live music. That is a leading indicator that the rest of the date is, not going to go away. Not going to enjoy this thing. You know what's not a leading indicator? Are you thinking unemployment rate? The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. You only see the unemployment rate spike after the recession has already begun. But a leading indicator is something like global shipping because it indicates what companies are thinking right now and about the future. This helps explain why the Fed cut interest rates yesterday for the second time this

summer. The concern is that they're weak economies abroad which could hurt the U.S., which we notice in things like FedEx's earnings. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over that? Facebook's TV portal wants your living room screen time because the living room wars are on. Corning Glass just got an Apple investment to fund R&D for like the 22nd generation of iPhone. But the stock fell because revenue breakdowns matter and most of its revenues come from somewhere else. And then FedEx stock fell 13% the worst day in a decade. We're concerned about what this can mean for the U.S. economy because it's a leading indicator. Now time for our snack factor today.

An awesome one that came in from like a whole team of snackers. Mrs. Harry's business intro class at Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota. Mrs. Harry, you're an amazing teacher. You also have phenomenal students. Your class, incredible. They actually sent us two snack fact options. We felt spoiled. You guys are out of...

We're binging on snack facts over here. Now, I like this one more than any snack fact of the past several weeks. The Summer Olympics, he got a lot of stuff going on. You got track and fields. Get this. You got swimming. The Summer Olympics used to have competitive art, and they gave away medals for it. We're talking like, are they whipping out?

like the canvases and the finger paint over there? Three, two, one, go! Finger painting. No, actually, there was a award for sculpture. Very nice. Painting, architecture, literature, and music. Nice, from 1912 to 1952. Man, the Olympics were great back then.

This is Harry, incredible. This is Harry. You and your students should petition.org this thing. Let's get that back in the Olympics. Bring it back. Bring it back. I think we could even do an X-Games kind of thing with it. My mind's going crazy on this.

We'll talk about it later. Snackers. Thank you for potting with us today. You guys look fantastic. Have an awesome day. See you tomorrow. I can't wait. This is Jack.

I own stock of Amazon. I don't own stock of Roku because that open bar at my wedding didn't pay for itself. Thank you, Roku. 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, 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.