The Best One Yet - Instagram knocks off TikTok, Alibaba’s $38B day, and Almond milk = Dean Foods’ downfall

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

TikTok set a record for app downloads, so Facebook just decided to knock it off with a new Instagram feature. Alibaba’s Singles Day set a sales record of $38B in 24 hours — so we’re looking at why the stock fell. And big milk giant Dean Foods just filed for bankruptcy, but you can’t (totally) blame Millennials for it.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. This Wednesday, November 13th. Happy Hump Day, everybody. This is how we feel in. The best one yet, T-B-O-Y-T-B-B-Wy. Wonderful snacks daily.

Jack, can hit us with the first story of it? TikTok has been downloaded by one billion people. Faster than anything else has been downloaded. And it sounds like a good time for Instagram to make a knock-off version of TikTok. Perfect timing on this one. Second story, Alibaba just broke a record again. Again. For the biggest shopping day in the history of...

the world. Again. We're looking at why the stock dropped, though, even though. Third and final story is Dairy Dynamo Dean Food. Stick that on a tattoo jack. It just filed for bankruptcy. Oh, yeah, it's actually. Rest and peace. Sad story. Because your oat milk, almond milk, coconut milk latte. But you can't truly blame millennials entirely for this one. Nick, no milk will ever be our milk. It's a beautiful thing. Snackers, before we jump into that, Disney Plus launched yesterday. Yesterday was a big moment. Or did it? Not for everyone.

Disney Plus had some glitches and some blackouts on its opening day, November 12th. We've got a heat map here. We're looking at live. This thing is showing in. We got like an outage in Denver, one in New York, and it looks like something around Paramus and maybe a middle Minnesota. It's like that radar on Christmas Eve that shows you where Santa is. It's a beautiful thing. It's alive.

You might have tried to watch the new Star Wars TV show, which is eight episodes. It's called The Mandalorian, and it's about the bounty hunter named Djanga Fat or Bobafat. Maybe you did what Jack and I did. You slip on some casual net leisure wear that you're used to streaming in. You get relaxed. You got your drink set up. You got your food set up. And then you don't see Star Wars.

No. You actually see an adorable picture of Mickey Mouse and Goofy, like trying to touch each other, but not. Right. So, like, not connecting is the idea that. Disney was trying to be cute with this. The reality, though, was a lot grimmer, which was people couldn't actually connect to Disney Plus. Now, I wonder if this was on purpose because there were a lot of headlines about Disney Plus not working. And you might think to yourself, oh, Maria,

can't watch Disney Plus. Tom can't watch Disney Plus. What's going on here? Should I have a Disney Plus account? It may have been the greatest marketing move at all time. We may even be giving them credit for something they didn't do intentionally. Or the biggest botched launch of all time. Either way, people are interested.

You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. It's snacks about the hair ain't food. It's ear candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. Nope.

It's not a research. report or investment advice. Not our offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, TikTok just hit an incredible milestone. So Facebook decided to copy it.

Yeah. And full disclosure, this is a highly researched story because neither Nick nor I, nor our social media guy here has TikTok. We are ancient by millennial standards. Jack and I broke a hip track. to cover this thing. TikTok launched in September 2016, featuring short-form videos that you can share with buddies.

We're talking a lot of lip-syncing, a lot of karaoke, a lot of challenging friends to all the above. So Instagram is your highly polished life highlights, like engagement picks, wedding picks, whatever. TikTok is your raw, absurd, silly shenanigans and memes that didn't quite fit on Insta. So Instagram is graduation pictures. Oh, fancy. TikTok is graduation parties.

Take the tie off, then you're on TikTok. So karaoke is like the popular thing for TikTok. karaoke is embarrassing. I did it this weekend. I was embarrassed because I'm a bad singer. It's aggressive. People are talking about this. And the videos on TikTok are kind of embarrassing, but people love watching them. Now, the statistics here are wild.

Gen Z is all over TikTok. 60% of TikTok's U.S. users are 24 years or younger. The other 40% are probably the Democratic presidential candidates. This is Beto O'Roura. Kids, I love TikTok. I love TikTok. You should vote for me. Where's our youngest intern? We've got to get on this TikTok thing. It's also super addictive. Get this stat. The average American user uses TikTok for 52 minutes a day.

I'll have 52 minutes in my day. It's got algorithms, Nick, that are going to keep you hooked TikToking. One catch here. It's owned by a Chinese company called Bite Dance, and United States Senators are worried that kids karaoke is being taken by the Chinese Communist Party. Welcome to 2019 social media. It's also interestingly a threat to Facebook, specifically to Instagram, which Facebook owns. Get this to TikTok.

This is wild. TikTok was the fastest ever social media company to hit one billion users. It's done. They did it. It has more users by far than Twitter and Snapchat combined. And it has about as many as Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. And that's why you get yesterday's news. Instagram launched this thing called Reels.

And Real is a complete knockoff of TikTok. And just because the team over at Facebook didn't want to be too obvious with this, they only launched it in Brazil. Because, you know, not that we would hear of this, it's only Brazil. Well, they're testing it there, and I'm sure it's coming to America. We've heard about this. It's happening. You can't hide this from you on.

So Reels is 15-second music videos, perfect for karaoke, perfect for posting on Instagram stories. And then there's the top reels, which is a reel of what other reels there are that could get you viral on Reels. Yeah, you could become the top reels with your like Frank Sinatra reme. It's a beautiful thing. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over TikTok? American companies can rip off Chinese companies, too. It's called Reels, but Facebook's really just copying TikTok. Reels is a thing.

defensive move to prevent Instagram users from defecting to TikTok. They might as well call this thing a dick-dog. It pretty much is just dick-dog. It's dick-doc. It did the same thing with Instagram stories, which you all know, one of the greatest copies of all time. And that crushed Snapchat's growth when Facebook did that. Usually Chinese companies knock off U.S. innovation, but it can happen the other way around two. For our second story, Jack, skimmer 2%. Uh, whole, uh, trick question because Dean Foods just filed for bankruptcy. You can't ask a Vermont are such a loaded question. The milk company, the friend of the cow just lost its CFO. It's lost its CEO and it's lost its head lawyer since we last cover them. Dean Food's stock was $22 in 2016.

It was right now it had the top shelf milk out there. They were splitting the stuff out. Now it's 80 cents. Reason why? Well, it actually has pensions that it owes all of its workers from the past. Right. Basically a monthly guaranteed retirement fund. And that's why it's filing for bankruptcy right now. It is literally, not literally, getting on its knees and asking a judge for mercy. Now, the reason it's in this situation is actually a much bigger issue, but it gives some context here. We've got to talk about the OG of milk. Big Dean Foods. Dean Foods is the OG Big Milk.

It has 58 manufacturing facilities in 29 states making sour cream to butter to milk. Delicious stuff. And they've got 50 brands. So you're not going to see Dean Milk on the carton, but you're going to see some other stuff. You're going to see Friendlies. Friendly's ice cream is actually done by Dean Milk. organic valley. Great stuff.

And then true mood, chocolate milk. Not to be mistaken with... What's that Seinfeld drink? Well, I remember... Hulu? No. Woohoo? Yahoo.

No, yuh. Chocolate drink. We knew he was going to come to us eventually. It was also that one thing that, like, that one cool kid in your class got to have the chocolate milk and everyone else was sucking out to them. I feel like Dean Foods is the only dairy stock out there. Now, the new CEO of Dean Foods got up to make an announcement yesterday, so we jumped into the press release snack style.

He said, in corporate speech, This is a, quote-unquote, challenging operating environment. In non-corporate speak, he meant damn millennials. Why can't they just eat some corn flakes with some whole milk? They got almond, they got oat, they got soy, they got cashew, they got hemp. They're even squeezing in milk and quinoa these days. But seriously, there's coconut milk, there's pea milk, and there's hemp milk. So all these dairy alternatives are potentially healthier, potentially better for the environment.

My wife said at best, humans are the only mammals that drink other mammals milk. and we're the only ones that drink milk after, like, babyhood. Which sounds very deep, and they're like, wait, I can't tell if that's a good thing. It's tough to forget that, though. It's true, but there are stats here that make it a fascinating thing to tell. Sales of plant-based milk rose 6% last year and now take up 13% of the milk category. Plant-based yogurts, we're talking like coconut yogurts. They're up 39%.

You even got ice cream that's made out of avocado, which in Vermont we call fake ice cream. Sales of that kind of ice cream, it's up 27%. And of course, they're stealing market share from OG dairy that comes out of milk, which is down 3%. The cows aren't loving this. Also, who can forget, I mean, do you remember this? The great oat milk shortage of 2019. People were clambering at the walls of the blue bottle coffee like, yeah, we need it. One carton of oat milk sold on Amazon this year for $226. People couldn't get their alt milks and it was a problem.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Dean Foods? You can't blame millennials for everything. No, everywhere we were looking on this story. you got millennium millennials for this, blaming monies for that, we destroyed driving, we destroyed this, almond milk this, almond milk that. But there's also a bigger issue here that helped drive the fall of Dean Foods. Walmart, Walmart, which is like as unmillennial as it gets. Walmart started sourcing its own milk from its own dairy plants just in the last couple of years.

And that means Dean Foods lost a gigantic customer. Because they used to sell their various brands of milk to Walmart. So there's the plant-based food trend that you can see. And then there's this Walmart detail, which you have to come to Snacks Daily for. You can't see every trend. For our third and final story, Alibaba's Singles Day, just shattered records. So we're looking at what happened to Alibaba's stock. $38 billion.

Put that on a pillow. $38 billion. That is how much merchandise was sold on Alibaba's stores in 24 hours. They could have bought three lifts with that kind of money. 500 million people bought things through Alibaba in one day. We're talking a 24-hour period here. And we know what you're thinking, okay, that's nice, but how about Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday? Well, Amazon Prime Day most recently sold $5.8 billion worth of stuff.

Alibaba's Singles Day sold $13 billion worth of stuff in the first hour. That's more than double Amazon Prime Day. Oh, so we know you're thinking also here, which is Singles Day. What's going on? I missed out in the holiday. I may or may not be single. Can I participate? A lot of questions here.

Started back in the 90s when four students stood in a line, like 1-1-1-1, and it looked like 11-11. which is Singles Day, celebrating people who aren't couples. Right. It's actually highly literal in this case. But now it's much more produced, and it's led by the tech giant, the Amazon of China, Alibaba. They decked out their headquarters this week as if it was like the Beijing Olympics back in 2008. There's a huge light sculpture in advertising campaign that says, make 11 happen. It's not exactly inspiring, but again, it gets back to like the literal 11 thing.

Yeah, the 11 thing, like the 1 and the 1 and the 1. And the 1. And then this really kicked off with a internet gala nationwide in China displayed on 11 networks live streaming to drive sales. It's like the QVC on every channel driving you to buy stuff. And billions of people are watching. We're going to go to a little tabloid too. Taylor Swift did a live concert to kick off the event, hilariously singing the song, You Need to Calm Down.

Multiple times over. But T Swift fans also remember that she opened up a concert to kick off Amazon Prime too. Apparently she's got a thing for like big e-commerce holidays. Yeah. And there was such an onslaught of packages being shipped on Prime Day already that Alibaba had to start using Chinese bullet trains to help get these packages to actual doorsteps. If you need music for a mega e-commerce shopping frenzy, dial Wainting 100 Taylor. Now here's the thing about this year's singles day. It happened at a very interesting time because it ended up being mostly not political, but it had interesting political undertone. Yeah, they didn't talk about tariffs. They didn't talk about the trade

They actually welcomed Nike, Estee Lodder, Kim Kardashian skin products. All of it was included in Alibaba's Singles Day. All these American brands are selling stuff not even worrying about what's going on in the trade war because there is such a big opportunity on a single day. But then we noticed an executive at Alibaba made a quote. And we're going to do it a little two-parter here. So he said, first, we are helping Chinese consumers upgrade their lifestyles. So that part focuses on Chinese people benefiting from the rising Chinese account.

You wouldn't see this kind of thing on Prime Day. But you would see this in a country like China, which is fascinating. And the second part of the quote from the Alibaba exec, while also introducing new users to our digital economy from across China and around the world. The interesting interpretation here is that he's saying, the world needs to recognize China as a business power. Singles Day is how you can do that. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Alibaba?

So why did Alibaba's stock fall the last two days? Expectation. Exactly. sales rose 26% from last year's day to hit that $38 billion number that profoundly affected us. But that 26% jump from last year, that was expected.

It's actually the slowest growth for singles day in like 10 years. So when investors see that something expected happen, the stock doesn't rise. You need something either unexpected to happen or better than expectations to happen in order to make the stop go up. That's how stock markets work.

I mean, think about the Jamaican bobsled team. When am I not thinking about the Jamaican bobsled team? In cool runnings, they didn't even win a medal. But they did cross the finish line. And that beat expectations. And the result? You get a Disney movie. By the way, this is Nick and I own shares of Alibaba.

Jack Canoe whip up the takeaways for us over there. TikTok has over a billion users, so Instagram is moving to copy its core feature. Zuck, just call this thing TikTok and get the whole thing over away. Dean Foods processes milk. But Walmart and plant-based milk trend has led to its downfall. But Dean Foods could come back after bankrupt. if it makes some changes to its pension plans. Third and final story, the Chinese bought a titanic number of packages on Monday,

but Alibaba stock didn't rise. Because stock prices are based on expectations. Now, Snackers, time for a snack fact from a great snacker, Dara from Abuja, Nigeria, who lives right now in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jack, what do we got? Visa just invested $200 million in InterSwitch, which is a payment company, and that values InterSwitch at over a billion dollars. Now, this isn't just any payment company. It's based in Nigeria, and that makes Interswitch the third African unicorn out of like 400 globally.

Yeah, the other two are a telecom company and a consumer package goods. Right. So InterSwitch is based out of Nigeria doing payments, which is a true tech unicorn. Dary would love to cover that Inters, IPO one-day ASAP on snacks. Snackers, that was a great one. Thanks for spending 15 minutes. It felt like we really got tonight. Talk to you tomorrow.

Can't wait. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard, 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.