Wall Street News Roundup: Cracker Barrel Meltdown, Claire's Bankruptcy and Taylor Swift's Engagement

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I'm Nicole Lappen, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab.

Happy, happy Wednesday, Money Rehabbers, and a happy weekly Roundup D to all of those of you who celebrate.

This is a weekly collection of the biggest headlines on Wall Street and how they affect you and your wallet.

Today, we're talking business news from Claire's to Dr.

Pepper and Cracker Barrel.

And also, of course, we have to talk about our English teacher and our gym teacher who are getting married.

But first, some timely Wall Street lore that will impress all of your investing-obsessed friends.

So dating back to the 1950s, there's a little catchphrase, sell in May and go away.

The idea was that most of the money was made in winter months, so why bother with summer trading?

And you know what?

It's true.

Studies show that the market tends to rise in the winter and dip in the summer when you look at decades-long trends.

People had all kinds of explanations for this.

Holiday shopping boosted returns.

Traders on summer vacation triggered a productivity slump.

Even seemingly random things like grain prices shifting with the seasons messed up profit margins.

Anyway, in the end, it's not just one thing.

Also, and this is key, it's not dramatic enough that anyone should actually trade on that strategy.

It's just one of those fun stock market trends like the Santa Claus rally, where stock prices tend to rise during the final five days of December and the first two trading days of January, coining the term Santa Claus Rally.

It's a fun pattern with a nickname.

It's not a financial plan.

Here's another trend.

September is historically the worst month for the stock market.

Not every year, of course, but at least two of the last four Septembers, I've made a podcast or an Instagram reel.

reminding you that a little red in September is normal.

So consider this your heads up.

if things feel a little scary at this point in September.

Just breathe.

We have seen this movie before.

And with that, let's take a look at three companies making moves and what they say about the broader business vibe.

First up, Claire's.

This store has a very special place in my heart.

It's where I, like any good 90s tween, got my ears pierced.

It is so nostalgic, and I think it's one of the only places you can still find a snap bracelet in store.

But today, if a tween wants a plastic bracelet, they are probably hitting up Amazon, Timu, or TikTok Shop, not the mall.

As a result, Claire's is declaring bankruptcy again.

After the pandemic, the company expanded like crazy, but couldn't keep store shelves stocked or turn that growth into profit.

Now it's stuck with debt, struggling in a retail landscape it hasn't kept up with.

Claire's first filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, which really isn't that long ago.

At the time, the company was drowning in nearly $2 billion of debt, much of it taken on by private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

Apollo acquired the company in a leveraged buyout more than a decade earlier.

If that combination of private equity and leverage is setting off alarm bells for you, it should.

This is one of the issues with PE.

It's a whole can of worms.

I did an episode about the good, the bad, the ugly of PE, which I have linked in the show notes.

Anyway, like a lot of retailers during that era, Claire's was saddled with debt so massive that even decent performance in stores couldn't keep the company afloat.

And then it got worse.

Foot traffic in malls started to dry up, and younger shoppers weren't buying into the glittery Claire lifestyle that a lot of us millennials did.

The company filed for bankruptcy protection in March of 2018 and emerged just seven months later, promising a comeback that would involve a stronger e-commerce presence and more product placement in places like CVS and grocery stores.

And for a minute, it looked like that comeback was working.

Claire's even teased an IPO in 2021, but the company never actually went public, possibly because the numbers behind the scenes didn't paint a pretty enough picture for Wall Street.

Then Claire's leaned hard into its mall roots and its identity as a go-to place for tween accessories.

The problem was that identity never fully evolved.

The nostalgia is strong for sure, but Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Alpha, the core demo, just isn't feeling it.

Add in the fact that 76% of its products are imported with 56% coming from China, the math isn't mathing.

Income funded by babysitting gigs just can't take the heat from tariffs.

So now Claire's is back in the same spot.

Too much debt, too little growth, and a new generation of customers who have moved on.

Well, now for some less gloomy news, Dr.

Pepper is making moves.

Dr.

Pepper just bought Pete's coffee and is planning to split the company back into two companies, Keurig and Dr.

Pepper.

I will take a step back for a second.

Did you even know that these companies needed splitting?

In 2018, Keurig and Dr.

Pepper merged, and the official name of the company became Keurig Dr.

Pepper Inc.

I know, it's very sexy.

But don't get too attached because it seems like that won't be the company's name for very long.

The goal is that the coffee vertical spins out to take on Starbucks, while soda and cold drinks goes off to be part of the massive soda rebranding that's happening industry-wide.

These days, Dr.

Pepper is giving less Coke and Pepsi, more energy drinks, and wellness plays.

Dr.

Pepper already has partnerships with Ghost and Bloom.

At the time I'm recording this, shares of Keurig Dr.

Pepper Inc.

were down to about $31 as the market worried about the debt from the deal.

But it looks like the stock will split, giving shareholders a piece of both new companies.

With two recognizable brands, it's going to be really fun to see how this thing plays out.

Next, let's talk about Cracker Barrel because how could I not?

If you've missed this drama, you probably don't like business tea as much as I do.

Business gossip is really the only kind that I like, by the way.

Cracker Barrel is trying a full image makeover.

The logo got the most attention, but they're also redoing interiors and updating menus.

I peeked at some of the remodel pictures online, and honestly, it looked really nice and clean to me, but there aren't any Cracker Barrel locations in Los Angeles, and I haven't honestly been to one in a few years.

So I'm not the foremost expert on the Cracker Barrel experience and culture, but diehart customers didn't exactly love the changes.

The company added menu items and no one's really mad about those, but the logo, total meltdown.

The brand ditched the old guy and the barrel for a sleek modern design.

It's fine.

It's boring.

It's safe.

It looks like any other modern logo.

But for a brand built on nostalgia, that's a problem.

People keep trying to cast this rebrand as a culture war thing and Cracker Barrel trying to go woke.

I honestly don't think that's what's going on here.

It looks like a normal borderline boring rebrand to me.

I had Sarah Tiana on the pod a while back.

Sarah's a comedian and a huge fan of Cracker Barrel.

When she was on the show, we talked about why she loves to love the brand so much.

So I'm going to play a little clip as helpful context for anyone who doesn't really get the Cracker Barrel cult following thing, but also just because Sarah is just so funny.

I want to ask you, what is up with Cracker Barrel?

what is up with cracker barrel you mean the email sit-down restaurant

says sent from cracker barrel which i'm obsessed with i thought my email signature was clever tell me more it used to be that if it came from my computer it said sent from waffle house and it came and if it came from my cell phone it said sent from cracker barrel but now i think it's uh always the same cracker barrel has a big significance to me because it um

It was the first sit-down restaurant we ever got in our my hometown.

Like we'd never seen waitresses before.

We're like, oh, is this prom?

Like we were just so excited.

And it was busy all the time.

And that's when I realized I didn't go to church.

Like, because my friends were complaining about how busy Cracker Barrel was.

And I was like, oh, well, we go every Sunday morning at 10 a.m.

and there ain't nobody in there.

So that was a really difficult way of learning that we were sinners.

But

I also have this feeling that like, that's why my friends from home never got on an airplane before.

Like most of my friends never traveled because they would say things like, Well, I ain't never left nothing in New York.

I need to go get.

Right.

And I'm like, What a terrible mentality.

But they have all these opinions on New Yorkers.

They've never been.

And I was like, I

they never, they never wanted to get on an airplane.

And I was always just convinced that it wasn't the price of the ticket.

It was that they were afraid they're going to get off the airplane and there wasn't going to be a cracker barrel.

And they'd be like, where are we going to get a steak?

In New York.

Cracker Barrel is a big part.

I'm from Calhoun, Georgia.

We have a Nike outlet.

That's excellent.

i like cracker barrel i worked at different small markets when i was in the broadcasting world and um like sioux falls south dakota lexington kentucky like i always liked cracker barrel i was vegan back then and so the grits fun fact are vegan at cracker barrel and then the fried apples too they're delicious wow and cracker barrel is a publicly traded company would you enjoy

absolutely yeah i mean i think because they're expanding like they actually never we finally got one in southern california when i moved here i assumed that they would be everywhere, but they never came to California because California has earthquake restrictions and they make Cracker Barrel take everything off the ceiling.

So Cracker Barrel's like, fuck you, we can't come out there.

You know what I mean?

Nobody can eat hash-brown casserole without a wheelbarrow hanging above their head.

And so not the same, yeah.

Right.

But I,

but now they've gotten around it because now they just have it on the wall, like extra stuff on the walls.

So you just have like old ladies from the 1800s staring at you while you eat, but that makes me comfortable.

The stock is down about 14% this month, but zoom out and the picture looks better.

It's up 31% over the past 12 months.

By Warren Buffett's rules, that probably means it's not even on sale.

But I think it's a little too soon to tell how much this rebrand will affect the stock price, especially because it seems possible that the company will walk back some of the branding.

And lastly, but certainly not least, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are engaged, but the real headline isn't just the diamond, although, oh my God, that is a big rock.

But beyond that, the big news is the dollars.

Taylor's net worth, about $1.6 billion.

She's the first artist in history to hit billionaire status from her music alone.

Travis, roughly 90 million.

So not as much as Taylor, but still not bad.

He's the highest paid tight end in the NFL with major endorsements, a chart-topping podcast.

But since dating Taylor, his wealth has nearly doubled.

That's the Taylor effect.

When she started showing up at games, the NFL and the Chiefs scored over $300 million in brand value.

Interestingly, reports confirmed that Travis wouldn't even propose without an ironclad prenup in place.

Honestly, that is not cold.

That is just smart.

Because here's the truth.

Everybody has a prenup.

If you don't write one yourself, the state you get married in writes one for you.

Now, Taylor just got engaged, so who knows where they're going to get married or have their primary residence, but some of the likely candidates are Missouri, Kansas, Tennessee, all of which are equitable distribution states, which means if there's a divorce, a judge decides what's fair, not 50-50, fair.

And fair can get messy.

So when you're worth billions, you don't leave fair up to chance.

You spell it out.

A prenup means Taylor's empire stays hers, Travis's NFL and media money stays his, and they decide upfront what happens with anything they build.

together.

So yes, it is love, but financially, this is also one of the most valuable mergers of the decade.

And it came with a love song.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank.

If Keurig Dr.

Pepper Inc.

splits, don't think you're getting a discount.

A stock split doesn't make a company more valuable, it just divides existing shares into smaller pieces to make them more affordable for investors.

So instead of jumping in just because the share price is lower, take it as a cue to dig into the company's fundamentals: revenue growth, profitability, and long-term strategy.

If the company is solid, a stock split might offer a great entry point for long-term investors.

But if the hype is the only thing growing, you're better off keeping your cash on the sidelines.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network.

I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie.

Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab?

And let's be honest, we all do.

So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me.

And follow us on Instagram at MoneyNews and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content.

And lastly, thank you.

No, seriously, thank you.

Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.