"Imagine the likes coming for these frames"
Nice timing, National Rosé Day.
The Dow gained every day last week on a magnum of market-moving news:
Add it all up and the Dow snapped its 6-straight weekly loss streak.
Pea protein is living its best life... Shares of Beyond Meat surged 40% higher Friday on word its revenue tripled in the 1st quarter — 15% of American restaurants now boast meat-alternative burgers (we're not just talking black bean patties). Shares of the 10-year old vegan champion are now up 451% since its May 2nd IPO as production launches across the pond.
Stick it up on the shelf... Months after putting itself on the auction block, Barnes & Noble has been sold to hedge fund Elliott Management for $638M (that's more than Wall Street thought it was worth, so shares jumped over 50% last week). After closing 150 stores in the last decade, B&N's desperate turnaround plan to lure Millennials with wine/beer/snacks-filled "experiential" concept stores didn't work. Its new owner is reading Harry Potter for magical inspo.
The fire's been put out... GM, Ford, and even German car makers (BMW, VW, and Daimler) all produce some fleets south of the border for US customers. So their stocks were down on fears of new Mexican tariffs. But leaks throughout the week that a deal to cancel them was in gear (+ Friday's final Trump Tweet-nouncement) rebounded the auto stocks.
$125M... That's how much Jack Daniel's owner Brown-Forman is losing each year because of tariffs. Sales rose just 1% last quarter because Europe's retaliatory tariffs specifically targetted America's finest (whiskey, jeans, and motorcycles). The happy hour bright spot: Sales of Brown-Forman's tequila brand combo (Herradura and el Jimador) jumped 13%.
You're dead to me, Amazon... FedEx made the bold move to end its frenemy-ship with the ecommerce beast. Shockingly, Amazon only made up 1.3% of FedEx's annual biz. Then Amazon got deeper in the shipping game — It opened an air cargo hub in Kentucky last month and now lets local logistics entrepreneurs drop-off Amazon packages. Last week's drone delivery teaser (coming from Amazon "in the coming months") was the last straw for FedEx.
Wedding's off... Fiat Chrysler and Renault planned a $40B summer merger. Then a Japanese relative canceled the nuptials. Renault has a long/incestuous relationship with Japan's Nissan (they own a significant chunk of each others' shares) — Apparently Nissan felt betrayed it wasn't asked by Renault for its merger blessing, so Fiat Chrysler pulled out over the family drama.
FOMO = The competitive advantage... Founded in '03, Revolve pioneered influencer marketing as social media became a thing. Now the fashion company that finds buyers with hashtags had the 2nd best IPO of 2019 — Its shares nearly doubled on its first day of trading on Friday. Revolve knows our generation's not watching TV or reading magazines, so it meets you on Instagram (where the eyeballs are).
Not just beautiful people with millions of followers... Revolve tracks fashion styles based on what's getting clicked, shared, and bought by its 3M+ Insta followers — Then its algorithm detects patterns from the data to determine if sequins are in or wrap dresses are out.
Revolve's greatest strength is its greatest weakness... It expects Insta to remain the home of fashion discovery – But a single tweak to how the social network works could cut off its main sales channel. We've seen this before — Online publishers or even Zynga's mobile games have been hurt badly because of a Facebook algorithm change. Now social media regulation could mess with Revolve's marketing mojo, too.
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Beyond Meat, Amazon, Lululemon, and Volkswagen.