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 52 seconds.

That's less time than it takes for American inflation to stay stubbornly high, Apple to sneak their way into customers' wallets, and Air India to explore merger options. 🚀

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Inflation shminflation. The market doesn't care. US stocks staged their biggest comeback in recent history, recovering from a 3.5% plunge to close sharply green.

• Prices in the world's largest economy are still stubbornly high. Time will tell where they go.

• Markets see a 13% chance of a 100bp hike, along with a peak rate of 4.85% in March '23.

Story Roundup

1 - US inflation gives markets an electric shock. ⚡

Inflation nation, yet again.

Yesterday, American headline inflation came in. Here is a quick roundup -- Headline CPI at 8.2%, vs 8.1% expected- Core CPI at 6.6%, vs 6.5% expected- Headline CPI month-on-month at 0.4%, vs 0.2% expected- Core CPI month-on-month at 0.6% vs 0.4% expected

The moment this news came out, stocks went absolutely tumbling - with major indices falling 2.5-4%.

But markets staged a miraculous comeback to close strongly in the green as investors bet that peak inflation is officially behind us.

It really is just an emotions game.

Let's see where this wild ride takes us. 🎢

2 - Apple joins hands with Goldman to creep onto Wall Street. 💸

Silicon Valley is ramping up it's takeover of Wall Street.

Apple is gonna launch a no-fee, high yield savings account for users of it's Apple Card.

They're gonna be teaming up with Goldman Sachs to do this - which is ironic, since Goldman had to close down their own high yield products because of criticism over losses and unprofitability.

This is probably the clearest signal we get of Apple's widening ambitions in the finance world.

And it makes sense - they have all the data.

They know what you buy, when you buy it, why you buy it, and how you use it.

He who controls the data controls the world. 🚀

3 - Air India and Vistara get into merger talks. 🤝

Singapore Airlines and Tata Group are might be looking for a merger to the moon.

They own 49 and 51% of Vistara Airline - one of India's largest full-service airlines.

While no definitive terms have been made, this marriage looks to be with Air India.

India's domestic and international air traffic has been projected to double, and then some more in the coming few years - which means we could have a profit party on our hands.

Takeoff. ✈️

4 - American antitrust policies might get a run for their money. ⚔️

The US's largest grocery chains are itching for a merger.

Krogers is in talks to scoop up Albertsons - which would bring them a combined total of 5,000+ stores.

This would create a pretty dominant market player at a time when prices for everything are through the roof.

And it's Year 7 economics here - what happens in a monopoly? Prices stay high, prices stay stable, and choice goes down.

Albertsons' stock price is up almost 11% - bringing it's total market cap to $13.7 billion.

Grocers across the board have made a lot of money off of high inflation. They can sneakily bump prices up 2-5% and pocket that sliver.

Wild times. 🛒

5 - Deloitte vice-chair quits after a drunken tirade. 💀

Don't drink, kids.

A senior Deloitte partner has been forced to leave the company after making some pretty explicit coments.

One of the people with him said that "he offended every collective group of minorities" and left all his colleagues feeling "completely deflated".

Deloitte's own numbers are pretty interesting - about 235 "serious ethics cases" were raised yesterday, of which 23% were related to alcohol and substance abuse.

Like I said.

Don't drink, kids.

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!

You might also wanna follow up on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

Aryaansh