🚿 Unilever wants you to shower more

Check the armpits... Odds are, a Unilever product is on (or in) your body. The giant Anglo-Dutch conglomerate makes everything from Dove soap to Lipton tea to Axe body spray. It also boasts the world's largest ice cream biz, with brands like Ben & Jerry's, Breyers, and the Magnum-making swirly red heart brand whose name inexplicably changes in every European country.

• Unilever is a mirror into the world's consumer habits — its wide variety of everyday products sell in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. 70% of its sales come from outside the Americas.
• Unilever brought in $13.4B in sales for the last quarter (nearly $2B for ice cream sales alone), with flat overall growth compared to last year. More interestingly, its latest earnings report reveals the world's shifting buying and using habits.

“Less hair washing”... An actual line from Unilever’s earnings presentation — it knows you're using less of its big TRESemmé bottles. As the WFH and Zoom-in-your-undies life takes over, people are doing less shaving, hair washing, and deodorizing — 11 fewer "personal care" usages every week.

• Personal care products like deodorant and shampoo were hoarded at the beginning of lockdown — now they're being used (and bought) way less.
• In-home food products like Ben & Jerry's pints and Hellman's mayo saw a sales surge, but out-of-home food sales plummeted as most restaurants, movie theaters, and public venues closed. Classic see-saw effect.

Big Defense Energy... Raytheon's feeling it. It's the world's largest missile-builder and one of the biggest US defense contractors, along with military-vehicle-producing, big-weapon-pumping companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. The US Air Force just tapped Raytheon to build its new nuclear-tipped cruise missile.

• Raytheon's military biz is doing pretty well — it's the only prime contractor on this missile project, so it doesn't have to share much weapon-making $$$ with its peers. Lockheed snagged a "supporting role," but Raytheon gets the nuclear defense Oscar.
• But Raytheon's commercial biz is struggling — All those civilian flights that need Raytheon-made interiors aren't flying. That's an LDE ("low defense energy") feeling for Raytheon — the stock is down 60% since February, despite the Air Force deal.

A big defense ego... Lockheed Martin's rocking it. While everyone is withdrawing their yearly economic forecasts, Lockheed went ahead and confirmed its revenue goals for 2020. Bold, confident move in these corona-times — but Lockheed can swing it:

• The US gov is Lockheed's biggest client, accounting for around 70% of its revenue.
• Unlike Raytheon, which has some commercial divisions, Lockheed almost exclusively sells to governments, whose purchasing hasn't stopped like many businesses have. That's why its stock is down only 12% since February.
• It even hired 1.7K people in the past month and is looking to hire 5K more.

• Cheesy: Domino's same-store sales jumped over 7% from March 23 to April 19 — the pizza legend continues to win with its delivery and takeout prowess.
• Chipper: Apple will start selling Macs with its own Apple chips by 2021 — it's been using Intel's chips/processors since '06.
• Sketch: Amazon allegedly uses data from 3rd party sellers to develop (cough, copycat, cough) its own competitive private label products.
• Common: Gap needs cash badly — it just stopped paying its April rents.
• Search: Google may cut its marketing budget in half and institute hiring freezes as ad-pocalypse begins.

• Earnings expected from Verizon, AmEx, and American Airlines

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Amazon and fractional shares of Alphabet

ID: 1164548