Red Bull Gives You Wings

Good morning! Aurora marinara: a British woman was left "slightly disappointed" last night after what she thought was [the Northern Lights]( turned out to be… a nearby tomato factory. Today we’re exploring: - Energized: Tesla’s energy generation and storage business is growing fast. - Energized: Applications to MBA programs are seeing a big rebound. - Energized: Dr Pepper’s parent company acquires a ~$1 billion energy drink brand. Have feedback for us? Just hit reply - we'd love to hear from you!   Elon Musk is a lot richer this morning than he was a few days ago, after Tesla's stock [soared 22% yesterday](, after reporting better-than-expected profit margins, despite a miss on revenue, in its [Q3 earnings](. The closely watched gross margin came in at 19.8%, way ahead of expectations for a print of 16.8%, as investors get over the fact that revenue from actually selling cars has slipped into neutral, rising just over 1% in the last year. Externally, the company is increasingly billing itself as anything but a car company, with robotaxis and humanoids key to its future ([maybe](). But, while those didn’t have any explicit impact on the company’s actual numbers this quarter, what is firing on all cylinders is the company’s energy generation and storage business, which reported growth north of 50%, by far the best of Tesla’s divisions. Not only is the energy generation and storage business growing rapidly, but on a relative basis it’s also significantly more profitable for Tesla than selling cars: the company reported a 31% gross profit margin from its energy efforts, nearly double the 16% from automotive sales. It’s worth noting, of course, that nothing beats the $739 million worth of pure profit from automotive regulatory credits. The company’s energy business ranges from Megapack, a product aimed at large-scale utilities deployment, to products geared for end customers in smaller households like the Tesla Powerwall, and it also sells and installs solar-power systems. Demand for Tesla’s energy-storage solutions is expected to only expand, especially with [growing installations]( of renewable-energy sources like wind and solar, which can be volatile and require battery solutions to store the excess energy when its not blowing hard enough or sunny enough. [Read this on the web instead](   What do NBA all-star Shaquille O’Neal, Republican president George W. Bush, and former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg have in common? They all have an MBA: the graduate-level degree that’s often billed — at least by the schools offering the programs, which can cost more than $200,000 — as a golden ticket into the global corporate elite. The S-curve Early classes on the programs likely cover the classic product life cycle, or “S-curve”, which theorizes that most products go through 4 phases: a slow early introduction, rapid growth, maturity, and then decline. With the first MBA [introduced in Harvard in 1908](, the program is certainly mature, and industry insiders were claiming we’d seen “[peak MBA](” as recently as February. But, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s latest annual [Application Trends Survey](, 2024 has seen record growth in demand for graduate management education, with MBA applications soaring 13% from 2023, following 2 consecutive years of decline. Grads around the globe are turning to business master’s programs to stand out in the somewhat chilly white-collar job market, with B-School often seen as a surefire way to bolster a resume, especially if the school in question is particularly prestigious. Per the [Wall Street Journal](, Columbia Business School applications are up 27% from last year, while applications at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Harvard Business School have risen 22% and 21%, respectively. According to the report, graduate management education programs hosted by US colleges specifically were up 8% year-on-year, driven by the number of American applicants rising almost 19%. [Read this on the web instead](   On Thursday, Keurig Dr Pepper — one of the world’s leading beverage businesses, with a portfolio of more than 125 brands including 7UP and Folgers Coffee — announced it was set to [acquire 8-year-old energy-drink-maker Ghost]( in a deal worth more than $1 billion. With so many energy-drink varieties on the market, Ghost has set itself apart with sugar-free, caffeinated offerings that come in candy-inspired flavors like Sour Patch Kids and [Swedish Fish](. Marking Keurig’s [biggest deal]( since buying Dr Pepper Snapple Group in 2018, the company will put down an initial investment of ~$990 million for a 60% ownership stake, before acquiring the other 40% in 2028. While only a small dent in Keurig’s huge ~$50 billion market value, the move positions the company’s US refreshment-beverages segment to capitalize on the global demand for energy drinks — which has soared over the past two decades and grew a further ~10% in 2023, per [Nielsen estimates](. Gives you wings (and competitors) Top global brand Red Bull sold ~12 billion cans worldwide last year, notching sales of €10.6 billion (~$11.4 billion). However, success breeds competition, and Red Bull now has a crowd of rivals snapping at its heels. Data from research firm [Mintel]( shows that the number of energy drinks on the market has increased by 21% in the last three years, and while Red Bull’s biggest competitor by some way is Monster, burgeoning brands like newcomer Prime have also made a dent: the YouTube-hyped drink sold [$1.2 billion worth]( of its product last year. Still, with an F1 team, a music festival, a host of marketing stunts, and even a [soapbox race]( in its roster, Red Bull has firmly kept its crown in the energy-drinks space as a private, independent company by expanding its reach far beyond convenience-store shelves… leaving the rest of the sector to play a game of caffeine-opoly. [Read this on the web instead](   More Data - [Sam’s Club](�€™s latest innovation is a pizza robot that’s cranking out 100 pies an hour at its Grapevine, Texas location. - Versace’s parent company [Capri Holdings]( saw its stock drop 45% after its merger with Tapestry, the parent of fashion brands Kate Spade and Coach, was blocked by a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission. - Golden ball: Los Angeles Dodgers star [Shohei Ohtani](’s 50th home run ball fetched an unprecedented $4.39 million at auction. - Cold reality: [Polar bears]( now face a higher risk of contracting viruses, bacteria, and parasites that they were less likely to encounter just 30 years ago, thanks to global warming. - A banana duct-taped to a wall, or an artwork titled “[Comedian](”, is on sale again, after fetching $120,000 back in 2019.   Hi-Viz - Last year, the US saw roughly two and a half newspapers close per week. [Axios]( maps the US counties where more than 50 million people are now left in “news deserts”. Off the charts: Which metric reached an all-time high of 2,781 in March of this year? A) The number of pickleball courts in America B) The number of employees at Meta C) The number of billionaires in the world D) The number of Starbucks stores in China [Answer here.](   Thanks for stopping by! Have some [feedback](mailto:daily@chartr.co?subject=Feedback&body=Hi, I like the newsletters, but I had a thought for you...) or want to [sponsor this newsletter](mailto:advertising@sherwoodmedia.com?subject=I’m interested in advertising with Sherwood Media)?   Not a subscriber? Sign up for free below. [Subscribe](   [X]( [Instagram]( [Chartr Logo]( Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... 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