Happy Friday, Munchers! 🙏

Last day of the week. Hope your weekend partying kicks off well.

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 US GDP to get out of it's coma, Meta to get a little pounding, and Elon Musk to bring a washbasin to Twitter's office. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• US stocks oscillated as GDP came in stronger than expected. It was also positive - which soothed some hard landing concerns.

• The NASDAQ was dragged lower after some disappointing moves by the index's biggest weights.

• US markets are now pricing in a 87% chance of a 75bps hike.

Story Roundup

1 - America's economy stages a cheeky comeback. 👑

The comeback kid of yesterday happens to be none other than America!

US GDP data printed yesterday, and it made a surprise rebound instead of shrinking.

If you take a second and remember all the GDP prints from this year, you'll remember that the economy shrunk every single time.

For the third quarter though, the American economy grew by 2.6%.

This expansion was fueled by a slimmer trade deficit, and weaker consumer demand for imports.

Finally, some good news. 💀

2 - Meta seems to be having some mega issues. 😤

Since Facebook became Meta, they've burned $500bn in value for investors.

Yesterdays earnings were yet another nail in the coffin.

They lost about $80bn in market cap after some disappointing profits and underwhelming advertising revenue.

Plus - they've spent about $15 billion on building their own Metaverse - all without a stable MVP so far.

Meta is sipping on a dangerous cocktail of falling sales and surging costs - and investors aren't liking this. Their stock fell about 30% in the last two days. 💀

Meta's got some mega problems to deal with. 🪛

3 - Elon Musk pulls up to the Twitter office with a washbasin. 💀

I'm not even joking.

Elon Musk actually came to Twitter's office with a washbasin. He then posted a video of this, with the caption let that sink in.

The guy then went and had coffee in Twitter's cafe - he apparently wants to be on the ground before his acquisition goes through.

They're gonna be purchased for $44bn - $31bn of which comes directly from Elon Musk's pockets, and $13bn of which is borrowed money

4 - ECB continues their hiking amid some signs of an avalanche. 🗻

A looming recession isn't spooking no one.

The ECB raised interest rates by 75 basis points despite some sharp criticism from bloc members.

This increase was in line with market expectations, but bond markets went boom and the Euro fell as investors bet that a recession might get the ECB to stop raising rates soon.

The ECB has been criticised quite a bit for sticking with it's aggressive tightening while a recession seems to be on the horizon.

It's a rash choice, but a necessary one. 🤷

5 - Step borrows $300 million to get kids into crypto. 🫰

The pandemic created a new wave of investors attracted to a new wave of assets - and Step Bank wants to get 'em young.

They just raised $300mn of debt financing, and have one big mission.

Step wants to bring crypto to kids.

Their business model used to revolve around banking for teens, and crypto is just the latest offering to draw younger people to their app.

Slowdown didn't faze no one. 💪

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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