🧶 Snacks Digested 2020: Trend #2

Tuesday, December 29, 2020 by Snacks
_There goes the Crochead that I see each morning_

There goes the Crochead that I see each morning

Yesterday’s Market Moves
Dow Jones
30,404 (+0.68%)
S&P 500
3,735 (+0.87%)
Nasdaq
12,899 (+0.74%)
Bitcoin
$26,915 (+2.82%)

Hey Snackers,

Hope you're hungry: We're on Day 2 of spotlighting four of the biggest business trends of 2020. Yesterday, we covered the House Hype. Today, we're covering the comfiest trend of them all.

Before we dive in: Stocks closed at record highs yesterday after President Trump signed the $900B Covid-19 relief bill (aka: Stimulus #2). Adults making under $75K would receive $600 checks (aka: half of Stimulus #1) — but the House just shipped Trump's request to increase that to $2K. Now it's all up to the Senate.

Comfy

1. The Rise of the Underdogs: when comfort became king

Handmade fuzzy socks FTW... In a year of so much fear and uncertainty, we turned to familiar creature comforts to help us feel a little more at ease. Companies that were previously forgotten (or even ridiculed), shockingly rose up from the Wall Street shadows as relevant standouts:

Etsy was a cultural punchline in 2019 — now it's a Wall Street darling with the second best-performing S&P 500 stock of the year. It was the best performing S&P stock, until Tesla was added to the index in December (womp):

  • From DIY boba kits to embroidered blankies, Etsy is the chicken noodle soup of ecommerce. But its stock has 4X'd this year, and no one's laughing now.
  • Etsy rode the ecommerce surge, becoming a prime destination for handmade masks (a whopping ~54M sold since April). Etsy's total January to September sales doubled from last year.
  • The homespun, wholesome brand was a warmer alternative to Amazon — and a way for people to support craft sellers and small businesses.

Crocs was famously known as the ugly shoe brand — then it had its 2020 Croc-star moment, riding a wave of star-studded collabs. While US footwear sales were down 20% this year, Crocs sales were up 48%, according to an analyst.

  • Crocs brought in record sales last quarter thanks to its comfort-first focus (and Justin Bieber). It's thriving because functional = the new fashionable.

Campbell Soup also made a shocking comeback in 2020: Campbell's canned soup sales grew after having fallen for nearly nine years straight. Pantry-staples like Campbell's became a hot commodity around the same time that TP disappeared (#memories).

  • As we turned to familiar, affordable names for hoarding and stress snacking, sluggish old companies started growing again.
  • Other comfort food honorable mentions: Kellogg, Pepsi, General Mills, and Kraft (shoutout boxed mac & cheese).
THE TAKEAWAY

Comfy is the new cool... Moisturizer is the new bronzer, sweats are the new khakis, and craftmade is the new designer. The underlying 2020 trend: affordable comfort is the cool factor. With 10.7M Americans still unemployed and vaccines that won't be widely available until this summer, "comfort is king" could trend well into 2021.

What else we’re Snackin’

  • Gally: "Wonder Woman" raked in $16.7M in its US opening, the most of any pandemic-era movie. It dropped on HBO Max and in theaters.
  • PreCheck: TSA screened 1.28M passengers at US airports on Sunday, a record high since mid-March (but still half of last year's volume).
  • Swiped: JPMorgan Chase is buying a major credit card rewards business, betting that travel will rebound in 2021.
  • Vaxed: Novavax starts a late-stage trial of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in the US.
  • Learn: A mini guide on budgeting and money management — how to spend, save, and invest for your future.

🍪 Thanks for Snacking with us! Want to share the Snacks? Invite your friends to sign up here.

Tuesday

  • Earnings expected from TIM

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Tesla, JPMorgan Chase, and Amazon

ID: 1461839

Subscribe to Snacks