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 47 seconds.

Yesterday, America did a LOT of shady stuff, Tiger invested big bucks into PhonePe, and Coca Cola enjoyed some hefty revenues. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Inflation in the US slowed down less than expected - coming down from 6.5% to 6.4%. Markets were betting on a sharper slowdown to 6.2%, and this could mean that the economy is much hotter than the "smart money" thinks. Fingers crossed...

• Indian markets bounced higher and Adani baba reported some strong results, with a net profit of 820Cr compared to a net loss of 12Cr last quarter.

• Traders everywhere are a little confused. The global economy right now looks like a badly microwaved meal... Super hot in a few parts but ice-cold in others.

Story Roundup

1 - America bombed the Nord Stream. 🔥

If there's one thing that the last 2 years have taught us, it's to not take things for what they appear to be.

Remember when our newspapers and Twitter feeds were overflowing with news of Russia's gas war?

The whole world was giving Vlad Putin a lot of hate for snipping Europe's umbilical cord - Nord Stream 1.

NS1 is a gas pipeline that was responsible for 40% of European energy supply, and Russia was supposedly bombing it to force reliance on their own natural gas supplies.

After some investigation, it turns out that the culprits weren't Russian.

It was Good Ol' Uncle Sam who was responsible for putting an entire continent on the brink of blackout.

Here's a lovely deep dive that I found. Disclaimer - it's shocking.

This is something the media won't tell you... 🤷

2 - Tiger Global splashes more cash into PhonePe. 💸

The market downturn isn't fazing anyone - and PhonePe seems to be leading the race.

They're an Indian payments giant and they just picked up $100 million more from Tiger Global and Ribbit Capital.

This cash infusion happened at a $12 billion valuation - making it India's most valuable fintech.

But if you page through the income statement, there isn't anything special.

They generated $230mn in 2022 revenues, which makes you wonder why they command a price tag so big.

But the real game is in distribution.

Investors are okay with paying such a steep price because PhonePe has 300 million users - all of which can be cross-sold products like insurance and loans.

The end game... is to become a bank. 😴

3 - Coca Cola smashes revenue targets. 🥤

Coca Cola's results just came in, and the disco lights are flashing.

Net sales rose around 8% with the exclusion of stuff like their Russian business (which faced a lot of jeopardy).

Turns out they were super successful in passing on price hikes to consumers, and a lot of this sales growth was due to a mix of more expensive products moving off the shelves.

Coke's soft drinks are on a ripper because of how well they control the pricing, and it shows.

The only part of their business that did poorly was their juice segment (shrinking 7%)

Guess people like freshness over sugar...

4 - Private equity tries saving Toshiba from poor profits. 📉

Private Equity comes for everyone - and Japan's private equity has some big pockets.

Toshiba is the next $15 billion target for Japan's biggest PE firm.

If this buyout is approved, it's gonna be a good sign-off to an 8-year saga that saw the company go from market leader to literal brink of collapse.

Toshiba was struck by crisis in 2015 when it's US-based nuclear business faced some massive writedowns, and everything has been in jeopardy since.

Support from shareholders will be critical since it is not an ideal time to be selling at a loss.

Hard-knock life.

5 - Air India accelerates into the skies. ✈️

India's aviation industry is taking to the skies with Air India placing a mammoth order.

Airbus just got a request for 250 planes, which marks it's a big shift in direction.

Air India was recently taken private by Tata Sons, and they've made a big promise to the world.

Their reputation went down the toilet over the last few years as government management led to fraying finances and sluggish growth.

Air India became the butt of all air-related jokes - kinda like Spirit or Ryanair.

But 250 planes is a big number, and Tata has big dreams.

Takeoff. 🛫

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