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 51 seconds.

Yesterday, UK inflation revved up for the billionth time this year, Elon Musk changed Twitter's gamemode to hardcore, and the US flexed it's muscles. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• American stocks fell as disappointing earnings from retail businesses stoked fears of a gloomy holiday season.

• Bitcoin continued it's trend to the ground as skeletons come tumbling out of the crypto casino's closet.

• European stocks took a big hit after some pretty hot inflation data in the UK.

Story Roundup

1 - UK inflation surges. Again. 😅

Guess what.

Inflation just got hotter in the UK. Who could have seen this coming?

British inflation just accelerated to 11.1%, the highest it's been in over 40 years.

Rising food and energy prices were the biggest culprits to this uncomfortable outsized number, and it looks like they will continue to add fuel to the dumpster fire.

The only bright news that came out of yesterday's report was that core inflation (CPI minus food and energy) held it's ground - unchanged from the last month at 6.5%.

Red-hot. 🥵

2 - Elon Musk hits the hardcore button on life at Twitter. 🐦

Twitter just got hard mode.

Elon Musk just gave everyone working there an ultimatum.

Commit to "an extremely hardcore" culture of working long hours and slogging it out behind the screen, or quit.

It looks like employees have been formally asked whether they want to be part of a 'new' Twitter through a link in their email.

Everyone getting fired is receiving 3 months of severance pay and extended insurance.

Sign of the times. 💀

3 - Crypto broker Genesis halts trading. 💀

FTX's collapse is still making waves, and it's causing a lot of big ships to capsize.

Gensis Crypto was their next Titanic.

They have halted customer withdrawals at their lending unit citing "unprecedented market turmoil" as a reason for doing so.

Redemptions of all kinds have been suspended as "abnormal withdrawal requests have exceeded their current liquidity".

Genesis plays a very important role in crypto markets. They hold about $2.8 billion in active loans, and are one of the biggest sharks in the crypto lending pool.

They also have about $175 million in client money stuck on FTX.

Sticky situation. 😓

4 - ECB waves the white flag on financial markets. ‼️

The European Union is sipping on a toxic cocktail of soaring inflation, incoming recession, and rising borrowing costs.

Lower liquidity across markets is "set to trigger turmoil" according to the ECB.

Europe's finest central bankers just released their bi-annual Financial Stability Review - and the biggest takeaway is that there might be more to come.

Indebted households, governments, and businesses are gonna find life super difficult in a time of recession with sky-high borrowing costs.

Slowdown's coming in hot. 😬

5 - Consumer balance sheets seem to be robust. 💪

The American consumption engine is running overtime and in full force.

US retail sales jumped almost 8.3% from last year, notching their biggest monthly increase since the start of the year.

While data is not adjusted for inflation (which it probably should be), headline figures are not enough to give a clear indication of what's actually going on with the average Joe.

Resilient US consumers could make life harder for the Fed as they might have to slow down plans for calmer rate hikes.

Rocket. 🚀

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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