Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

As always, here's your daily dose from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 50 seconds.

That's less time than it takes for the BofE to hike 75bps, Japanese Central Bank to put their boxing gloves on, and for SoftBank to take another loss.

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Stocks and bonds slid yet again over fears that the Fed is gonna push us into a recession.

• Equities fell to lows unseen 4 months back - which means that the bears are hungry. 🐻

• Yields on 10Y US bonds surged 0.17 points to 3.68% and the 2/10s inversion deepened.

Story Roundup

1 - Bank of England clutches up with a 50 basis point hike. 📈

British rate-setters matched expectations and hiked their interest rate by 0.5%.

This takes the BofE's benchmark rate to it's highest level since 2008 - but it looks like they're holding back from 'total aggression'.

They now expect UK GDP to fall 0.1% in the third quarter - which will technically mark a recession.

Good news is rare - but we know that the costly energy price cap has been doing it's job to keep inflation under control (for now!).

Godspeed. 🚀

2 - Japan Central Bank steps in to prop the Yen up. 💴

Japan is tired of a weak Yen.

They intervened in markets to strengthen their currency - the first time this has happened since the late 1990s.

This move comes after the Yen has tumbled to a 24-year low as BoJ is forced to keep rates low and it's economy loose as a result of high debt levels.

The Yen surged almost 3.2% in it's most volatile day in almost a decade.

3 - UK ends fracking ban and triggers everyone. 😒

Russia invaded Ukraine - and energy markets went into a frenzy.

That hurts everyone. Businesses, consumers, and the government.

To control this pain, the UK wants to end it's ban on hydraulic fracking - a process of drilling oil that involves injecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure into the Earth.

People are clearly angry.

A certain energy official called it "absolute Ludditery".

Tells you all you need to know. 🤷

4 - SoftBank takes a 20% loss on OYO. 📉

OYO is one of India's biggest startups.

Once valued at $10 billion, that number fell to $3.4 billion in a few months.

Flash to today, and investors SoftBank have cut it's valuation 20% further.

This news comes after a market drought for capital-intensive startups, and it's biting hard.

OYO was meant to go public at almost $10 billion - but it's all to no avail. 😔

5 - European consumer confidence falls flat. 🔥

The average European is not feeling great.

Consumer confidence in the Eurozone just fell to a record low - compounding fears that soaring inflation could lead to a hard winter.

The cost of living is increasing at the fastest rate in history, and it looks like wages are lagging for the most part.

You can't blame them. ☹️

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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