Good morning, Munchers! 🙏

Keep on trucking... the weekend's super close.

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 5 minutes and 12 seconds.

This week, we're making a little stop-over in Africa. Say hi to our guest Caleb. If you want to know anything about Africa - shoot him a message. He knows the scene like it's the back of his hand.

Anyhow - let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• The Bank of England stepped in to rescue the British Pound. They'll be spending $5bn a day buying British govt. bonds for the next 13 days. 😬

• Stocks jumped today as investors feel we're trudging into oversold levels. Any break from financial bloodbath is welcome. 🙏

• UK stocks continued a tumble - businesses are bracing for higher costs amid a fall in Sterling.

Story Roundup

1 - Bank of England turns the money printers back on. 🖨️

British markets have been agitated over the last few days.

The Pound hit an all-time low, UK stocks sold off, and British government bonds had their worst days in a long while.

The Bank of England has seen this - and it wants to soothe markets a little.

How are they gonna do it? By getting the money printers back up and running.

That's right - they'll now be spending $65 billion to buy UK government bonds over "material risk to UK financial stability".

This is inflationary. Full stop.

Buckle up. Real tight.

2 - Russian cyber attacks raise Western eyebrows. 🤨

The head of the UK's spy organization thinks that Russia will hit back harder.

He said that they saw "very significant conflict" in the cyber space, and that Putin's changed his approach up a little.

To make up for the ground Russia have lost in the real world, they're coming into their own and controlling the narrative through cyber attacks.

Western organizations need to be on "elevated alert" for the long haul.

Password-protected. 🔒

3 - Hurricane Ian starts beaming the US. 🌀

Florida has been battered by winds as fast as 240 kilometers an hour - the same speed as an F1 car.

Hurricane Ian came to Florida yesterday, and cut power for almost two million people.

The state's largest power & utility biz warned of "significant disruption" to the power grid - and predicted that some parts of the system would need rebuilding after Hurricane Ian's gone away.

Surges expect to reach between 12 feet and 18 feet - about as tall as the average NBA player.

Some videos out of there are genuinely scary. A shark managed to make it's way on land.

Prayers out to everyone affected. 🙏

4 - Saudi whips out a 25% return on their state investment fund. 💸

Saudi Arabia's done something they rarely do - opened their books up to the world.

Their state investment fund - with assets of about $630 billion - managed to achieve an eye-watering 25% return last year.

The fund has been transformed by a sleepy, rich, unbothered investor into one of the world's most active VCs.

Public equities account for 44% of PIFs assets, private equity is at 21% and infrastructure investments sit at 13%.

They want to be managing $1.1 trillion by 2025 - trillion with a T.

That's one big Saudi rocket-ship. 🚀

5 - Stellantis pulls up to Africa to splash some cash. 💰

Hey guys - Caleb here for this one!

Stellantis, the automotive giant behind Peugeot, Chrysler, Dodge and Maserati with a whopping $40B market cap, invested in Africar Group to make a bet on Africa’s used car market.

In Africa, demand for used cars is high but the user experience is poor, with customers experiencing a lack of transparency and pricing instability.

I did a crash course (get it?) on why used cars are a $14b market in Egypt. Check it out for a deeper dive.

Africar Group lets users reliably buy used cars online, and their launch in the Ivory Coast will let them take this model to Francophone Africa - a less competitive market to equivalents like Egypt and Nigeria.

Race to the top! 🏎️

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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If you want more top-notch insights from someone who's living, breathing, and investing in the African startup ecosystem, go sub to Caleb's newsletter. You won't regret it ;)

Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

Aryaansh