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, Europe eked out a pinch of growth, Adani grabbed cash from their Arab friends, and oil majors ran it up. 🔥

Let’s dive in. 

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Wage growth is slowing down in the US and the UK - one more sign that we are far beyond the inflationary peak. Maybe some relief at the grocery store is in sight.

• Higher mortgage rates are pushing down home sales across the globe, and buyers everywhere are facing the bite. Say bye-bye to your dreams of buying a home, Gen Z!

• Asian markets remained super choppy with a lot of mixed moods on (you guessed it) mixed economic data.

Story Roundup

1 - Europe narrowly dodges the recession bullet. 🎯

Economists got another one wrong (as usual).

Europe's economy expanded by 0.1% in Q4 of 2022 - contrary to what Wall Street was predicting.

A warmer winter meant less reliance on the energy crutch, and a lot of government support cushioned the impact of higher prices. Policymakers are doing their best to make life easier for the average Joe on the street.

The worst case scenario for Europe seems to be out of the crosshairs, but growth is sluggish overall.

Next big risk on people's minds is a little thing called stagflation - a long time-period of high inflation and low growth.

Bullwhip. 🐂

2 - Adani flags off Hindenburg's concerns. 💸

Forget Hindenburg.

Adani just sold over $2 billion of shares.

This is the biggest follow-on public offering in Indian history, with a target sale of $2.5 billion.

The goal was to grab enough cash to slow down their quickly ticking debt clock.

Adani got some help from their Arab bros in Abu Dhabi and an astounding amount of interest from the public.

Almost 46 million shares were sold to retail investors, with 19 million being sold to institutions.

Big money. 🥵

3 - Oil majors mint millions. 🛢️

Oil majors are rolling in money.

ExxonMobil raked in a profit of $56 billion last year - with Papa Putin's invasion proving to be a boon for oil companies.

Profitability seems to increase by the day with oil prices slowly ticking back up, so relief at the gas pump may not be around the corner.

But as is with all things, the government couldn't go without trying to take a bite.

Oil companies got accused of "profiteering from war" - and were then asked for a $1.3bn chunk of their earnings. As windfall tax, of course.

The rich... always get richer. 😏

4 - India preps a bumper budget. 📃

The world's largest democracy is all set to unveil a budget. 

It's also the last full-year budget before PM Modi heads for a third term at the ballots - so here's the rundown on everything expected. 

• Government expects nominal GDP growth of 11.1%.

• Fiscal deficit is gonna inch lower. It's currently at 6.4% and if it goes below 6%, it'll be a sign that the government is serious about maintaining fiscal discipline.

• Food subsidies are likely gonna get cut and fertilizer subsidies are gonna start going away.

• Market borrowings are expected to ramp up about 35% to Rs. 12.5 lakh Cr.

Make India Great Again? 💀

5 - Tesco starts chopping up it's workforce. 🛒

Price pressures are hammering anyone that breathes, and Tesco is feeling the heat.

They're eliminating hundreds of manager jobs and firing a total of 2,000 people.

All food counters and hot delis are also gonna get shut down (no more 5AED spring rolls) as shoppers get bored and more consumers focus on buying packaged products.

They'll also close a lot of pharmacies and restructure all of their companies to make sure that the money flows smoothly.

No discounts. 🤣

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