The Best One Yet - 👚 “Moms popping collars” — Abercrombie’s nostalgia fire. Amazon’s Airbnb move. Glencore’s bribe rooms.

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Abercrombie just had its worst day ever, but here was the real surprise: It’s best customers aren’t teens, they’re nostalgic Millennials. Amazon is pulling a move from Airbnb: Rent out the extra warehouse. And mining giant Glencore just pled guilty to having official “bribe rooms” at its offices. Bribe Rooms. Like rooms, but full of cash (and duffle bags).$ANF $GLNCY $AMZN $ABNBFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn 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. It's Thursday, the new Friday, May 26th, and today's pod is the best one yet. Tb. O-Y. TV-O-Y. What's going on, Jack? Remember last week, Nick?

We went live on Instagram. Just look at the footage. It did not go terribly wrong. It didn't go terribly wrong. It didn't go terribly wrong. That's our standard. So we're going to do it again. Episode 2 is this Friday.

3 p.m. EST. 12 p.m. Pacific. Follow at T-boypod on Instagram. Ask us any question. In the meantime, We're going to whip up some takeaways for you. Jack, first story. What do we got? Abercrombie and Fitch is enjoying a sales resurgence with millennial adults.

Yeah, it takes just one spark to ignite a nostalgia fire. For our second story, Amazon's newest plan is pulling a trick from Airbnb. Yeah, but that's not a good thing. And our third and final story, the wildest story of the week, Glencore mining. Here's a preview. Glencore had rooms just to hold cash for bribes. had a cash room equipped with duffel bags. It's like an ATM, but it's a room.

But before we hit that wonderful mix, Nick, wonderful mix, even though we're ambiguously in different places and no one has any idea where we are. It's almost a three-day weekend. It's almost a three-day weekend. So, hey, Basties and Yetis, you may be heading to your very first summer wedding. I am. That's where I am.

I'm on Strong Island. There we go. Strong Island wedding. It's going to be a good one. If you're at a wedding this weekend, you might see this. Get this. Black Wedding. Dresses. The black wedding dress is in. The black wedding dress is literally the new black.

Our buddies over at CNN did some Google search research. Yeah, they searched the search. Black wedding dresses is being searched for more than white wedding dresses are. Brides to be are black and out. Forget the little black dress. Go for the big back out. Jack, what's going on over at Poshmark? Okay, at Poshmark, black wedding gown sales are up 30% compared to last year. Jack, what's going on at other wedding dress websites? One out of ten wedding gowns sold for this summer is a black wedding dress. Some brides just want to mix things up after the pandemic. Others have seen celebrities on like the Met Gala or saying I do in all black.

Yeah, others probably just want to rebel against wedding tradition like a wedding William Wallace. Here comes the bride, all dressed in goth. Philly Idol is going to have to rewrite his famous song, Jack. It's a nice day for a black chiffon-lis wedding. So besties, yeties, if you are at a wedding. this long week. And the bride struts down the aisle or pitch flat. Then this couple is way cooler than both of us. Yeah, they are. Let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause

a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a norm. That's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the for our first story abercrombie stock just had its biggest one-day plummet ever abercrombie's been betting on teens yeah but they're winning with adults jack pour out your first bottle of cologne for abercrombie nick yeah jack apparently you can unpop a collar uh abercrombie stock just dropped 30% on tuesday worst day ever for the moose because making clothing is more expensive than ever yeah jack there's like a lot of on those cargo shorts.

Oh, yeah, there is. And they just announced they're expecting sales to barely grow this year as you buy fewer Hollister tops. There was literally a pocket on the pocket that's within the pocket. It's true. I can attest to that. Now, Abercrombie is targeting teens, Gen Z, anybody under 24, anybody mid-puberty, whatever.

But here's the shocking thing, Jack and I noticed about Abercrombie's earnings. Their top performer last quarter, it wasn't the teens. It was adults. Adults. Get this. Adults. sales at Abercrombie just had their best quarter in a decade. Teenage Tammy, she may not be buying as many sundresses. No. Middle management, Maggie is. Jack, can you share with us what the CEO said

over at Abercrombie? She said there's been a remarkable turnaround among adult-aged millennials who are doing a wardrobe refresh with Abercrombie and Fitch. I mean, Jack, you're going back to work. Why not wear three layers of polo shirts and a seashell necklace? Am I right? We don't advise it. Although, Nick, Alex did get me a few longslave teas from Abercrombie. Are you going to like start bringing medium-sized pastels onto the pot? Is that what we're expecting now? 1896. It's like, is that a corporate logo?

No, it's a moose. It's a moose. So Abercrombie's doing TikTok ads. They're doing the influencer partnerships. They're doing the billboards with the men with the abs to get present-day kids to buy their clothes. But the top driver is present-day adults, not the teens. Present-day adults who used to show. shop at Abercrombie when they were teens.

So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies who are just too cool for takeaways over at Abercrombie? Nostalgia is like a Tinder box. It just needs a spark. Besties, Yeties. The real driver of Abercrombie's adult sales resurgence? It's Netflix's documentary last quarter called White Hot. It was all about Abercrombie and Fitch's success in the 2000s and their controversial

CEO. Yeah, it was about the boom times of Abercrombie when Jack and I would go into Isle six and the next thing you know, you'd spend three days in aisle six. It was dark. It was like a creepy club with half-naked frosted tipped dudes everywhere. It was messed up that they were promoting all that, but it did define an era for teens back then. Nick, there's a whole generation that wanted to be Abercrombie cool. Yeah. Well, that was millennials. So this Netflix doc is a reminder of Abercrombie's relevance to millennials as creepy as some of that might be in hindsight. Nostalgia is driving Abercrombie's one bright spot right now, and it's with millennials.

And it only took one spark. For our second story, Amazon is pulling a move from Airbnb. They are renting out their extra warehouse. And that's not a good thing. That's a red flag. Okay. Jack, let's set the scene here. Let's set the scene. You just bought some movie posters. You said goodbye to your parents, right, right?

Maybe a bed bath and beyond run. And then you went off. to college. Then you come home at Thanksgiving break and some rando dude is bunking in your bedroom. You're like, who are you? He's like, hey, I'm Frank. Your parents are cool. They always fill the fridge. You're like, who are you, Frank? You realize mom and dad Airbnb beat out your beloved childhood bedroom. To Frank. It wasn't been used. So your parents monetized it. Yeah, your parents. They said, hey, we're going to turn a lost llama into a profit puppy. Honestly, kind of makes sense. Well, guess what? Amazon is pulling the same move as your parents.

Amazon is Airbnb. It's extra warehouses. Yeah. And not to Frank, but to like Frank, Inc. During the pandemic, you went turbo mode on Amazon pantry. I remember, Jack, you and I, we both had like an Armageddon preparatory-sized amount of peanut butter in the suitcase. It was my panic box. It was Skippy. And then you had the Jiffy for like the final reserves in case things got bad with the Skippy. So you bought like 17 packs of toilet paper. And to match that, Amazon needed warehouse space.

Well, get this. To match that demand, Amazon doubled its warehouse space over just two years. Amazon built twice as many of those enormous Amazon boxes you see on the side of the highway. Those stores that are not stores, they're fulfillment centers, and they're just packing boxes. But then last month, Amazon had their first quarterly loss in seven years because of a major slowdown in your online spending. Well, that leads to the news today. Amazon is reportedly subleasing out, 10 million square feet of its warehouses. America's biggest online retailers pulling the same move as your parents. Yeah, Jack, or as Amazon put it,

we're going to relieve financial obligations of our existing buildings that no longer bid our needs. Jack's in my translation, we got too many warehouses, let's Airbnb. And remember, reviews are super important, so we'd love if you leave us five stars. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Amazon with apparently too much space? This isn't innovation. This is a recession red flag.

Yeah, it is. A key with a recession, it's wishing you'd recognize it before it happened. So Nick and I are looking for some leading indicators, an early sign of something to come in the economy. This week, Jack and I were telling you about Snapchat stock, which a lot of investors think could be an early sign of a potential recession. Snapchat announced they expect fewer ads, which means advertisers expect customers to spend less. And that's why Snap plummeted 40%.

But this Amazon news that it has extra bedroom space, that may also be a recession red flag, too. If Amazon has unused warehouses, that's not good news. I mean, it means consumers must be spending less. So Amazon's subleasing out its extra space, that's not something innovative. It could be a leading indicator. It could be a recession red flag. And now worried about our sponsor, Robin Hood. We see ads all the time.

All over the place, $10 off this $5. promo code for that, Jack. You can buy three suits. You can get one free. But something we always thought was cool about Robin Hood, the free stock promo. Yeah, this was wild. The promo isn't like some X amount of dollars. It's one stock. If you signed up for Robin Hood, they'd thank you with a single share in a publicly traded company on the house. And that free stock promo, it actually helped drive Robin Hood's growth and got new users in the stock market right away. One of the most creative moves in promotional history. So when Robin Hood became our sponsor, naturally Jack and I said, we got to do the free stock giveaway. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, you want to get started, go to robin hood.com slash

t-boy and get cash to select your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply. All investments involved risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC. Member SIPC, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, Glenn Corp just pled guilty two shockingly detailed bribery crimes at a level we've never seen. Glenn Corps had bribe rooms. Bribe rooms. Bribe rooms. And investors don't seem to mine.

Not living rooms. Bribe rooms. We all saw in Zoolander when Derek Zoolander, mining is a dirty business. I've got the black lung pup. Try 20 years to attack me. But Glennor mining doesn't have a filthy larynx. They have a filthy conscience right now. Glencore $87 billion publicly traded mining giant based in Switzerland.

it's worth like 12 lifts. The white collar jobs are based in Switzerland, Nick, but the miners work in 35 different countries where Glencore has mines. Literally mining rocks. They're exploding parts of the earth to grab the little chunks of Earth that come out. And you know, over at Glencore, they're pretty proud of this. Their slogan, Jack? We have the raw materials that the world needs.

Cuts right to it. But according to the U.S. Department of Justice, they have those raw materials because they bribed people for them. Here's the news. Glencore just pled guilty to that bribing. And we have never seen a corporate guilty plea like this. Besties, here's the situation. Glencore's offices, you take the elevator, you go up, maybe you make a right, and you're going to see this at their London and Bear office locations. There were rooms at their offices with one purpose. Cash. That's it. Holding cash to be used in bribes. We're talking duffel bags and all filled with bills. The duffel bags probably had dollar symbols on the outside of them. We repeat, not a room filled with like printers and scanners,

a room filled with cash. Glencore had bribe rooms. I'm checking architectural digest, Jack. I'm not seeing that in here. These are facts that Glenn Corps just pled guilty to in investigations from the United States, United Kingdom, and Brazil. And here's how he used those bribe rooms of cash. For example, they gave one guy, let's call him Frank too, $27 million in cash. And then they told Frank to go bribe the governments of Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Equatorial Guinea. And those cash bribes let Glencore enter those countries and mine their resources. And then turn a profit worth three times more than the cash bribe payment they made. We repeat the ROB, the return on bribe, was 3x for Glencore. That's just one of many specific examples in this guilty plane. So Jack, what's the

takeaway for our buddies over at Glencore and their bribe rooms? Glencore's business model depended on bribery. And guess what? Investors were okay with it. Uh, Yetis, you want proof that investors are okay with it? Just look at Glencore stock. Jack, where is Glencore stock? Glenncore stock just hit an all-time high the same week of this unbelievably egregious guilty plea. After all the dirty deeds, we just told you, their publicly traded stock has never been better. The DOJ said in the press release, bribery was built into the corporate culture and Glendcore pled guilty to that charge. Honestly, it seems like a this is pretty common in mining. If you want to mine somewhere, Nick, and that country's run by

corrupt government officials, you're probably going to have to bribe to get access to those resources. Yeah, like in the past, how the CIA discovered that Glencore had done business with Saddam Hussein because he had oil. Glencore did business with Saddam Hussein. Apparently, bribery is the cost of doing business over at Glencore, and it just paid one and a half billion dollars for that. But investors apparently see more profit opportunity than they see corruption. Jack and you and that pink long-sleeve cargo polo whip up the takeaways for us. Abercrombie and Fitch has never sold more to adults than right now. It's millennial nostalgia and it only takes one spark to learn.

For our second story, Amazon oversplurged on warehouses. So it's Airbnb being some of the... That's not innovation. That's a recession red flag. Our third and final story is Glenn Corr. They just pled guilty to having bribe rooms. Yeah, bribery. It seemed to be so common in mining that, mining investors just don't care that much.

Now, time for the best fact yet. This one DM'd in from Bradley Carion and his girlfriend, Maya, from lovely Potrero Hill, San Francisco. Is this your John Hancock or is this someone else's John Hancock? Am I, Nick? And are you Jack? Can you prove that you're Jack over there, Jack? Yet he's identity verification is one of the greatest challenges online today. But here's the thing, identity verification.

It actually goes back in history, not just your iPhone like, scanning your face. It goes way back to 3,100 BC. Get this, the earliest relic that we know of using words and symbols to validate an identity is a Sumerian clay tablet from 5,000 years ago. On that tablet, Nick, were marks. Yeah. From someone named Gar Amma. And that means that Gar-A-ma has the oldest human autograph verifying the author in recorded history. It's Herbie Hancock, by the way. Besties, Yetis, you look fantastic today, and we'd love to see you this Friday at noon Pacific 3 Eastern Standard Time. Episode two, we hope to do this weekly unless things go terribly wrong.

So far, not terribly wrong. Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. If you know, we hope you know. And before we go, congratulations to Toby, a Yeti, listening in the shower right now. We just got a new job in Kinnibunkport, Maine. And we're kind of jealous of Philip Nicholas, who's moving to Puerto Rico for,

a new job. Congratulations. In the meantime, Jack, Joseph LaDondda is graduating in the Bay Area. Congrats to Ingrid Diaz, who's graduating in New York City. And Brady Sullivan, happy birthday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Happy birthday to Jordan Carpenter in Tucson, Arizona. And Christian, who's got a birthday doing logistics in Lawrenceville. Happy 58 to Kathy Sarlson in Ambler, Pennsylvania. And Brady Shepard is turning seven with his toy electric truck in Walpole, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a t-ball. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Netflix. And Nick and I both own stock of Airbnb and Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time we swiped up to buy a stock on Robin Hood, whoa. Yeah, Jack, you get like that, like little vibration, boom, you've done a trade. It wasn't just an incredible app. Robin Hood added incredible resources too. That started with the Help Center. Everyone has that.

Then came Robin Hood Snacks, digestible financial news. Then came the news feed, providing free third-party news. from trusted sources. And then it came Robin Hood Learn. A huge trove of articles explaining what the heck an ETF is. Yeah. Spoiler, it's like a stock smoothie. Jack and I actually wrote the article in that one. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started,

go to robinode.com slash T-boy and choose a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. And by the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. On that tablet, there are marks. Marks, there's a scribe of someone named Gar-Amah.

That was great delivery at the end. Hit it again. On that tablet, we're marks, were scribes of someone named... No, he is the scribe. He is the scribe.