Trump Bought Sushi Stock. Hello Kitty Is the Reason.
$1 million on a conveyor-belt sushi chain two days after the Hello Kitty promo dropped. I own the socks, sweatshirt & baseball cap. I'm the data behind the buy.
He’s known for his love of Diet Coke and McDonald’s. But he doesn’t strike me as the sushi sort. Melania has to be a fan: protein and no carbs — the love of ladies who lunch. But Donald Trump? Not so much.
Which makes you wonder: why did Trump just drop at least $1 million into Kura Sushi? Disclosed this week — 3,700+ trades across hundreds of millions of dollars — most made sense. Nvidia, Amazon. Microsoft. But an 88-location sushi chain?
Personally, I love the idea of plucking my raw fish from a conveyor belt. The best part? For every 15 plates you eat, you earn a prize. But I definitely can’t imagine the President and First Lady grabbing their own small plates of fish before it moves past.
So how does a move into a small sushi chain make investment sense? Trump’s traders bought between $1 million and $5 million of Kura Sushi Feb 2. This was two days after the company announced a new prize promotion. The effect was immediate — think dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a Diet Coke type activity. Sales jumped 8.6% and the number of customers bubbled up 4.3%.
The impact was big enough that the company raised its full-year outlook and the stock popped 6%.
So what was this super successful prize promotion? Hello Kitty.
Sanrio created Hello Kitty in 1974 in Japan. The following year she showed up on a vinyl coin purse and emerged in the US in 1976. Hello Kitty is now an IP selling machine with a brand value of $7 billion. Not bad for a cat.
Of course the algorithm used by investors noticed. Its kid-branded merchandise marketed to women. For ourselves. We are the trade, with our disposable income and desire to re-live the nostalgia of our childhood.
I own a sweatshirt, baseball cap and multiple pairs of Hello Kitty socks, which I’ve written about because they got me in trouble at work. But if you want to go next level, consider the $500 Hello Kitty figurine from Baccarat.
So now I have to decide if I’m willing to spend my money to get my Hello Kitty toy with a visit to Kura Sushi. I don’t want the President getting any more of my money. I’m not even comfortable with the fact I’ve discovered we actually have something in common.
When life stops making sense, we shop. More soon.
I Was Told the Only Cashmere I Owned Looked Like a Sweatshirt
The story behind my Hello Kitty socks and why they got me in trouble at work. And lead to years of not knowing what to wear or how to get dressed. Especially for work.