最火玩具竟是它！黏胶背后的巨大商机

可怜的玩具业：本季最火爆的玩具既不是漂亮的玩偶，也不是新奇的电影周边装备，而是黏糊糊的一团胶。今年已有超过1000万个YouTube视频和Instagram帖子内容都是黏胶。不过美国老牌玩具商美泰上世纪70年代推出过的类似玩具Slime（还记得那句时髦的Slime广告么：黏答答、湿滴滴、潮乎乎，就是它！）早已停售，成为怀旧玩家的藏品，搭不上这股潮流捞金。如今制作黏胶最常用的材料都是家里随处可见的，包括老式洗衣增强剂硼砂，以及埃默尔胶水。

但并没有影响投资者对黏胶前景的看好。今年5月，拥有埃默尔品牌的美国消费品巨头Newell Brands（今年美国《财富》500强企业中排在208位）在一次有关企业盈利业绩的电话会议上提到了黏胶产品。据英国巴克莱银行估算，去年埃默尔的销售额增长了25%，今年第一季度又增长了50%。Newell Brands的首席执行官迈克尔·波尔克后来告诉投资者，新增需求“都和黏胶有关。”

“我们没有自满，”波尔克说，“我们会努力搭上一些趋势的顺风车，尽量把握住机会。”由于许多店里埃默尔产品迅速售罄，Newell Brands表示将提高产能，位于北卡罗来纳州的工厂产能将增加一倍以上。

Pity the toy industry. This season’s hottest plaything isn’t a pretty doll or quirky gadget with a movie tie-in—it’s slime. This year has seen more than 10 million YouTube and Instagram posts dedicated to homemade goo. And yet even Mattel (MAT, +1.89%), whose 1970s hit Slime (tagline: “It’s gooey, drippy, oozy, cold ’n clammy!”) is now a retro collector’s item¬, today sells nothing that could help it cash in. Instead, the most common ingredients for making slime are mundane household products, including old-fashioned laundry detergent booster borax and Elmer’s glue.

That needn’t be a sticking point for investors, though. In May the CEO of Newell Brands (No. 208 on the Fortune 500), which makes Elmer’s, mentioned slime on an earnings call—four times. Elmer’s sales grew 25% last year, then, according to Barclays estimates, another 50% in the first quarter of 2017. Newell CEO Michael Polk later told investors the new demand was “all related to slime.”

“We’re not proud,” he said. “We’ll hitch our wagon to some underlying trend and try to own it.” After Elmer’s sold out in many stores, Newell (NWL, +1.95%)said it would more than double capacity at its North Carolina factory.

如今，投资者也搭上把握黏胶流行的风口。今年稍早在纽约举行的金融界会议Stocktoberfest East上，连交易员都在热议黏胶。投资顾问公司Ritholtz Wealth Management的首席执行官乔什·布朗在会议现场给Newell Brands的股票取名“黏胶股”。

“如此流行，已经不是小事。”巴克莱的分析师劳伦·利伯曼谈到黏胶热潮时评论道。对于Newell Brands今年一季度盈利超出华尔街预期，利伯曼认为主要因为黏胶热带动销量增长。公布盈利当天公司股价大涨12%，。

与此同时，在美国西部沙漠已有百余年开采历史的大宗商品——硼砂也迎来类似的“第二春“。矿业巨头力拓的一位发言人表示：“我能确认，家庭制造的黏胶在年轻人中间非常流行，这推动了（硼砂）产品的需求。确确实实拉动了销售。”德国汉高公司旗下硼砂品牌20 Mule Team采用的就是力拓的原料。（财富中文网）

投资者要担心的只有一个问题，黏胶热潮到底能持续多久。

本文发表于2017年6月1日期《财富》杂志，原标题为《投资者看好黏胶》。

译者：Pessy

审稿：夏林

Now, investors are also trying to ride the slime wave. At a finance conference in New York earlier this year called Stocktoberfest East, even the traders were buzzing about slime. Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, dubbed Newell Brands the "slime stock" on stage at the event.

"It’s big enough to matter," Lauren Lieberman, an analyst at Barclays, says of the slime craze. She credits the slime-related Elmer's sales with bumping Newell's first-quarter earnings above Wall Street's expectations; Newell stock surged 12% the day of the announcement.

Meanwhile borax, a commodity that has been mined from the desert in the American West for more than 100 years, is experiencing a similar resurgence. “What I can confirm is that yes, the homemade slime is wildly popular with young people and yes, it’s driving a demand for product,” says a spokesman for Rio Tinto (RIO, +0.29%), which produces borax marketed under the 20 Mule Team brand by Dial. “It literally has created sales.”

The only question left for investors is just how far the craze will stretch.

A version of this article appears in the June 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline "Investors Go Long on Slime."