The Best One Yet - 🦕 “Tri-Pegasaurus Rex” — Apple’s $3T winds. Casinos are #1 in 2021. Kellogg’s strikes back.

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Apple is an emoji away from a $3 trillion valuation, so we’re looking at how it gets to $4 trillion: A car and a headset. Physical casino had their best year in the US ever — how? And with the the resigning and strikes from workers, Kellogg is hiring cereal replacements… it’s the Empire Strikes Back$K $AAPL $MGMGot 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.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Wednesday, December 15. Big December. I'm feeling it this pot. Yeah, Jack. What are you thinking?

It's the best one yet. It's a TBI-O-I. Oh, and a happy national cupcake day to you too, Jack. Is that so? I can't believe I forgot again. Are you kidding? You're a carrot cake guy. Did you check your mailbox?

No, you know, wait till after the box. Snackers, for our first story before Nick gets carried away. Apple stock is a few dollars away from hitting a $3 trillion dollar valuation. Okay, Jack, let me make sure I got this. Netflix, Exxon, Disney, Nike, Walmart, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung. That is the stock market ingredients for one apple. One apple. Second story, what do we got?

There's a strike over at Kellogg's cereal plant. So how's Tony the Tiger doing? Well, corn flakes are out, frosted flakes are in. This isn't your typical strike. The Empire strikes back. Bold. Third and final story, what do we got? The top travel destination of this year.

Can you believe this? Casinos. Casinos. Snackers, here's the shocker. Blockjack. It's the new Magic Kingdom. So we got Apple 3 trillion, Kellogg Serial Strike, and Casinos. What a mix. Yeah, I woke up today. Didn't see this mix coming. Didn't see this mix coming, Jack. Well, before we hit that, Snackers, the last two weeks of the year means two things every year. It means two things. Top 10 lists everywhere. There are so many top 10 lists getting published. We can't even keep trapped.

Living the BuzzFeed lifestyle. You got top 10 this. You got top 10. Top 10 movies, top 10 novels, top 10 shmovies. Jack and I have said it before. Content is king, but curation is queen. And that's what we do. We curate. That's why, for the second year in a row, we're whipping up our top 10 list of top 10 list, the second annual.

Okay, but here's what Jack and I are thinking to mix things up about. Instead of the best, we're looking at the worst. So not the top 10, top 10s, the bottom 10s. And we don't have time to do 10, so we're just going to do three. So here's our bottom three list of top 10 lists. Number one is the top 10 worst TikTok beauty trends. That's a terrible list because full freckles isn't a thing. Apparently, Jack, people are doing tan tattoos these days.

That's now a thing. Yeah. You put a stencil on yourself while your sunbathing. And then you go outside and you harm your skin. So the number two, bottom 10 list for Jack and me, the top 10 worst words to pronounce. Terrible top 10 list. Because it isn't chuggy to listen to Billy Elish on Sheehan. at Chipotle. Or is it chuggy to listen to Billy Elish on Sheen at Capodal? The number three,

worst top 10 list of this year is the 10 worst places for package theft. Yeah, the places where your stuff just gets taken when you ordered it on UPS. Apparently, if you're in Denver, the box was probably stolen from your front porch. Colorado has a stolen FedEx problem. There you go. So Snackers, there's the takeaway. Our worst three lists of 2021. It's actually the best worst list of top 10 lists ever. Let's hit our best three stories of the day. You're tuned in the snacks daily. 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. You know, we're not recommending any securities. 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. Robahood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Tim Cook, please return our phone calls. Apple is about to become the world's first $3 trillion with a T dollar company. Apple stock is acting like gold. By the way, $3 trillion is like $150 lifts. I can't even divide such a big number. You need like an abacist to figure that out. But Snackers, here's the history with Apple. It took Apple, you know, 42 years to go from $0 to a trillion dollar valuation. They did that in 2018. And then it took two more years to hit $2 trillion. They did that in 2020. And then get this.

It took Apple just 16 months to hit $3 trillion. It's not quite there, but it's probably going to get there today or this week or probably. We're going to round up on this one. Apple stock is breaking the law of diminishing returns. Jack, I think the Canadians call this lacrosistic growth. This is some kind of crazy growth. Okay, to repeat Snackers, Apple's now worth more than Netflix Exxon, Disney, Nike, Walmart, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung combined. Take all the Apple stock, add it up.

almost $3 trillion. Okay, so Snackers, we know what you're curious about. Apple's market cap. It's a smidge from $3 trillion. What got it there? Two things. The iPhone and services. The iPhone.

It's basically half of Apple sales. If Apple is a club, which we think it is, iPhone is the initiation fee and the annual dues. Love Apple. You got to love it. It's the most expensive thing. Now, number two is the services. That's like a quarter of Apple sales.

We're talking music, ICloud, TV Plus, app store fees. Those are the perks you can't. continue paying once you've already paid the annual dues to be a member. Because if you leave Club Apple, you're going to be knocking on the door saying, what happens at the end of season five and Ted Lassow? I got to know. Services is the bar tab. You pay a bunch of times a year, even though you're already a member. And you keep paying. So the growth of those two divisions, that's what got Apple to $3 trillion. iPhone and Services, those two divisions are priced into the stock already today.

Those two divisions are the wind beneath the stock's wings. So here's our question about Midler. What's Apple doing that investors aren't giving credit for yet? What future gusts and gales can push Apple stock even higher? And that's what Jack and I were curious about. And we noticed there are two specific products that just got leaked over the last month from Apple. Two future products. We have reports of what they're going to look like and they could be the future growth drivers of Apple.

The first is the Apple car. The Icar. Like your buddy's app startup, you heard about the Apple car for years, but it hasn't happened. Yeah, well, according to Bloomberg, Apple's kicking things up a notch and they've got a new deadline for the Apple Icar and it's 2025. Deadline. Yeah, classic. This is like the seventh coming of the Apple Car deadline. Yeah, show us your pitch deck again, Timmy.

Let's see slide three. The second product of the future that got leaked is headsets. Yes. There's no mass market consumer augmented reality headset out there that's really. nailed it with people. Google Glass totally failed. Facebook has a Rayban sunglasses thing right now, but that's Facebook. It is. And Microsoft's Halo, that's designed for business use, not consumer.

Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is going to launch their augmented reality headset in 2020. And it's going to be something between like glasses with the screen on one of the lenses and goggles. We're not sure the leak wasn't that comprehensive. But it'll probably look pretty sharp. And whoever leaked it has probably been fired. They're not in Club Apple anymore.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies? PFWTM no more. Over at Apple. This year, Apple stock became a store of value. Yeah, look, Snackers, some people say that Bitcoin is becoming a store of value, like a digital version of gold. Well, Jack and I think that Apple already became that digital version of gold. A store of value is a trusty place for you to invest your money.

You're going to make a little return, hopefully, but it's relatively safe. Pretty boring, pretty standard. U.S. government bonds, U.S. dollar, precious metals, all those have long been seen as a store of value just like gold. That wasn't Apple. For 20 years, Apple was a growth stock. It was risky, but it grew twice as fast as the S&P 500.

The stock market would grow 9% a year on average since the 1990s. Apple's stock was growing 22% a year since the 1990s. But more recently, Apple, we think, has transformed. it's not seen quite as much as the risky growth stock it used to be. Yeah, Club Apple is so sticky, so reliable. Investors have piled into Apple for safety. Honestly, Jack, this is why I just threw some money into Apple like a year ago. Just didn't want to freak out about it.

This is why I wish I had done the same. I forgot about it. And, okay. Now, Snackers, Apple could be forced to sell the app store. That wouldn't be good if regulators made them. Or that sweet deal that Tim Cook negotiated with the Chinese government, That could turn south. Or Apple could pull a Blackberry and lose out on the future dominated by the Metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want the iPhone involved in his Metaverse at all. Now, there's no telling if Apple will hit $4 trillion. There's always a risk this stock could go down. But Apple isn't just a high-risk growth stock anymore. No. It's become a store value too. And that's why Apple is the first to $3 trillion. Are we calling this a rainbow Pegasus?

Oh, yeah. A tri-trillion titan? Try Pegatops. For our second story, Kellogg is sick and tired of its worker union. That Kellogg. So Kellogg is hiring 1,400 replacement workers. This is the empire strikes back. It is.

And look, all year we've been hearing about workers having the big outward, the leverage. The worker shortage. The great resignation. Or as Nick likes to call it, the epic sit at home with your stimulus check and chill. Right. Hey, Carl, I'm quitting. Because I'm going to become a sparkling water influencer. I'll see you next year.

You got a $1,500 signing bonus? Do you get, like, analyst at Morgan Stanley? No, actually, McDonald's. I'm starting McDonald's next week. Well, you're also seeing strikes at Friedel Lace. You're seeing strikes at John Deere. You're seeing strikes at Kaiser Permanente out in California. Well, over in the lovely Midwest, Kellogg's cereal workers,

they've been eating yogurt since October 5th. It's been rough. They've been eating yogurt because workers at the four U.S. cereal factories of Kellogg's, they're unionized and they want to make some changes. Yeah, they've been striking over at Kellogg's for two months now, demanding higher pay, more benefits for pumping out your cornflakes every week. Kellogg thinks they've offered this union a good deal, a five-year contract that offers 3% wage hikes for union workers

and wage hikes for non-union workers too. Well, the union leaders like that deal, but union members who are making the cereal, they didn't like it. They voted no. They're on strike. So the strike continues. And Kellogg? Kellogg has had it up to here with this union.

Tony the Tiger, he announced last week they're done negotiating with the serial workers. Kellogg has decided they're going to replace all 1,400 serial workers who are in the union and refusing to work. Kind of shocking jack. This is like, you know, family-friendly company. Now they're doing a hiring spree across the Midwest to replace all their cereal makers. Yeah, they see the strikers with like their pickets and their protests and they're trying to hire the other guys who just cross the picket line. They're like, you want to make fruit loops? Come on here and make us some fruit loops.

All right. So that's already high drama. But here's where things got freaky in this Kellogg strike story. Snaggers, people are picking sides in this Kellogg drama who have no role or involvement with Kellogg, other than enjoying the cereal. So Kellogg needs to hire 1,400 people to make cereal. They obviously have a job website for people to apply to, and they're encouraging anybody who lives near these factories to apply.

Well, get this. On Reddit and TikTok, a group on social media has beenended together. to support these Kellogg serial strikers. It appears the masses on Reddit are siding with the strikers. So they're filling out a ton of fake job applications so that Kellogg doesn't know. Is this a real application or is this one of those Reddit pranksters? They can't fill their raisin brand jobs. One TikToker, they even wrote code to automatically create and then apply with a fake resume to mess with Kellogg.

They're sabotaging Kellogg's efforts to replace the striking union members with permanent replacements. Or as one Reddit poster, said, let's clog Kellogg's application pipeline toilet. This is straight out of Star Wars. This is the Rebel Alliance. This is a good transition to our takeaway. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Kellogg? Kellogg is the Empire Strikes Back. Snackers, last week, Jack and I were telling you about one side of the labor battle, Starbucks's Rebel Alliance. Over at Starbucks, the baristas formed the first ever Starbucks barista union to try to match the power that the corporation has.

This is the other side of that labor battle, the business side, the company side. And with Kellogg, the empire is striking back. So the workers, they've rallied against what they're calling Kellogg's corporate greed. 1400 union members, they're all striking. It's a tight labor market. They figure that Kellogg won't be able to run their factories without their work. Well, Kellogg is trying to prove all that wrong. They're saying that these workers are asking for unreasonably too much.

Kellogg thinks there's plenty of people who will get off the couch, stop chilling at home, for the opportunity to make like $23 an hour to make rice crispy treats. Which are delicious, snap crackle and pop. Labor, we've been telling you all year, is having a rebellion in this country. Well, Kellogg is doing its best impression of the Empire Strikes Back.

For our third and final story, honestly, this came in nowhere. One of the top travel destinations for Americans in 2021, total shocker. Casinos. Actually, I saw a bunch of my buddies posting Bachelorette Party of 2021. There you go.

Gambling was the itinerary of the year. a fun fact about casinos, 987 casinos in the United States, zero windows, zero clocks. Unlimited drinks, though, if you're at the blackjack table. Now, according to the American Gaming Association, they've got some news and they want to share it with us. This was the best year for the American casino industry ever. $44 billion in revenues for the whole casino industry in 2021 so far. That's a record high in the year's not even over. And we're talking about physical casino revenues.

Apparently, winnings per guest are also up nearly 20% this year at casinos. Now, my buddy Nick says, apparently, because this is all from the American Gaming Association, which is a lobbying group for the gambling industry. So if you go to page 18, they're like, wink, wink, wink, bet on red 17, wink, wink. Page three says, there are more 21s than ever in blackjack. this year. 2020 was bad luck. Maybe 2021 is good luck.

Maybe they're just saying this in the report. All right. So Nick and my first thought that gambling revenues were higher than ever is this must just be sports betting, which has been boom. Jack, we've been talking about this all year. Sports betting apps are blown up everywhere and more states are legalizing. And the report did say that revenues from sports betting quadrupled compared to last year. Yeah, the Knicks are losing and you're betting on that.

But it's still just 10% of the casino's total revenue. So it's not sports betting. Well, get this. The reason for that surge, it's physical. 77% of that record casino revenue this year was from slot machines and table games. The OG physical games that have always been played at casinos. We're talking about the stuff where they're throwing you the chips and like some dudes wearing a tucks as he throws you the cards.

You got a popcorn bucket that you're hopefully using to fill up with coins. You're at the blackjack table and you're telling them, yeah, I live dangerously too. Sir, you have five. You're at the Mirage. It's basically every scene in every 70s movie. that Scorsese was involved. The report did say that in October, visits physical like traveling to the Las Vegas strip hit a higher level than ever before the pandemic.

And that's without the booming conventions business. But that's with the Las Vegas Raiders. They've never had an NFL season before until this year. Just pointing it out. I'm just saying. Add it all up and casinos were the travel destination at 2021. Gambling won tourism. Shocker.

So, Jack, what is the takeaway? for our buddies over in the casino industry. We need to update revenge spending. It's now revenge experiencing. Yeah, Snackers, a theme earlier this year, Jack and I kept talking about, was the revenge spend. Pent up demand because you're staying at home,

plus excess savings from stimmies equals treat yourself. That's the formula. Well, there is a new twist on that formula, and here's what it is. Combined material purchases with travel desires. Revenge spending was like splurging on a 75-inch TV at Target.

Revenge Experiencing is merging on the craps table and Blue Man Group with the family at a Las Vegas Sands Casino and Resort. One more song. One more blue song. The pandemic trend evolved from revenge spending to revenge experiencing. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there and some cupcakes? Apple is about a cupcake emoji away from a $3 trillion valuation. It's not just a high risk growth stock anymore.

Apple's been acting like gold. It's been like a store of value. What's it called a tripeachia? Hegosaurus Rex. Yeah, let's go with that. Let's copyright that. For our second story, striking is the new hope for union workers to make more. But with Kellogg replacing striking workers, the empire strikes back. And casinos, not just gambling apps, physical casinos are having their best year ever. From revenge, spending to revenge experiencing the Blue Man Group. Now, time for our snack fact of the day, which is actually from Jack and Meep, and it's actually

not a snack fact. Actually, we're asking you for your personal opinion fact. Which could become a fact. Here's the question, Snackers. What was your favorite snack story that we whipped up for you this year? Takeaway story idea? Nick and I are taking off some time over the holidays because you got to rest the mics. Friday is our last regular pod until 2022. We're going to miss you. So Jack and I have a special surprise. We're whipping up a few bonus podcast episodes for you, one in particular. One's going to be basically a greatest hits album for 2021. The top. three best stories of the year. Not the bottom three worst stories of the year. That's another pod. So we want you to tell us what are the top three stories of 2021 that we did on this pod?

Yeah. Tweet your facts slash opinions to at Robin Hood Snacks, at Jack Kramer, at Nick of New York. Or tag or DM us on Instagram at Robin Hood Snacks at T-Boyd Jack at nick.of. New. York. Or if you're in San Francisco or Vermont, just get out in the street and yell really loudly. Maybe we'll hear you. If you're in Vermont, shake a tree. I'll see and I'll find you. Not too hard because we don't want to get sued. Snackers, you look fantastic today, Jack.

Great sweatshirt. Thank you. And happy Cupcake Day, Nick. Celebrate responsibly with buttercream. We'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, big question for Vishal in Virginia. Would you like to go out on a date with Snacker Shivangi? Please, pretty please.

This is a snack's pose to be continued. And happy. 21st birthday to Jackie Medina over in Escondido, California. Vishal, don't make us do like a trilogy here. We hope this is a one and done. We will ask this question every day until there's a yes. And happy birthday to Vishnu Parth Sarthi in Berkeley, California. And Max Anstee down in Los Angeles.

Iqpreet Grover, happy birthday in Redwood City. And Rodrigo down in Jacksonville. Happy 60th to Juan Lay in Tucson, Arizona. And happy first birthday to Ahana Patel over in Columbus. anybody else celebrating something today, make it a T-point. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Netflix. Nick own stock of Apple. I'm jealous about that. And we both own some Bitcoin. 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 report, and is not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robintoe Market Inc., Robinto 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.