Did you see, Cristiano Ronaldo moved the sponsorially mandated bottles of Coke off the table at his press conference yesterday, and urged viewers to "drink water"? He did. And did you realize, that little gesture, which maybe you saw and chuckled over for a second, cost The Coca-Cola Company $4,000,000,000? It's true, I know because I read it in The Athletic.
Now wait, you might be saying, that's ludicrous. Like, that's obviously not true. Even taking half a second to think about would tell you it's absurd. That's something not even Darren Rovell would claim. But The Athletic (it's not clear exactly who, since the article was unbylined) did the math and it's unimpeachable:
Coca Cola's shares were worth $56.1 each when the market opened in Europe on Monday.
But by the end of the press conference, they had fallen to $55.2 each.
That is a 1.6 per cent drop in share price, which means a $4 billion loss in market value.
That said, Coca Cola is still worth $238.35 billion overall and the value has since risen back to $55.29 a share.
Checks out. I see no flaws here. The only reason a multinational conglomerate's stock price could go up or down is because of quasi-viral videos.
Which leads us to today, when Defector Media hosted a Twitch stream for this afternoon's France-Germany Euros match. At one point during the stream, a viewer noted that a box behind Dan McQuade "looked like the New England Patriots logo." Dan grabbed it and held it up to the camera to show that it was just a New Balance shoebox, and any resemblance to Pat Patriot was coincidental. This occurred at roughly 3:50 p.m. ET.
I wanted to see what this did for New Balance's share price, however, it turns out they are not a publicly traded company. BUT. If you "Google New Balance share price," you get the stock quote for Shoe Carnival Inc., a a footwear retailer with stores in the Southeast, South, and Midwest. Among the brands they sell? That's right: New Balance. And here's what $SCLV looked like today:
Thankfully, The Athletic has provided us all with the formula to figure out what this means for New Balance. If you examine the chart, you'll see that at exactly 3:50 p.m. ET, Shoe Carnival—which I remind you sells New Balance brand sneakers, among others—was trading at $65.68. But Shoe Carnival—trusted retailer of many fine footwear brands, including New Balance—had opened trading today at $67.11. A difference of one dollar and 43 cents.
Multiply that by Shoe Carnival's market cap of $950.31 million, carry the two, and raise that to the power of New Balance's approximate 2018 revenue, and you are left with the undeniable truth:
Dan McQuade cost New Balance $4.1 billion by agreeing with a Twitch viewer that the one New Balance box does kinda look like the Patriots logo, at least from the side.
Shoe Carnival has since risen back to $66 a share.
