The Best One Yet - 🍄 “Initial Psychedelics Offering'' — McDonald’s fried chicken spies. Sony’s arms dealing. MindMed’s magic mushroom moment

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

LSD and magic mushrooms are now publicly traded because MindMed’s psychedelics found a trend. Sony’s whipping up Playstations to become the arms dealer in the Streaming Wars. And McDonald’s fried chicken sandwich just got the CIA treatment.$MNMD $SONY $MCDGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformLearn 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 Monday. Welcome back. May 3rd. Yesterday was my mom's birthday. Happy belated birthday.

Jennifer, Great Mom. Jennifer, Fantas. Also, Justin Timberlake Day. It's gonna be me. Tomorrow is May the 4th be with you. Throw some Star Wars on this stuff. May is Me Month. Snackers.

Cinco Damali, baby. Jack. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be the best one yet, Snackers. Tb-O-Y, Jack. What do we got for the first story? Japan's economy peaked in 1995, but Sony is peaking right.

now. The PS5 maker chose to be an arms dealer in the streaming wars. Different approach. For our second story, Mind Meds is now a publicly traded psychedelics company. One magic mushroom is a dot. Two is a line. Three is a trend. Our third and final story is that McDonald's just delivered the most important quarter in crispy fried chicken sandwich history. But funny thing, Jack, and I noticed, you could have already known how its new fried chicken sandwich did before they told us how it did. Before we hit those three fantastic stories. Wonderful mix today, Jack. The Declaration of Independence is going public.

That's right. Snackers, you can own part of New Hampshire's copy from, like, back in July 1776. No joke. July 4th. Yeah, 1776. Thomas Jefferson, all those guys. They signed it, but they made a bunch of copies for the colonies. They did.

And a startup called Raleigh has a memorabilia trading app. They snagged one of the few that's remaining. The Declaration Independence stock begins trading in their app this month, not on the New York Stock Exchange, but in their app. All right, so here's the deal. They're offering 80,000 shares of the Declaration of Independence at 25 bucks a share. One of the copies of the Declaration of Independence. Ipso facto, the Declaration of Independence. One of the copies. Is worth $2 million. Now, Snackers, we hold these shares to be self-evident.

Yeah, that is the fine print on this, because you have life, liberty, and the pursuit of profit puppies. The original, don't worry, it's still safe and sound behind Nicholas Cage in the National Archives. It is, but this is one of the 20 remaining colonial copies. So Jack and I had to jump in snack style. In terms of corporate governance, John Hancock is clearly the self-appointed executive chairman of the board. Jack, I'm looking at the cap table here. It looks like founding fathers. They're the seed investors. It's pretty straightforward. Vermont is fighting a proxy battle, desperately trying to become a shareholder. You know, no one talks about the fourth estate, Jack. And as an original 13 colony in New York over here, I feel bad. I wish we got one place ahead.

Thomas Jefferson, he's proofreading, re-proof reading. He's like a junior analyst up till 2 a.m. on this stuff. This is the first ever IPO, initial Patriot offers. But the ticker symbol, USA, here's the problem. USA, that ticker symbol is taken, Jack. F-R-E, free, land, bald, love it. T-R-K-Y, my favorite, turkey. Thanksgiving. Jack, how about B-I-G, big? How about S-O-D-A? Soda? Help us out. We need a declaration of independence ticker symbol. Tweet us at Robin Hood Snacks. Let's hit our three stories. Daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the hearing food is 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. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA SIPC. For our first story, Sony, just had its Best quarter in years, even though Japan is having its worst quarter in years. Sony has become an arms dealer in the streaming video wars. All right, Snackers, you may think that Sony peaked in the 1990s, and honestly, Jack, you'd be forgiven, wouldn't you?

Yes, because in the 90s, Americans feared that Japan was going to overtake the U.S. economy. Not like we fear China is today. The only other thing we feared was colors that weren't turquoise in the 90s. Honda, Toyota, Sony, they were taken over. Which led to Jack and I noticing this insane statistic. Japan's economy was bigger in 1995 than it is today. Almost 30 years later.

Yes, Japan is the same size it was 30 years ago. If you went to college, they have a class about the asset bubble and deflationary trap that Japan has had. It's a laugh riot. But in 1995, Sony was living the life. I mean, Jack, what did you have? The Sony Walkman? You had the disc man. What else did you have?

You had that little camp quarter that Kevin McAllister had in Home Alone. Classic. And the Vio computer was under development. If you were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, odds are that Donatello was coming at you on a Sony device. So over the weekend, Nick and I were shocked to see that 2020 was Sony's best year of profit ever. I interrupted Jack's brunch. I'm like, did you see this?

Well, there were like 12 zeros involved because they hit one trillion profit in yen for the first time. In yen. Oh, we did a little exchange here. $1 trillion is actually worth $9 billion. So can we sprinkle on a little context? That's a little more profit than Coke made last year, a little less than Disney makes. It's like half a lift situation.

And that's largely thanks to PS5, PlayStation 5. They sold $7.8 million of the latest PS5 consoles since that device was launched in November. Now, and we know what you're thinking. It's what Jack and I were thinking over brunch. Is that good? 7.8 million. Well, the Xbox Series X is its big rival. And that console was also launched in November.

And Microsoft hasn't said how many were sold, but reports estimate 2 million fewer than PlayStation 5. Okay, so PlayStation 5 pretty, pretty good last quarter. That's why Sony's stock is up to the highest level at any point since the crazy.com bubble of 2000, which there's also a class about wherever you went to college. I mean, Jack, the early takeaway here, we all wish it was the 90s. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Sony? Sony didn't join the streaming wars. It's an arms dealer instead.

Snackers, Sony pay us. Pictures owns Seinfeld all nine seasons. And they own Spider-Man. Oh, and they own part of 007, yada, yada, yada, not that there's anything wrong with that. And they own Jumagi, and they own Men in Black. And they could have launched Sony Plus because that's what you name your streaming service these days. But remember, only one streamer in the streaming wars actually makes profits. That's Netflix. If they launched Sony Plus Nick, it would have had years of work assigned hundreds of engineers to probably end up losing money anyway. So Sony is doing something. completely different instead. Sony is just licensing at Seinfeld to Netflix.

To fill in the gap left by the office and friends, which isn't there anymore. And Sony is licensing at Spider-Man to Disney Plus. So Spidey can sit with Thor and the Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So all the Sony movies that are going to be produced from 2022 to 2006, they're all going to Netflix. And then eventually, that's switching up to Disney Plus. Now, the rumored value of this deal to Sony is $3 billion, which is more than Netflix has made in any year for profits, including last year's record year. They're an arms dealer making $3 billion off their armed content. Oh, by the way, Sony still gets to premiere their movies in movie theaters and take money there. Not bad. And then make $3 billion afterwards with these Netflix and Disney deal. That $3 billion is pure profit. Instead of fighting the Lannister, Sony is just being the Iron Bank. Sony is selling

its guns into the streaming wars, not fighting itself. For our second story, Mind Med, they're making psychedelic drugs that we're pretty sure aren't street legal right now. Despite the questionable legality, the company stock just started trading in New York City. Funny thing about MindMed Snackers, they actually are already publicly traded in Canada, but they graduated and now they're being traded in New York on NASDAQ. They went from the Canadian Football League up to the NFL. And it's actually a perfect analogy, Jack, CFL of NFL. It's founded by an ex-Urug guy.

And now it's a $3 billion psychedelic medicine biotech company. And straightforward, here's the problem that they're trying. trying to solve depression, PTSD, severe pain. Sometimes these lead to addictive drugs like your oxycodons out there. It's part of the reason we had an opioid epidemic. It is. And here's the solution that they're whipping up in mind med. Treat mental illness with LSD with MDMA, which is ecstasy and magic mushrooms instead. Now, you want a use case? Like, how could this actually play out? We know you're curious. We were extremely curious. Suppose an adult has ADHD. Attention, deficit, hyperactive disorder. A lot of adults have it. The doctor may prescribe that person,

with Adderall. But currently, Mind Meds is working on a study to see if a 30-minute LSD microdose non-halucinogenic could be a healthy alternative to the potentially addictive Adderall. Example number two, let's say you go to your therapist, you're hanging out, you're on the couch, something different could be happening in this therapy session. The therapist could give you a time-released capsule of ecstasy under her or his supervision and see if it leads to a breakthrough. Now, Snackers, we know what you're thinking. Your first thought on this is just like the cannabis industry. must be just like the cannabis industry.

Both cannabis and psychedelics are Schedule I controlled substances that are illegal in the eyes of the federal government. Both are bought or sold illegally. Both had scary PSAs when we were in middle school. Very similar stuff. We know that's what you're thinking. Here's the state of the union when it comes to psychedelics. One state has voted to legalize them. That's Oregon. And a few cities have decriminalized it. It's really just like Ann Arbor and Denver and like one or two more. That's it.

Now that sounds similar still to cannabis, but this is a medical company. like Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer, then it is Aurora Cannabis. They're doing shrooms. They're not doing pills. That's the only difference. And the pharmaceutical industry, it's all about huge drug development costs now. Right now. And you hope that it pays off big time in the future if they get approved. For example, Mind Men, they're splurgeon $5 million a quarter on research and development, phase two trials, FDA paperwork. They're filling all this stuff out in the basement with a Xerox machine. And $5 billion is just the beginning because it costs an estimated billion dollars on average

to bring a new drug to the market in the United States. You got to get the tests, the tubes, the beakers, all those glass beakers. Phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four, clinical this. The result, you add all this up. And MindMed, it doesn't have a profit right now. But get this, MindMed also doesn't have any revenues yet either. It's a pre-revenue company, Nick, but so was Moderna before they came up with the COVID vaccine. And that's why MindMed is more like a pharmaceutical company than a cannabis company.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our psychedelics company over at MindMed? is a dot, two forms a line, three means it's a trend. Snackers, American culture right now, kind of got like this unhealthy obsession going on with physical health. You got the diets, the fitness, the models, and the fitness diets. But mental health for a few years now is having quite a surging moment. Okay, case in point. Mindfulness apps, look at calm, look at headspace. They just hit billion dollar evaluations just in the last year. When McConaughey's doing it, you know it's mainstream. Absolutely. You may have even like booked a therapy appointment yourself in the last year. I did. I booked a bunch. I've told the takeaways to Jack, shared

him with him too. Besides plant-based diet, I go to therapy is the hottest thing you can put on Tinder right now. It's plant-based for your head. Now, an extension of this trend is that three psychedelic companies have IPOed or will IPO in the next six months. Snackers, let that sink in. Three companies that are developing magic mushrooms are on Wall Street. We don't know whether these psychedelic drugs will become a commercial success. But if you add up the dots and you follow the line, then psychedelics are a trend. For our third and final story, McDonald's. The McDonald's, their first quarter earnings were way better than last year. It's because, you know, the whole year over year thing we've told you about.

But a more interesting thing we noticed, the fried chicken sandwich at McDonald's, it got the CIA treatment. Are you sure you don't want to say FBI? I know you wanted to say FBI. True, because they're not spies. They're not doing this clandestine. This is like a ninja element here. Snackis, here's the deal. McDonald's was, it was the last one into the fried chicken wars.

Two years after Popeye's Chick-fil-A and KFC had a royal rumble, McDonald's finally dropped three crispy fried chicken sandwiches. in February. And here's their family of fried chicken sandwiches. Basically, there's one that has tomatoes, Jack. Vegetables, make you feel less guilt. And then there are two that are more, I'd say, more protein forward, is how we'd put it. Guaranteed 200% white meat only. They're very on the nose. But then we noticed this wild statistic, get this, 30% of U.S. fast food is McDonald's. So the whole industry is getting walloped by a whole bunch of new fried chicken sandwiches entering the market. And we've been waiting to hear McDonald's.

But funny thing, Jack and I knew how McDonald's fried chicken did before their earnings call last week. Because the investment bank analysts have been acting like FBI agents. Exactly. Case in point. Let's look at Investment Bank Jeffries, where they actually went to McDonald's stores, stood outside, and literally counted people. They had the hand clicker that your middle school gym teacher had. Left hand. Smush, mush, smush. And they observed that more diners were having a McDonald's by far than all the other chains starting in late February when the fried chicken sandwiches were launched. Interesting. And they weren't satisfied with the offline research. So then they went online and they looked at the number of Google searches for the words McDonald's fried chicken and Jack. What did they find? Well, we did the same thing. Google search console. You can check the numbers yourself. 10x jump in McDonald's fried chicken in late February right when the chickens got launched.

And then finally, Wall Street analysts, they had like projected that McDonnell's. McDonald's would one day sell about, you know, 150 chicken sandwiches a day once they launched. That was the expectation. At each location. But one firm jumped in snack style in an admirable way. Kalanowski equity research. We love what you're doing. They have the epic McDonald's franchisee survey.

They do. And they called up a bunch of locations and got the exact number. 262 fried chicken sandwiches on average per day per restaurant. So our buddies over at Kaunowski knew how many fried chicken sandwiches were being sold at each McDonald's before McDonald's even told us. And it was about 66% more than what bullish Wall Street analysts were thinking. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at McDonald's? Join the product journey.

So on McDonald's earnings call last week, they actually confirmed all the fried chicken projections that those investment banks had gotten the early data on. The CEO said himself, the fried chicken sandwich was the one product that, and I quote, far exceeded our expectations. And then they went a step further. On the earnings call, the burger company said the word chicken, 23 times, but they only said burger two times. They said Big Mac one time and Ronald zero times. Weird. This is awkward. This has become a fried chicken company. The executives at McDonald's also said

that launching this new chicken, or any product for that matter, is a multi-year journey for McDonald's. Beautiful term, a multi-year journey. Now, investment banks didn't wait for the earnings announcement last week at the end of this multi-year ramp. No, about a month and a half ago, the stock started rising for McDonald's. In fact, it's up 12% in last month and a half. Prior to the data being announced by McDonald's, because investors joined the journey early. So Snackers, whether you're an entrepreneur,

a business person, or an investor, you can creatively join a products journey, any product's journey. Here's the key. Don't wait for the data to be announced to you. You can hustle early and find it before that. Join the journey, find the data, even if it physically means counting foot traffic.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways is over there for us to start the week. The streaming wars are vicious. So Sony doesn't want to fight them. No, Sony, it's an arms dealer to Disney Plus and Netflix instead. MindMed is trying to take shrooms from black market to legitimate business. One is a dot, two is a line and three is a mental health trend. For our third and final story, Mickey Dees just announced how its first quarter went, which was pretty chicken good. I like what you did there. Wall Street. Pretty much knew that already, though, because they joined the journey. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one tweeted in by Julie Hogue over in lovely Anderson, Indiana. Few odors in this world, Nick, are as pleasing as

that new car smell. Rub it on me, baby. There is a reason, though, that scent is so complicated and strangely satisfying. It turns out that smell is a combination of 50 chemicals that exist in a new car. And they're actually each called volatile organic compounds that come together in a symphony of scent. That sounds scary volatile organic compounds, but they come together into a delightful new car smell. Yeah. The worst feeling, though, is that moment when you realize, oh, the smell's gone and it's not coming back. Snackers, you'll look fantastic today, but we also want to really point out our snackers over in India, who we know the COVID situation there is surging, and we're hoping you're all staying safe. We are thinking about you. It's also Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, and we want your snack facts to be audio in this podcast. Right here. We want your voice on this pod.

So there's a link in the episode description of this episode. Click on that, submit your snack fact. We want it. Record a 30-second audio bit on your phone. Upload it with a Google form. It'll be in tomorrow's pod. And Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, congrats to Nicholas Cage,

who just got his first shout-out on the intro of this podcast. Nick, if you're listening, cough twice. Congratulations to Sophie Flee for launching a new podcast. And to John Liu and Shaden, who had their anniversary and a birthday in Taiwan this past weekend. Happy birthday to Michelle Sun in Stony Brook, Long Island, where I'm staying in an Airbnb in June. Lovely, and a pour of Chebeloo in Centerville, Virginia.

Happy birthday, Neil Desai in Chicago. And Grant Lonergan in Annapolis. And Kurt Plonsker in Highland Park. And Cape Conner reared in in Natick, which is just outside of Boston. And Long Island's own, Alyssa Zauderer is leaving the news industry after 11 years and starting a job at Johnson and Johnson.

And Corbin Johnston got the new job in Baltimore. Congrats to Jason and Hannah for getting a new house in Parma Heights, Ohio. And Liz Drainan got a new home in Chicago doing logistics. And big shout out to Drew at Colgate University, who loves to bench press while snacking. We told you, yes, he does. Perfect media for multitasking. Although he did drop the bench the other day.

He did tell us that. Always have a spot. This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix. 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.