Weekly "Focus" and the Game of Scrabble

Ever heard of Nigel Richards? I hadn’t until this week when I read about him in the Wall Street Journal. He’s the undisputed king of Scrabble, having won world championships in English, French and Spanish. Remarkably, he doesn’t speak or understand French or Spanish; he just has a photographic memory for words. The game is almost 100 years old, originally known as Criss-Crosswords and there is an online version of the game that is popular called Words with Friends. Interestingly, Scrabble is manufactured by two of the leading toy companies – Hasbro in Canada and the US and Mattel in other countries. Mattel announced strong quarterly results last week, buoyed by sales of Hot Wheels (I still keep the beaten-up cars from my youth) and the shares raced ahead by 15% (i). Hasbro will announce results next week.

 

	Price Return 2025	Dividend Yield
Hasbro (HAS)	+7.9%	4.6%
Mattel (MAT)	+24.1%	0.0%

Source: FactSet, Values as of February 14, 2025

 

This week’s "Focus" from our economics team is attached.

 

Have a great weekend,

 

Brad

Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Investment Advisor