Surprise — A Profitable Unicorn

Monday, March 25, 2019 by Snacks
*Rule #148: Say hello to your new Snacks newsletter*

Rule #148: Say hello to your new Snacks newsletter

Last Week’s Market Moves
Dow Jones
25,502 (-1.34%)
S&P 500
2,801 (-0.74%)
Nasdaq
7,643 (-0.60%)
Bitcoin
$3,973 (-0.13%)
10-Yr US Treasury
2.442%

Hey Snackers,

Pumped to meet you. We're your digestible newsletter of business stories you gotta know, and want to know. Snacks.

Markets finished last week with their worst day since January — Blame Brexit's delay (FYI, new date TBD) and the Fed tossing some shade on the US economy. We're just prepping for this week's Lyft IPO.

Nice

1. Who's having fun...

Dress for the IPO you want... Not the private shares you have. Levi's popped 30% on its first day of public trading. Then it went smart-casual, relaxing the rest of the week. Investors like the looks of its post-IPO plans to expand denim deep into China, and pump out more women's lines to compete with J. Crew's Madewell and Urban Outfitters' Free People.

Carbs FTW... About half of Darden Restaurants' sales are served up from the Olive Garden. Darden rose last week as the OG revealed record profits in December, fueled by its well-balanced "Never Ending Pasta" promo. We don't play entrée favorites, but the CEO gave a chicken alfredo dish its own special shoutout.

Basement-Flix... Google just created "one place for all the ways we play." Alphabet's new video game streaming platform called Stadia lets you join games instantly on YouTube. No hardware or fancy console needed. Just WiFi, a pulse, and no afternoon plans.

Find my Apple unveil... The iBeast casually airdropped 3 product unveils last week (new iPad, new iMac, and new Airpods). And Apple rose on anticipation of its varsity-level event today, expected to include a streaming TV service and premium news subscription.

Naughty

2. ...And who's having less fun

Just need a little more time to freshen up... Turns out Revlon will be late delivering its annual financial statements because new software messed with its accounting mojo. That problem will cost about $54M to touch up. Revlon also mentioned that it suffered a loss for the 7th straight quarter.

Arguing over Beer Pong rules... means nobody wins. Molson Coors sued Budweiser owner AB-InBev for its recent TV attack ads. The Taste of the Rockies didn't appreciate the King of Beers claiming Miller and Coors are packed with corn syrup (it's just used in the brewing process, not the final watered-down product).

Sneakers ruined your buddy's savings ?... Nike feels ya. Shares dipped as its US and China sales growth slowed a tad. Now it's whipping up more options for kicks under $100 so you can actually afford to get a pair dirty.

Attention college seniors... General Motors is hiring. Fresh after planning to shut down 5 factories, GM's dropping a cool $300M into a Michigan plant. That'll add 400 jobs, focused on its not-quite-Tesla electric model, Bolt. The stock fell into the weekend though because that investment's costly.

IPO-Fest

3. A profitable tech IPO you haven't heard of: Zoom

Gary in Accounting should schedule more conference calls... said no one ever. Zoom disagrees. It's the Silicon Valley-raised unicorn fixing video conferencing since 2011. It just filed paperwork to IPO next month, highlighting "viral enthusiasm" for its software (humble brag). That term hadn't been used in a filing since 1991.

"Can we take this offline?"... Zoom's pretty proud of its mobile-friendly video calling since so many other video hangouts are delayed 12 minutes with someone stuck on mute. So it's focused on 2 unique qualities that separate it from tech's finest.

  1. The customers: Zoom's are diverse and spread out. It's got startups and half the Fortune 500. And its top 10 customers make up just 10% of its revenues (so it's safe if one of them de-Zooms).
  2. The profits: Zoom has them. That's a rare trait among tech unicorns, which burn through cash (hiring engineers, dishing out promo codes, or buying office kombucha taps) to grow. Zoom did lose money last year, but has nearly $8M in profits so far in 2019.
THE TAKEAWAY

"Hi, I just joined. Who else is on?"... Everybody. Zoom is going public just as its tech siblings are making movesLyft IPOs this week, Pinterest filed its IPO paperwork last week, and Uber's aiming for June. With plenty of newly-public companies offering shares, Zoom has to communicate clearly why it's special.

Regulated

4. The Fed's sad (but awesome) market gift

Bad-ish news for the economy... was good news for stocks. Just in time for Spring Break, Federal Reserve officials caught up for a 2-day policy meeting last week and passed on a chance to increase interest rates. It's official — The Fed's now not expecting to raise rates at all in 2019.

Bank-handed compliment?... It kinda feels that way, Fed. The nation's central bank is keeping interest rates down, but not because the economy is in its happy place.

  • The good vibes: Lower interest rates will help people/companies get loans, and they'll also make stocks more attractive compared to bonds.
  • The bad vibes: But the Fed's keeping them low because the economy’s growing slower. In December, the Fed thought that GDP (which measures the economy's size) would rise by 2.3% this year. Scratch that. Now it's predicting just 2.1% growth.
THE TAKEAWAY

Washington's not helping... DC drama is the cause for less-than-charming economic forecasts from the Fed.

  • Economists realized the Mountain Dew surge of economic strength from the 2017 tax cut has worn off faster than expected.
  • President Trump just tweeted he'd keep tariffs in place even if the US and China sign a trade deal. That's just as his two top trade negotiators fly out to Beijing this week.

What else we’re Snackin’

  • Work: The perfect answer to the brutal "Tell me about yourself" cliché interview question
  • Life: How to use Google's new hotel booking tool
  • Money: Finally understanding travel reward points
  • Venture: Starbucks gets into VC investing
  • Crypto: Square's staffing up for a new cryptocurrency payments team

This Week

  • Monday: Apple's finally expected to unveil its Netflix-competitor and premium news subscription service
  • Tuesday: Earnings from Carnival Cruises (a Norwegian cruise just had a wild ride/video you should probably definitely watch, too)
  • Wednesday: Earnings from Lululemon
  • Thursday: A US negotiating team heads to China for 2 days of Trade War chats
  • Friday: Lyft's $20B IPO is expected before the weekend
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