Happy Friday, Munchers! 🙏

Hope you folks had a lovely week. We're on the home stretch now. Looking forward to a banging weekend. 🤩

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 44 seconds.

Yesterday, Wall Street regulators set their sights on crypto companies, BYD made a hard push into India, and cooler inflation soothed markets. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Markets stayed pretty choppy and volatile after inflation data came out of the US. Traders expected 6.5%, and they got 6.5%. All looking good. Cost of living crisis seems to be under wraps. In America, at least. 🤷🏼

• European stocks also closed at their highest level since April 2022 after this brilliant inflation print. The guys across the pond seem pretty happy.

• Two words: Egg prices. They've tripled over the last year, and they won't be going down any time soon. Some pretty harsh bird flu and a lot of supply chain disruptions mean that your omelette is gonna be hella expensive. 🥚

Story Roundup

1 - Wall Street's top cop trains his eyes on crypto bros. 👀

We've all heard about the FTX fiasco - fraud in shorts and slippers.

But we never heard about the guy behind it.

Damian Williams is the first black guy to be the US attorney for the Southern District of NY - which is responsible for policing Wall Street and other global finance.

He just created a brand-new civil rights unit, which is all about protecting the little guy.

Damian was the same dude that brought charges against FTX, and he isn't stopping there.

Any crypto business that did weird stuff during 2021 is gonna come under the microscope. Which is basically all of them.

I spy with my little eye... a lot of rotten apples.🤦🏼

2 - BYD gets set to electrify India. ⚡

China's top EV maker is buying a one-way ticket to India.

BYD is the name, and electric cars is their game.

They're seeing the merit in moving away from China - they want to expand their production base in China if the demand warrants it.

The company's growth story is one like no other. They kicked off in the depths of 2008, and have since managed to give bigger players like Tesla a beating.

BYD wants to own EVERYTHING - they're setting up their own battery division, energy storage division, computer chip unit, and B2B battery business.

Looks like India's gonna be supercharging that. 🚀

3 - US Fed preps to switch gears on rate hikes. ⚙️

Red-hot, but cooling down slowly.

Annual inflation in America came down to it's lowest level in more than a year, meaning that the pressure is easing off everyone's head.

The expected number was 6.5%, and that's what we got.

Markets are betting that the Fed is gonna slowly shift away from their ultra-aggressive policy and opt for a downsized quarter-point rate hike.

Traders believe that there's a 90% chance that we see a 25bp hike, and a 10% chance we see a 50bp one.

Maybe it's too early to go for a victory lap. 😅

4 - SBF says he didn't stash those billions. 💸

SBF is throwing around some wild allegations, and it doesn't look good.

He's laid blame for FTX's bankruptcy on a "months-long PR campaign by Binance CEO CX".

As Alameda became illiquid, FTX International went belly up as well.

That's because Alameda had a margin position open on FTX, and a bank run turned that illiquidity into insolvency.

To rectify this, SBF has said that "nearly all of my assets were and still are utilizable to backstop FTX customers".

What a mess. 💀

5 - Crypto broker Genesis owes a few billion. 😅

The crypto contagion never seems to get over.

Genesis owes customers over $3 billion, and it's forcing their parent company to make some difficult decisions.

Their parent company is called DCG - and they own other big names like CoinDesk and Grayscale.

DCG is gonna have to sell off other assets to make creditors whole, otherwise Mr. Law will come knocking.

Their portfolio is worth about $500 million, but it's super illiquid and might take a lot of time to sell.

Sticky situation. 😬

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