Market Munch πŸ• | 15 October 2022

Liz Truss shreds her reputation, JP Morgan revenues rally, and Saudi Aramco bowls a bouncer. πŸ”₯

Happy weekend, Munchers! πŸ™

Hope you had a fun Friday of partying.

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 Liz Truss to take another U-turn, JP Morgan revenues to spike, and Saudi Aramco to make a move in cricket. πŸ”₯

Let’s dive in.

What's hot, what's not?

Market Commentary

  • Stocks lost steam after yesterdays bull trap, and a lot of profit taking sent markets lower.

  • Indian markets ended higher after some heavy buying on tech majors after bumper Infosys profits.

  • The Pound's recovered a bit from it's recent slump, sitting at about 1.12 to the Dollar now.

Story Roundup

The number of U-turns that the UK government has taken is insane.

It's a good thing that Liz Truss has a driver, because she'd be going in circles without one.

She just fired Kwasi Kwarteng - the guy that helped her create come up with the tax cuts that shook Britain a week ago.

In addition, it looks like she'll be undoing a corporation tax cut.

If you own a British business, you'll now be paying 25% taxes on profits instead of the 19% that she promised.

This is beyond embarrassing. πŸ’€

JP Morgan seems to be pretty resilient for a company that's meant to be hitting the brakes hard.

Their revenue climbed 10% year-on-year to about $33.5bn - impressing analysts and investors alike.

In addition net interest income (which is basically what they earn on loans minus what they pay on deposits) climbed 34% to a new all-time record of $17.6bn.

Credit conditions still seem health, but they also warned that excess $$$ in customers' accounts would dry up by the middle of 2023.

And then of course, you have inflation, higher rates, expensive mortgages, and a literal war.

Strap in. πŸ’₯

Oil meets off cutters - Aramco is gonna be sponsoring the world's cricket governing body.

The International Cricket Council inked a deal with the oil major, so we're gonna see a lot of Aramco logos at the world cup.

Saudi has been on fire with their push into sports, with existing bets in Formula 1, Liv Golf, and the IPL.

And not to mention - the acquisition of Newcastle FC for about $300mn, where they've spent about $200mn more on new players.

Money talks. πŸ—£οΈ

Hire-and-fire at this scale seems pretty crazy - Royal Mail are getting ready to sack about 10,000 employees.

They've also cut salaries for current full time workers and have ramped up hiring for temporary roles. Talk about pivot.

These salary cuts are super drastic - with new employees facing a 20% wage cut from 25k GBP to 20k GBP.

They also reported a first-quarter operating loss of $240mn, a good reminder of their inability to optimize in a time where revenue's coming a little slowly.

The axe seems to be falling ast. πŸͺ“

President Putin has been under a lot of pressure.

Thousands of acres of Ukrainian territory was reclaimed, millions in machinery was destroyed as Russians fled the front lines, and they ran quite low on cash.

He tried drafting millions of young, strong men to fix this - but he's gone back on that word.

The draft seems to be deeply unpopular in Russia - more men fled to Kazakhstan than joined the army.

No one wins in a war like this. πŸ˜”

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. πŸ™

Aryaansh