The Best One Yet - “It’s Christmas for Candy” — Hershey’s 6% jump. Marriott’s profit surprise. Amazon zucks Airbnb.

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Our favorite earnings report of the fall: The first post-Halloween candy earnings from Hershey. The entire travel industry is suffering right now… and yet Marriott whipped up a profit? And we noticed that Amazon’s latest product is straight-up zucking Airbnb’s latest feature.$HSY $MAR $AMZNGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @TBOYJack @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. Welcome back. It is Monday, November 9th. Amidst the madness. Stocks had their best week since April last week. Jack, didn't they just have like their worst week since March?

I think so. So let's call it a wash. You know who won the election though? No. Apparently the NASDAQ. Yeah, I think the NASDAQ is declared the winner. In the meantime, Jack and I decided to work all weekend to make this our best snacks daily. Honestly, we've ever done by far.

For our first story, our favorite earnings report of the fall. Jack, we got Hershey's post-Hlo-Wealthy, and we look forward to it every year. For our second story, the entire travel industry continues to suffer because of COVID-19. But Marriott hotels threw on a robe, drew a bath, and luxuriated in a comfortable profit last quarter. This makes no sense. How did you do it, Marriott? How did you do it? Yeah, tell us how you did it.

And we'll hit our third story, Jack. We have another stage five zucking to report, and zuck wasn't even there. Jack, Amazon just zucked. Wait for it. Airbnb. Airbnb. That's going to be a good one. But Snackers, before we jump into that wonderful mix of stories, you're not going to hear anywhere else. During the stressful election week, there were moments of extra stress. Yeah, there were no moments of calm. No. Key Race Alert from Maricopa County,

Arizona. Wolf Blitzer had exploded. Maybe we all had a mild case of political traumatic stress syndrome. But you may have noticed on the lower left-hand corner of CNN screen, there was something different, something mindful. A small, subtle advertisement for an app. Yeah, that's why Jack and I are thinking the real winner of this whole election week, it was the Calm app. The meditation startup had strategic marketing during the most stressful moment of the most stressful year of the most stressful political campaign. Jack, it totally worked. Can you read off the Calm numbers for us? On Election Day, the Calm app jumped 20 spots in the App Store to hit number 79 among the

whole app universe. Boom, then we noticed it hit number one in the U.S. health and fitness category, and it's still there right now. I can vouch the morning after the election. I calmed for 10 minutes. the first time in like a year, I've calmed for 10 minutes every day since. Pro tip, you can breathe through 15 minutes of mindfulness with a Nogronian hand. No one's going to judge yet. It still works.

And yes, calm used the election to become a verb. So Snackers, you could stress about what the clerk of Maricopa County had for lunch. Or you could listen to a live waterfall, water falling through a meditation app. It's marvelous. Or you can download Maddie McConaughey narrating an angelic puppy playing with a newborn giraffe, also adorable. Nick and I are big fans of meditation because for any human being, stressful thoughts are going to come into our mind. But then you realize Maricopa County is outside

your control and you can let it go. You'll let it go and you live your life. If meditation's the real winner of the election, stress and anxiety, those can be the real loser. The other real winner though is the VC firms that poured in $150 million into Com app. They're going to get a return. 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 to hear rain food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views a robberhood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any securities. Nope. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC.

For our first story, Hershey stock just jumped 6% last week because of our favorite moment of the fall. By far the favorite. This is the first candy earnings. report after Halloween. Jack, by the way, here, we got to talk about this best Halloween costume, one word answers only. Can I say, where's Waldo? No one could find you. Ninety-six, I did Paul Revere, but everyone thought I was a pirate and I got really upset. It was a whole thing. The British are coming. Did you have one light and two lights, land and sea? I was running around with like two flashlights kind of a thing. We really blew this one word only rule. But Snackers, Jack and I noticed that Hershey's has had a problem for like the last six months. Candy is an indulgence. It's

Not a staple. That's true, except for the four main food groups, which are candy, candy canes, candy corns, and cereal. That's true. Cereal soup, bread sales, those are up big because you're like at home doing breakfast, lunch, and dinner the whole time. Yeah, if you've been listening to snacks daily, you know that food staples have been soaring during the pandemic. You're not popping Twizzlers, like, after every single meal on a daily basis. No, unless you're one of us who's put on a COVID-19. Yeah, it happens.

It happens to the best of us. But you're also not doing movie dates on Fridays, and you're not taking that. like sales trip to Detroit to sell. Funny thing, Hershey's pointed out in their earnings report, people care less during the pandemic about their bad breath than they did, like, not during the pandemic. Yeah. Jack and I thought this was wild.

Their breath mint, their gum, their mid sales. They plummeted 19% over at Hershey's. Because you don't care if you have, uh, you know, B.O. of the mouth. That's a terrible image, Jack. Pro tip, don't smell your mask. It's not a good ambiance. Yeah, our second pro tip of the day. That's why they got a new marketing campaign over at Hershey's to like get you back.

on the gum train. They call it a void mask breath. According to Hershey's, though, the one candy we are eating more of this summer, milk chocolate. Yeah, milk chocolate. You can't be indoors, so you're going to be outdoors if you're going to see anyone. And if they're outdoors, you kind of want one thing. You want smores. Yeah, smores have been the hit candy sales this year, and you need Hershey's to have a smoker. Hershey's literally said they like dialed up their quote, like the sales of chocolate bars to meet all the demand for some mores. Nick, it's funny. I was waiting for you to say it, because I noticed you do a two-syllable smore, and I do one. I have great respect for the apostrophe.

Overall for Hershey's, in the last three months, sales rose by 4%. And profit actually jumped despite the Halloween issue. So you're looking at Hershey's and Jackner are like fantastic last quarter, except Hershey's faced a huge challenge just last month. In a typical year, one-tenth of Hershey's annual sales come from Halloween. Yeah, this is the Christmas for candy. Think about no other company gets other people to just, hand out their product for free for an entire day. It's incredible. That's how good Halloween is for

Hershey's. People are handing out their product for free. But unfortunately this year, because of the pandemic, trick-or-treating was like basically canceled nationwide. Everybody hates the Reese's super spreader. You don't want to be that guy. But we just got the numbers in and get this, Snackers. The industry-wide overall Halloween candy sales, they were down. That's not a surprise. Well, it was a surprise. Hershey's Halloween sales rose. Jack and I were fascinated. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Hershey's. We're calling this the power of a nimble pivot over at Hershey's. Snackers, Hershey's was very proud on their call, their earnings call. Rightfully so, that they quote-unquote leaned in early to this pandemic Halloween. They realized that Halloween candy is totally

dependent on grocery stores and pharmacies that put them at the end of the aisle. Totally. So they asked those stores to put out the Halloween candy displays way early, all the way in July so parents could plan. Then the like magicians over at Hershey's took it a step further. They redid the packaging no more giant bags. We all know those Hershey's Halloween candy bonanzas that have like Heath, Whoppers, good bars, Snickers, Milky Way. You're like, I just want the Reese's. You don't need to give me so many good bars. Instead, they developed a family-friendly bag for at-home candy snacking. And then they took it a step further by launching a trick-or-treat website. This is no joke. It was almost like those political maps we were obsessed with last week. Live color-coded COVID-neighborhood

risk map. That's a mouthful. And then they would tell you how to do trick-or-treating so like if you were in the red zone where there were high infection rates, they would put candy stations around your house for your kids instead of having them go outside. Kind of like an Easter egg hunt, but in the fall, inside. Hershey's was able to come the biggest existential threat to its most critical holiday, thanks to the nimble pivot. For our second story, Marriott is a hotel company whose stock jumped 3% last week and it profited last quarter? We're going to put on a magnifying glass and investigate how a hotel scored mid-travelpocalypse. Here's the thing about hotel snackers. Jack and I are looking at this.

We're looking at every sector. Hotels are just like airlines, right? They're airlines without the wings. They just don't go anywhere. They're constantly docked like United. Delta and Southwest lose another billion or two last quarter. Griever take. We assumed all travel stocks would lose a billion or two quarter. Yeah. So should hotel stocks, right? Now, both airlines and hotels, they both depend on travel. And they both treat business customers a lot better than they do our leisure customers. Kind of a discrimination there. And they both give you tiny containers of things when you arrive. Thank you so much for this single cheese it. This is the smallest DeSani bottle I've ever seen. Oh, the hand cream for my pinky. Fantastic. This is going to be great. They reduce plastic, Nick,

by giving you a smaller plastic bottle. Inside the plastic bottle is more plastic. That's the secret. But Marriott Hotels, Marriott International, it's technically called. They just announced something that shocked us. First of all, they're really appreciative. You made that clarification, Jack. Second of all, they announced a profit last quarter. A hotel chain, the biggest hotel chain in the world, had a profit mid-pandemic. Now, we know it's kind of freaky sounding. It's surprised us, too. Part of that's because, like, over in China, they've already crushed COVID, which helps a lot with Marriott hotels in China. Yeah, they have a lot of hotels over there. But there's one particular statistic we found in the earnings report that really explains everything you need to

know about Marriott. Yeah, it turns out that they've got a cool 1.35 million hotel rooms over at Marriott. Can you imagine a game of hide and seek with 1.35 million rooms? Jack, trick-or-treating in New York City, you'd like have to start in one apartment and work your way down the steps. This is a gold mine. I could trick-or-treat throughout the entire Marriott situation. Well, let's just say you'd never get found. No. But we really like the stat, Revpar. Yeah, we do. Revenue per available room. That's something Marriott always tells us. It's a freaky term. But Revpar, this revenue. per an available room. It dropped by 66% worldwide in the last three months. So if RevPAR dropped by 66% we're looking at the inverse, they're making 34% revenue per room compared to what they made last year.

And that makes sense because their hotels worldwide are just 35% full on average. So they should be making around 35% of revenue per room. So then we're thinking, how the heck did they squeeze out a profit when they're only making 35% as much money as last year. Yeah, you just canceled your Thanksgiving trip. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Marriott? It brilliantly cut the cuttable cost that it could. Snackers, when a company loses revenue, it madly, aggressively and freakishly calls up the CFO and tries to cut the cost that it can. Some costs, though, Marriott just can't cut. They're uncutable. They're called fixed costs. Those are the uncutable costs. We're talking like, you know, for Marriott, the actual buildings, the rent, the mortgage, the

insurance, the taxes, the Wi-Fi. Everything else, though, all the other expenses that Marriott has, yeah, those are cuttable costs. Those are the cuttable costs, the variable costs. We're talking like the corporate jobs, the cleaning services, the restaurants, the tiny bag of cheeseuits. So even those sales fell by 57% at Marriott, they actually managed to cut costs by the same exact amount, 57%. And Marriott right now, it's just in survival mode. I mean, they're like, they're praying they're still alive when COVID is finally over. They can get you back in the hotel rooms. Movie theaters, airlines, fitness centers, they're all fighting the same fight. Now, Marriott, when Jack and I are looking at what they're doing so far, it looks like a survivor.

The stock's only down 31% from its pre-COVID high. We're glad this hotel chain is managing to survive, and that's thanks to its ability to cut the cuttable costs. For our third and final story, I can't believe we have to say this, Jack. The latest zucking? It's Amazon Zucking Airbnb. Snackers, a typical zucking is going to be. committed by Facebook, the OG Zucker. Yeah. And that's when Facebook copies someone else's feature and does it better than them.

That's what's so weird about this is this is Amazon zuck and someone else. Yeah. Just last week, Amazon announced like a thousand things in their third quarter earnings report. But there's one feature they didn't announce, but they had already launched. It's called Amazon Explore. You can actually Google this and check it out right now. It's in beta mode. Just Google Amazon Explore.

If you do, you'll see 30 to 60 minute. interactive live streaming experiences so you can like virtually from your computer visit five continents. This is like a nice little escape mix. You got like the regional cooking classes or maybe you're doing like a guided walking tour kind of a thing. Let's get a little more specific here. Please, Jack. For $40, you can have a 40 minute experience where you customize a silk scarf with Australia's legendary Shibori artists. Jack, you're not doing anything else. This is your entire Tuesday evening right here. Boom, 40 bucks. Do you get a prime discount? You get a Shabu. You get a Bori made scarf is what you get, Jack.

But let's say you're not trying to splurge too much. You just want to spend $29 and you only got 45 minutes a time. What could you do then, Jack? This sounds like a lovely Wednesday evening. You can learn the art of the Argentine empanata. Yes, you can. But it's B.YO. Paprika. You're going to make these things at home.

Yeah, you will. While you watch someone do it in Argentina. But snackers, if you really want to kick up your Thursday evening, you can splurge on the most expensive option. It's $200 bucks, 60 minutes. And honestly, this is like Jackson, my absolute favorite option. out there. Nick, junior year, I can tell you from experience from my Prague trip, and I remember it well, Jack. The beer is cheaper than the water. And that, you can relive gloriously with a

tour of Prague. That's not just any tour of Prague. Yeah, a local name Natalie's going to be there because you're going to be at home, and she's going to face-time you for a full hour as she roams the city with a selfie stick. Yeah, you're going to be seeing Prague via selfie stick. There's no other better way to see Prague. Instead of being an obnoxious tourist, no. You're going to let a local be the obnoxious tourist for you. You get to be Natalie's side hustle. It's fantastic. By the way, Prague, City of 100 Spires. Yeah. And trivia, which you just told me about, which I love, Prague is the biggest European city that was not bombed during World War II, which is pretty much how they kept all 100 spires. But Nick, Amazon Explorer, it sounds a lot like Airbnb experiences,

doesn't it? Jack, it sounds exactly like Airbnb experiences. Remember Snackers, a couple of years back, Airbnb expanded beyond booking places to like hang out and sleep to booking things to do at those places that you stay. They realized you needed a reason to actually go somewhere before you booked the place to actually go. I got to say though, I can't wait for like a virtual reality goggle. I hear you. To let you do these experiences with a headset, you could like visit the Vatican from home. You're virtually visit Natalie. You're not just like her sidekick on like the FaceTime selfie thing. Right. Now it's awkward timing to be zucked by Amazon because Airbnb is expected to file for their IPO. this week and do their IPO before Old Lang's eye.

But here's like the great irony of this situation. Airbnb launched experiences because millennials prefer them to material things like souvenirs. But Amazon sucked experiences because it wants you to buy material things like souvenirs. So Jack, what's our takeaway for our buddies over at Amazon and Airbnb? Everything Amazon launches, it all comes back to the epic Amazon flywheel. Snackers, you probably didn't expect Amazon. to get into virtual hospitality on like a Monday afternoon. Now, of course, Amazon's not UNICEF.

Now. We're expecting them to charge like a 20% booking feed just like Airbnb does. And we also don't think like Amazon's doing a full pivot to travel either anytime soon. We think when travel returns, Amazon will continue to offer these but for real life, physical, in-person experiences. And then from there, Amazon can weave in the core Amazon retail marketplace experience in with this whole travel gig. Bezos will notice when you book that Safari to South Africa, and they're thinking, you're going to need some binoculars. These are the five-star ones for $50. And then Papa Bezos cares, so he's going to say, hey, you probably want to bring 12 pairs of khakis along with you. And then Papa Bezos wants this experience, really experiencing, they're going to recommend, why don't you toss in a rhino whistle? And then it turns out, you know what? People who bought rhino whistles probably bought an extra pair of boxers. We think Explore is just another path that leads back to Amazon's e-commerce flywheel.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Hershey's could have had a ruined Halloween quarter like Nick pronounces smora as two syllables. It's a powerful apostory. Instead, though, Hershey's pivoted nimbly and had its best Halloween quarter. For our second story, Marriott Hotel showed that despite the pandemic, hotels can make a profit. It just requires cut in the cuttable cost. For our third and final story, Amazon's committed the latest zucking of Airbnb with its new explore feature. And Jack and I are thinking this all comes down to bundling in with e-commerce retail just like Papa Bezos wants. Papa Bezos is going to recommend that Raton Whistle.

He should be a snacker. He's probably listening. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one's sent in by Matt Strater. We don't know his hometown. So let's just say Key West Florida. I like that assumption there. That's where my batch party was. That's what I was thinking. I thought it was a great place. It was a good time. Now, the earliest ever photograph taken of a U.S. President. It's a great trivia question. I thought it was Grant. It was not. Actually, wait, isn't there a picture of Lincoln? There's a picture of every president after this president, actually.

It's the sixth president, John Quincy Adams, who had the photo taken, though, while he was sitting in Congress. Here's why this is interesting. The photo was from 1843, but he was president 14 years earlier from 1825 to 1829. So our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, actually, after the presidency, stayed in politics and became a congressman from Massachusetts in the House of Representatives. The photo just resurfaced for auction. It's expecting to sell for $250,000. Snackers, we hope you all have a more relaxed week this week. You look fantastic, by the way. We've got one request for you. Yes, we do.

Recommend Snacks Daily to one buddy, because tomorrow's episode is T-Boy Tuesday. It's T-Boy Tuesday, so ask them, H-Y-H-Y-S-D. Have you had your snacks daily? We'll see you tomorrow. If you know, you know. This is Jack, I own Stock of Amher. Amazon. Before we go, congrats to Sonia and Amar just closed their first fundraise for their startup over in San Francisco. Impressive and congratulations to Tom Klosska for graduating from Hanover, Germany. And happy birthday to Jack, yes, over in Mexico City. And Mimi LeVue in Garden Grove, California. And Kayla Levoie down in Vegas. And JJ Guo in Kamas, Washington. And Tricia Paul in Boulder,

Colorado. And Dr. Kelly Crana in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Go Blue. And Ted Willett in Los Angeles. And Kelly Scrivener in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But a big congrats to Haran and Riva just got engaged over in Virginia. Happy getting engaged to Jacob Shrymph and Eric Olson in Nashville, Tennessee. And Jack, we got an anniversary, Kim and Sam, over in Sunnyvale, California. Happy anniversary to David and Jill in Rancho Santa Margarita. And Grant and Nicole, seventh anniversary, Valley City, Ohio. Grant and Nicole, take the cake on this one.

It's impressive. 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.