Hey Snackers,
The Mysterious Seed Saga continues: Amazon just banned the sale of foreign seeds in the US after thousands of people received random seed packages from China. And you thought your dumbbells had finally arrived.
The Nasdaq dropped 4% as investors sold off Big Tech stocks, dragging down the market. Tesla shares plunged 20% for its worst single-day loss ever.
Release the breath... Despite all evidence to the contrary, Lululemon doesn't need Soul Cycle to sell workout clothes. Spin studios and Equinoxes were closed last quarter (Lulu's worst nightmare). But the legging legend's sales surprisingly grew 2%, even though in-store sales fell. Instead of crying over germ-avoidant shoppers, Lulu made Lululemonade with ecommerce:
Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity... Before the pandemic, Lulu had already put in the work to flex its ecommerce muscle.
Lulu doesn't need 400+ stores anymore... It just proved it can grow as a direct-to-consumer company. Lulu's in-store sales plunged 51% last quarter, even as stores reopened. But online sales were strong enough to overpower those losses and deliver overall sales growth. Although Lulu is committed to continue opening new physical stores, it doesn't need them to make it into your closet. Its recent acquisition of at-home fitness company Mirror could hit closer to home (literally).
Didn't see this hookup coming... 111-year-old GM is investing big in e-truck maker Nikola. Nikola is a six-year-old hydrogen-fueled electric truck startup that plans to sell electric trucks (products delivered so far = 0). Since its IPO in June, the biggest news to come out of Nikola was that it started taking preorders for its 2022 Badger electric pickup. The biggest news now:
Who got the short end of the gear stick?... At first, it seems like GM did. Not only is Nikola getting a $2B investment â it's also getting one of the world's most seasoned carmakers to crank out vehicles for it. Since Nikola went public, investors have been wondering whether it can actually deliver on the hype. With GM riding shotgun, they're feeling relieved. What does GM get?
The fastest way to scale is letting someone else do it for you... Designing a cool car is hard â manufacturing it at scale is way harder. GM brings the manufacturing expertise that young Nikola lacks. Tesla scaled on its own, but took 16 years to produce a respectable 100K cars/quarter and 17 years to deliver a full-year profit. Instead of building its own assembly lines and battery factories, Nikola can use GM's to scale faster and more cheaply.
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Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Lululemon, Alibaba, and Apple
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