Thursday Sep.03, 2020

🐝 Bumble swipes right on IPO

"_I just didn't feel a strong WiFi connection with him_"

Hey Snackers,

"We just passed a guy in a jet pack" — 0% fazed. Two airline pilots on separate flights reported seeing a man flying 3K feet above Los Angeles. The FBI is investigating.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq hit a fresh all-time high yesterday and the Dow notched its highest close since February 20th.

Swipe

Bumble is reportedly planning to IPO — let's talk dating in corona-times

Your move, girl... Bumble, the dating app where women have to make the first move, is open to pursuing a public relationship with investors (opposite of going "exclusive"). The beehive-themed dating & networking company is reportedly planning to IPO at a $6B-$8B valuation in early 2021. Dating is hard — it's even harder during a world-shattering pandemic:

No more Friday dinner night out: Instead, you're eating TJ’s pad thai in bed while aggressively swiping. That drives engagement for Bumble and Tinder/Hinge-owner Match.
No more eye contact across the dance floor: Global online dating was up 82% in March, as you made eye contact with 837 Tinder profile pics instead.
No more physical connection: All you need is a strong WiFi connection. Bumble video chat usage soared 93% after a national emergency was declared.

It's a great time to DTR... with investors. While in-person meetups are dead, the need for looove isn't. So dating apps are thriving. Both Bumble and its publicly-traded rival Match make most of their $$$ from paid subscriptions (Bumble Boost, Tinder Plus) – these have grown during the pandemic.

Match stock has soared almost 700% since its 2015 IPO, and 40% since January alone.
Bumble now has over 100M users worldwide — it's hoping public investors will want to match with it, too.

Online Dating’s stigma is gone, thanks to COVID... We've gone from "we met at a bar" lies to Bumble-themed weddings where you swipe to RSVP (#loveatfirstswipe). There's now more stigma around going to a bar than video chatting with a stranger on Tinder. ~40% of all relationships in the US start online. Since the chances of meeting someone in person are slimmer than ever, that number will likely jump faster. Bumble could find long-term love on the public market.

Order

Amazon opens its 1st online-only Whole Foods: Ghost Grocery is coming

They never have free samples anyway... Just one day after Walmart unveiled its Amazon Prime competitor Walmart+, Amazon is one-upping its grocery rival (claaaassic Bezos). On Tuesday, the Zon will open its 1st online-only Whole Foods store in Brooklyn. It's basically a Whole Foods that you're not allowed in (no Nuts & Seeds section "browsing"). It'll only be used by Amazon employees to fulfill e-grocery orders in the area.

Amazon operates over 500 Whole Foods, offering online grocery delivery from its stores.
Amazon's online grocery sales tripled last quarter, because, quarantine.

Getting some bang for its billions... Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017 for nearly $14B to sow its grocery oats. That acquisition has lettuce down. Amazon hasn't done much with it besides giving Prime members free grocery delivery and 10% off sale items. But this "Ghost Grocery" warehouse concept could speed up deliveries and ensure that the maple almond butter you want is in stock — instead of asking if you want PB, instead.

This could be Amazon’s big grocery advantage... over Instacart, Walmart, and DoorDash. E-grocery shoppers have to go into stores just like you and us to pick out your goodies before delivering them — that's not very efficient.

Speed: All that pushing between shopping carts, little kids, and cheese-gawkers slows the process down. That doesn't happen in a Ghost Grocery.
Reliability: In regular stores, there's a decent likelihood that the pesto you ordered is gone. In Ghost Groceries, supplies are closely monitored (and no one storms the pasta aisle).
Price: This more efficient fulfillment method could allow Amazon to lower prices or rake in more profit.

What else we’re Snackin’

King: DraftKings stock jumped 8% on word that Michael Jordan is taking an equity stake and becoming a special adviser.
Play: Lego stacked up some strong earnings — sales jumped 14% as you tried to entertain your home-bound child (or yourself).
Bag: Bloomingdale's owner Macy's posted a $431M loss, but said Bloomies is "having a moment" while other department stores suffer.
Cut: United plans to cut over 16K jobs when federal bailout $$$ expires — much less than the 36K it warned could be laid off.
Banned: India bans Baidu and 100 other apps linked to China, in addition to the 50+ Chinese apps it banned in June (including TikTok).

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Thursday

Weekly jobless claims. Earnings expected from DocuSign and Campbell Soup

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Amazon and Walmart

ID: 1321426

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Profits jumped 23% to $359M.

Chipotle has quietly cruised higher over the last year. It’s up 63%, compared to the 24.5% gain for the S&P 500 over the 12 months through Wednesday’s close. Not bad for a rice-and-beans based business model.

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Despite terrible earnings numbers last night — declining vehicle sales, disappointing revenue and profit, enormous spending — Tesla stock is up more than 10% as of midday. That’s a welcome move for the car company, that’s been among the worst performers this year in the S&P 500.

Why the about face?

While Reuters reported earlier this month that Tesla is no longer making its long-awaited $25,000 mass-market car — news sent the stock, already suffering from headwinds across the EV industry, down even further— Tesla reported during its earnings that it’s going to make cheaper cars than it currently has.

Before the second half of next year, Tesla said it will release “more affordable models” that “will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms, and will be able to be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up.”

So rather than release the $25,000 Model 2, Tesla is incorporating some of that technology into its existing models. UBS called it the Franken-3Y2.