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A
Six flags is circled by activists. One brings real estate ideas, the other brings Travis Kelsey. We unpack what's going on Qualcomm, Porsche and Lululemon. We break down today's market movers and flying taxi stocks are flying high. What should investors be watching? We ask Archer Aviation's co founder and CEO Adam Goldstein for Monday, October 27th is Brewmarkets Daily. And I'm Ann Ber. More market details to come. But first, flying taxi stocks have flown up this year. So with earnings looming for the two major players, we wanted to dig into the context for why, starting with the June executive order in which the White House made it clear that promoting new aircraft technologies is a priority for this administration, launching the tagline quote unleashing American drone dominance. Now, this includes electric vertical takeoff and landing or EVTOL aircraft, both manned and autonomous and actually with passengers inside it, paving the way for what essentially feels like electric helicopters taking to American skies. Now, since that announcement, two publicly traded evtol companies have had strong share price performances. And if we look over the past six months, Joby Aviation ticker J O B Y has seen a nearly 150% increase in its stock price grabbing headlines with its acquisition of helicopter services business Blade and announcing a partnership with rideshare giant Uber. Archer Aviation ticker ACHR has seen a 30% jump in its share price over the same period, announcing a deal with Korean Air for 100 of its midnight aircraft, as well as a partnership with the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment commission that positions Arch's air taxis for visibility during the 2026 World cup and the 2028 Olympics. Now, from a technology perspective, it's an incredibly exciting time. But from a market's point of view, the message is a little less clear because with $14 billion and $7 billion in market cap respectively, Joby and Archer each generate almost zero revenue today. Well, I sat down with Archer CEO Adam Goldstein to ask when that revenue will come, what timelines investors should expect for military and commercial uses of Archer aircraft to go live, and if public safety concerns about small aircraft like helicopters can be overcome by software capabilities in their electric counterparts. Well, stick with us for the conversation. It actually got quite spicy at times. Meanwhile, coming up, Six Flags ticker fun that's fun is being eyed by activist Jana Partners. We break down why Travis Kelce is partnering with a hedge fund and we run through today's market movers. That's Qualcomm, Porsche, Lululemon, and a couple more. But first, a word from our sponsor capital group, John Why don't you tell us a bit more about their new show, the Power of Advice.
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That's right. I've learned a lot from the show. They share that some of the best lessons don't come from a classroom. They come from experience.
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The Power of Advice is a new limited series from Capital Ideas and Capital Group. You'll hear candid conversations with leaders and innovators who've built brands, reimagined careers and learned a lot along the way.
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B
Who shaped their journeys. Who gave them advice that changed everything. Tune in and hear what they've learned and what they're passing on.
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A
Go check out the Power of Advice published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Well, last week an interesting story made the headlines, and that's super bowl champ Travis Kelce taking a stake in Six Flags, the amusement park company. Now, I gotta tell you, we absolutely saw this hit the headlines, but in the thick of earnings, we thought we would focus instead on breaking down exactly what was driving share prices based on what they were reporting over the course of last week. But this weekend I did what I tend to do, which is catch up on the news. I literally go and buy print properties at the Financial Times, the Economist, or the Wall Street Journal. And I literally could not put down an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend that broke down exactly why a famous footballer is jumping in to take a look at an amusement park operator with. With a hedge fund. So we're going to break this down a bit because actually, when you unpack what's going on, there's a lot more that meets the eye and it touches on a lot of themes that move stocks on a much more regular basis.
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B
Yeah, I was really interested to read about this, partially because I know Six Flags. I'm familiar with that and so was Travis Kelce. We both grew up going to these kind of amusement parks. So let me just tell you about the deal, the potential deal Travis partnered with, with Johnna, like you mentioned, and a few other parties, they're putting in around $200 million into Six Flags and which would give them a 9% stake in the company. And just as a reminder about Six Flags ticker symbol. Fun. As you mentioned, the share price is down 44% year to date. Last year, the company merged with Cedar Fair. That's the Cedar Point chain of amusement parks. The combined company has a market cap of about two and a half billion dollars. But with five billion dollars of debt on the books, they're having a tough time. And guest attendance was down 9% year over year. And Then Six Flags, in its latest quarterly earnings, said it lost 10 million annual visitors during the pandemic. Pandemic. So they're just down. The CEO is stepping down at the end of this year. So I'm wondering is. Is there just a vacuum now? They. They did this merger. It didn't go well, and the CEO is leaving now. They're looking for a change.
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Yeah. And it almost feels with this one, doesn't it? If you're going to make a change, just rip off the band aid.
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B
Sure.
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Right. And do all the change at once. Which isn't completely atypical when we think about how public companies sometimes struggle to make difficult decisions as they're in the glaring public eye of their investors. The. The thing here that struck me, I mean, everything's sort of going poorly for them at the moment. Guest attendance down, a merger that hasn't gone so well, Definitely got too much debt. And then the golden child while all this is going on, of course, is Disney. Right. When you listen to Disney talk about their business, John, they're constantly talking about how well theme parks are sort of performing and springing back to life, and they're building new international locations. So it's a real contrast in stories on this one.
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B
And Disney has found that its attendees are willing to pay a premium. And Six Flags raised its prices, thinking that, well, we'll get fewer people in the door. It didn't work.
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A
Right. And also they tried to sort of tweak around the edges, right, Saying that we're going to have better beverages and we're going to have marginally better queuing experiences. But at the end of the day, it kind of looks the same, it feels the same, it just is a bit more expensive. The thing that struck me here, and again, there's so many themes around investing here, how difficult it is to turn around when you're in the public eye, number one. Number two, how an activist can really shake things up and get attention on. On a company that's been flagging, pun intended. And then number three is really thinking about what are the different kinds of companies that tend to attract attention. So if we look at China Partners, it's got more than $2 billion in assets under management. It's a large number, but actually not as large as some other professionally managed funds out there. They've come into the headlines recently. John. John Partners took a stake in Coopervision within the last couple of weeks, which is the contact lenses business, and is stoking up potentially a deal for Bausch and Lom. Public company to go buy the contact lens piece of Cooper, leaving behind some women's fertility assets, so perhaps to split the company. So they're making major moves. Also in the past, Joanna has shaken up Fresh pet, famously in 2023. So the, the thing that Jana Partners is focusing on here is really the consumer experience. There's another activist we'll talk about in a bit who's saying, go and do some more things with your real estate portfolio, Six Flags, and get some money out of that, which we'll come back to. But Jana is really saying, look, you gotta fix your fix, fix your technology, build your loyalty, get a loyalty program going that's much more inspiring and improve the actual customer experience. And this is sort of Travis Kelce's perspective, right? It's the stuff that he feels he knows, right?
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B
Exactly. It's what he grew up with. And he said this on his podcast to his brother. We're going to be part of the theme parks and amusement parks that actually rocked our world as kids and hopefully give families nowadays the fun and the memories that we had and cherished growing up. And so the Wall Street Journal article had some insight into Travis Kelsey's investing. Said he's invested in over 30 companies. And they said that the point is that he invests in what he knows and he tries out these companies, including things like consumer goods, software, entertainment, and also Garage Beer, where they pointed out that he and his brother enjoyed a lot of Garage Beer before they invested in the company. But just does knowing a product make it a good investment?
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A
That's a good question. I mean, investing what you know is the old to the age old adage, right? But I'll give you an example. I know PayPal, right? I know Venmo. And one of my great complaints as a shareholder in that until I sort of gave up and sold the stock was, you know, this is something I know and I use. And yet the company has just completely failed to figure out how to turn itself and its share price around. Although, hold that thought, because earnings is coming up, actually imminently. The thing that I think is interesting is there's two elements of what you know here. A celebrity investing what they know, and then we as investors investing in what we know. And we always think we know. A celebrity, Right? So let's talk about that angle. One of the reasons I paused and really wanted to dig into the headlines before we decided to talk about it on the show is whenever you see a celebrity name flash across the screen, there's always a slightly cynical button that gets pushed. And we really saw this around SPACs in 2020 and 21, when a lot of celebrities were getting involved in launching publicly traded vehicles and folks were saying, but what do they know about, you know, investing or doing due diligence on companies and buying companies. So I think some cynicism kicked up there. And then you've also seen in private markets, Kim Kardashian, for example, launched a private equity fund. The idea was to invest in consumer goods and the idea was to bring her star power to raise awareness of these products and help them basically get lower cost marketing as a result. I think she's sort of parting ways with that fund. Certainly her role in it has changed. But, but what shocked me here, or not shocked, but surprised me to very much the upside and pleasantly is Travis Kelce takes his investing really seriously. John, right. He's got a team and he tends to partner alongside experts. So in this case he's investing alongside JNA Partners who are experts in public company activism. And in the past he invested in Cholula Hot Sauce, which turned out brilliantly for him. That company got sold to McCormick and in that instance he was partnering with a firm called El Caston, which is very highly regarded private capital firm that invests in consumer goods. So he's putting his money where his excitement and his belief is, but he's doing it with people who are really seasoned and proven.
- [10:33]
B
Now this jumped out to me from this situation because you've got Six Flags and we've talked about the activist investor, but just several weeks ago we heard about a different activist investor. Land and Buildings. They at that Time had a 2% stake in Six Flags and they are advocating that Six Flags sell off its real estate. If people aren't coming, you're sitting on all this land. So what happens in these situations when you've got different activists going in the same company?
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Well, the nice thing is in this instance, and I say nice because this is all just deeply uncomfortable if you're certainly in the management team, when you think about it, the other activists, you're talking about land and buildings who popped up a couple of weeks ago taking their 2% stake, really that fund's expertise is in thinking about how to unlock value from real estate. Jarner Partners is turning up with Travis Kelce and saying, let's figure out how to unlock value from the consumer experience. So I think the nice thing, or at least the convenient thing here is you've got a total of 11% sitting in the hand of two activists where they've got their own individual superpowers so they can align. Right. Where things get dicey is if you get two sets of activists who have totally different opinions on how a company should reorient itself. So at least here they can kind of stick to their expertise and actually align on on sort of areas they can focus on separately.
- [11:47]
B
And the market probably spent the weekend reading about these stories and headlines. Shares in Fun were up over 6% today after the this story was processed.
- [11:59]
A
Yeah, settling down a little bit because the market's always trying to figure out how much is noise and how much is tangible. This one's definitely worth continuing to watch that first of all, it is definitely fun to look at theme parks and consumer entertainment. But second of all, again, really understanding this is an example of where there can be multiple different ways for a public company to try and shake itself up. Sometimes it needs an external prod to do it. Sometimes it's a prod that comes from a footballer. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, chips, cars and yoga gear. We're going to break down the stocks really moving today and a new Fed chair. We'll take a look at who's in the running. Brew Markets Daily is sponsored by Public, the platform for those who take investing seriously. John, who do you go to if you have questions about your investments?
- [12:40]
B
Well, I have in the past called my mother.
- [12:43]
A
Well, instead of calling your mother, you can just ask Alpha. It's Public's AI powered research assistant that can help you find the answers you're looking for. In fact, AI is woven into the entire experience of Public, from portfolio insights to earnings call recaps. Public gives you smarter context at every touch point.
- [12:58]
B
Public also combines a wide range of asset classes from the tools you need to build and manage your wealth. Whether it's with stocks, options, bonds or crypto.
- [13:06]
A
Earn an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your old investment portfolio over to Public. Get started at public.com brewmarkets that's public.com brewmarkets full disclosures on public.com brewmarkets we all love a legendary comeback and degree original cool rush is back and better than ever. Cool Rush isn't just a scent movement. It's a movement, a fan favorite that delivers bold, fresh vibes and all day sweat protection. Whether you have a man that spends hours in the gym, heads into the office early, or is just trying to stay fresh on a long day, Cool Rush has their back. Head to your local Walmart or Target and grab Degree Cool Rush, the fan favorite scent from the world's number one antiperspirant brand. Founded in 2018 and going public by SPAC just three years later, Archer Aviation's battery powered ascent has been swift, to say the least. Now, as an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle manufacturer, Archer focuses on making aircraft that can cover 20 to 50 mile routes, aiming to provide an air taxi alternative to trips that can take over an hour in urban auto traffic. So how is Archer's strategy different from others in the still relatively nascent sector? Which markets will evolve the fastest to embrace it? And how should investors track if the company's $7 billion market cap is actually justified? Well, to unpack this, I sat down with Archer Aviat Aviation's co founder and the CEO, Adam Goldstein. So you listen and you decide. Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining. Let's start by breaking down your business model. Lots of members of our audience are familiar with Archer Aviation, but for those who aren't, just walk us through quickly the difference between your aircraft and just good old fashioned helicopters.
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C
Well, thank you. It's great to be here. So we are building electric air taxis, or as Some people call EVTOLs, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts. And these aircrafts are designed fly in and around urban environments very similar to helicopters, but they are fully powered by electric power systems, so electric engines, battery packs. And this enables us to build an aircraft that can be super safe, that can be super quiet, and actually can be very affordable to the masses. And that's quite a big difference than what helicopters present today.
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A
And in terms of the way in which they fly, are these autonomous? Are they piloted? Are they both?
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C
So these are piloted aircrafts that we will go to market with, but ultimately can be flown autonomously. They're piloted, they carry up to four passengers. They fly 150 miles per hour up to 100 miles. So you can think about trips that take 60 to 90 minutes on the ground in cars that can be replaced with flights that take five to 10 minutes. So if you're in Manhattan and you have to go to JFK to the airport, that's a trip that can take you 90 minutes on the ground, but in the air, it can take you five minutes. So you can skip the entire, pretty much the entire trip to the airport. And even better, you know, if you land on the airport side of the terminal, go through a private screening, you can pretty much skip the entire airport itself. So quite a big upgrade from the typical 90 or 120, you know, kind of slog that it takes us, you know, to get to the airport.
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A
We're going to come back to that and specifically the sort of airport shuttle element. But before we get there, talk to us about when we're actually going to see Archer come to market. What is the timeline for seeing your first commercial activity and where will we see it out of the gate?
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C
Well, there was actually a lot of things that have come together to really help really push this stuff forward and bring it to market. So the first thing was batteries. They really just got good enough where they were energy dense, power dense enough that you could actually enable an electric flight that could go far enough, carry enough payload, and go fast enough. That made it interesting, it made it worthy of somebody wanting to pay. So for a company like Archer to become economically viable, so that was step one in this journey. We crossed that point really several years ago. So even though the aircrafts have been worked on for 20 years, it's really only at this point where you've gotten to the energy density levels where it's now economically viable as a business. So because of that, you had a lot of movement from the regulator side of the industry. And given the geopolitics, the US Wanted to maintain this leadership position in aviation. So the US really created this new category for this industry, and they called it powered lift. And it's the first new category that was created in around 60 years. So that really helped frame how we could bring these aircrafts to market. And then once all the framework of regulation was in place, it really was back onto the companies. And so Archer is now in the final stages of certification to bring these aircrafts to market. So you will start to see these aircrafts flying around the US by the middle of next year through one of the executive order programs that President Trump issued. So that's when you'll start to see.
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A
It in the US which cities do you imagine those first launching in the United States?
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C
Well, the cities are actually competing now to determine which ones will become the first cities. And so back in June, there was an executive order issued by President Trump which mandated the US Maintains this leadership position in this industry to bring these aircrafts to market. But you will likely see them in the big cities. Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Miami. And so that's really where we've been targeting. But internationally, you also start to see these aircrafts come to market to starting in the uae.
- [18:19]
A
Got it. And so let's talk about that sort of race to get, you know, the electric aircraft going in the United States. Your competitor Joby bought Blade over the summer and when you look at why they did that, they're very clear that the rationale was to try and buy the infrastructure that that helicopter business already has in some of the major cities you just talked about. So that they've got, you know, the heliports ready for when Joby actually goes into commercial operation here in the US or what's your strategy to build out that kind of infrastructure if it's not available to buy anymore?
- [18:53]
C
Yeah, well, Blade didn't actually own any of the infrastructure. Blade used the infrastructure. It's public use infrastructure. So in New York, it's owned by the EDC and the Hudson Park Development Corp. So you have these two different entities that operate these, these terminals. Now. It was actually, you know, a very interesting acquisition and I think was is smart on many levels because it does bring a lot of awareness to the evtol industry from a lot of flyers that are already taking this market. But the good news is that most of the heliports around New York City and many other cities are all public use, which gives us access to it. So we designed an aircraft to fit into the existing heliport operations. So below a 50 foot wingspan, we're using infrastructure that is already there. We're using flight corridors that already exist. So it allows us to use the existing helicopter infrastructure.
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A
So are you getting ready to build Archer brand terminals or would you look to partner with somebody else to provide those terminals and build out that infrastructure with you, Adam?
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C
Yeah, so we'll do both.
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A
Okay.
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C
And so there are partners kind of all over the world that have been interested in doing this, specific companies that are dedicated to building vertiports. We will likely remain more focused on the OEM side of the business building aircrafts, but you'll certainly see us partner with a lot of good groups and in some cases build our own infrastructure as well.
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A
Got it. And so if you're going to focus more on the OEM side, Adam, how do you think about, again, just looking at the competitive space? Partnerships with Uber have been struck by others out there. Are you going to completely stay away from that sort of distribution of service part of it as you focus on oem, or do you think that that will evolve?
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C
Yeah. So when you look at sort of the end to end trip and last mile use case, I think there's an evolving landscape. So on one hand you have some of the established players like Uber and Lyft, and those are great options. And I do think we'll end up partnering with both of those organizations. You also have Some newer options that are starting to come to market from Waymo and Tesla. And I do think we'll look to really expand the partnerships to really help Last Mile. But whether we do it internally or whether those services just exist on their own, I think there'll be plenty of options for people to get to and from the terminals themselves. And so it really will kind of depend on how all this does play out. But I think the consumers in the end will have really great choices.
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A
Let's talk about two strategic investors who have been known to invest in Archer. One is United Airlines, the other one is Anduril Industries. Can you talk to us a bit more about those partnerships beyond the money and what those two strategics are bringing to you?
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C
So we have two sides of the business. There's a civil business and there's a defense business. On the civil side of the business, United Airlines was really just the first major airline to step up and say they wanted to play in this industry. So they were an early investor into Archer. They invested in some of our early rounds. They have agreed to acquire aircraft, they put down non refundable deposits towards civil side, but really they've been a big part of the ecosystem and help really develop the roadmap to launching these aircrafts. And after United States put their hat in the ring, so did many other major airlines. And so they were really kind of big leaders from the civil side. On the defense side, it's a new type of aircraft that we're building that is autonomous and attritable. So these are totally different from the civil side in that they will be used for a defense purpose. And so these aircrafts that we're building are really more longer range type aircrafts because they're hybridized. And so it gives you an ability to have different applications than simply like a civil just passenger, you know, use moving people, you know, backwards, you know, back and forth to where they're going. The partnership with Anduril was very specific because Archer builds aircrafts and then Anduril can missionize those aircraft. So you can think put all the different systems that are necessary to be able to operate in the defense world. So two totally different categories that we're playing in. Both fantastic partners that have enabled two different parts of the industry.
- [22:55]
A
When you think about the Andoril piece of the business, that partnership. And I'm listening to, I'm listening to you to describe, describe this aircraft, Adam. They sound a lot like drones. Is there any difference between drones and your aircraft for the military deployment?
- [23:09]
C
Well, you know, the Concept of a drone really, you know, might just be defined as, you know, an unmanned aircraft that's flying. And so in a sense, yes, they are drones, and I think that's probably the easiest way for people to understand it. But these are very large drones. These are very large aircraft. They're not small, you know, 2 foot, 5 foot, 10 foot, you know, vehicles that we're used to seeing when people think drones. These are full scale aircraft that are similarly sized to like helicopters. So the aircrafts we build are in the 6 to 9,000 pound kind of weight class and so much bigger that way you might see in the, you know, call it 50 or 100 pound type weight class.
- [23:44]
A
And so you'd said that we should expect to see your commercial aircraft in the air here in the United States. We'll come back to that in just a moment. From next year, how quickly would investors expect to see the military aircraft getting deployed?
- [23:58]
C
Yeah, so the military side offers a lot of benefits from a business perspective and some new uncertainties. So on one hand, the benefit of being involved on the military side is the certification timelines don't really exist in the same way. One, because they're autonomous aircraft, so we're not flying people around. But two is because you're going under military flight worthiness, not under a civil FAA type certification progress. So that creates, I would call it more certainty. But on the other hand, these are government contracts and it's not something that, you know, Archer can exactly control a timeline or an anduril can control a timeline because you're dealing with governments on the other side. So it's different from the standpoint of, you know, programs have to be announced, schedules have to be figured out. And so there's a lot more politics, I think, that's involved on the defense side of things rather than on the civil side of things. But once you're through that pathway, there's a much more, I would say, easy path to market as there's not a civil certification process that you have to go through.
- [24:58]
A
Got it. So just to sort of compare the timelines, if you're confident that we'll see the civil aircraft out next year, I think I'm hearing you say that we wouldn't expect the military until after that. Is that correct?
- [25:10]
C
Yes, you, you will likely see some form of military aircraft that are flying around, but in terms of productionizing them, I think the timelines are not as defined because the programs haven't been publicly announced. That being said, there are customers out there, very specific customers with very specific use cases. So I am very confident that those will be announced, but they just haven't been publicly announced yet.
- [25:31]
A
Well, let's talk about something that has been publicly announced and is very exciting, and that's the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission has announced that Archer is its exclusive air taxi partner and that will be serving during the LA World cup in 2026. Which is, which is very exciting. Talk to us a little bit about what the big unveil is going to be when the World cup rolls around.
- [25:54]
C
Sure. So I'll take you back to 2022 where the FAA said we wanted to create a date when these aircrafts could be flying around in large scale use in a single city. And they put out a target for the LA28 Olympics. And so that was a target date that the FAA established as sort of this dream goal to have these aircrafts and other drones flying around one city. And so everybody prepared for that date. And so as everybody was Preparing, ultimately the LA28 games announced Archer as the exclusive air taxi provider. And so we've been building up into that. Now in June of this past year, President Trump issued an executive order where they started a new program called the EIPP EVTOL Integration Pilot Program. And so that was geared towards next summer we'll see these aircraft starting to fly. So you're building into the Olympics where you're going to see mass use of these aircrafts in a single city along the way. Because Archer is so heavily involved in a lot of the sports and entertainment involved in Los Angeles, the LASEC chose Archer to also be its partner across many of the other sporting events, whether it's super bowl or FIFA World cup or several of the other ones to come in the future. So we're deeply ingrained in the LA community and we want to create lots of options that can be offered to not only just fans, but services that will be offered in and around the different sports entertainment industry. And so it's really a partnership that's just the start of something here from, from a sports and entertainment perspective. But it was expected to really grow pretty significantly over the years.
- [27:29]
A
So the good news, Adam, is this is an incredibly high profile opportunity for Archer to get its name out there. The association with Sports and Entertainment. Perhaps no faster way to try and build brand awareness. The pressure that comes with that is addressing any concerns about safety and that the really tragic thing about Los Angeles is that a lot of people unfortunately associate light aircraft with, you know, the helicopter crash in which. In which Kobe Bryant was tragically killed. Do you feel that pressure? Are you feeling that there needs to be added education, added bars in terms of standards for getting the public comfortable with the safety aspects of your aircraft?
- [28:10]
C
Yeah, safety is definitely first when anytime you talk aviation, specifically at Archer as well. And so that is the highest priority that we have. The good news is that these aircraft are designed to be certified at a even higher level of safety than what what helicopters are certified at. And so the whole premise behind these aircrafts are you're using electric engines, which can scale down very efficiently. And so you can use an aircraft that has multiple sets of engines, multiple sets of fuel sources, so you can have redundancy that really helps create a safety standard with these aircrafts that you couldn't get the helicopter in industry. So it's almost in a way like bringing a safer product to market than what already existed. You also have really ever increasing software systems too that are helping to assist pilots, assist air traffic control, to constantly just increase the safety side of things. So for one, because these aircrafts are designed for mass use, we will certainly need to educate the market and the mass flying public on what these aircrafts are and the safety levels that they carry. So I definitely think that's going to be a big part of our process. Anything new is always going to be viewed different and need an education process. So we will start slow. We will be very modest in how we put aircrafts out there. But the good news is, you know, the government is very heavily involved in this. And so with the EIPP program starting next summer, it's a chance for us to start to do that. And so we'll get to showcase these aircrafts in major cities. We'll have the support of the government on a federal and I think local municipality level. And that education process will begin in mass and we'll build our way up towards mass use over the following decade.
- [29:48]
A
Let's wrap by just talking a bit about your share price performance. Adam. 7 billion ish market cap. Now, your company went public by a SPAC in 2021. No revenue. So when I look at your marking cap, again, about $7 billion, no revenue. You're burning cash. Do you feel the pressure of leading a company where your share price is where it is, but you've sort of built it, but the cash is yet to come?
- [30:15]
C
I think it's a gift of an opportunity to be able to build this company. New aviation revolutions come once every other generation. And so I'm super lucky that I have been born in the right period of Time when electric power system advanced and a new powertrain was formed to help create this new revolution. And so this is nothing else besides a gift, and I certainly do not take that for granted. I tell the company, when the stock price goes up, don't be happy. When the stock price goes down, don't be sad. The only thing that matters is building a safe aircraft that we get to market. And so that's really the prize that we're going after. I do personally believe this will be an incredible opportunity for investors because it's. It's a chance to invest in a whole new category that likely has a very large market. I'm sure there will be several players that enter the market that will all be successful as well. So I do think it's very unique from that standpoint. There's incredible amounts of civil opportunities, incredible amounts of defense opportunities here. But overall, I'm just extremely lucky to be in the position that we're in.
- [31:20]
A
And so to your investors to whom you articulate that sort of market opportunity for your company, specifically, which metric should they be focused on to track your progress with and to measure it over this very important year of ramping?
- [31:34]
C
Yeah. So I think there's several things to watch. I think the first one is the ability to get to market, and so the ability to actually put aircraft into market. On the civil side, you have a domestic strategy and an international strategy. On the domestic side, they should be watching the EIPP program. Next summer, we'll put aircrafts out there. They'll start to be seen by the flying public. They'll be heavily engaged with the. The federal and local governments. I think that's going to be a huge milestone for the industry and a.
- [31:59]
A
Huge milestone for Archer with revenue associated with that. Adam, would you mind clarifying, Would there be revenue associated with that launch?
- [32:07]
C
There is potential to be revenue. So the way Archer operates is that Archer sells aircrafts. We're an oem. So depending on the partners that we bring into that. So, for example, on the international side, you know, we've started in the uae and our partner there, Abu Dhabi Aviation, is acquiring aircraft. So we will receive cash in this year. The revenue will start to be counted next year from recognized next year. So you will see revenue start to get recognized from our international partners next year. So you will start to see that happen. But the UAE is the place to watch on the international side. And then on the defense side, you know, it's again, harder to predict the timing of those contracts, but those contracts could come as soon as as soon as within the next 12 months. And so there are lots of ways that we can start to generate revenue here and start to take us into that next category.
- [32:56]
A
Adam, lots and lots going on. I know that you're running now to go and catch a flight to Saudi Arabia just in the spirit of continuing to build your international business. Thank you for taking the time to chat through it all and come back, come back as you hit those milestones. We'd like to keep up with you.
- [33:09]
C
Thanks so much.
- [33:10]
A
Big thanks to Adam Goldstein for joining us. Well, it's 4:00pm on the east Coast. There's the closing bell. The markets are wrapping up for the day. We don't have a ticker tape, but we're going to throw it over to our human ticker, our producer, John.
- [33:23]
B
The market was way up today. The S&P 500 finished up one and a quarter percent. The NASDAQ was up 1.9% and the Dow finished up 7.10of a percent. Some market headlines. Another story of professional football using its shine to judge up a herding brand. Shares in Athleisure brand Lululemon popped nearly 4% today after the company announced it is partnering with the NFL to launch an apparel collection featuring the logos of all 32 NFL teams. The Canadian company has been struggling with its share price down over 50% this year.
- [33:53]
A
Amazing. Lululemon really did used to be the absolute darling of the Athleisure sector. So much has changed there. Also, just as a side note, all paths do seem to lead to yoga today. Jana Partners, the hedge fund we talked about in Six Flags. Turns out their managing partner is a massive yogi.
- [34:09]
B
That's right. And shares in Qualcomm shot up as much as 20% today after the chip maker, which is so far mostly focused on semiconductors from mobile devices, announced it's getting into the data center business with a launch of new AI chips. The company is highlighting its servers lower total cost of ownership as a key benefit thanks to their low power consumption. And Ann, this was new to me. Apparently these chips are specifically designed for AI inference, which is the process of running AI models that are already trained.
- [34:37]
A
Step towards taking on AMD and Nvidia. This one seems to be the narrative there, John.
- [34:41]
B
Exactly. And what is the narrative over at Porsche? They're having a tough time. Last Friday, the German sports carmaker reported its first loss since its IPO in 2022. This followed a string of profit warnings related to failing sales in China. Tariffs. And we keep seeing this theme, a costly shift in product planning from EVs back to the combustion engine. Porsche has a new CEO taking over in January and shares were up over 3% today. Finally, Ann, do you like to vacuum?
- [35:09]
A
I actually do. I find it quite sort of relaxing. It's sort of therapeutics doing laundry as well actually.
- [35:13]
B
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't mind vacuuming, but also I love my old Roomba. I've had it for years. I just ordered a new battery for it. But unfortunately, shares of Roomba maker Irobot plunged more than 30% this afternoon after the company warned its search for a buyer has hit a substantial roadblock and its financial condition remains dire. The company has been vying to sell itself, but last week the only remaining potential buyer withdrew from the process. In March, IROBOT warned there is, quote, substantial doubt about its ability to stay in business.
- [35:43]
A
That's really fascinating actually. I wonder if the existing company in its current form actually has lots of data that it's got sitting on. I feel if someone's going to buy, it's going to buy it for some sort of data angle. But we'll keep watching this one. Well, a final thought because this is actually Fed Week, we are waiting to hear the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday whether or not there's going to be the long awake awaited second cut of 2025. Now the news that came out today is apparently five fed chair finalists who will ultimately replace Jay Powell have been selected. Secretary Bezant said today that the finalists are the current Fed governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, also the National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, the former Fed governor Kevin Walsh and number five, a BlackRock executive, Rich Reader. So that's according to several media outlets today. The other comment that was made today coming out of the administration, President Trump talking to reporters on Air Force One said he anticipates naming a replacement by the end of the year. Now Jay Powell's term does not expire until May, which means we would be looking at a sort of four to five month, possibly lame duck end to Federal Chair Jay Powell's term. Just a reminder though, he then can choose to either step down the Fed entirely or he is a governor and he can serve that term out until the end of 2028. We'll see what his appetite is to continue to be in the firing line. That's it folks for today's Brew Markets Daily.
- [37:09]
B
Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Anne Barry and produced by John Grotteau, Tarkab Delatif and Emily Milian. Our technical director is Eugena Waugh. Brittany Detaco handles audio. And the president of Morning Brew, Inc. Is Devin Emery.
- [37:21]
A
Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Brew daily. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place.