Shoes and Razors (Revisited)

Ever stop to marvel at it: the laser dot of public outrage at a company?

Previously, in “Shoes and Razors,” I provided my own not-a-professional and not-liable-for-financial-disasters perspective on the relationship between outrage and investments…

For comparison:

5 Sep 2018 Nike released its “Just Do It” ad with Colin Kaepernick…

However, five years later…

13 Jan 2019: Gillette released its “Toxic Masculinity” ad…

…However, five years later…

Those boycotts sure taught them, didn’t they?

…[Y]ou might feel a slight sting. That’s pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. It only hurts, it never helps.

Though fictional, the statement applies to those who were so proud to declare their outrage and termination of support.

So very proud… and so very, very forgetful.

Before the reader goes all “But, but… Budweiser…!” I have to admit: that is an outlier. With the exception of a few pharmaceutical stocks (and toilet paper, of all things), almost everything took a dive in the first half of 2020 and is slowly recovering. Predictably, Anheuser-Busch recovered as well – it appears to be a historically solid stock… well… somewhat.

For (limited) context, 1Apr23 marked the debut of a controversial association between a mediocre (at best… and that is a stretch) beer and some individual no one had really paid any mind to before that date.

Yes, I am intentionally vague on the specifics. The controversy – and backlash – requires the context; my own views on the details do not.

It is clear that many folks don’t understand how stocks work. Whether or not they were never exposed to Drug Lord 2 and never experienced the sheer frustration upon the news that racoons consumed copious amounts of a product you had purchased in bulk… well, that’s not important.

What is important is that for such a simple program/game, it taught the importance of a basic rule of investments:

Buy low; sell high (pun entirely coincidental).

To those who loveloveLOVE chasing the ever-elusive laser dot of public outrage, I have this to say:

Have fun.

Historically strong stocks like Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA will continue because there are dispassionate investors out there, watching, waiting, and ready for… just… the… right…price point before hopping on it when it is down and slowly inching upwards…

…And for every one of those folks, there are others who will notice the positive trend and hop back on while the prices are in the “Bargain Basement” levels…

…And for every one of those folks, there are even more who are “better late than never” types…

Before you can say “social media boycotts work,” the stock will have recovered, the laser dot of public outrage will be elsewhere, and I will have a 10-year update reminding folks that, simply put, “social media boycotts don’t work”… at least, not in the way social media would lead folks to believe.

So. Enjoy that feel-good sensation of “sticking it” to whomever has been targeted for whatever reason. Just like short lines at the Chick-Fil-A drive throughs or ample parking for a week at Target a few months ago, others shall benefit for a bit. Perhaps there will be sales of gun safes which liquidate suddenly (but briefly) stagnant stocks… whatever. Most people will and do forget, and just like the repercussions of poor foreign diplomacy from “the administration before the previous one/the one before that one/the one before before that one/etc.,” others will capitalize on the abbreviated attention spans.

Others, however, won’t forget; they will note events and plan accordingly.