Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

A very very happy Diwali to those of you that celebrate it. 🪔

India also got an early Diwali gift - in the form of King Kohli's knock that toppled Pakistan's crazy pace. Good play and see you guys in the final. 🏏

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 53 seconds.

That's less time than it takes for Xi Jinping to come to power again, Wall Street to forecast Silicon Valley gloom, and retail investors to lose half their money. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Story Roundup

1 - China's most powerful man extends his rule. 👑

Xi Jinping is back at the top. 

He's been leading China for the last 9 years. 

As his role as President comes to it's 10th birthday, here's everything that he announced.- Consolidation of power. No opps, and definitely no snitches. - Anyone opposing him is gone. His rival (some guy named Li Keqiang) was basically kicked out of party ranks and this helped his grip in the top tighten. - Nothing is changing. Zero-COVID policies are still there, and they want to go crazy on growth in the next 10 years or so. 

This is quite a rocketship that he's got. 🚀

2 - Wall Street expects a storm to rattle Big Tech. 🌩️

Belts are getting tighter on Wall Street. 

And as the economy slows, they forecast that Silicon Valley is gonna feel the bite too. 

Big Tech companies' earnings are coming up. These are gonna be a pretty important barometer of how consumer spending is moving. 

Revenue growth for the FAANG companies is expected to slow about 10% this quarter - which is just a sign of the times. 

Margins are getting slimmer, costs are shooting up, and demand is being destroyed. 

Strap in. 💥

3 - Retail investor portfolios are down ~45% this year. 📉

JP Morgan's shown the world how bad the little guys are doing. 

Personal portfolios in the US fell 44% this year - which means that retail investors are nursing steep losses. 

This comes after some market-moving selloffs in pandemic favorites. Retail has anyways been conditioned to invest into growth equities, which are paying out some punches at the moment. 

Stuff's getting bumpy. 💣

4 - JP Morgan seeks crypto advice from a Celsius exec. 💀

Would you hire a robber to guard a million dollars of gold?

JP Morgan's just hired a former executive at crypto network Celsius to head their digital assets arm.

Yeah, you read that right. They just hired a guy that was at the top of a company that froze billions of dollars in customer funds, was found with a $1.2 billion hole in their balance sheet, and ruined a lot of people's lives. 

While JP Morgan is royalty in the finance world, this move is still pretty shocking. You don't usually see them pick people that were part of one of the biggest crypto flame-outs in history. 

Sign of the times. 🤔

5 - Biden's bias kicks in yet again. 💪

All signs are flashing red, but the Biden administration still has hope. 

One of their top economic advisors said that the US economy "has the strength and resilience" to shield itself from a recession.

They think that we'll have a soft landing, where growth slows down bit by bit instead of sharply dropping. A soft landing also means that job growth will cool instead of layoffs happening left-right and center. 

The US labour market is still very strong, and household balance sheets look robust for the meanwhile. 

Time will tell where this one goes. ⌚

A few nibbles from Pasiv

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PS - Investing involves risk. Conduct your own research before you invest. Pasiv Financial Ltd is regulated by the DFSA.

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