可憐的玩具業：本季最火爆的玩具既不是漂亮的玩偶，也不是新奇的電影周邊裝備，而是黏糊糊的一團膠。今年已有超過1000萬個YouTube視頻和Instagram帖子內容都是黏膠。不過美國老牌玩具商美泰上世紀70年代推出過的類似玩具Slime（還記得那句時髦的Slime廣告么：黏答答、濕滴滴、潮乎乎，就是它！）早已停售，成為懷舊玩家的藏品，搭不上這股潮流撈金。如今制作黏膠最常用的材料都是家里隨處可見的，包括老式洗衣增強劑硼砂，以及埃默爾膠水。

但并沒有影響投資者對黏膠前景的看好。今年5月，擁有埃默爾品牌的美國消費品巨頭Newell Brands（今年美國《財富》500強企業中排在208位）在一次有關企業盈利業績的電話會議上提到了黏膠產品。據英國巴克萊銀行估算，去年埃默爾的銷售額增長了25%，今年第一季度又增長了50%。Newell Brands的首席執行官邁克爾·波爾克后來告訴投資者，新增需求“都和黏膠有關。”

“我們沒有自滿，”波爾克說，“我們會努力搭上一些趨勢的順風車，盡量把握住機會。”由于許多店里埃默爾產品迅速售罄，Newell Brands表示將提高產能，位于北卡羅來納州的工廠產能將增加一倍以上。

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，投資者也搭上把握黏膠流行的風口。今年稍早在紐約舉行的金融界會議Stocktoberfest East上，連交易員都在熱議黏膠。投資顧問公司Ritholtz Wealth Management的首席執行官喬什·布朗在會議現場給Newell Brands的股票取名“黏膠股”。

“如此流行，已經不是小事。”巴克萊的分析師勞倫·利伯曼談到黏膠熱潮時評論道。對于Newell Brands今年一季度盈利超出華爾街預期，利伯曼認為主要因為黏膠熱帶動銷量增長。公布盈利當天公司股價大漲12%，。

與此同時，在美國西部沙漠已有百余年開采歷史的大宗商品——硼砂也迎來類似的“第二春“。礦業巨頭力拓的一位發言人表示：“我能確認，家庭制造的黏膠在年輕人中間非常流行，這推動了（硼砂）產品的需求。確確實實拉動了銷售。”德國漢高公司旗下硼砂品牌20 Mule Team采用的就是力拓的原料。（財富中文網）

投資者要擔心的只有一個問題，黏膠熱潮到底能持續多久。

本文發表于2017年6月1日期《財富》雜志，原標題為《投資者看好黏膠》。

譯者：Pessy

審稿：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."