The Best One Yet - “The NBA cancelled and Tom Hanks got COVID” — Corona-conomy’s 1-year. Roblox goes public. Elf Beauty’s burrito lipstick.

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

It’s official. We’re 1 year into the corona-conomy, so we whipped up the most important numbers from it. Roblox just went public... and 3 out of 4 American kids are using it. And Elf Beauty is doing the opposite of every other cosmetics brand right now. It’s because they’re sticking lipstick on burritos and tracking customers down.$RBLX $ELFGot 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/viewform 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. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Thursday, the new Friday, March 11th. Correction. What? Correction. No, no correction. Correction. Stocks are at record highs, man. The Dow is at a record high, and the stimulus bill is on Joe Biden's desk waiting to be signed. Jack, one thing's still bothering me from yesterday's pod? How much macromay is too much macromay? One thing's bothering me about yesterday's pod. It's not as good as today's pot. No, today's is the best one yet. Jack, first story would have we got. We are officially one year into the corona economy. All right, so Jack and I whipped up 10 crazy numbers that tell the story of the whole corona economy. For our second story, Roblox is the DIY video game company whose stock is worth a collective $45 billion. Jack, don't call it a

video game company. We got to talk about this, man. For our third and final story, Elf Beauty is glowing and growing while every other makeup company is sinking and shrinking. Elf is thriving in the Corona economy by sticking its makeup on burritos. True thing. Real story. Before we hit those three great stories, Snackers, March 9th, 2020 was a year and change ago, and it was Nixon my first day working from home. All right, so we've done 240 podcasts, give or take, since then. Each one by chance happens to be better than the previous one. We love doing pods in person. There's literal high fives going on in our podcast studio. We've shifted to FaceTime more of a figurative chest bump situation for both of us, Jack. We adjusted. We set up.

poem podcast situations. Jack, my closet on microphones looks like a CIA sting operation. It does. Yeah, it does. It does. I see it every day on FaceTime. You adjusted Snackers. You've changed your commutes out there. You used to listen on the subway and khakis. Now you're on the couch listening in Lulu khakis. Or she embrace wetpants could be the same thing. Both are fair things. Snackers, this has been the wildest of wild years we just got through. Yeah. And there are seriously depressing elements of huge losses of human life and worldwide suffering. Serious stuff. On the bright side, a whole bunch of bravery and surges in innovation have happened as well. So Snackers, Jack and I want to take a second to thank you for adding us to your daily news habit.

Thank you for sending us your snack facts. And thank you for asking your buddies H-Y-H-Y-S-D. If you know, you know. We hope we can get back into the office soon. Honestly, Jack, we have that box of T-boy t-shirt. It's just sitting there, not doing anything. We got a couple hundred awesome, the best one yet, T-shirts. The moths are probably having a field bag.

Corona economy year two, do less than year one. Let's hit our three stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get some illegal out the way. The 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. Robberhood Financial, LLC. For our first story, Elf Beauty is sticking its makeup on burritos, on candles, and on ice cream. There's a burrito makeup.

Elf is the only cosmetic stock defying the moment. All right, this isn't like a buddy the elf situation. We're talking elf, ELF, eyes, lips, face. That's what we're looking at. It's a great abbreviation founded at NYU, the home of the purple nights. Or the violence. In 2004. Maybe the violence.

And they IPOed five years ago. If you're thinking, trying to figure out what Elf is, first of all, again, only lowercase letters. It's affordable animal-free makeup, basically. Yeah, they have a product called the vegan rider die bomb, and it's only five bucks. It's Bobby Brown meets beyond meat. I like what you're putting out, Jack. Now, funny problem facing the entire cosmetics industry here. Friday, day, night, you're dating in. You got no prom situation. Masks, by the way, masks aren't good when you're wearing blush. It ruins the mad finish. Yeah. No, that's why cosmetic sales at Mabeline, Cover Girl, L'Oreal, Revlon. They all.

all fell in 2020. Jack, we've discussed this before. Makeup is down, skin care is up. That's the reality for beauty right now. You want your skin to be dewy, not covered. And yet, despite everything Jack and I just said, Elf Cosmetics is doing the opposite. Sales are up 10% to $89 million last quarter. And that is the eighth straight quarter of gains for Elf Cosmetics. Oh, plus, no big deal. They became number one in the U.S. in brushes and primer. Put that on your LinkedIn. Now, one stat for Elf jumped out of us. Now, 70% of the company's total sales are attributed to the Beauty Squad, which is their loyalty program. Don't forget about you on the Beauty Squad. I wish I was a member of the squad. Elf Cosmetics wishes you were a member of the Beauty Squad too.

2.3 million strong in the Beauty Squad. They're tossing on the holy hydration melting skin bomb, and they represent 70% of sales. Okay, we got to sprinkle on a little context here, Jack, that this company, Elf, it is, it's tiny right now. It's tiny like an elf. It's about one 14th of a lift. And they only have like 6% of the whole cosmetics mark. But the stock climbed 88% in the past 12 months while the rest of cosmetic struggles. So Jack and I whipped out the whiteboard. We're trying to figure this out. How is Elf growing when every other makeup brand is shrinking? Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Elf? Elf doesn't market to customers. They track them down. Yeah, it's snackers. Most cosmetics, they're probably maintaining their usual marketing schemes right now. Do you remember those free samples within like the actual magazine? I think it was like a scratch and sniff situation. It was. Or Facebook ads or

throwing money at like B-list influencers. That's what the rest of the cosmetics industry is doing. But here's how Elf has been marketing in the last three months. Jack, are you ordering more online? You hungry? Maybe more Chipotle orders specifically? Of course. That's why Elf just launched a flashy collab with Chipotle. They have eye shadow inspired by salsa. They have lip balm inspired by chili peppers. Wrap this thing in tinfoil. Oh, by the way, Jack,

you've been hyping up your home lately while you're working from home? I'm not going anywhere. That's why Elf expanded their product line to include candles. Oak milk candles. Oh, milk. Sounds like the punchline to a millennial joke. Oh, finally, Jack. Have you turned into video games more turning video games into your daily

ritual? I haven't, but I know a lot of people have. That's why Elf has sponsored a professional Australian video gamer named Loserford. Snackers, Elf went beyond the usual marketing. It went beyond social media. It went beyond every other makeup brand. They identified where consumers are during the pandemic, and Elf tracked them down.

For our second story, Roblox, the biggest direct listing so far this year, it is leading the kid economy check. But we think everyone is putting Roblox in the wrong category. This is a company, now worth $45 billion, went public at what? Like 10 times what it was valued at last year, Jack? They pulled the triple triple. It's a rare.

We've heard of the double. Actually, we hadn't heard of the double double until like a few months ago. Yeah. And they chose the direct listing instead of the IPO. So there was no new issuance of stock. They just released their existing stock into the wild and let it trade. Do your thing. Like just it's yours.

Have it. Robox is kind of the YouTube of video games because they let their users create them. but you can also chat and play with your buddies at the same time. Yeah, it's like a platformy business model. We discussed it last time. Here's the key, though, Snackers. Roblox is a video game platform that doesn't pay for the video games. It has no video game developers on their staff.

Instead, they invite anyone in the world to develop a video game on their platform. Yeah, so if you develop a popular game like, Adopt Me, you get a cut of the revenues that that game's going to generate. Adopt me, of course, you get a virtual kitten. You play with a virtual kitten. can share the virtual kitten with someone else. It's an interesting game. Now Snackers, if you don't know Roblox, why not? Go ask your 10-year-old cousin. Because Jack and I think this is the wildest stat when it comes to Roblox. Get this. 75% of American kids, age 9 to 12, are on Roblox.

Find four fifth graders. Yeah. And it's a statistical certainty that one of them is playing Roblox. And let me tell you, I don't know if you want to know that one, kid. 33 million people, not just kids, are on Roblox every day and they're not buying a $2 Wiffle Ball bat. No, they're not. They're adopting a $2 virtual kid. And here's the business model snackers. Games are free when you get on Roblox, but you then spend money on buying the 3Gs,

the digital gear, the digital gifts, and the digital goodies. You spend your parents money. And Roblox takes 30% of that cut, and the creator who developed the game that we talked about, they take 70%. Also, kind of impressive. They're now 1,200 game developers. By the way, many of them like under the age of 12 who have made $10,000 developing games for Roblox.

Is that taxable income if you're seven? You set up a shell company. That's what you do. Now, Roblox took home a billion dollars last year with the 30% cut of all that money, which is up 82% from the year before. The concern, though, being, the losses are grown faster than the revenues,

still not profitable. So, Jack, they are 12 years old after all. What's the takeaway for our buddies over at Roblox? Gaming isn't an industry. It's an evolutionary stage. Snackers, this is wild. Some of the most popular products that you're using, like right now at this very moment, they started as video game companies. Twitch started as a video game streaming company. Now you can stream a party on Twitch. Slack began as a massive multiplayer role play game. Now it's an annoying offware instant messaging tool. Facebook acquired Oculus when it was virtual reality video games. Now they're trying to use it to like

trained surgeons in a simulated surgery. Discord too. Analysts have stuck Roblox in the video game category, but we think that's a mistake. We do. Because in November, Lil Nas X performed a virtual concert for, you know, give or take, 33 million people on Roblox. That doesn't sound like a video game. And older Roblox gamers, they're striking up first dates on Roblox. Yeah, a nice avatar. Now, someone could develop a Roblox game that teaches you Spanish because the kids who would learn Spanish, are already on Roblox. We think Roblox's long-term value isn't just video games. No, it's also media.

It's dating. It's music. It's education and probably a whole bunch more. For our third and final story, one year ago, the NBA got canceled. I remember the push notification. Tom Hanks got COVID and things really changed. I remember like 17 push notifications on March 11th, 2020. We're not going to talk, though, about the K-shaped recovery that's happened since,

Pimpio Cribb that's happened since, or even the hoarder's almanac. No, instead, Jack and I are going to hit you Snackers with some numbers. Here's one year of Corona economy in numbers. Okay, Jack, kicking this off. 34% and 74%. What do we got? There was a 34% crash and burn drop in stocks, followed by a 74% slow and steady rise. And honestly, here's the wild thing.

Wall Street realized COVID was going to be an issue before the rest of the country basically woke up to it. The SMP 500 hit its peak on February 19th when like we didn't think COVID was going to be an issue. But that's when Wall Street started selling, selling, selling. Stocks plummeted over 30% in the next month. Then we had that shocking cooperation in Congress with like the kumbaya. Who expected that between the Republicans and the Democrats? Yeah, they agreed to $5 trillion in government spending from the Congress up until now. Boom. If so facto, stocks have jumped 74% high. since they bottomed out back in March 23rd.

And get this, if you did nothing, not us. Since February 19th with your stocks, which is when there was a previous high, we're just chilling. And like the panic happened, but you just ignored it all. Pretended it didn't happen. Your stocks would be 15% higher today if you just did nothing throughout all this insanity. Just chilled. You'd have a pretty good relatively calm year for your stock portfolio in the past year. Yeah, honestly, that's what it kind of shapes up to.

So Jack and I were not only shocked by that, we decided to jump in snack style to the markets overall, we found some other shocking numbers for you. 620%. That is the rise in the price of one Bitcoin since one year ago. Honestly, Ben is like living in a ruby. He's having the best time, Jack. Not involved. All right, tripling. Nick, the price of wood, the price of lumber to build homes has tripled from the summer of 2019 to the summer of 2020. If you build it, restoration hardware will come. All right, this is the smallest of the numbers. 0.505%. All right, that one is the record low interest. The U.S. government had had to pay for a 10-year loan.

Jerry Powell at the Fed pumped the economy to the gills with free cash for borrowing. Okay, that was a small number. Jack, I'm going to hit you with a slightly large number here. 30, as in 30 major retailers declared bankruptcy in 2020. There's a whole bunch of listicles out there of the companies that declared bankruptcy during the coronavirus. Got to go to Moes, Models, J.C. Penny, J. Cruz, Sir La Tables, Cable, GnC. We're talking to the mall classics. All right, the last number here, $57 billion. That is the number of minutes. It's a big number. That Americans spent watching the office in 2020. Honestly, and here's the crazy part. That's four times as much as the crown.

Even though its budget is like a paperclip compared to a golden crown with diamonds. Have you seen how much money they spent to actually do the intro music to the ground? Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the whole economy? The social safety net has grown massively in this country. Yeah, Nana's $50 birthday check, it's looking stingy compared to the checks the U.S. has been writing the last few months. Yeah, over $3,000 in total checks received by Americans. First one in April, 2nd in December, and now a new one coming when Joe Biden signs

the stimulus bill. Oh, and on top of those $3,000 in total checks, parents are set to get a $3,000 tax credit for every kid they have. And that was necessary because in one month, back in March and April, 22 million people became unemployed. That number obliterated the previous records for most unemployed in one month. And for five months, those 22 million unemployed got $600 extra unemployment a week. Now they're going to get like another $300 extra through September. Okay. The final final number is $28 trillion. I think that's 12 zeros after the number 12. It's the first time

we brought tea into this situation. $28 trillion. That is the federal government debt. And it's possibly the most consequential of the numbers because it begs the question, will inflation come? Right. Will it lead to spikes in interest rates? Will that cause a recession? Now, those questions, they're TBD, and they will be decided in coronavirus plus one. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Affordable vegan makeup from Elf Beauty gained while everybody else fell. They tracked down the customers. By the way, the guac, it's always extra. No exceptions. No exceptions. Roblox is finally gone public with a $45 billion direct listing. But video games, they're just a stage in Roblox's evolution. For our third and final story, the U.S. stock market fell 34% but has climbed 74% since. Those are the

first two numbers. The third, though, $28 trillion, the X-factor number that could decide a corona economy plus one. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. And for women's History Month, this one got sent in by Andres Ayala in lovely Waiakil, Ecuador. Hey, Snackers, this is my snack fact. On April 19 of 1967, Catherine Switzer was the first woman who participated in the Boston Marathon. Even though it was forbidden for a woman to participate, she ran with the number 261. Takeaway, retire number 261. Catherine Switzer apparently ran away from the people trying to track her down. Perfect. for 26 miles apparently.

Retire the penny number. Retire that penny. Snackers, remember, Thursday is the new Friday, so grab someone today and tell, or don't grab them physically, but tell them H.Y, HY, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, S day. Have you asked your snacks, daily. You know, you know.

And before we go, happy birthday to Snacker, Andy Cook in Longwood, Florida. And Jocelyn in Toronto, Canada. And Clint McElvey in Maryville, Tennessee. And Jimmy Jansson in San Diego. And Alana's half birthday in Providence, Rhode Island, celebrate with an east side pocket. Bold move, Alana, asking for a half birthday shoutout. We may have just opened ourselves up to a twice as many shoutouts.

Happy birthday, Ali Stanley in Shaker Heights, Ohio. And Colin Michael in Austin. And Neil McQueen in Sandy, Utah. And Emmy in Brooklyn. Congrats to Sam McDowell for building his first robot in San Diego. And Vanian Chi Ming just got engaged over in Taiwan. And Sarah and Matt celebrating an anniversary in Morgan Hill, California. And Sydney, Morgan, Ashland, Claire, Sarah, Lauren, and Hannah, and Jane Marathon together over in the Woodlands, Texas.

Half marathon, 13.1, baby, into anybody else celebrating anything today, making a deep line. And Jack and I will always round up for you. This is Jack, Nick owned stock of Chipotle, and we both own stock of Beyond Me. 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.