#21

Monday, March 14, 2022

**NOTHING HERE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED INVESTMENT ADVICE!!**

Good morning to all the wingmen/wingwomen who endured a [forced] fast of tasty boneless wings as I was away last week. Here’s a few noteworthy and tasty bites that either happened or are happening worth talking about. Enjoy!

Shake me off a piece of that…..crypto! Yes, that’s right, Shake Shack is really shaking things up with a recent promotion they’re adding to the menu. Not a new crinkle-cut fry recipe, special fry sauce (spoiler alert: special fry sauce tends to just = ketchup + mayo 🤯 ) or some new banana split type of shake (…..where you’re always pondering whether they actually put any real bananas in there or just banana flavoring)…..none of those.

But the fast-food chain is partnering with Cash App and offering customers 15% of their food order back in Bitcoin.

As crypto currencies and its underlining technologies continue to gain momentum around the world, here’s one more example of this going mainstream. While the promotion only lasts until mid-March, it really targets the company’s younger customer demographic to see if this creates an increase in demand. It also provides a great use case for so many others sitting on the sideline to see if this works. More importantly, will this prove Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general) has a legitimate utility to use for every-day purchases……including burgers, fries, and cherry pies!

They aren’t the first fast food chain to use Bitcoin in a promotion (both Burger King and McDonalds have previously) but both were more of a lottery promotion where your name could be pulled to win some crypto prizes and NFTs. This is different. They are leading the pack on this.

But we can’t be too surprised with Shake Shack taking risks and leading the revolution here. They are no stranger to defying the odds! If you aren’t aware here are some interesting bites to appreciate…..

• Started off in 2001 as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park.
• By 2004, expanded to a hot dog stand and added burgers, fries and shakes to the menu.
• Intense focus on the customer and on their quality…..becoming one of the fastest growing fast food chains.
• Took the company public in 2014
• Has over 250 locations globally
• And today is worth around $2.7B……with a B!!

No, I’m not surprised they are doing this. And neither should you.

The season of lent is among us and lasts for 40 days leading up to and culminating with Easter Sunday. Someone please call Tom Brady that his fast is not over! (One of you can make this happen. You know who you are. Do it.)

So why am I saying this? The G.O.A.T., Tom Brady has decided to come out of retirement, after fasting football for 40 days, and TWEETED his intention to play in his 23rd season in the NFL. Stating he has “unfinished business” to deal with.

What in the world? Listen, I’m a Tom fan. No question where he stands in both the history books (#subjective) and the official record books (#objective). But I just don’t see how you retire and then come back out of retirement 2 months later…..especially given his long tenured career. Whether TB12 wins another championship or not, he will go down as the greatest of all time.

In my mind, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose. But I’d rather see him leave 100% healthy and move to the next phase of his well-earned and deserved life. Like spending more time with his family, focusing on all his many lucrative business endeavors……all without any major lingering injuries to deal with the rest of his life.

Many people will tell me all about the heart of a champion, his competitive drive, why he’s the 🐐 and I’m a bum, etc… etc…. And all those things are true. But I prefer to see him walk away 100% healthy. He has nothing to prove in my mind. Why is that? To name a few….

• Selected as the 199th overall player in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft
• Completed 22 seasons as an NFL quarterback (first 20 of which were with the New England Patriots, last two with the Tampa Bay Bucaneers)
• 7x Super Bowl Champion
• 5x Super Bowl MVP
• 3x NFL MVP
• 2x NFL Offensive Player of the Year
• 15x Pro Bowl selection
• Most NFL championships by a player…..7 (tied)
• Most career passing yards…..84,520
• Most career passing touchdowns…..624
• Most career passing completions….7,263

These are just a few. There’s a much longer list HERE if interested.

So without knowing the answer to this perplexing situation. Let’s do what we were always taught not to do……speculate and make up fake assumptions!!

Here are some credible (read: not credible) theories of why Tom Brady has come out of retirement after only 40 days. Which do you lean towards?

1. After customers of his personal apparel company, TB12, realized they can buy this basic B t-shirt from Target for $6 vs $30 from TB12, company financials aren’t as strong as forecasted…..so he needs to earn more money……?
2. He wasn’t pleased with the farewell video compilation that was put together for him the last go round……here’s another chance to make that right?
3. After just a few [LONG] weeks of being back home and having to share in some of the parenting work load for his 3 kids he was like…..“nah, I ain’t built for this. Let’s go back and risk it all!!”  (....all the dads out there are standing and slow clapping right now.)

As always….when in doubt, go with answer C (….in this case 3)!

Tom, again, big fan here whatever your reasons. Just know you don’t have anything more to prove at 44 years old. In fact, IMHO, more to lose than gain here. But respect you deserve and respect you will receive.

All that said Tom…..LFG!!!!!

While we were away, Amazon decided to split its stock. Pretty cool and valuable in my mind. But some argue there’s still more upside beyond the stock split. Mid last week, the tech giant skipped over offering a measly 2 for 1 stock split…..and went for it with a 20 for 1 stock split!

So, what does that even mean? Typically, a stock split is done when the stock price gets too high. And by splitting the stock and creating more shares, you’re able to bring the price per share down…..allowing more investors (mainly individual/retail investors) to participate. In this case, Amazon is currently around $2,900 for 1 share of stock. By completing a 20 for 1 split, it would bring the price down to around $145/share. Again, by lowering the per share it will create more shares out in circulation. Therefore, Amazon also announced a $10 Billion share buyback which further adds value to the stock price and shareholders!

But some argue there is even more upside to Amazon’s share price. Here are a few of those arguments worth noting.

• Amazon’s retail revenue growth has yet to see a ‘post-pandemic’ spike. (I believe this could be argued against, but nonetheless….it’s a point)
• It’s only just started to gain traction by entering the ‘multi-channel grocery’ business (…think Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh)
• Wall Street analysts currently forecast only about 12.5% revenue growth for the e-commerce business in 2022….many think this should be much higher.
• Most notable argument…..Amazon’s AWS has yet to peak! It apparently has close to $80B in gross backlog here.
• AWS drives 75% of Amazon’s overall operating income! 🤯 And the AWS business is expected to continue it’s growth trajectory with +33% in 2022.

Does this come with risk? Of course! But given Amazon’s continued dominance as well as how they’re currently positioned across several businesses (…especially AWS) then I suspect a lower stock price will only entice millions of additional investors to jump onto the Amazon train driving the stock further up.

Deuces. ✌️