The Best One Yet - “Feels like a Cult Stock” — Plug Power’s pop. Chobani’s ready-to-drank. Traveler’s chill mode.

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Plug Power’s stock has surged 300% in 3 months, so we’re jumping in Snack Style. Chobani yogurt is ditching diary for the biggest 3 words in beverage: Ready-To-Drink. And Traveler’s Insurance tells us exactly how you’re living your life right now.$PLUG $TRV $SBUXGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Learn 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 Friday, January 22nd. Quick shout out to Nick from New York. Good guy. Nick, can I reveal your age on the pot? You can do it. You can do it anti-wrinkle cream. Happy 33rd birthday. I knew this guy when he was 18 freshman year middle birth college. Jack, I'm so glad you're in 1988 or two. I remember we walked in. We had the same protein shakes, same Seinfeld DVDs. Yes, we did. And it would be so awkward if we weren't both 88ers. Full disclosure, Jack. I don't trust 1980. But Jack, this happens to be our best podcast yet. Happy birthday, Nick. For our first story, plug power stock is up 300% in the last three months. Jack, looks like its little brother, fuel cell energy, up 600% in two months.

Feels like a couple of cult stocks. Feels like a cult stock situation. Jack, second story, what do we got? Chobani yogurt. Doesn't want to be typecast as dairy. No, it doesn't. So it's jumping into the biggest trend in beverage. You got to know the snackers, R.T.D. Coffee.

Ready to drink. third and final story. You probably have a brother-in-law or a cousin who sells insurance for travelers. You probably do. Travels insurance. Pretty boring, but funny thing Jack and I noticed, travelers is a window into your life. You're doing less, which is low risk. Low risk. But Snackers, before we jump into that wonderful mix of Friday stories, Jack, we got a dude, where's my Bitcoin situation again? Last week, Snackers, we told you about the guy who's lost his password to his digital wallet. Yeah, it's kind of awkward because he's got two more attempts or he loses $250 million worth of Bitcoin forever.

Right. It's a Dan Brown situation. And we have no update on him. No, we know. We got no update on this guy. But funny thing, Jack and I did find another guy over in the United Kingdom. He's got a similar situation going on. Yeah, it's another dude.

And back in 2013, he threw away a hard drive that contained 7,500 Bitcoin. I don't know what all these dudes are doing, but that hard drive, apparently now worth $275 million, dollars considering where Bitcoin's trading. Wow. Now, this dude has a request if you're willing to like get your hands dirty and have some time. All right, Stackas, here it is, here it is. He will give you a 25% cut of that $275 million if you go into the nearby landfill and help him dig up that hard drive. So that's like $70 million if you find this thing. Now, you probably won't find this thing, but your expected win is like pretty high still. Pretty nice payout. All you got to do is, You know, head to whales, bring a shovel, have some time, and a few shreds of dignity.

That's all you need. At this point, Snackers, we're assuming that Nick's Bitcoin Ben and his buddies are like hiding under the couch just messing with them. It's got to be where they are. Snackers, Bitcoin. Moe virtual money. Mo real life problems. Let's hit 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 about the hair 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 security. 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 FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, another alternative energy stock is exploding higher for, yeah, we'll get into the reasons, Jack.

We're looking at the two types of rocket ship stocks that are getting all the attention. Okay, first stock we got here. We got fuel, sell energy. The company, just in a name. disappointing earnings. They were disappointing. Nick, last year, fuel sales revenues jumped by 17%. That's great if you're selling groceries. Yeah, it is. Congratulations, if you were Kroger. You're not your fuel cell energy. You're better than that. It's not great if you're in a booming emerging industry like fuel cell hydrogen. Funny thing about fuel cell energy snackers, the business has never made a profit.

In fact, it is actually losing more money every single year. But fuel cell energy is in the hydrogen fuel cell business, which could power engines with no greenhouse gases. Yeah, the kind of thing that, like, you know, sounds kind of promising in the age of climate change, and when you got Congress controlled by one party that happens to be focused on climate change right now. That's why, back on November 6th, the stock of fuel cell energy was trading at $2.50. Funny thing, though, yesterday we checked, and the stock was all the way up to $17. Snackers, this company just announced lukewarm earnings, and yet the stock is trading six times higher than it was two months ago. Jack and I whipped out the whiteboard.

We couldn't figure it out exactly. But then we thought, you know what, we think we know why fuel cell is up so much right now. Because it's similar to plug power. Separate from VanVestor stocks, on the other hand, you got cult stocks, which Jack and I think fuel cell and plug power happen to be.

In the year since we labeled plug power a cult stock, the stock is up 2,000 percent. So basically, if so facto, Jack and I are thinking, fuel cell investors right now driving that stock up are basically fomoing on plug power, which it's in the same industry, hydrogen. Both companies are nowhere near a profit. No, they're not.

And yet both companies have rocket shipping stocks right now. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at fuel cell and plug power? We see two types of companies with stocks soaring like rocket chips that are getting all the attention, fan investor stocks and cult stocks. The first one you got to know,

the fan investor stock. you got to label it. Investor stocks are unique because of their incredibly passionate investors who just love the company. And that's what's driving the stock price up. Take, for example, Tesla, many Tesla owners. They don't think that the earnings for each share justifies where its stock is like trading right now, which is high. But most Tesla shareholders that I know believe that the Tesla brand is awesome. They absolutely love Tesla and they want to climb a mountain just so they can scream to the world how awesome Tesla is.

And on top of that mountain, they will write a blog post and send it to everyone they know, including their parents. They think Tesla's the future. Okay, so that's a fan investor stock, which is defined by the intense love of the shareholders. But Jack, then you got the cult stocks out there. How would you define a cult stock? A cult stock is unique because of the organized online communities that are encouraging buying of the stock.

Case of point, we saw this just the other week with GameStop, which basically has a massive online support group on TikTok, Reddit, and Discord who are pushing for this stock. Check out these support groups online, Nick. They're not talking about how much they love GameStop. They're just talking about buying GameStop stock, which I believe led to GameSock Stop Pop. Yes, it led to GameStop stock jumping, which triggered even more people to buy the stock, and everyone was bragging about their gains on these online forums. Even though nothing financial about the company actually justified the stock price going up.

But Snackers, as if the word cult wasn't enough? Yeah. You should know that cult stocks are driven by. momentum and by virality online. And if there's anything we know about virality, what's up one day could disappear the next. For our second story, Chobani, the Greek god at Greek yogurt, is expanding Beyond Dairy for the first time to capture the latest beverage trend. Ready to drink coffee. That's the latest beverage trend. R-T-D. Before we jump in, Jack, I can tell. I'm reading your face right now. I feel like you want to share your cold oatmeal recipe. I love my cold oatmeal recipe,

but anytime I'm north of I-90, I go with hot oatmeal, because we're in Vermont and it's cold. It's a frostbite situation. I don't blame it. I take my yogurt out five minutes at advance, and so it can be room temperature. I think we're getting soft, Jack. But in the meantime, upstate New York brand Chabani, it was always a very lactose-tolerant company, right, Jack? Extremely lactose-tolerant. They made about $2 billion in sales in Greek yogurt. But here's the funny thing. At Chabani, they noticed that yogurt sales totally plateaued. It peaked. It stopped in 2015. Nick was an early adopter when I was his roommate of Greek yogurt, and he was also an early abandoner of Greek yogurt. True story. And then Chibani said,

you know what, hey, we've noticed yogurt sales are down a bit. We're going to launch oat milk. They did this last year. Greek yogurt's sibling. And then they said, you know, we'll take this step further. So they launched creamers. Creamers for coffee. Creamers, you know, Greek yogurt's cousins. But then, just this week, we noticed they announced they're launching Chobani coffee. Coffee, you know, Greek yogurt's, Yeah, fifth cousin. It is like a distant neighbor. It feels like it's twice removed on this one, Jack.

But it's not just any kind of coffee. Jack and I noticed it was ready to drink coffee. Chobani just launched its first two ready to drink coffees, which is cold brew black or Chabani oat milk coffee in a container. Both are going to be branded Chibani, both coming out shortly. But here's the thing, Snackers. You got to know ready to drink coffee, because ready to drink is what's winning the beverage industry right now.

Let me just say, ready to drink means you don't have to do anything. Basically. It's already made. It's in a bottle. You just open it and you drink. So Jack and I were thinking more about this. What's fascinating about ready to drink is that it's not like an on-the-go thing. It's really part of the comfort economy.

You're not a barista. No, you're not. You haven't spent years in Italy figuring out how to make that latte leaf art. How did they do that? You just want to open the door and drink a cold brew. So Jack and I, as we were curious about ready to drink coffee, turn to the king of coffee, Starbucks, and found out that their sales, last quarter without commuters kind of slipped. But Jack, what was the highlight? People weren't

getting coffee on the way to work because they weren't going to work. But for Starbucks, the highlight was ready to drink coffee at like the grocery store. Yeah, it turns out ready to drink coffee sales overall across the U.S. were up 17% last year while the rest of the coffee industry slowed. Nick and I noticed that ready to drink is the evolution in the convenience of coffee that we've seen just in the past like 10 years. Yeah, yeah. 10 years ago, Jack, you'd have to brew an entire cup of coffee, which takes like five minutes and you need to set it up the night before. It's a schlep. All right. Five years ago, you could start getting single cup with Currig's K-cup machines. Only takes a minute, but it doesn't taste that good. But Jack, now you got RTD ready to drink,

grab and go coffee. It takes zero minutes and you got an iced coffee in your belly. It's the comfort economy. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Chabani? It's the branded house or it's the house of brands? Which one are you? Snackers, we've absolutely seen big food companies expand from their core product to entirely new products, just like Chabani just did. Let's go to the Midwest and look at Kellogg's, which started with cornflake cereal, now they make eggo waffles, also frosted flakes, also Pop-Tarts. Let's check out General Mills right down the road. Started with Cheerio cereal, now they got YoPlay yogurt, they got Fiber 1 snack bars, and even Hagen does yogurt, and even Hagenaz ice cream. Both Kellogg and General Mills represent

old school concepts. They are a house of different brands. But Chobani Coffee represents an entirely new concept, a single branded house. Chobani has just one brand. Chobani. A branded house means that Chubani needs just one Chobani social media handle for all of the food it makes. And a branded house means Chobani can highlight all of their products in just one single Chobani TV ad. Yeah, meanwhile, Kellogg and General Mills, they need a team of MBAs to handle each of their 27 brands, 27 social media accounts. Last century, we had houses of brands. Now we expect one branded house. For our third and final story, this one flew by Jack, Travelers Insurance, a car insurance company, its profit increased 50% last quarter. That is huge. Because do less. So Traveler Snackers

seems kind of like a boring company, but actually it's really a benchmark brand. And benchmark brands are so wide and so deep, they can reflect an entire behavior. Procter and Gamble is a benchmark brand because it's a window into Americans' homes. Yeah, they're pumping out everything from Fabriz to Crest to head and shoulders. JPMorgan Chase is a benchmark brand because it's a window into your money. Yeah, they're doing everything from IPOs to credit the false swaps to the Chase Sapphire points card you brag about. I heard you get 60,000 points with the sign up. Well, insurance happens to be a window into your mess-ups. The insurance industry shows us how humans are living right now. Yeah, so Travelers is a benchmark brand in insurance because it's basically one of the biggest insurers out there. Travelers insurance

is a stock that has been in the prestigious Dow Jones Industrial average for 11 years. Jack, they got offices in every single one of the 50 United States. Nick, they got 14,000 insurance salespeople. Biggest location, lovely, Hartford, Connecticut, always the home of the whalers. Hartford does insurance. Yeah, car insurance, home insurance, condo insurance, boat insurance, yacht insurance, wedding insurance, travel insurance, pet insurance. If it can cast a shout out, travelers can insure it. That's right. And it turns out when Jack and I jumped in snack style, the biggest category that they insure over at travelers is car insurance. It's like nearly half of all the revenues. And auto insurance revenues for travelers only increased last quarter by 2% compared to the year before.

And because they are so dependent on your car insurance payments, their overall revenues of travelers only increased 3%. So how did profits last quarter jump by 50% when revenues barely did? That is a surge. It feels like a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at travelers insurance? The insurance, industry one in 2020 because we all do less. Snackers, we'll hit pause for a second. Check your step count. We'll wait for you. Unless you're an essential worker, you're probably working with like, I don't know, 300 steps today. That's it. I did takeout instead of delivery because I needed to get some steps. Yeah, you're not doing any Euro trip. You're doing less commuting. You're not going outside doing like dangerous things, rock climbing. And guess who's thrilled that you're not outside doing

dangerous things in 2020? Insurance companies. Yeah. They're They like that you're at home quarantining, doing less. The number of miles driven in cars last year dropped by 14% in America. You got fewer three car pileups in I-95, and that is something travelers used to have to pay for. Revenues didn't rise much for travelers' insurance last year, but costs fell big because they didn't pay out on insurance policies. And the difference between those two meant really big profits.

Travelers made so much profit last quarter, they were embarrassed. They're like, you're driving less. let me give you back 15% of the premiums because we know you weren't driving as much. They actually gave money back to customer. Snackers, the first insurance company to announce earnings this quarter was travelers. Profits were up 50%. Because do less. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend? Fuel cell and plug power. Two cult stocks with rocket shipping stocks. Yeah, they seem to be powered by virality, but every meme eventually dies. Second story, Chobani is one branded house of dairy and dairy-related products. One brand that makes the marketing in the modern age so much more efficient.

Third and final story, Travelers Insurance didn't make much more revenue? No, it didn't. Last year, but they made a lot more profits. Americans, you did less last year, which means less insurance payouts for the accidents. Now, time for the snack fact of the day. This one feels meta. I submitted this one to Jack. I sent this in Jack.

Full disclosure. Nick, Nicholas with no age, Andrew Martel from New York, New York. Okay, so one of my absolute favorite facts about New York City, Jack, we love this one because it's got like all the industries, organizations, and history of New York interwoven in it. Tiffany's, the iconic jewelry company based on Fifth Avenue in New York City, has been there since 1837. Well, in 1877, they were commissioned by the NYPD, the police department, to make a silver shield for an officer who'd been killed in the line of duty.

They ended up whipping up a beautiful interlocking N and Y. Well, that N-Y design ended up becoming the New York Yankees logo in 1909. New York City, the capital of finance, fashion, and media in this country. Jack, you can weave in the pizza, the skyscrapers, and a few sets for movies. And bars are open until 4 a.m., which when I got out of college, I was like... Yeah, Jack. I was jaw dropped. Snackers, have a fantastic weekend.

Jack, you're... You can send me the Birkenstocks anytime. Size 11 for the birthday. Size 11, right? Size 11. For the birthday. Snackers, H.Y. HY.S.D. ask your friends this weekend.

Have you had your snacks daily? Thanks for snacking. Have a great weekend. See you Monday. We can't wait. If you know, you know. And before we go, Snackers, happy birthday to Sabrina Marzaro in Paris, France.

And Juan Pablo Gavaria in Colombia. Ansferuia Uvusarala in Hyderabad, India. And John Hartinovich in Illinois. And Daniel Chesley in Merrick, New York. and Jeney Truett in Newport News of Virginia, and Ros Angela Torres in Jacksonville, Florida, and Alex Papa George in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Brandon Niro in Independence, Ohio,

and Tommy Eagle in Raleigh, North Carolina. Congrats Sophia Babel taking the MCATs this week. Happy anniversary to Dreia and Lily Hudson in Boston, Mass. And Jack, we got an engagement down in Mexico City, Daniela and Mariana. Congratulations. And Carrie Rowe, we are impressed. You finished the bathroom remodeling.

The Robin Hood Snack. 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.