Happy Monday, Munchers! 🙏

Weekend's over, back to the grind again. Hope you had a good one - football fever is really taking off. Congrats a million times over to any Moroccans reading this.

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 5 minutes and 22 seconds.

Yesterday, Apple made India it's crown jewel, Qatar rocked Europe's echelons with some cash, and investors panicked out of the crypto markets. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What's hot, what's not?

Market Commentary

• One of US President Biden's closest advisors called opposition to oil drilling 'un-American'. What a world we live in.

• The International Energy Agency has forecast global power from solar to surpass coal in about 5 years. Pretty lofty bet, but it looks like there's a good chance it will pay off.

• Spain and France are planning a natural gas pipeline to distance themselves from Russia, and it looks like the final bill will come out to $2.5 billion. Hefty.

Story Roundup

1 - India cements it's status as a hardware hub. 💪

China's COVID aggression has crippled their crown jewel - manufacturing.

Workers in factories are literally rebelling against their employers, and the guys in charge don't like this.

To protect themselves, top iPhone maker Foxconn has spent about $500mn on creating Apple product manufacturing plants in India.

Analysts from JP Morgan are betting that Apple will make about 40% of iPhones in India by 2025, partly because of the government's meaty silicon subsidies, which make everything a million times cheaper.

California's kombucha guzzling tech bros will be meeting Calcutta's dosa munching chetas, and we're all here for it. 🤩

2 - Qatar's long arms shake European Parliament. 🫰

Qatar is at the center of the world right now, but Qatargate seems to be brewing.

Two European Parliament members have been detained and $600k has been confiscated.

The reason?

An international investigation into claims that Qatar tried buying political clout.

Four unnamed people have been charged with money laundering, corruption, and participation in a criminal organisation.

Time will tell whether this is yet another smear campaign, but until then, we enjoy the beautiful game. ⚽

3 - Investors grab their cash and flee the crypto casino. 🏃💨

The FTX contagion is still hampering crypto markets.

Last month, investors pulled 91.5k Bitcoin from all sorts of centralized exchanges.

That's the largest outflow on record through history, and it's a pretty telling number.

This rush for the exit door has had a very telling impact on markets, with BTC lying at a lowly -70% through the start of this year.

Regulators are circling like hawks, fresh money is drying out, and macro is taking over.

Take me back to 2021. 🙏🏼

4 - America passed a $858 billion defence bill. Billion with a B. 💣

I thought the dumbest purchase ever made was when I spent 15 AED on a bottle of water.

Turns out the US House of Reps passed a $858 bill on defence spending.

The highlights are - - a $10bn provision to weapons for Taiwan. Yep. That's not a joke. - the Pentagon will also be dropping it's COVID vaccine mandate- a 4.6% pay increase for troops and veterans- about 350 votes for, and 80 votes against. Pretty telling.

Oh man. 🤦🏼

5 - Blackstone rolls back on it's private equity cash cow. 🐄

The cash crunch is biting hard on Blackstone's bank accounts.

They warned of risks to delays to the launch of a new private equity fund that caters to wealthy individuals.

Blackstone's private equity shops are their bread and butter - so something like this makes you wonder if something is amiss.

This news also comes after Blackstone limited withdrawals to their flagship real estate fund, which is worth about $69 billion.

Fingers crossed. 🤞🏼

A few nibbles from Pasiv 🍪

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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