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Hear that? That's me in Tokyo learning to make sushi from a master. How did I get here? I invested wisely. Now the only thing I worry about is using too much wasabi. Get where you're going with spy, the world's most traded etf. Getting there starts here with State Street Investment Management.
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Before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Visit state street.comim for prospectus containing this and other information. Read it carefully. Spy subject to risks similar to those of stocks. All ETFs are subject to risk, including possible loss of principal. Alps Distributors Inc. Distributor Physical AI looks to deliver we explore Serve Robotics, the company behind the largest fleet of those cute sidewalk bots. Campbell's Soup, in business for over a century, sees its stock hit a new 23 year low. We've got the latest from earnings that were not good and the $90 billion opportunity hidden in E waste as the demand for critical minerals surges in the age of a founders are betting on discarded technology to power supply. For Wednesday, March 11 is Blue Markets Daily and I'm Ann Barry. More market details to come. But first, in the age of AI, is recycling electronics the new way to mine for critical minerals? And if so, who's going to do it? Well, about 12 years ago, it's going back in history now while buying companies for private equity firm I was obsessed, obsessed with the horrible amount of electronic waste or E waste that gets dumped in to landfills. It's absolutely huge and here's a mental image to paint the picture. To make the point, data from 2022, E waste generated that year weighed the same as 107,000 of the world's biggest passenger aircraft. Imagine them all lined up from New York all the way to Athens. Now the amount of the stuff has only gone up since then and is expected to hit over 80 million tons a year by 2030. And this stuff is toxic because discarded products with a plug or a battery are health and environmental hazards because they contain substances such as mercury, which can damage the human brain. So here's what I learned in my hunt to try to find a way to solve some of this. Because I was looking to buy an electronics recycling company, the thought was let's keep it out of the landfill. But recycling E waste, what I thought would be the panacea in fact, is incredibly difficult because as with the recycling that we experience every day at home, that could be glass, paper and metal, separating the types of waste is critical. But if you think about electronics and E waste, the components are often Teeny tiny and they're finicky to extract, making it a people intensive deconstruction process, which translates in developed countries to being an expensive one. And this results in only about 20% global recycling rates. It's pretty low. Which means the rest of our discarded phones and computers and batteries and kettles and appliances and lamps and TVs and printers, you name it, they are literally ending up in holes in the ground. Well, to make the math work, any one recycling company needs to be processing vast amounts of waste so that they can get paid real collection and processing fees. Which then leaves the question, who's going to pay that? Would it be municipalities? And they also need to be able to sell the components that they're extracting for real money. And it's this last point that got me thinking that I should go look at the sector again. And that's because the rise in demand for critical minerals driving the AI supply chain means that perhaps the math that didn't work before now, maybe it will. Well, in 2022, the United nations estimated that metals embedded in E waste hit about $90 billion, which included 19 billion in copper and another 15 billion in gold. And we know that since then, the price of copper is up around 60%, while the price of gold is up threefold. And then you've got silver, which is another metal that sits inside E waste. And as with copper, that precious metal is on the US Administration's list of elements deemed critical to national and economic security. So with all this context, there were a slew of announcements this week that caught my eye. The former head of the recycling business at Glencore, which is the $83 billion market cap commodities giant, has a new startup, it's called Valor Targeting. Exactly the separation of metals and rare earths from E waste that we're talking about. Then there's Samsara Echo, it's a great name. An Australian startup that uses enzymes to make plastics and E waste reusable. And that company is now raising more than $70 million. Its technology on retrieving, yes, critical minerals from electronics. So it's a trend I'm keeping an eye on. And the question for our show, of course is how to play it. Well, few public companies are in pure play E waste recycling, and certainly with any real scale. So you've got Casella waste ticker, CWST, trading on the NASDAQ with a $5.7 billion market cap. It has a toe, maybe five toes dipped into the E recycling water. Small part of the business. Waste management, the mammoth 95 billion dollar trash giant trading on the nice E ticket. WM is in this business, but again, a tiny percent of overall activity. Maybe it grows over time. And then you've got Sims, which is the global leader in metal recycling listed in Australia. And while it's best known for the likes of activities like smelting big, big chunks of metal retrieved from demolition sites, it's the closest thing really out there to being scaled in E waste. Its market cap, though, still pretty small and at under $3 billion. So this whole space, one that is strategically and economically, in my view, ripe for the picking. So we've got eyes on this one and we're going to keep on watching. Coming up, Serve Robotics is delivering burritos and collecting data. We take a look at what's fueling the company's growth. And is Papa John's going global? From Indiana to Qatar, the pizza company and its signature garlic sauce reportedly piquing the interest of international investors. But first, a word from our presenting sponsor, CME Group. Weathering the market means managing risk while finding opportunities in unexpected places. And John, that's where CME Group comes in.
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That's right. CME Group is the world's leading derivatives marketplace. It enables its clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets while optimizing portfolios and analyzing data. With CME Group, you can capitalize on around the clock access to liquid global futures and options markets across all major asset classes.
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CME Group's clients get a wide range of global benchmark products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.
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Get started@cmegroup.com podcast. That's cmegroup.com podcast.
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Well, perhaps they've come to your town already. Maybe you've almost tripped over one of them. And that's delivery robots that travel by sidewalk. And they use cameras and sensors and GPS to zip around people and pets and obstacles. And they use a secure, temperature controlled compartment in which to carry items. Basically, it's a cooler on wheels and with a flag and a seemingly chipper demeanor. Well, Serv Robotics has grown to operate the largest autonomous sidewalk fleet of these delivery bots in the United States. Some analysts are excited that beyond delivering snacks to your door, these machines actually may be on the forefront of physical AI, artificial intelligence that interacts in the real world. And the potential applications are pretty interesting. So, John, let's start with some history, but then let's get a little bit creative and we think about the technology of Serve Robotics.
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Absolutely. So the history First Serve robotics launched in 2017 as the Robotics division of Postmates. Remember Postmates? They were looking to build out an autonomous sidewalk delivery robot. Then Uber acquired Postmates in 2020, maintaining that robotics unit. A year later, Serve Robotics spun out as an independent company and went public in March 2024. Two years ago. And the company trades currently on the NASDAQ under the ticker S E R V market cap about $825 million.
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So let's take a look at the latest quarterly earnings for Q4. The business reported revenue of $0.9 million. So it's teeny tiny relative to the share of imagination that this company actually has. And then there was guidance for 2026 of $26 million. Again, it's small, but still 10 times the previous year. So again, in terms of revenue, so smaller than you might think. Liquidity is a very important metric for this kind of business. It is for these earlier stage companies. And it had plenty. $260 million on hand in liquidity as of December 31st. So it's positioned well. It's got brand recognition. I think they're super cute. I love these little robots. They've got a fabulous shade of turquoise on them, which I appreciate. But it's a very small business still, John.
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It's small and. But they're growing and they've been using that war chest to do acquisitions. So let's start there. It was a busy year. 2025 for Servit acquired or started the process of buy several different companies. Phantom Auto is one that's connectivity Tech Vebo, which makes kitchen automation technology and that's expanding tech and partnerships with restaurants. Diligent Robots, a medical robotics business. And that deal is expected to close this quarter and bring serve indoors for the first time. So we've been describing these delivery robots outside, but diligent robots has these medical robots that move around. And Ann, the first time I heard about one of these was from my sister in 2004. So 20 years ago, not the same company, but the same kind of concept that she was working as a nurse at Sloan Kettering here in New York City. And for lots of different reasons, they had a pharmacy robot. So you would request the robot, let's say the patient needs two Tylenol and it would leave and it would go to another floor to the pharmacy and it would get the two Tylenol and return them. And one of the reasons that was stated for efficiency, so nurses aren't walking back and forth, but also for security that people weren't Raiding the pill closet.
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Oh, that's interesting. And what year again did you say that?
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2004.
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So that was a long time ago. The other place I saw something you described. And I'm going to feel like an idiot saying now because it's so inconsequential relative to your sister working at Sloane Kettering, those of you don't know, is a. Is a very highly regarded hospital that focuses on cancer treatment in New York. So your sister's doing an amazing thing where I saw a robot, where it caught my eye. I was traveling, and I was traveling through Taiwan. And Taiwan is the birthplace of one of my favorite restaurants in the world. There's now an outpost in New York. There's one in Las Vegas. I think there's one in Seattle. And it's Din Typhoon. Yes, it is so good. So good. And I remember and I hadn't seen this before, and this was probably about two years ago. I go in. This place is absolutely packed. Always, always lines around the block in Taipei. And finally, I'm so excited. Cause my number gets called and I go to the front of the queue and this little robot comes and perches next to me and makes its way through the restaurant. And I had to follow the robot, and it took me to my seat, it took me to my table. And it was incredibly polite because it would say, please keep clear. And it had sort of codes and it had flashing lights. So that's where I saw sort of the equivalent of robotics. And it's much less cool than your sister's experience.
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Well, when I saw that at Din Tai Fung, it was wearing a bow tie.
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Oh, was it?
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So I've had a similarly joyful experience. But the point is that these robots, we think of them as seeing them as the outside. And also CERV is going inside as well.
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Yeah, multipurpose. And also the broader point, I guess we're both making is it's easy to think of something like Serve, which has almost got this meme like figure right? This little robot that's out on the sidewalks delivering pizza or whatever it's delivering. But the truth is this technology is picking up steam in many, many different applications. Another acquisition it made last year was Vayu Robotics. That's V A Y U, which provides the models for AI navigation. So that really is looking at the software and actually the sort of the driving, the brains behind these operations. And so this whole thing has been reinforcing. Serves focus on physical AI as a flywheel. And this is something which Nvidia, by the Way has talked about. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has talked a lot about how the next frontier is robotics and it is the physical world. But what CERV is doing, which reminds me, by the way, of Waymo, yes, Is collecting data as its robots move around the world. So it's not just serving the particular purpose of the mobility of its robots. Taking an item from A to B, the data it's collecting on the way is turning into this sort of huge repository of information that could be mined by AI in differentiated ways. And Ali Kashani, who serves co founder and CEO, said physical AI improves real world data better AI makes the fleet more valuable, and a more valuable fleet funds the next turn of the cycle. That's how he's of articulated this flywheel. And the fleet is growing and as a result that data collection is going to grow enormously as well. Serve deployed its 2000th robot in mid December, which is actually a big number. And his fleet now has a presence across 20 cities. So huge white space to come. You can kind of see the growth trajectory available. It's just a question of whether these things actually pick up some steam and gain some efficiency in sort of more densely populated areas.
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Absolutely. About the technical side and advancements that they're making, but they're also growing. The company through partnerships. Serve has its roots with Uber. As I mentioned, the company now operates deliveries for both uber eats and DoorDash. And there was an announcement just today that Serve is partnering with White Castle, along with existing partnerships with Shake Shack, Little Caesars, Jersey Mike's. And the company's goal is to get delivery costs down to $1 per delivery.
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Well, certainly Wall street is taking to account that aspiration. Again, getting its delivery cost down, projecting positive operating profit in 20, 31 years from now. And for that milestone to hit when sales start sort of topping $500 million, that's Wall Street's way of saying, look, we're buying it. We do buy that. As you get scale, you're going to get operating leverage and you're getting to get your unit economics where they need to be. If you take a look at what the analyst targets are, you can see there's a share price target as high as 26 bucks a share trading at about 19 today, going down. So it's trading today at about 11. The average target amongst the endless community is 19. So again, there's a lot of scope upwards relative to what folks are. Then you've got people with a real buy rating here. So markets are saying they Believe the prospect. They understand what could be on the. Come here. The thing that is interesting is I think the way in which this has gone to market. They've really tried at serve robotics to anthropomorphize these robots. I'm so excited to use the word anthropomorphize. We take a look at them, they're kind of cute. They're small enough to feel unthreatening as they sit past you. And I'm really small. Right. So if I don't find it threatening, then it's appropriately sized. Like I said, it's got this lovely shade of turquoise on it. It's got these AR that remind me of Star wars and the robots in Star wars, they were sort of human, but not so human and they're sort of adorable. There's the robotic equivalent to me of a cuddly toy.
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Right. And you were talking about even going on the website today that as you were scrolling around, it had personality. So, okay, I can see these autonomous bots being used in environments like hospitals and fulfillment centers. There's so many different places. But that last mile delivery as the final product, I'm not sold. There's competition. Just today, grubhub announced a partnership for drone delivery from its ghost kitchen in suburban New Jersey. So that's one way to get that last mile. Urban areas are already crowded. Here in New York City, we have new Amazon vehicles that are technically bikes, but they're quite large. They're clogging up a lot of the lanes.
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They look like tuk tuks, don't they?
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Yes, exactly.
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Yeah, they're great.
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And weather seems to be an issue. And finally, there are countless videos of these poor robots.
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You brought this up. Go on, you love this.
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They're getting destroyed. There's video of one of this kind getting hit by a train, one getting hit by an ambulance. And then, of course, I sourced the office today and Emily, producer on our show. She's from the Philadelphia area.
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Yeah.
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And she said that there's already talk on Philadelphia message boards. Oh, when this thing gets here, like
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they're gonna go off, they're gonna take it out. That's terrifying. I mean, I wouldn't miss. I would not mess with our producer, Emily. And you can see why, given the context she just provided. But there are literally been videos of in stories out there in the press saying, why is America angry with these robots? People are sort of kicking them. It's very, very strange. But just to say, just to sort of finish the thought on the earnings Call Today, the Serve CEO said back to this Nvidia read a quote from him. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called robotics and physical AI the next multi trillion dollar industry. Every major AI company is racing to build models for the physical world. The investment thesis is pretty clear. The companies that build the platform and own the data will capture the value back to the point on the data play and actually being the the brains behind the operations as opposed to just relying on the hardware. Well, just one other note on this and that's on the background of the CEO because John, we've had this debate, haven't we, about the kinds of CEOs that we're seeing at of these companies. Some are more technical, some are more strategic.
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Right? And this CEO falls into the technical category. It's Ali Kashani. As you mentioned, he previously was the vice president of Postmates. So that makes sense. He's an inventor with 50 granted or pending patents. Bachelor of Science in Computer engineering and his doctorate in robotics from the University of British Columbia. So definitely a leader with that tech background.
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Yeah, it's really, really impressive to see some of the backgrounds of folks coming into these spaces these days. Well, shares of serve up as much as 16% today. Ultimately towards the end of the day. Just we're looking at coming up to the market close now. Looks like it's going to finish up around 8 and a half percent, up over 50% year over year and like I said, worth looking at those analyst targets, all of whom are saying that they think this has got room to run above where it is at today. Well, let's take a break and when we come back, a look at today's historic oil reserves announcement from the International Energy Agency plus some other headlines moving the markets today. John, what if I told you you could turn any idea into an investable index?
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I might accuse you of wizardry.
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Head to public.com brewmarkets and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com brewmarkets paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosure in Podcast Description it's not
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just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose. Proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously and we do too, which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose, in every detail and crafted with intention. Timberland built on craft. Visit timberland.com to shop.
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Now onto the continued fallout around the attacks in the Middle east with a historic decision earlier today coming from the International Energy Agency. Well, the agency said it's 32 member countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves, marking the largest coordinated release in the IEA's history and only the sixth release since the agency was founded in 1974 after the Arab oil embargo. Well, the last time the IEA tapped reserves was in 2022, and that was following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And at that time about 182 million barrels were released. So they're less than half half of the scale that we're talking about today.
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And despite today's announcement, the price of Brent crude oil, the global energy benchmark, remained elevated. Prices initially dropped to around $87 a barrel, but quickly reversed course and climbed back up to near $95. One might have expected the move to send prices lower, but attacks in the region do not appear to be slowing and there aren't enough inventories in the world to completely make up for that lost Middle east supply. Yesterday, US forces reportedly sank several Iranian vessels, including 16 mine laying ships ships and meanwhile, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported that three cargo ships in the region were struck by projectiles. So long term supply risks are still very much in play.
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There's also some ambiguity around the announcements. Markets really trying to pass through the details. For its part, Japan plans to begin releasing oil as soon as Monday, but overall the IEA did not provide a clear timeline for the broad release of reserves. It looks like preserving some optionality depending on how the situation continues to unfold. The agency also didn't specify how much of the release would be crude versus more refined products. And I just fell back to a conversation we had with Alix Steel, an oil expert, when the situation in Venezuela erupted and she talked about how there were different kinds of oil for different purposes, demand and supply balances for each being quite different. There it is, the closing bell, 4pm on the east coast of the markets wrapping up for the day. We don't have a ticker tape, so let's throw it over to our producer, our human ticker. John.
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That's right. The S&P 500 finished down a tenth of a percent. The NASDAQ was up a tenth of a percent and the Dow finished down 6. 10 of a percent for the day. Some other market headlines, shares in the Campbell's company ticker CPB were down nearly 7% today hitting a 23 year low. The food and beverage company known for canned soups and SpaghettiOs missed expectations on earnings, revenue and full year guidance.
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Company also reported a 6% decline in snack sales in the most recent quarter. That was driven by weaker demand for chips. And from pretzels. Just a moment there on Campbell. They've really got to figure something out. If you've seen so much movement in food. We've seen mergers, we've been seed couplings, we've spinoffs. Campbell's has been one of the last remaining to announce something really transformational. So watching the company may be forced to do something at some point if this trend continues. But sticking now with food still, let's go over to Papa John's fabulous ticker PZZA. Shares in the pizza chain surging more than 18 and that's after the Wall Street Journal reported that a Qatari backed investment fund has submitted a bid to take the company private. They mean a couple of take private situations in the pizza world recently. Well, according to sources cited by the Journal, the offer from earth Capital Management, $47 per share. That's 10 bucks per share above its current price and value, Papa John's at roughly $1.5 billion.
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The potential deal comes as the pizza chain works to turn around its business amid shifting consumer habits. Earlier this year the company said it would close hundreds of locations, slash menu prices and cut corporate jobs as it looks to improve profitability. I personally like that garlic sauce.
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So here's is my conclusion. We need to have a pizza tasting here on the show because we talk about Pizza Hut because I love stuff crust. We've talked about Domino's, now Papa John's. It feels like the moment is coming to blind test some of this pizza, which is a final thought. Shares of Oracle rose around 8% today after reporting its quarterly results. The software company beat Wall street estimates and boosted its revenue guidance for fiscal 2027. Now Oracle is one of the many software companies hit by the SAS Copolis. But really over broader concerned on AI spend. Its stock is still down nearly 50% from its September highs. That's it for today's Blue Markets Daily.
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Blue Markets Daily is hosted by Anne Barry and produced by John Coteau. Tarkab Delatif, Avani Laro and Emily Millarn. Brittany Detacco is our audio engineer, and the president of Morning Brew, Inc. Is Devin Emery.
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Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neel and Toby on Morning Brew daily. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe.
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Oh, sorry.
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I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
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1-800-contacts.