The Best One Yet - 🥤 “Pumpkin Spice Makeover” — Starbucks’ cup-killah. AMC’s gold mine (literally). Germany’s fighter jets.

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Starbucks’ iconic cup is the must-have-bev-accessory, but they just announced a bold move to phase them out: Re-Cup or De-Cup. AMC Theaters is sitting on $2B cash so it’s doing what any movie company would do… invest in a small Nevada gold mine. And Lockheed Martin just sold a fleet of F-35 fighter jets to Germany because we’re in a new phase of fortressing.$SBUX $AMC $HYMC $LMTGot 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.

You're ready, Rock? Oh, yeah. You having a good time over there? All I can think about right now is, is how can we turn Napuccino into a takeaway? I want to. Companies are dishing out Napuccino. I'll have a Grande Napocino. Old milk in my Napuccino.

Dude, if Casper goes private, and Stock's going to take a nappuccino. You can already take a napuccino. Let me tell you. Here we go. Three, two. This is Nick. This is Jack. is snacks daily. It is Wednesday, March 16th. Today's pod. It's the best one yet. Honestly,

it's the best episode we've ever done. Jack, what's our first story? Starbucks cups are iconic. It's the must-have liquid accessory. But Starbucks says the cups, they gotta go. They gotta go. For our second story, you're a struggling movie theater named AMC. Okay. You have $2 billion of fresh cash burning a hole in your pocket. Yeah. What do you do? Jack, how about invest in a small gold mine in Nevada? Our third and final. story is the country of Deutschland. Germany would like to place an order. We'll have five

brats, two vice beers, and 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets. Thank you. Oh, so? Bita. Okson. Man can ze schnell over here. Snackers, that's a wonderful mix. But before

we hit it, it's a wonderful mix. We know how you're feel. Yeah, first, you lost an hour of sleep last weekend. Jaylaid's Savings time. Second, you're still digesting Taco Tuesday. And guac was extra. And third, we're only halfway through the week. Snackers, Wednesday is not the new Thursday.

No, no, it's not. You're feeling sleepy. Guess what? So are we. We're feeling sleepy. I just stuck the mic dongle into the wrong pothole. It happens every now and then. When that happens, it's a problem.

Two recent surveys confirm it. We need a nap. We need a nap, people. And we're doing it at work. Get this, Snackers. Two out of three Americans have napped at work these days. Guilty. Yeah.

Guilty. Guilty. They pay to nap, baby. I mean, when your company has couches all over the place, they're begging for. What else are you supposed to do? Napping? It just hit an all-time high people. Peloton stock.

Side note, all-time left. Yeah, 70% of millennials have napped at work. 80% of Gen Z has napped at work. Jack, maybe you're napping between meetings. If you're working from home, you are bed adjacent for eight hours a day at work. Yeah, you are. It's a mattress, mattress, mattress situation. Or maybe you're just taking a 20-minute napuccino before you're one-on-one with

manager. Decaf, please. I got to enjoy the nappuccino. Maybe you're napping during meetings. Oh, sorry, the internet here isn't great. I'm just gonna... Snackers, if you need a nap, we want to give you time right now to take a nap. Yeah. So, here's what you can do. Snacker, here we go, here we go. Lower the volume for the next 17 minutes of this pod. In our three stories. In the snacks daily, we spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something illegal out the way. The snacks about the hair ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the rob of her family. It's all lift. 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 Starbucks just announced two options for coffee drinkers here they are you can decup or you can recut and it's got to be one of them because things are changed them with the cups Let's talk first about the great walking billboards of our economy. Oh my God, Jack. First of all, you got the Bloomingdale's bag. That's a legend.

Famous. They're brown. Classic. Big. They're small. Then you got the outdoor voices tote bag. I've got like seven of them. Actually, I have all my outdoor voices tote bags in an outdoor voice's tote bags. But how about the Starbucks cup?

The greatest of walking billboards of all. Green most of the year, red during the holidays, usually causing some controversy. It's the most public-facing billboard of all. And honestly, that green mermaid is like our wing-worts. But here's the problem. 20% of Starbucks's global waste are in single-use cups. One latte, done latte. So here's the news from Starbucks. They are killing their iconic single-use plastic cups. And they're doing it with like a really, really bold move here. Really bold quote. Here's the quote from the CEO. Our goal by 2025 is to create a cultural movement towards reusable cups.

We're talking about the cup that pairs with everything you're wearing, the iconic cup, a movement. trying to start a movement. Now, Snackers, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. It turns out Starbucks has quietly been testing this plan on a global scale. They've had 18 cup experiments in 20 different markets. Yeah, because Starbucks, they want to stop producing so many paper and plastic cups that end up in dumpsters. That's the goal. But the challenge is people don't want to change the routine and the coffee habit they've had for years.

That's the issue here. That's what led to the experiments. One experiment, let's say you're a thermos guy. You slide that Zoujerushi into your back pocket and bring it wherever you go. Jack, the old B-Y-O-O-V, bring your own Vente. That's right. Great. You brought your thermos.

Here's what you're going to do at Starbucks. Put it in a bin, slide the bin to the barista, and they'll pour your Frappuccino into it. Now, this means a couple good benefits, like no touching and they won't misspell your name. True, but there's also some friction. You got to carry a Zodjeruio in your back pocket and it's bulging out of your butt. Well, Starbucks may have a solution to you carrying your around. on that dirty thermos. Yes, they added one of those cup cleaning station that bartenders have. You stick it on top and suddenly the inside of your cup is clean. Okay. So Snackers, that's if you're a

thermos guy. But hey, maybe you're a drive-thru diva instead. Get this, Starbucks is testing out two window drive-thru like you've seen at McDonald's. Here's how this is going to go down. You're going to hand your empty cup into the first window at the drive-thru and then you get it back with the coffee in the second window. That's some friction too because you need to, you need to be. You're to hand off a cup, which is like unusual. And you have to have a cup in your car. And you got to like scream into that random computer what your macchiato order is like 50 times. All right. So that's the second idea that Starbucks has. No oat milk. But maybe you're someone who actually drinks at the Starbucks, their entire beverage like a weirdo. He's been in six hours hanging out there for like

an hour with a laptop trying to create the next American novel. Well, this one's easy. Starbucks is going to stop using paper cups in that scenario and use porcelain mugs or glass. glasses for the dine-in situation. Now, this one causes the least change to your habits, but it also affects the smallest number of cups. Yeah, just the weirdos who drink their entire drink at Starbucks. But it's going to be a great novel, which leads to the inevitable truth with Starbucks, Jack.

Most sustainability moves, they're going to require some kind of a change to our daily habits. But Starbucks hopes sustainability points translate into brand love. And the stock jumped 4% yesterday on this news. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our barista buddies over? Starbucks. Remember that Seinfeld scene? You know, anyone can take a reservation. But can you hold the reservation? That's the most important part. The whole. Honestly, it's the same situation with sustainability pledges. Anyone can pledge carbon neutrality. But it's holding the carbon

neutrality. That's the most important part. Starbucks plans to hold their pledge of killing single use cups by paying for it. And this isn't going to be cheap. No, no, no. They got to pay for like a new drive-through process. They got to install cup cleaners. They got to train the staff on all these new sustainability processes. No touching that's OJerushie. Plus, Starbucks is adding costly financial incentives to get you to reuse that cup. In the U.S., if you bring your own cup, it'll be 10 to 50 cents off of your drink. Over in Europe, they're literally going to punish you if you don't bring your own cup. Yeah, you're going to pay a fee if you require one of their paper cups. Snackers, this isn't just a climate pledge. Starbucks is putting money on the last.

line. Because anyone can take a reservation. For our second story, AMC, the movie theater company, has a new plan. And here's what it is. Invest in a Nevada gold mine. It's the most attention-seeking corporate move we've ever seen. It really is. And it all kind of began about a year ago. Yeah, memes moved stock markets. You had AMC, you had game stock. Their stops were popping after a whole bunch of Reddit support online. In 2021, AMC surged 3,000% at one point to an all-time ridiculous high. And Jack, where is AMC movie theater stock trading right now? The stock has slowly but surely come all the way back down, all the way to their pre-meam stock level.

But not all for not for AMC. The company seized the moment. They did. They capitalized on that high stock price. Yeah, Snackers. Here's the key. AMC, they sold a bunch of new stock when their stock. price was really high, and they got themselves some very nice $2 billion in cash.

AMC turned the meme frenzy, which was just a moment. It was a moment. Into a personal, gigantic ATM withdrawal that still is with them today. So we're looking at AMC, and AMC is not really a movie chain anymore. It's basically a pile of cash that happens to have 10,000 movie screens. Yeah, that's right. The company is worth $7 billion. Two billion of that is cash that they raised during the meme era by selling stuff.

Now, at least the big question, what are you going to do with all that $2 billion of cash? That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Are you going to build new movie theaters? That doesn't sound like the right move in this market. You could sell popcorn at Walmart, which is actually pretty good. I think they're doing that actually. You may as well.

Just do more of it, maybe. Are they going to hire Nick Cage and produce a bunch of movies? Or just have them work there? Option D. Okay. Option D is what AMC has discovered this week. We're calling it meme funding. Meme funding Snackers.

Here's the news. AMC, they just invested 30. million dollars in a small gold and silver mine that happens to be in the middle of Nevada. Oh, silver and gold. There we go. We now own one quarter of Highcroft mine and there we go. MC owns one quarter of a Nevada based mining company called Highcroft mining. Now, this is a mining company with 70,000 acres in Nevada to mine, which they should probably just turn into a luxury resort. This mine is well end up. It is. It apparently has 15 million ounces of gold. Can we just convert your gold?

convert to pounds at this point? This is the plot of Zoolander 3, I think. I know. Here's the problem, though. This company, Highcroft mining, it is a financial hot mess. Yeah, they used to mine a lot of gold, but last month, they actually mined zero ounces of gold. They're in trouble. They have $500 billion of debt, and they can't make their debt repayments. And the mining company's stock is down 98% as bankruptcy appeared to be eminent until this week. AMC came to the rescue. The movie theater chain AMC. AMC bought $30 million of this mining company stock, which was trading for like pennies. So we know what you're wondering here, a whole bunch of strategic options when you're a movie theater that happens to own a mining company.

Are they going to put a movie theater in the bottom of the 2,000 foot mine shaft? Here's the thing. It's dark. So there's that. There is that. But the CEO Adam Aron of AMC, he basically said he's doing this out of empathy. Out of the kindness of his heart. Adam Aeron said, Highcroft is just like AMC was one year ago.

And he wants to help this mining company surmount its challenges because the same thing happened to AMC. Is he a CEO or is he mother Teresa? It feels like he's channeling his inner Bruce Wayne on this and thinks he's in a Batman movie. Yeah, he's trying to save this company. Gotham? So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at AMC? The real investment here wasn't in a mining company or in gold. It was in relevance.

So I actually just went to a movie in theaters the other. day. And it was, it was an AMC in Japan town. But here's the reality for theaters right now. The movie theater business is not back to its pre-pandemic levels. And the theater industry's future looks bleak. So here's what AMC is doing. They're not pursuing strategies that complement or grow or enhance their core theater business. Instead, they've been pursuing opportunities that meme investors would appreciate. Yeah. AMC theaters, they're jumping into crypto and they're jumping into NFTs. And now they're jumping into rescuing a small Nevada company that minds gold. Well, guess what? This is the most meta part of all. AMC's move turned Highcroft mine stock

into a meme stock, at least for a day. Yeah, a meme stock begat a further meme stock. Traditional investors aren't into AMC right now, so it's looking for meme stock relevance again. By buying a gold mine. For our third and final story, Germany just bought a whole bunch of American fighter jets. National Defense just became a growth industry again. Big day to President Volodymyr Zelensky, he is actually going to take some time to address the United States Congress today via Zoom. Yep. He's expected to ask the Congress generally for more support to defend Ukraine from Putin. Specifically, he's going to ask for a no-fly zone over the country of Ukraine. Now, he's probably not going to get that no-fly zone because that risks outright war between the United States and Russia.

Because if U.S. planes confront Russian planes in the air with a no-fly zone, that's boots on the ground in the air. Scary stuff. But at the beginning of this war, we said that cyberspace was the first battleground in corporate America. If so facto, cybersecurity stocks and cybersecurity startups, they were thriving in February. Right, because corporate America had to fortress up against a hacking threat from Russia. But now we face a new phase here. Governments are the ones that have to fortress up. And when governments fortress up, it's a different kind of fortressing up. Here's the news this week. Germany just announced their buy. I'm trying 35 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. And that's because Germany is more than doubling its spending on defense because of Russia's war.

So brand new jets are part of Germany's $100 billion dollar fortressing splurge in national defense. And these are made in America, Lockheed Martin jets. Down in Australia, they're less concerned about Russia and more concerned about their waterfront neighbor, China. And because of that waterfront neighbor, the Aussies just announced that they're boosting the size. of their standing army by nearly 30%. So Germany's splurging on fighter jets. Australia is splurging on infantry. A lot of fortressing.

In the U.S., do you think politicians on the campaign trail are going to call for more or less military spending? For the answer, you can look at Lockheed Martin's stock. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the defense industry? National defense is a growth industry again. Stack was the Cold War. That was a huge boost for all the national defense companies in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Defense was splurging for decades on arms in their little arms race against the Soviet Union.

Yeah. Well, the Cold War ending, that ended up being a huge blow to the whole national defense industry. Yes. Beginning in the 1990s, the Department of Defense stopped splurging on expensive military machines. And yeah, if you're a millennial and you're listening to this, the defense industry has actually shrunk in your lifetime. Get this. The number of U.S. contractors producing tactile missiles, just as one example, it fendous. Well, from 13 during the Cold War, to three today. But here's the thing. Now, we're seeing what could be the start of Cold War Part 2. Investors know it.

And look at Lockheed stock price. It's up 26% so far this year. It jumped 3% this week just on this Germany deal. Because national defense is a growth industry again. Jack, and you'll whip up the takeaways for us before you take a nap over there. Starbucks is trying to kill single-use cops. Yeah, decop or recoup, those are your two options. For a second story.

AMC just bought $30 million worth of a gold mine in Nevada. Yeah, but the movie chain was really investing in meme stock relevance. Our third and final story is Germany, which bought 35 at 35. Unfortunately, national defense is a growth industry again. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one's pretty complicated. It was sent in by Jess Wang from a lovely New York City. By the way, happy birthday, Jess.

Great one. Okay. Shaquille O'Neal made almost 29,000 points in his NBA career. I like how you're building this up. Here we go. How many of those points came from three pointers? Three. It's three.

The answer is three, which means he made one three pointer in his entire career. I think we can just love that snack fact, stand on its own. He does his best work inside the arc. Unless you think Kazam was his best work, because there's an argument to be made there. Snackers, you look fantastic today. If you haven't yet, you can click to follow this pod, like right here on Spotify or here on Apple and we'll hang out with you every day. And give us a five-star rating.

We would love that. Take it. We also read your reviews. We do love your reviews. Nice ones and mean ones. The mean ones are honestly, we enjoy the mean-to-one scale. Don't ride us in the mean one. Yeah, don't do the mean one.

They can not see you tomorrow. And before we go, happy birthday to pickleballer Christine Lassoy over in Irvine, California. Happy 50th to Lynn Marr in San Diego. And Yon-hoo, happy 28th down in Fullerton. Happy 29 to Sarah Freudson in Medford Bass. Just outside Boston. And Nathan Gowton.

the new job at BCG over in Seattle. Happy birthday to Heights. We just finished applications to the University of Wisconsin School of Business. And Casey and Becky, a couple that snacks together for seven years since their first meeting in Colorado. By the way, if the U of W B School admissions officers listening, let Heinz in. Yeah, let Heinz in. We fully endorse Heinz. And congrats to Chase Edmonds and his girlfriend, celebrating five months strong together in Houston, Texas.

Never go to bed angry, and they always ask HYHYSK. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-W. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick and I still own stock of Pelton. Robin Hood Snacks, newsletters, and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and do not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy or sell

any security, cryptocurrency, or investment strategy in any account. This is not an offer or sale of a security, not a research. research report and is not intended to serve on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robin Hood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principle and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.

But seriously, nice ones?