Ron, at a time when companies are starting to ramp up seasonal hiring, this jobs report indicates that most every industry is in fact having trouble hiring.
I think the main takeaway is that the weakness may give some cover to the Fed and allow them to continue their bond-buying stimulus program and put off the tapering of that program that so many investors are worried about for just a bit longer.
On Sunday, 60 minutes aired an interview with Francis Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, who provided damaging internal documents to the Wall Street Journal for their reports entitled The Facebook Files.
But we are where we are and I think that is one of the main reasons why it’s very difficult for me to believe it will be different this time because so many people and businesses are so entrenched already own their platforms. It’s very difficult to unwind that.
One potential small ripple effect could be, this might make it a little bit harder to recruit top talent.
We do have short memories when it comes to this stuff but the more of this stuff happens, the more of that brand suffers, the less people and businesses trust them.
Ron, I know nine percent growth for the quarter might not seem like a lot, but this is not a software company, this is consumer goods.
The company is seeing supply chain challenges that include everything from a shortage of Gatorade bottles to a lack of truck drivers but as you mentioned, they did raise full-year organic revenue growth guidance to eight percent from six percent due to an expected increase in volumes as well as planned price increases.
Chris Hill: Shares of Constellation Brands up a bit this week after a mixed second-quarter report, profits were lower than expected, but revenue was higher and Constellation raised revenue guidance for the full fiscal year.
I mean, this was a good quarter, I think all the way around, but beer certainly stood out in the face of a difficult seltzer market, but beer sales were up 14 percent.
Chris Hill: Bill Newlands has been CEO for just over two years and obviously for most of that time, he’s been trying to get this business through the pandemic.
I’m not a seltzer guy, but it certainly seems like again, it’s not just a Boston Beer problem, it is widespread.
Shares of Levi Strauss up nearly 10 percent on Thursday after third quarter profits and revenue came in higher than expected.
They’re increasing their direct to consumer business, wholesale up 45 percent direct to consumer up 34 percent and finally earnings grew 570 percent again from pandemic levels but if we go back to 2019 up 57 percent.
First CEO Chip Bergh almost seem like he went out of his way to talk about how they were diversifying in their manufacturing and I don’t blame him for doing this, but really trying to signal the Wall Street our supply chain problems are not as bad as everyone else’s.
Ron Gross: It might be a talk in program to just signal confidence in the company and they can be selective how they put the money to work.
Chris Hill: Last month Delta Air Lines lowered revenue guidance for their upcoming third quarter earnings report.
The Airlines are still going to be losing a ton of money for sure that’s forecast to be around $12 billion in 2022 but it’s a far better situation than 2021 which is obviously a very good thing so it looks like a step in the right direction.
Jason Moser: It does and I think for most industries and I think a lot of that is we have the tools now that we didn’t have a year ago to deal with this situation and I think that speaks to more people feeling more comfortable about getting out there.
I’ve got a remedy here, and I’m going to therefore live my life, I’m going to go out for the holidays, I’m going to get on an airplane, I’m going to go to hotels.
Speaking of Halloween, earlier in the show, we talked about Pepsi snack division and the company has found yet another way to leverage one of their hottest brands.
The bag costume is clearly, obviously the Cheetos bag, but if you look at the actual Cheeto costume, it’s not so apparent what it is until you actually see the branding and the very bottom-right corner that says Cheetos.
A little thing we like to call fill in the blank the final earnings season of 2021 starts next week.
As a result of our hurt by what global supply chain issues specifically forced temporary closures of Nike’s manufacturing facilities in Vietnam and Indonesia, which was necessary to help slow the spread of COVID.
Mark Anderson, who is the former President of Palo Alto Networks, or who’s responsible for sales and go to market strategy, customer satisfaction, all very important roles is also the former Chief Growth Officer of Anaplan.
Those with the ability to raise prices like Pepsi we mentioned earlier, Chipotle comes to mind, I think will be definitely be better able to weather the storm.
I mean, we’re already seeing Amazon, for example hitting the Black Friday button, target doing something similar, I expect that trend will only increase.
Ron Gross: I’m going to go with Disney’s Bob Chapek and not because it is in danger of being fired, but because of the world is watching very intently as Bob Iger rides off into the sunset and Chapek takes full control of the company.
It is going to be imperative that there is some type of regulation that helps bring this together and make Facebook a little bit more of a safe and palatable place to be for the masses.
Keep an eye on the FCC Chairman Gensler has any authority here and that’s going to largely depend on what cryptocurrencies actually end up being determined to be security or currency.
He seem to offer a little support there, but again, he’s got to have the authority to do what he wants to do.
I mean, we know how successful AWS has been, an enemy, Cloudflare is still a small business compared to AWS, but Cloudflare is a very good business.
Chris Hill: Two more guys, the S&P 500 has hit new highs more than 50 times this year but a large number of stocks are currently trading more than 40 percent below their own highs.
But slowing growth in streaming hours and active accounts of some investors spooked stock may have been ahead of itself at $490, I can’t say it wasn’t, but after falling about 35 percent, starting to look interesting to me again.
They’ve really got their foot on the gas here in developing new products and services and they are calling for better than $4 billion in revenue for the full year now, and around $4.75 per share in earnings for the full year.
Ron Gross: It’s interesting to note perhaps why a lot of these high-tech growth companies are off 35, 40 percent from their highs, and there’s a variety of reasons, but one of the main ones is that we’re seeing interest rates tick up, specifically the 10-year treasury.
I mean, these last 18 months, the business has taken off for obvious reasons and I suspect it’s going to be around for some time to come.
Whether you broil it in the oven or grill it on the grill, try a little salmon with some Dizzy Pig pineapple head, and just the one key I will say to this is with about a minute to go, because you don’t want to overcook salmon, with about a minute ago, throw and a nice pad butter on top on that piece of salmon.
Finally, slice some potatoes, toss them in olive oil, fresh Rosemary and chopped garlic, wrap them in aluminum foil, throw them on the grill for 30 minutes, you’ve got New York strip steaks with sides of vegetables and grilled potatoes.
Chris Hill: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks, they talk about on the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear.
But here’s the thing with biotech, even after that 55 percent increase, shares around $4 a share, I own them at $20 a share, so be careful, always buy these types of stocks in a basket.
Jason Moser: Taking a look at Matterport ticker, MTTR, this is a digital imaging business focused on digitizing and indexing the built world, think digital twins for buildings, Chris.