Hermes and LVMH stocks are as trendy as their handbags
For most of us, a slightly better dinner at home on Valentine's Day during the pandemic, if any. But for "creed" superstar Michael B. Jordan and his girlfriend Lori Harvey, this means renting a public aquarium-the floor is covered with rose petals-a sushi feast And many gifts. Ms. Harvey was the stock certificate of French luxury brand Hermes. The tabloid newspaper published the entire romantic memorabilia, but people are still talking about the stock certificate.
This move attracted the attention of just starting retail investors. Due to the GameStop phenomenon, the number of this group has been growing this year. Many of them are increasingly using online brokers like Robinhood to trade single stocks, and their decisions are based solely on word of mouth or personal affinity. Newbies to the stock market usually follow an investment strategy promoted by American investor Peter Lynch: "Buy what you know." Mr. Lynch famously invested in Hanes' parent company in the 1970s. Because his wife likes L'Eggs pantyhose. The grocery store owner eats plastic egg-shaped pods for sale.
Nowadays, investors who meet fashion standards tend to set their goals even higher. They covet high-end retail stocks, including Hermes, VF Corporation (which owns Supreme), and the parent company of LVMH (Louis Vuitton and Celine) brands. The influence of these investors includes Mr. Jordan or Rap Singer Jay-Z and other pop culture figures, the latter's Armand de Brignac champagne recently attracted LVMH investment.
Mr. Jordan's gift highlights the ideas of many fashion fans: why can you invest in the company itself, why buy a brief handbag or a piece of jewelry from a popular brand?
Los Angeles actor and investor Rafael V. DeLeon owns LVMH stock and praised Mr. Jordan's gift strategy for Ms. Harvey: deliberately accumulating wealth instead of materialism. Mr. DeLeon said: "Mr. Jordan's shares in the company are not always at the forefront of the colored community." He attributed this trend to what he called the "Obama effect," he said. "A generation has been created, and they want to explore the world from a perspective that is different from what was previously available or affordable."
Jordan is hardly the first gift-giver to realize the gift of flashy consumer-oriented stocks. When Kanye West handed over shares of Apple, Netflix and Disney to Kim Kardashian, news came out on Christmas. Back on Earth, the 31-year-old artist and Dallas-based YouTuber Coop Datrille (Coop Datrille), after listening to the investment podcast, bought important stocks in LVMH on Christmas 2019. He reported: "She was shocked and felt like she was upgrading." His girlfriend did not own any LVMH products, and said to him: "You are not asking me to take responsibility, but to buy me as an asset." This The gift prompted her to invest in other fashion companies. Mr. Datril sees this as a paradigm shift. He said: "When you can invest in something and get paid for it, it's a more flexible choice."
To buy gifts, Mr. DaTrille used the online investment platform Stockpile, which allows users to easily sell stocks to others, even fractional stocks. Victor Wang, the CEO of San Francisco-based Stockpile, is interested in recruiting non-traditional investors. He called fashion "a gateway drug to investment" and added, "If you are a loyal supporter of Hermes, then it will not be so troublesome to read the latest things they are doing, because it is fun for you. "
Mr. Wang said that in the past year, his interest in gift-giving fashion stocks has increased. He attributed this in part to the pandemic's inhibitory effect on the purchase of fashionable clothing. The CEO explained: "Now, when you are thinking about buying luxury goods like handbags or dresses, you have nowhere to show off." So when [people] are familiar with luxury brands, this is a fact. They have a way of exporting. "He also believes that this trend is a potential economic solution for those who like high-end brands but may not be able to afford goods. Compared to luxury handbags, fragmented designer stocks can be a better solution. A cheap way to get what he calls "ownership" (on Stockpile, people can buy gift cards of fractional stocks including Hermes for as little as $5, and the most coveted luxury handbags easily exceed $10,000. .)