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Wednesday Oct.16, 2019
Google quits virtual reality in real life
_When you're the only person who bought VR gear_
Hey Snackers,
85% of Americans can't recognize Twitter's CEO. Jack Dorsey's beard isn't happy about it.
The Dow surged over 200 points to finish above 27,000 Tuesday — that's thanks to big banks taking off their suits to kick off the 3rd quarter earnings season with some muscle.
De-launched
Google's kills VR headset on same day it unveils Pixel 4 smartphone
A chair that reads your Gmail and orders new pencils... Not a thing yet, but Google's getting close. At its annual product unveil day in New York, Google did its best turtleneck-free Steve Jobs impression and revealed its newest gadgets — the focus was to ensconce your life in Pixel-branded tech. The 2 highlights:
- Pixel 4 phone ($800) features a radar technology that lets you interact with the screen without touching it.
- Pixel Buds 2 ($179) to take on Apple AirPods cord-free.
But the real highlight is what's gone... Daydream — Google's virtual reality platform is designed so you can "Dream with your eyes open." Its headset though will be discontinued because (per a company spokesman) “there hasn’t been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped.” Google's definitely been trying, having unveiled Google Glass twice and also $15 cardboard VR headsets for the masses.
Virtual reality has been a disappointment... but that doesn’t mean Google's given up on it. Instead, Google is “Androiding” this thing — it's applying the strategy it uses with its Android phones to the early stages of virtual reality: It'll focus on the software, but let someone else make the hardware (like the VR headsets).
Nothing
Schwab enjoys record Q3 profits because of cash you're doing nothing with
The OG Bay Area disrupter... Charles Schwab (real guy) is a Stanford MBA who founded the 1st discount brokerage in 1971 to disrupt the NYC ones. It just cut stock-trading commission fees to $0 — and Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and E-Trade followed ASAP. But yesterday Schwab announced record 3rd quarter profits, which don't look that threatened by its fee-less future.
It's kind of like going on a no-éclair diet... when you don't eat many éclairs. Here's how Schwab made $2.7B in revenue last quarter:
- Trading revenue: That's just 6.3% of the total — it's from the $5 Chuck charged for each buy/sell stock trade. That will drop next quarter.
- Asset management: Schwab manages your money for a fee. And sets up retirement funds... for a fee. It made 30% of its revenues on those fees.
- Interest revenue (its secret profit puppy): When you place money in a Schwab account and don't invest, it's open season for Schwab to invest the cash for you on its own behalf. Chuck made a whopping 60% of its revenue by investing and lending out customers' uninvested cash, which was just sitting there.
That profit puppy is under threat... Econ textbooks suggest that banks should pay you for the privilege of holding your money, because that's the same money banks use to make loans. But the national average interest rate is just 0.01% for bank accounts. Schwab offers 0.2% to customers for giving it their cash. Now some publicly traded banks offer higher-yield accounts to win those bucks away from Schwab:
- Citizens Bank: 2%
- Goldman Sachs' "Marcus": 1.9%
- Ally Financial: 1.8%
Trolled
Emerson Electric gets called out in a hedge fund's Burn Book
The very 1st electric fans in the US... were sold by St. Louis-based Emerson Electric. Founded by a Civil War vet in 1890, Emerson's grown to become a $42B maker of electric motors and storage systems. But there's a problem: Over the last 10 years, the stock market has performed twice as well as Emerson's shares — and its competitors were 3 times better.
“Change is needed at Emerson Electric”... That's one of the opening slides in the aggressive pitch deck created by hedge fund D.E. Shaw. The firm now owns 1% of Emerson, but is trolling the company to make major adjustments. So it crafted a Burn Book-style slideshow and open letter calling out Emerson's flaws. Lots of them.
- Emerson treated itself to 8 private jets and 1 helicopter so execs don't have to go through TSA.
- It splurges on a staff of 40 to run that aerial fleet — supported by an entire summer internship program.
- There are a whopping 18 Emerson facilities in just the city of Houston alone.
- The fund also got personal, claiming a recent acquisition "destroyed value" and caused "extreme shareholder dissatisfaction."
We’re doing this to help you, not hurt you... The activist hedge fund isn't just hating on Emerson — it wants to “work together to unlock value for all shareholders” (their words). Emerson's stock rose because investors now see the sickness, along with D.E. Shaw's prescription:
- Get frugal (slash annual spending by $1B)
- Keep leadership hungry (force board members to run for re-election every year)
What else we’re Snackin’
- Grad: Chipotle will reimburse tuition for business and tech degrees (no free guac)
- Flix: AMC takes its movie theaters online by launching a streaming platform to buy/rent 2K films
- Spoiled: Taco Bell recalls 2.3M pounds of beef after a customer discovered some "shredded metal" mid-bite
- Matching: Burberry teams up with luxe consignment shop TheRealReal to try reselling $2,700 trench coats
- $$$: WeWork is expected to run out of cash within weeks — so its biggest investor, Softbank, is working with JPMorgan to fund the unicorn
Wednesday
- Earnings from Netflix, Bank of America, IBM, and Comerica
ID: 983591
