🇺🇸 Springsteen and the Great Cash-Out

…and Toys R Us’s American dream revival [Disclosures](   Slopes next to the Saks store [bojanstory/E+ via Getty Images]   Yesterday’s Market Moves   Dow Jones 35,898 (-0.08%) S&P 500 4,669 (-0.87%) Nasdaq 15,180 (-2.47%) Bitcoin $47,825 (-2.17%) Dow Jones 35,898 (-0.08%) S&P 500 4,669 (-0.87%) Nasdaq 15,180 (-2.47%) Bitcoin $47,825 (-2.17%) Hey Snackers, Happy preholiday-week Friday. Lay’s owner [Pepsi]( is celebrating with a new [Lay’s chips vodka]( distilled from Lay’s “proprietary potatoes.” We’re imagining Sour Cream & Onion spuds. The tech-heavy [Nasdaq]( index lost 2.1% yesterday as central banks in the UK and the EU [moved]( to tighten their monetary policies. Boss Bruce Springsteen sells his tunes for a record $500M as the Great Cash-Out continues Born to run… to the bank. Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen [sold]( the rights to all his music to [Sony]( for a reported $500M+, the largest music-rights deal ever. Sony will profit from your streams of classics like “Born in the U.S.A.” on platforms such as [Spotify]( YouTube, and TikTok. - Music mega-deals have boomed this year: Sony spent $1.4B on music in just the first six months of 2021. - Bob Dylan sold his catalog to Universal Music for an estimated $300M last December, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Paul Simon sold their catalogs for $140M+ this year. #Flated tunes… The value of popular music catalogs soared this year as demand grew across social platforms (TikTok today, the metaverse tomorrow). Many musicians chose to cash out on the premium prices. And they weren’t the only ones: - Stocks: Corporate execs sold a record number of shares this year. Elon Musk recently sold nearly $13B worth of [Tesla]( stock, and last month [Microsoft]( CEO Satya Nadella offloaded half his MSFT shares. - Entertainment: Roald Dahl’s estate sold the rights to his beloved kids’ books to [Netflix]( for $700M, and [MGM]( is selling its films (and itself) to [Amazon]( for $8.5B. - Real estate: Home prices soared to fresh records in 2021, spurring the most home sales in 15 years. THE TAKEAWAY This year was the Great Cash-Out... because next year is the great unknown. 2021 was a seller’s market because of high prices (thanks, inflation) and easy borrowing (thanks, low interest rates). 2022 may be different: The Fed is expected to raise interest rates three times to curb soaring prices. President Biden and Dem lawmakers plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, which could reduce gains from cashing out. Meanwhile, the fast-spreading Omicron variant is creating greater economic uncertainty. Slide Toys R Us makes a mega US comeback, as malls take the “anchor” approach Jumbo slide in aisle six… not your regular toy store. Childhood legend Toys R Us is staging a major US rebirth. In 2017, the chain was sitting on $5B in debt as the “buy now” button on Amazon replaced shelf-browsing for the latest superhero figure. Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy and closed all US locations, leaving 900 international stores running. Until now: - Toys R Us just opened its first standalone US flagship store featuring a two-story slide, an ice-cream parlor, and a Geoffrey the Giraffe café. - Over the next year, [Macy's]( also plans to open 400 Toys R Us shop-within-shops in its US department stores (#InceptionRetail). Department store après-ski… Toys R Us isn’t the only one [Disney-ifying]( its shopping experience. Its new store is nestled right outside the American Dream mall in New Jersey. And it’s wild: - The mall features an indoor ski park, a water park, mini-golf courses, a Nickelodeon Universe, and even an aquarium. Oh, and hundreds of stores and restaurants. - It’s the most expensive mall ever built in the US, and the second largest. The magical megamall is $3B in debt, and made only $139M in sales in the first half of this year. THE TAKEAWAY To nail the mall, you must nail the anchor… The e-commerce-driven mall-pocalypse has turned many malls into tenant-less ghost towns. That’s why malls can’t just be malls anymore. They need an anchor to survive — whether that’s outdoor dining, a grocery store, or a full-on ski resort. Surprise: Landlords [filled]( about 50% more real-estate space in open-air shopping centers last quarter than they did pre-pandemic. Anchors like grocery stores, fitness studios, and pharmacies led the mall revival. Food first, shopping second. What else we're Snackin' - [Rev]( [Rivian]( lost $1.2B on $1M in sales in its first quarterly earnings as a public company. Still, the electric-truck maker confirmed plans to build a $5B Georgia plant. - [Awk]( [H&R Block]( is trying to stop Block calling itself Block. The tax-prep company is suing fintech giant [Square]( over its new name… Block. - [Repay]( [McDonald’s]( settled a lawsuit with disgraced former CEO Steve Easterbrook, forcing him to repay his severance of $105M. - [Mod]( Reddit said it confidentially filed to go public (read: We can’t see its #s yet). In August, the social site raised $700M at a $10B+ valuation. - [Budly]( While the hard-seltzer boom continues, Bud Light is launching a hard soda. It’s not the only one: [Pepsi]( plans to roll out a boozy Mountain Dew next year. - [BNPL]( The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is probing “buy now, pay later” programs like [Affirm]( Klarna, and [PayPal]( over concerns about how they affect consumer debt. 🍪 Thanks for Snacking with us! Want to share the Snacks? Invite your friends to sign up [here](. The Snacks Daily Podcast Blockbuster helped invent the modern gift card. Then Starbucks made it refill-able. [Tune in]( to hear why the gift card is the hottest gift of 2021. Snack Fact Of the Day [“Impossible cheeseburger” was Grubhub’s top order of the year, with the plant-based meal more than 5X’ing from last year]( Friday - Earnings expected from: Darden Restaurants and Winnebago Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Square, Netflix, Starbucks, Spotify, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla ID: 1 Robinhood Snacks newsletters and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robinhood Financial LLC (Member [SIPC]( and do not reflect the views of Robinhood Markets, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are for informational purposes only, and are not a recommendation of an investment strategy or to buy or sell any security, digital asset (cryptocurrency, etc) in any account. They are also not research reports and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision. 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