To begin with, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson was on CNBC's Mad Money discussing reopening trends around the world. He stated, "Consumer mobility shot through the roof and ... we started seeing traffic increasing in our stores." In addition, “Every market around the world is going to see exactly what the United States has experienced here over the last 90 days.” Starbucks is a long time holding in GPM's individual stock portfolios.
Next, trading app Robinhood filed for its long-awaited IPO, saying it will set aside up to 35% of shares for retail investors. Its impressive growth is seen in the S-1 filing: “we generated total revenues of $959 million and $278 million, for year-over-year growth of 245%.” Robinhood had 18M funded accounts in March, up from 12.5M in 2020, assets under management of ~$80B, up from $19.2B YoY, MAUs of 17.7M, and lost $1.4B in Q1. We also learned in the S-1 that Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency meme, makes up about 5-6% of Robinhood's total revenue:
Prior to the filing, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined Robinhood $70M for misleading customers and system outages, the biggest fine it has ever imposed.
Finally, the June Employment Report showed 850 thousand jobs and a 5.9% unemployment rate. Bill McBride from Calculated Risk writes, "The headline jobs number in the June employment report was above expectations, and employment for the previous two months was revised up. However, the participation rate was unchanged and the unemployment rate increased slightly to 5.9%." Here is a great chart from Bill that shows the difference of the current employment situation versus previous post-WWII recessions:
Have a great 4th of July weekend!
Here is some music for your weekend:
"The latest installment of Light In The Attic’s exclusive vinyl and digital singles series features Toronto’s BADBADNOTGOOD with Jonah Yano on vocals covering “Key To Love (Is Understanding),” originally recorded in 1982 by Milwaukee’s funk/soul pioneers Majestics."