Hey Snackers,
Dr. Fauci threw the 1st pitch at a fan-less Nationals Park for baseball's Opening Day (just a bit outside). Maybe the MLB should take a page out of Japan's playbook and fill empty stadiums with creepy yet adorable robot fans. So coordinated.
The Nasdaq took a hit yesterday on big stock drops from Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple — the report that the newly unemployed climbed to 1.4M Americans for the week didn't help.
Elon gets his $2B bonus... For the 1st time in its 17-year history, Tesla has posted four straight profitable quarters in a row. The stock surged on the news (surprise), making Tesla the 12th biggest company in the US by market value. Despite corona-conomy slowdowns (like its Fremont factory partially shutting), Tesla hit these numbers:
And an invite to the S&P 500 Club... Maybe. The famous S&P 500 index tracks stocks of the 500 most valuable public companies in the US. To be included, companies must post four straight profitable quarters.
Context is king... Tesla stock has nearly 4X'd in value since peak pandemic in mid-March. Now it could become the largest company by market value to ever join the S&P. But Tesla has a tiny market share in the global car market, and has lost hundreds of millions since 2018. Toyota delivered 30X more cars than Tesla last year and is consistently profitable... but it's worth less than Tesla. After this streak, investors are expecting Tesla profits going forward. If that doesn't happen, the stock will likely fall.
When the Slackbot is annoying AF... Microsoft reported 13% sales growth and an insane $11B+ in profit last quarter. But party pooper Slack hit it with regulatory drama on the same day. Slack thinks Microsoft's being anti-competitive, so it filed an antitrust complaint in the EU.
Cutting some slack... Microsoft has bundled a bunch of productivity apps with Office for the past 30 years. So naturally, it decided to throw in Teams right after launching it in 2016. But Microsoft isn't the only "bundling bully" in town:
The disadvantage of being a “One-and-Only” company... "One & Only" companies like Slack and Netflix are successful for doing one thing really well. Buuut — they run the risk of getting overtaken by Big Tech companies with hundreds of products (that can afford to give away tools for free). Sometimes those freebies are the profit puppies of entire other companies. That could potentially crush them.
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