Monday Dec.28, 2020

🏡 Snacks Digested 2020: Trend #1

"_I spruced up the place a bit"_

Hey Snackers,

To put it lightly: 2020 has been a brutal year for the world. Tens of millions of people lost their jobs, and 1.8M lost their lives to coronavirus.

Throughout the turbulence, our goal has been to demystify the markets by delivering you digestible financial news. This week, we’re taking a pause from the daily news cycle to look back — and forward.

In our first ever “Snacks Digested” series, we’re spotlighting four of the biggest trends that shaped business this year.

PS: Make sure you're subscribed to our daily newsletter to receive all the trends, and tune into our special edition Snacks Digested pod.

Home

The House Hype: when home became the only destination

Commuting to the fridge... The excitement is palpable. In March, we realized home is where the heart is — and also where the entire year is. Cue: "The House Hype." The best time to DIY-home improve is when you're home 24/7, so we invested in sprucing up our biodomes. We thought the hype might be slowing in May, but it barreled through the rest of the year. The House Hype wasn't just a hideaway — it was a necessary distraction.

Home Improvement and Decor: From $5 candles to $5K cloud couches...

Lowe's saw shockingly strong growth as you repainted your kitchen (three times) — sales were up more than 30% for the past two quarters.
Home Depot said "same" and had its best quarter in 20 years, raking in $38B in sales from May to August as you finally changed the unhinged toilet seat.
Restoration Hardware's fancy profits soared on $1K faucet handles.

Home Appliances: From Chromebooks to bidets...

Best Buy's online sales more than tripled from May to August as you picked up your Nintendo Switch curbside.
iRobot sweeped up strong Roomba sales as compulsive cleaning became a national pastime.

Home Delights: From gardening to sourdough starters...

Netflix added an insane 28M subscribers in nine months as we lived vicariously through its shows.
Peloton's subscriptions and sales doubled for 2020 (and its stock 5X'd), as $2K spin bikes became the most expensive coat racks of the year.

Revenge spending could be next... Our houses are decked out, we have enough Ross scented candles to last a lifetime, and the vaccine is expected to become broadly available by summer 2021. "Revenge spending" outside the home on things like vacays, concerts, dining, and non-stretchy clothes could be coming — aka: the anti-House Hype.

What else we’re Snackin’

Stimulus: President Trump finally signed the $900B Covid-19 relief package, extending unemployment benefits for 12M workers.
Check: Everything you need to know about the second round of coronavirus stimulus checks.
Learn: Three things to do before you start investing, from goal-setting to debt-crushing.
Visualize: The biggest tech mergers and acquisitions of 2020.
Read: The rise of Japan's "super solo" culture — from toilet lunches, to solo bars, and single-person karaoke.

🍪 Want to start Snacking daily? Sign up here for our daily market newsletter.

This Week

Monday: Earnings expected from CSP
Tuesday: Earnings expected from TIM
Wednesday: Chicago PMI
Thursday: Weekly jobless claims
Friday: Markets closed for New Year's Day. Also: End of 2020.

ID: 1460992

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Tangential remarks

Nicolai Tangen, the CEO who holds the purse strings of Norway’s $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund, thinks that his fellow Europeans don’t quite stack up to US employees when it comes to pure hustle, telling the Financial Times in a recent interview that there is a difference in “the general level of ambition” and that “the Americans just work harder”.

Tangen has clearly been putting his money — or more specifically Norway’s — where his mouth is: the sprawling Norwegian oil fund, now one of the largest investors on the planet, has been pumping more capital into its US holdings in the past decade, while decreasing its investment into European entities.

The troublesome news for our European readers? Tangen might be onto something. According to data from the OECD, American workers are putting in almost 60 hours a year more than the weighted average for OECD nations… a benchmark that workers from countries in the European Union are already ~180 hours shy of.

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$2T is the new $1T

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Friday, Apr 26th

What’s happening

Pop Quiz!

Sales of what are up 136% since 2019?

Don't be a sucka

$70B

Alphabet shares are soaring in the after-market session, with a initial jump of more than 10% implying a gain of upwards of about $200B in market value when the stock opens tomorrow morning.

Google’s parent company crushed earnings expectations, initiated a cash dividend for the first time, and authorized a fresh $70B in share repurchases for good measure. The market likes it very much.

What’s up doc?

21h

HOP TO IT

Joshua Topolsky

We get results!

22h

This earnings season is fully operational

Balancing Act

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Acrobatic Accounting

So, you want to join the circus?

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Rani Molla

4/25/24

No, Apple hasn’t cut its Vision Pro production estimates in half

Quite a few news outlets are reporting that Apple thinks it’s only going to sell 400,000 to 450,000 Vision Pros in 2024, compared a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. They’re all citing a note from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Obviously there’s no question that Apple’s $3,500 face computer will have a limited audience and could be a huge flop, but this also doesn’t seem like accurate news.

The issue is that 1) this 400,000 number isn’t new. Back in July of 2023, the Financial Times reported that Apple planned to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024, reducing its initial projections of 1M units, citing two people close to Apple and, the Chinese contract manufacturer assembling the device. 2) It's unclear who was estimating 700,000-800,000 Vision Pros in the first place, but it appears that it was Ming-Chi Kuo himself?