Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 53 seconds.

Yesterday, Microsoft mulled a $10 billion investment into OpenAI, World Bank debated over a 2023 recession, and Coinbase culled 1/5th of it's staff. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Markets remained directionless as the Fed refused to give any comments on the path to tackling inflation.

• JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon said that rates may need to be hiked beyond 5% to calm everything down - which would destroy a lot of demand and shake a lot of things up.

• Tepid clues from the West and some somber earnings results also sent Indian markets down for a bit.

Story Roundup

1 - Microsoft goes all-in on AI. 🧠

Microsoft's is making a billion-dollar bet on AI.

They're set to invest $10 billion into OpenAI (yep, the folks that made GPT) at a valuation of $29 bilion.

They'll get a 75% share of OpenAI's profits until they recoup that $10 billion.

Once they get their money back, they'll take a 49% stake in OpenAI.

Microsoft owns Bing, and they want to use GPT's conversational abilities to make it the ultimate Google killer.

Holy smokes. AI is getting HOT. 🥵

2 - World Bank bets on a deep recession. 📉

The World Bank thinks that a recession is inevitable.

They slashed 2023 growth forecasts yet again, and it looks like the world's major economic engines are starting to sputter.

World Bank expects global growth at 1.7% - the slowest pace in the last 25 years. (bar recessions, obviously)

They reckon that the biggest problems we have are -

• higher-than-expected inflation (still!)

• destroyed demand by rate hikes

• a resurgence to COVID (as we've seen in China)

• geopolitical problems

Strap in, y'all. 😬

3 - Coinbase scales back heavy. 🪙

Just when you thought the crypto contagion was behind us, surprise!

Coinbase is being forced to cut a fifth of it's workforce and cut back rapidly on costs.

They'll be firing about 1,000 people - which means that this ship is gonna get real tight.

A crypto exchange like Coinbase is being attacked on two front - surging costs and crashing volumes.

They need a lot of cash on hand to ensure that they can weather any market downturn.

Risky projects are being shut down, and low-performers are being culled.

Just another day in the crypto casino. 🃏

4 - Bank of England rages at risk managers. 😡

The Bank of England is pretty pissed at the big boys.

They're saying that banks need to learn from their mistakes and fix what went wrong in 2022.

That includes a host of internal stuff which is 'lax' in the BoE's opinion - - risk management- counterparty risks - over-exposure to individual funds

They expect banks to thoroughly review their exposures and cut down where it's needed.

Only when the tide goes out do you see who's been swimming naked.

5 - Pakistan secures billions for a swift flood recovery. 💪🏼

Stormy skies and incessant rains have ravaged daily life in Pakistan.

But there is a chance that they can bounce back big.

They've raised almost $9 billion to secure their infrastructure, supply chains, and agriculture sector.

This cash is gonna go toward fixing up stuff that desperately needs fixing and repairing cracks in their export lines

Pakistan is super reliant on agriculture - with about x% of GDP dependent on local harvests.

Rain rain go away, come again another day.

Hope you enjoyed this issue of the Market Munch. If you've got any feedback - good or bad (😏) you can hit reply to this email. Thanks a ton for reading!

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Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

Aryaansh