GoPro's Problem: Mainstream > Extreme

If you land a fakie-to-fakie 720 and no one sees it... did it even happen? That's why GoPro exists. The action camera icon just unveiled 2 new models: $399 for the uncreatively named HERO8 Black and $499 for the HERO Max. Just in time for the holidays, the only gift GoPro shareholders want is a charming return to profitability.

• Sales are down 35% from 4 years ago.
• The stock's down 83% over that same period.

GoPro’s problem: Mainstream > Extreme... The new iPhone boasts 3 cameras. Three. Apple's photographic game is more than enough for most mainstream buyers. That's pushed GoPro to focus on extreme customers who appreciate the 12 megapixels and hypersmooth stabilization of its new lenses. Too bad "extreme" is a much smaller market than "mainstream."

Big summer blowout... Stock trading is 100% off. Online broker Charles Schwab will stop charging $4.95 on stock, options, and ETF trades starting Oct 7th. But the commission-free announcement dropped Chuck's shares 10% — and rival E-Trade fell 14% and TD Ameritrade plummeted 26%. Here's the percentage of all their revenues that come from trade commissions:

• E-Trade = 16%
• TD Ameritrade = 25%
• Charles Schwab = 7% — Chuck's more diversified in how it makes money, so killing a revenue source won't sting as badly.

Back in the day... buying a stock meant yelling into phones and paying a fee that might cost you more than the stock itself. Chuck is betting that sacrificing short-term revenue (the $4.95 it makes today for each trade) will win customer love and make more money long-term. But here's our Snackable history of stock trading fees:

• $49/trade: That was the average trading commission in 1975, when Chuck launched its discount brokerage.
• $10/trade: The average commission dropped by 2015, triggered by Robinhood's commission-free trading app, which launched in 2013 (full disclosure: Robinhood Snacks... is owned by Robinhood).

Cabinets don't get enough appreciation... Holding up Nana's china like a never-ending bench-press is hard. But that's Michigan-based Masco Corp's bread-and-butter — producing home furnishings under brands like Hansgrohe, Delta, and Behr. Now Masco's selling its window division for $725M. And that's critical to its grand recession-proofing plan.

Homes get built, repaired, and remodelled... Masco wants to focus on those last 2 and sell the first. Here's what's in and what's out of Masco's feng shui makeover:

• What it's selling: The parts of homes that only happen during new-house construction, like windows, doors, and kitchen cabinets.
• What it's focusing on: The parts of homes that get repaired and remodelled over the years on existing houses, like paint, lighting fixtures, paint, showers, sinks, and more paint.

• Out: Credit Suisse loses an exec because of a spying scandal with the Swiss bank
• Bzzzz: UPS snags the 1st broad FAA approval for drone delivery
• ETA: Papa John's decides it wants to do one thing completely different than Domino's: let someone else deliver instead of relying on its own delivery team
• Down: Uber and Lyft shares dip to record lows after WeWork and Endeavor canceled their IPOs
• Re-cast: Netflix renews Stranger Things for a 4th season and signs its creators to a nine-figure deal
• $$$: PayPal acquires 70% of China's GoPay, gaining access to digital payments across the Great Wall (not easy to do — China's Central Bank had to approve)

• Earnings from Bed Bath & Beyond

ID: 969195