The Best One Yet - Tesla goes from “dark orange” to “light yellow,” Calm is our “Unicorn of the Day,” and the 10th birthday of the longest US econ expansion.

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

Tesla didn’t report earnings – it reported its car deliveries, and the record numbers boosted the stock 7%. Meditation app Calm just raised more money as a $1B+ valued company, so we dive into the sleep pivot that powered its growth. And happy 10th birthday to the longest economic expansion since WWII.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. This is snacks. Daily. It is Wednesday, July 3rd. T-B-O-Y. We got a T-B-B-B-B-I right before the holiday. Not too bad. This is also the last one before the holiday. We'll be back with you again after Monday. In the meantime, let's take advantage of the 15 minutes we have together. Well, we're celebrating the 4th of July by breaking down the longest economic expansion in the United States since WW2. Perfect way to go into the weekend. By the way, yesterday markets rose a tad to keep streets going. Second story, Tesla just revealed its second quarter car production and delivery results. Let's forget about earnings reports. Throw them in the backseat, forget about them in the trunk. This is the report card that's make or break. And we're going to deliver it to you. Third and final, this one's wild.

Calm is our unicorn of the day. The meditation app just raised $27 million as it pivots from mindfulness to sleep. Jack, I got one big question for you. Aspirin or vitamin. I actually can't stand this analogy. Jack hates it, but we're going to hit it in the takeaway. Now, before we get into all that, big story here. Do you crave snacks like all the time?

Are you fluent in takeaways? Have you been dying to jump in snack style like yourself? To anything? We have got the best opportunity for you. We are looking for a third snacker. Not one, not two, that's us. Like, this is Nick, this is Jack. This is someone else.

A third snacker. We don't know who that is. Check out the Robin Hood career page because we got a great job description. We're also going to be tweeting it out at Robin Hood Snacks for the Robin Hood Snacks. Newsletter writer. Now, we're telling our pod listeners because you know how we operate at snacks. We're big fans. It's digestible, financial news, and we love what we do, and we want you.

We can't wait to have someone involved. We want it to be one of you guys. The focus of this position is writing, but you'll be contributing to everything snacks does. That means the pod, the newsletter, and have snacks, this, snacks, that snacks all day. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for this third snack? Tell everybody you know this Fourth of July long weekend that we're hiring a third snack. In the meantime, listen to these keywords and they want our stories. in the snacks daily.

We spoke to the lawyers. It's snacks about to hear ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robberhood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security.

Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Jack's putting on a swimsuit and popping out of a birthday cake. We have got the 10th birthday of the U.S. Felice Navidad. Not too bad. Number of the day?

120 is the number of the day. That is the number of months in a row that the economy has been growing. Without a recession. Without a recession. A recession being two straight quarters in which the economy is shrinking. It's a little arbitrary, but yeah, economists have decided that if you go six months in a row with shrinkage, that's a recession. We'd love to know it came up with that one. Now, that is the longest period of sustained growth since WWW.

If you want a good comparison point, you can point to the lowest point the economy was in the last decade. Which is like June of 2009. After the 08 financial crisis. And the economy is now 47% bigger than it was back then. You think of what I'm thinking? Berlin. I remember where you were.

Noia, Berlin. It's exactly where we were. I was studying abroad in Berlin. Nick visited me. It was 10 years ago. We had a carbful diet of I think we only ate pretzels and chocolate. Or is the Germans called pretzels? Pretzels.

Brezell. Now, the economy is looking strong. That's what we're here to celebrate on the 4th of July, but there are signs of slowdown. Okay, so here's the good side. It's that unemployment is down to 3.8%. That's like a record low. And the S&P 500 is up to a record high. That's a record high. Now, there is one big cloud that's not quite raining, but like a little cloudy over the whole thing. The trade war. We're talking about it. The USA versus China, the USA versus Europe, the USA versus Mexico. It's causing a lot of concern for the global economy. Interestingly, though, this might be the perfect time for a trade war if you're the United States. Right. Let's be honest, the economy is doing really well. So if we're ever going to have

a big trade war risk right now is not the worst time to do it. Right, because if the stock market falls a bit because of the trade war, it's got some room to fall. Now, outside of the United States, the global economy is not doing nearly as well as the U.S. This is kind of like a shining star. So if you're a company that's doing a particularly large amount of business abroad, this is a problem. Now, a big side effect we have to talk about. Right. We got the one good, the one bad and the one bad side effect. Yeah, the ugly side effect is inequality. Since the 2009 recovery started, it's caused major discotent and political instability. Great signal for all this is the number of billionaires in the United States. There were 267 billionaires in 2008. It's nearly doubled to

607 billionaires today in the United States. That sounds like more than doubling to me. Exactly what I was thinking. Now, people outside of the big cities that have all the jobs, they are suffering and that's something we can't forget about. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for a buddies who are the United States. Does the economics streak, which is Joe DiMaggio style, does it have to come to an end? Economists kind of think so. They do. Confidence is key in economics, and everyone is kind of starting to talk about a recession right now. And the thought among economists is if people start talking about a recession, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right. So a lot of like CFOs are thinking there's a 50% chance in 2020 there could be a recession. Well, second quarter

earning season starts in a few weeks. That'll give us a good sign. For our second story, Tesla just whipped out a way more exciting report than an earnings report. It's called the Vehicle Production and Deliveries report. It doesn't actually sound that exciting. It's kind of like a trailer for a movie you're really excited for. Extremely entertaining. Like Dark Night when we were in Berlin. Those were good days.

So the Vehicle Production and Delivery Report defied critics and has the stock up 7%. It jumped big. This is reporting on the record production numbers out of Tesla. It made 87,000 new Teslas from April to June. And then there were the record deliveries at a Tesla. We delivered 95,000 Teslas to affluent people who care about the environment, probably in California or Florida. Signed and sealed on that one. Now, the big question here.

What about the weak demand problem we've been hearing about? First of all, Jack, if you're experiencing weak demand for more than four hours, you should certainly call you a physician. Yes, and Tesla has had weak demand concerns. Last quarter, deliveries fell by 31% from the previous year. For this time? This time, they more than doubled. Now, we got to set some context here for our buddies over Tesla. Yeah, if Tesla is not setting records, then something is very wrong.

Because Tesla has an outsize impact on its brand than it has for actual numbers. Tesla is a tiny car company, okay? General Motors deliveries are about 25 times what Tesla does every quarter. But its stock price reflects a big boy status. Tesla's stock price makes it worth almost as much as General Motors, even though it makes one 25th the number of cars. So if you're Tesla and you've got shareholders on you, basically it's like when you're a kid and your parents stick you up against a wall, take a pencil out and like test your height every six months. You better be taller than six months ago.

Because if you're not, you're probably going to see that physician. If not, you're going to have some weak demand. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over Tesla? The Tesla bankruptcy alert level just went from like dark orange to light yellow. We've got one over in the snack studio over here. We're literally shifting this thing down. Tesla stock had been beaten so far in 2019. It had fallen 50% from its high.

A bunch of analysts were downgrading Tesla stock because it has very little cash and because of those weak demand concerns. One analyst a couple months ago when we reported on this even said the stock could fall to $10. There were serious concerns. That was like the worst case scenario. But now this report shows the worst case scenario is not happening. And Tesla's on the right track for its master plan. The big question, how will profits look and Tesla reports earnings in just a few weeks? This was a trailer for it.

By the way, this is Jack. Nick and I both own Tesla stock. For our third and final story before the weekend, the unicorn of the day is calm. The meditation app. Soothing. It just added $27 million to its very soothing war chest. Now, we're talking about a meditation app that is not cheap at all. No, it has a $70 annual subscription.

Or, this is wild, a $400 lifetime subscription. You're just really into meditation and you're pretty committed to stay calm. It's going to stay in business. and that lifetime subscription will be worth. It's a mindful option for anyone. Now, the company just raised $88 million in February. And that's when it passed the billion-dollar valuation mark. So...

Making an official unicorn. The latest round, though, this $27 million, was like an extension to that last round. Now, Calm has had a good 2018. Revenue's jumped from $20 million in 2017 to $80 million. That's four times increased in one year. And we love the way that the venture capitalist who led this latest round described why she led the round. She tried it out aggressively. She tried out calm and realized that it used to take her a half hour to fall asleep at night.

Now it takes like five minutes. Now it takes five minutes. She did the math. A little boop, boop, bo, bo, bo, bo, poop. She saves 150 hours of sleep every year because of calm. I know you want to say 150 million there. I almost did. You're right.

Now, the magic pill that makes your life and your health much better is more sleep. It's critical. It's critical. That's what Com has pivoted to. Now, this was a very unique situation because in 2018, Com went through a transition that forever transformed the company. Well, it was facing vicious competition in the mental health space, primarily from headspace, basically these other apps, leading competitor.

That would come out and help you become more mindful. So it pivoted and branded itself as not just a meditation app, a sleep app. This was key. Com launched Sleep Stories, a crazy new feature that its 2 million paid subscribers really got into. Those 2 million paid subscribers have listened to 150 million sleep stories to help put them to bed. And as the Com CEO said, this caused a surge in engagement and retention because they were able to help people finally get to sleep, not just meditate. Right. And people built it into their daily routine or, as my fiance likes to say, daily ritual.

So Jack and I jumped in Snackstock because we had to jump in Snacksdot to this. We downloaded the app, got involved, and we noticed what these sleep stories are all about. Well, we got some creative ones. Com went hardcore with A-list talent, Matthew McConaughey. Boom, you want to go to sleep? Have him whisper in your ears a few times. That's a bad impression. Matthew McConaughey.

He, like, goes deep into this lullaby, basically. He tries to lull you to sleep. It's basically he starts talking about how often we ponder our present depth of the moment and a few other things that are, like, really important, actually. That's pretty good, Nick. I give you an A for effort. I tried him the second time. Also, ironically, they hired John McEnroe, the hot head former tennis player,

to read the rules of tennis and put you to sleep. Basically, that's the whole point of it. And then, just to say you want to get something a little more low-key, you got kids stories like Pinocchio and the sleepless cricket that your kids can listen to all the time. That is actually like a classic old bedtime store you can tell kids, but adults can listen to and it might put you to sleep. And they created their own version of it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies apping over at Com?

Are you selling vitamin or are you selling aspirin? That is the big question. That's the big question that a venture capitalist will ask you if you're running a startup and you have a new idea. So think about the vitamin. Like if you take a vitamin daily and let's say you forget it one day and you leave for work, are you going to go back and get the vitamin? Probably not. Now, let's say there's an aspirin situation. Aspirin fills an immediate need if you forget it.

You're probably going to go back and get it because you really need it for something. Now, there's value in both vitamins and there's value in aspirin, but the question is like, which is essential? Which do you have to have every day? Lightspeed Ventures, the VC, believe that the comm app was more of an aspirin. It led to engagement, retention, and higher ratings. Now, we think this analogy has to be outdated because aspirin, let's be honest. Is it essential?

I don't think so. Does anyone to use it? I think my grandfather was on it? Stay alive. Pills would be a better half of this analogy. Definitely rings a lot truer. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the long weekend? As America celebrates its birthday, we're celebrating 10 years of economic expansion since the Great Reck.

Stick a fancy candle in that one. Tesla is setting records again after its second quarter delivery and production report. You got to look out for reports that aren't earnings reports. We like these obscure ones. And Calm, the still private meditation amp startup wants to be known as a sleep app. And we're going to come up with a better analogy than the aspirin vitamin thing. We know the venture capitalists like it, but we're going to come up with a better one. We get to the snack fact of the debt.

Can you hit me with it? All right. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France given to the United States in 1886. Now, interestingly, the head of the statue was like Lewin its own thing, living its best life, before was stuck on the statue. At the World's Fair in Paris in 1878, it was like the centerpiece. The head. And then finally, Lady Liberty herself, standing atop that pedestal in New York Harbor, has a size 879 shoe. Give or take.

That is just good, clean fun. Speaking of French Lady Liberties. Another big story yesterday we're covering in the Snacks newsletter is that Christine Lagarde, the former finance minister of France. She's got a new job. She was selected as the new head of the European Central Bank. It's not up on LinkedIn yet, but it's official. The first woman to have that job, congratulations. Have a wonderful Fourth of July, which basically was like the United States IPO.

Yes. If the U.S. had a ticker symbol? I'm going with L-O-D-L-L-D loud for her international reputation. B-A-L-L-L-D. I think it kind of works for the eagle. For the bald eagle. A lot of people here. Snackers, have a great weekend.

We'll be back with you Monday. Can't wait. 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.