The Best One Yet - “Pop collars, pop stocks” — Abercrombie’s dirty secret. The Dow’s thirty-thow. Toast’s $8B steak knife.

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Just in time for our last pod of the holiday week, the Dow hit 30K on word of a new Treasury Secretary’s signature. We jumped into Abercrombie & Fitch’s latest earnings, but discovered it’s not really Abercrombie anymore (literally). And DineTech company Toast is our “Unicorn of the Day”. After laying off off ½ of its staff in April, it’s back and just hit an $8B valuation.$ANF $DIAGot 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. It is Wednesday, November 25th. Snackers, this is the last one yet. Yep. It's the last pod before Thanksgiving. So we'll see you again on Monday.

But Jack, Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Just checking the numbers here. It is still on. It's still on, Jack. It's still on. Woody Woodpecker will still be inflated with lots of helium. But there's only going to be 12 balloons, not 16 this year. Yeah, and they're going to be carried by 16 cars, not 100 people because the robots keep

keep taking our jobs, Jeff. It's a social distancing. And it's going to come to podcast hosts soon. But this is our best Snacks Daily at T-B-O-Y. Jack, what do we got today for a story? The Dow just hit 30,000 after word of the new Treasury Secretary of the United States. Jack, we're getting a new signature on the dollar bills. Do you hear that, by the way? What is that?

The Wings of a dove. Her name is Janet. Second story, what do we got, Jack? Abercrombie and Fitch's stock is popping collars after the latest earnings report. Yeah, except it's not really Abercrombie's stock under all those layers. Jack and I checked it out. this one's highly questionable. For our third and final story is the unicorn of the day.

It's a Dynetech company called Toast. And in April, Jack, I noticed Toast had laid off half its staff. Today, Toast is celebrating an $8 billion private valuation. With a B. But Snackers, before we jump into that, Jack, this is a particularly wonderful mix of stories today. You may be zooming into Thanksgiving this year. We hope you are. We hope you have a couple loved ones with you.

But get ready for the obligatory slow hand wave to open up the Zoom call. Jack, I know what you're thinking. You've got like 15 brothers, so you've got to wish Zoom added a Thanksgiving touch football feature. Thanksgiving weekend is half turkey, half playing catch with my brothers. It's all about the traps. They're all about the traps in the Kramer household. But here's the real conversation started you should kick things off with on Zoom this Thursday. Get this Snackers.

When you kick off your Zoom Thanksgiving, don't say hello. Start the Zoom call instead with Ahoy. Ahoi! You're going to start it with Ahoi this year. The reason we're bringing this. Snacker Alyssa Reza from Love for. Los Angeles, tweeted in an incredible snack fact we had to share before Thanksgiving. Get this snackers. Turns out Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876,

and he wanted the greeting for every telephone call to be ahoi. That's right. You pick up the phone. Ahoy? That's the nautical word that the first telephone calls were answered with. We have yacht vibes going on here. Jack, I got someone out to my storeboard. Let me put you on hold for a But in 1887, just about 10 years later, rival inventor Thomas Edison suggested we use a different word to greet people on the phone. And that word was, hello. Here's what's so wild to jacking me. Turns out hello was actually like a totally new word at the time. It was brand spank and new. It had just gotten into the dictionary five years earlier, five years after the phone had been invented in 1883. So a Hoy though had actually been around for like a hundred years before hello as like

canonical term. So there was a debate for a few years. Ahoy or hello? But clearly Edison won out because hello has become the standard greeting. Yeah, no one's saying this better not be a roboc caller. Ahoy. Ahoy. The takeaway here, Nick? Yes, Jack. Your honors. Hello, disrupted. Ahoy. The original disruption. 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. 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. Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you.

Robberhood Financial LLC. Member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, Abercrombian Fitch, its stock just surged after its latest earnings. But it's not really Abercrombian Fitch anymore at all. No, it's not. Now Snackers, Jack and I are looking back on the history here. All right, Cromby stock, it hit a high in 1998. So, Jack, what did you say? Elementary school for us? Yeah, fifth grade. Yeah, basically. Then it hit another high in, when we were in college, 2008. Let's go with that. Sophomore year. We were roommates. Yeah. And then it fell 90% after that. But it's gone from nothing to something this year. The stock's up 35% since January. Not bad. And up 17% just this week. And just yesterday, Jack and I noticed they announced

earnings. They also announced something that got a lot of attention for them, a pandemic playbook. They're offering things like pizza-style takeout. Like, you can order a polo shirt, like you can order a pepperoni pizza. Jack, I'm going to take the family-sized cheese Henley for one. To go. To go. If you can leave it out, I'll pick it up outside the Abercrombie. I can smell it from a block away.

Abercrombie was making Canada Goose parkas before Canada goose. Foe coyote fur and all. Jack's that really humbled here. He asked me, oh, he's like, where were they found it again, 1892? Exactly, 1892. Nick, every one of their sweatshirts had that big year written right on the chest, like a gap sweatshers. It was right in your face. First company to also master the intentional fray, which is impressive. The intentional fray invented by Abercrombie and Fitch. Yeah, you get 50 factory workers

to rip apart the pants they just itched together. Now, technically, total sales for Abercrombie and Fitch slowed last quarter. Yes, they did. But online sales surged by 43 percent and now represent half of the total sales. So investors were happy to see it. Jack and I jumped in snack style, and that's when we noticed something fascinating. If you own Abercrombian Fitch stock, you don't really own Abercrombie and Fitch anymore. We jumped to slide 15 where you're going to notice a few interesting numbers. First, Abercrombie sales last quarter were $343 million for its Abercrombie brand. Hollister sales, however, were $477 million. Now, Abercrombie owns Hollister, but Hollister is now 60 percent, nearly two-thirds of Abercrombie sales. Who's owning who here?

Also, Hollister, Abercrombie's cousin, basically, has a tan 12 months a year without even dry. And a big thanks to Hollister's subbrand, which is called Gilly Hicks, which is actually Abercrombie and Fitch's sub-sub brand. Yeah, we got a little Russian doll situation going on here with the sub-sub brands, Jack. Gilly Hicks is like loose loungewear. I think airy. Yeah, they got brollets, they've got Sherpa hoodies. And then Jack and I found this while, too, they've got a new thing called Loungeillettes.

Loungeillettes. Yes. Sounds like a small lounge. It's actually a combination of both a braulet and a shirper. Sherpa hoodie. It's essentially a fleece brawling. But you thought TikTok was getting Zuck toast? This is a total airy knockoff. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Abercrombie? Shakespeare asked what's in a name, potentially a hidden subbrand when it comes to corporate. That's right. Snackers, don't let Abercrombie fool you. It's really Hollister. That's

the company. And we're starting to see subbrands hijack their namesake brands around a whole bunch of consumer businesses. Boston Beer Company. Actually, three quarters of sales there aren't even beer anymore. Boston Beer Company is really truly hard-seltzer company. Look at the gap. It is less than one-fourth of the gaps total sales now. The gap should really be Old Navy Company. Thanks to these sub-brands, though, parent companies can double-dip. Yeah, so like Abercrombie could use Hollister as an experiment and then figure out best practices to work into

its very own Abercrombie brand. Or vice versa. Check out a company's closet snackers. There may be some sub-brands that are ready to take over. For our second story, the Dow just past 30,000 for the first time ever. Give some credit to Janet Yellen, the former Fed chairwoman and the future Treasury Secretary. All right, so Snackers, the Dow just closed yesterday above 30,000 points for the first time ever, which is an arbitrary round number. Yes, it is, but it's a nice milestone. And it is. For other stock indexes, Nick, they're doing even better than the Dow. All right, let's just check these out. Snackers out, let's look over at the NASDAQ Jack,

packed with tech stocks, 22% higher than pre-COVID peak. The S&P 500, which includes, the 500 biggest stocks in the U.S. Yeah. Is 7% higher than we've ever had before. All right, so Jack and I are looking back on these index. A lot of the action has taken place in just the last few weeks. Right. Investors got excited when they realized Joe Biden was going to be the next president of the United

States. And they loved pairing that with the fact that Republicans would probably be keeping the summit, which means, Jack, we got two words, one thing. Divided government. And while a divided government is less fun for, you know, citizens, it's a lot of fun for business. Right. because it means no major laws or reforms will be passed, which means big profits and low taxes will

continue. And on top of all that momentum, stocks decided to jump just a little bit more on Monday, another 2.5%, on news about one person, Janet Yellen, the Brown University-educated, Cal Berkeley professored public servant. Jack, we got a lot of bears involved here. We got brown bears and we got golden bears. I'm impressed by the Ursa going on there. She's not bearish, but she's kind of a bear. When she was a wide-eyed freshman at Brown University, She started as a philosophy major, but switched to economics. Good move because, you know, a few decades later, she is now on pace to hit the economic resume hat trick.

Goal number one, join the Council of Economic Advisors in the White House back in the 90s. Which she did. And then goal number two, she became the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve, America's Central Bank, from 2014 to 2018. Now Joe Biden is reportedly tapping her, assisting her, if you will, to get goal number three, first ever female secretary of the treasurer. Oh man, we're going to have to do a lot of LinkedIn endorsements, Jack. Yes. And Nick has a reminder to everyone who has a Disney Plus account, Alexander Hamilton was the first ever secretary of the treasury. The Treasury secretary

being the political appointee who we actually touch the most on a daily basis, literally. Right. Her signature will be on our dollar bills after inauguration. By the way, Jack, that signature, we all created signatures at the age of 12, and we just kind of keep doing them for the rest of our lives. I'm wondering, if I can make a dramatic update to my signature or if that's too abrupt. No, you can't. You can't. Janet can't even do it. Now, stocks jumped yesterday because Janet Yellen radiates one thing to the markets, stability. In the middle of a pandemic, investors are excited to have an economic seasoned veteran

handling America's money. If officially nominated by Joe Biden, we do expect the Senate to approve her in January. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy, Janet Yellen? Janet is a famous dove, and doves are very concerned right now. Snackers. a bullish bear on her Instagram profile, but she would be a fiscal dove on her Twitter profile. In economics, doves are most concerned with keeping the unemployment rate as low as possible. Now, when it comes to doves, the soar onto their Gandalf are hawks. And hawks are most concerned

with keeping inflation low and not increasing our national debt. Janet Yellen is a compassionate person. She's basically a super dove with like six wings. And she is aware that on December 26, COVID unemployment benefits are going to expire for a whopping 12 million Americans. We got a signal what she plans to do in an interview last month when she said, we need extraordinary fiscal support for the unemployed during this pandemic. So Jack and I are hoping Janet and Congress

can find some new emergency money to help out. For our third and final story, we got our unicorn of the day. Toast DynTech is a startup that just doubled its valuation to $8 billion. We made up the term Dyn Tech. We kind of love it. And Toast is having perhaps the greatest rebound of 2020.

Now, we're talking about Boston-based Toast, about three blocks away from Dahlene, over at Duncan. And it's a payment processing company that is exclusively focused and committed to restaurants. You've seen this dynetech company at your upscale Greek salad place where you can use toast for payments, signatures to pay for your bill, and they're going to push you to like tip 20% on everything. Yeah, you got to give me the name of this upscale Greek diner place. Suvla. Everyone in San Francisco knows I'm talking about Suvla. It's Subla, four nights a week, five nights a week. Now, the funny thing about toast that Jack and I thought was interesting is they do both the hardware and they're doing

the software. Right. They have a point of sales box for you to swipe or insert your chip or do contactless payments. And they also have software for the restaurant to like handle the transactions and do the bookkeeping. But Jackson, my favorite device they create is this handheld thing that they bring to your table when you're at the end of a restaurant meal. When you're ready to pay your bill, you ask the waiter and he has the thing right there and you have one visit. None of the annoying three-visit waiter dance where can we have the check and you do the motion and then all right I bring the check and then can you wait oh I have the card one minute oh I have to sign it he's got to go into the thing T-minus 25 minutes and you finally get to leave it's pretty much breakfast at that point now over a toast in

2019 sales doubled over the course of the year and they added tens of thousands of new restaurants to the platform things were looking good but then 2020 has been an emotional roller coaster boom march restaurant sales plummet 80%. That forced Toast to lay off half their employees. So what Jack and I found fascinating about toast is that just seven months after laying off half the company, they've pulled off a pandemic pivot and are now worth $8 billion. They realized restaurant sales were going to come back. Yeah. Just not dining style because of COVID. So they pivoted their product to focus less than just general stuff for restaurants and more specifically on takeout. Online menu management and online order. Then they added lifesavers for these restaurants and need,

They could actually whiff up those souvla salads for all of us. They made it easy to buy gift cards to your favorite restaurant while it was struggling. And they even added lending to help out those restaurants. Then they offered one month of toast for free because they knew restaurants were tight on cash. So toast pulled off the pandemic pivot, but Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over toast? This is a steak knife versus Swiss Army knife situation. This is a classic steak knife for Swiss Army knife. Snackers, the industry leader, unlike payment processing right now, it's square.

And they are a classic Swiss Army knife doing everything. everything. They do it all. They do payment processing, payroll, lending, shipping, a loyalty program. They'll even manage your restaurant's newsletter. Oh, and Square also does peer-to-peer payments. They do stock trading. They do crypto trading. They do like all these other fintechy things. They do a lot like a Swiss army knife. Nick and I did a little do-it-yourself snack style online experiment here. We went to Square's website and we clicked on their customer tab. They showed us that they have clothing boutiques, nail salons, gyms, restaurants, etc., etc. that's who Square is working with. But if you click on Toast customer tab, you're going to notice it's only types of restaurants. Fine dining restaurants, casual restaurants, bars that also do food, cafes,

bakeries. And that's because Toast is a steak knife. It does only one thing, restaurant tech, and it does that one thing really well. When you desperately need to cut a one inch rib eye, you turn to the steak knife to do it best. And when you desperately need restaurant-specific tech services during the hardest period in restaurant history. You trust the $8 billion steak knife to do it best. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways before the holiday? Abercrombian Fitch is less topless male models, more loungeettes. But Hollister has hijacked the Abercrombian Fitch namesake brand. It's the subbrand. For our second story, stocks rose this month on excitement that divided government would secure corporate profits. And then they rose even more this week on where Janet Yellen is potentially the next

Treasury Secretary. For our third and final story, toast is a steak knife. It does one thing, and it does it really well. Payments in ordering tech that restaurants really need mid-pandemic. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one tweeted in by Tony DeRosa from San Mateo, California. Also, Jack just finished his UMBA. Interestingly, I think Tom Brady is also from San Mateo, California, and also went to Michigan. All right, so the snack fact from Tom Brady here, heaviest turkey in the world, it turns out, was an 86-pound bird named Tyson. That's It's about half a lift, I would say. Get this, Tyson would feed a family of 57 and have ample leftovers.

This is a classic Brady tweet, Jack. Snackers, before we go, Jack and I are absurdly, ridiculously. Can we say freakishly, Jack? Insanely, crazily, crazily. Absurdly appreciative and thankful to have all of you as Snackers every day with us. The fact that Nick and I get to walk into a pod studio and talk about business news is only thanks to you listening to this podcast. And Jack, I mean, you're pulling out.

everything off in that sweater. It's fantastic. It looks for you. Nick, I like that flannel. I've seen that flannel. I wore it yesterday's recording, Jack. It's a two-day flannel. Snackers, Happy Thanksgiving. We'll be back with you on Monday. We can't wait. We'll see you there. And before we go, big congrats to Snacker Tasey Coelho, finally moving to New York City from Brazil after years of wanting to. It's a fantastic city. Tazy tweet at Nick and me. We'll let you know the best restaurants and the best neighborhoods. Depends on your neighborhood. Also, big congrats to Drew and Sabrina. engaged down in Florida. And happy anniversary

to Kate and Tim in Singapore. And just congrats to Josh Schmidt, who's a great guy in Missouri, apparently. Happy birthday to Z. Donani in Chicago. Chicago does logistics and happy birthday Carly London over in Los Angeles. And Jefferson Mitchell in Omaha, Nebraska. And Prathaboutus in Cooperino, California.

And Tanya Ansari from Raleigh, North Carolina. And Matt Caldwell in Brooklyn. And Calvin Joe in Toronto. And Melanie Falano in Amsterdam, New York. And Jack P. Liu in San Francisco. And Connie Hong in Santa Clara, California. Happy 33 to Jake Austin, who turns 33 on Thanksgiving from Hinkley, Illinois. And happy birthday, Camilla Singh over New York City.

This is Jack, Nick-owned stock of Square. 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.