Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 5 minutes and 16 seconds.

Yesterday, Russia got ready to go nuclear, Walmart gave some profit warnings, and China faced some turned backs. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Growth fears offset the hopes of some breakneck Chinese demand - and oil tanked a little bit. That giant Chinese muscle is yet to throw oil demand to the moon, but it’ll take some warming up.

• Some economic warnings from FMCG giants caused some furrowed eyebrows on Wall Street. Dow fell 500+ points and market remained very choppy.

• Indian indices ended flat although some hefty volatility was seen everywhere. Following the Americans!

Story Roundup

1 - Russia says bye-bye to nuclear treaties with Uncle Sam. 👋

Strategic nuclear weapons are nukes placed around the world.

For example, Russia will stash some missiles on an ally's land, so that they can get into battle in case something goes wrong.

America and Russia signed a piece of paper called the New Start Treaty. This capped the limit of strategic nukes to 1,550.

Uncle Sam thinks that Papa Putin has overstepped that limit, and he's starting to whine about it.

The West is increasingly growing conscious about the fact that a nuke could be sent to the Ukrainian front lines given how badly Russia is faring.

Time will tell where these folks go. Hopefully anywhere but my backyard. And yours. 🙈

2 - Walmart takes a U-turn on strong profits. 💪

The world’s largest corporate employer reported their earnings yesterday.

Walmart’s bottom line seems super strong, but the guys at the top think that a lot of pain is in store.

They forecast net sales growth of 2.5% compared to a Wall Street expectation of 4% increase - which might not seem like much, but is make-or-break when you consider the scale it’s on.

Home Depot echoed this same weak sentiment and expects to have a revenue drop for the first time in history.

We look to these consumer giants as good barometers of consumer spending because of how much they are a staple in America’s life.

Pain at the grocery checkout… coming soon to a supermarket near you!

3 - Tech giants think twice about China being the world’s factory. 🏭

Japan’s Kyocera is one of the biggest players in the Chinese manufacturing market.

But they have some concerns with the future of it all.

American curbs on Chinese access to tech are killing it’s viability as a place to manufacture exports.

Everything works fine as long as products are made in China and sold in China (because they aren’t subject to any sanctions/controls) but once you export stuff abroad, things start to change.

Wages have also gone up and employees have gotten some stronger bargaining power - which makes big-ticket investors anxious.

It is now nearly impossible to produce hardware in China without using regulation-affected chip technology.

Sign of the times.

4 - Amazon splashes millions on Indian meat. 💸

Indian startup FreshToHome sells fresh meat to customers - and they just raised a MAMMOTH round.

Amazon led a $104 million Series D round in FTH, along with the help of the US and Dubai governments.

FTH streamlines the sourcing and infrastructure of meat and fish, so they produce a better quality product and a faster delivery time.

There are a ton of players battling for a slice of the $100 billion Indian meat market. About 75% of Indians are non-veg and this gives room for tons of opportunity.

The lion’s share of meat sales in India comes from the wet markets, where customers physically inspect the product before they buy.

Changing that habit and making it “digital” is a difficult one, but very rewarding if it pays off.

Get munching. 🍗

5 - Joyalukkas says no to an IPO. 💍

Indian jeweller Joyalukkas has pulled it’s 2,300Cr IPO proposal.

They initially wanted to raise cash to pay back debtors and splash money on jazzy new stores, but it looks like those dreams now lie in the dust.

Joyalukkas now wants to refile for an IPO depending on market conditions, which is code language for - “I’m waiting for markets to boom again so I can make a killing selling my stock”.

The primary market is in a very, very dry state and there is a long way to walk toward regaining this business confidence.

Stay shining. 💎

Hope you enjoyed this issue of Market Munch. If you’ve got any feedback - good or bad (😏) you can hit reply to this email and I'll get a ping in my inbox. Thanks a ton for reading!

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Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

- Aryaansh ⚡