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- Market Munch 🥭 | 3 January 2023
Market Munch 🥭 | 3 January 2023
Ukraine hits back hard, recession fears get folks on tilt, and Japan tries trimming Tokyo down. 🔥
Aryaansh Rathore
January 02, 2023
Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏
Hope you had a cracking Monday. Classy start to 2023. This is the year. ⚡
As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 53 seconds.
Yesterday, Ukraine fired their missiles up, IMF bet that a recession is upon us, and Japan started paying people to get out of Tokyo. 🔥
Let’s dive in.
What’s hot, what’s not?
Market Commentary
European stocks kicked the new year off with some thin gains after lost hopes of a Santa Claus rally.
Dalal Street also started marginally higher after a big metals boost buoyed markets to a winning 2023.
The weighing scale was popped out for last year. Stock and bond markets lost $30 trillion in value over 2022. Systemic risk is the most lethal killer of diversification. 🤷🏼
Story Roundup
Maybe David has a pretty big shot against Goliath.
Moscow admitted that a Ukrainian missile hit army barracks in a Russia-occupied territory, along with an ammo dump + weapons storage.
Papa Putin is still furious as ever, and the shelling on civilian infrastructure seems to be extended.
Main targets for the Russian offensive are electricity generators, water supplies, and homes.
Ukraine is simply unprepared for Russia's aerial might, and there are some chinks in the armour.
Pretty sad to see. 😔
The IMF reckons that bad stuff is headed our way. And it's coming FAST.
"The US, EU, and China are slowing down simultaneously, and one-third of the world will be in recession this year."
Here are a few headwinds they cited - - continued drag from the Ukraine war (because nothing is complete without mentioning Putin)- record COVID figures in China- rapidly disintegrating supply chains- rate hikes aplenty being dished out by central bankers- spiraling wages
A soft landing seems possible for America, but most of the developed world seems to be knee-deep in hot water. 😬
The Japanese government wants to reverse decades of demographic decline - they're gonna pay parents in Tokyo to get out of the city center.
Families that leave overcrowded Tokyo for the countryside will get a one-time cash payment of ~$8,000.
They'll also get almost $25k in support and even more benefits if they try to start their own business.
The only catch? If you go back to Tokyo, you owe the government every penny it gave you.
Japan's shrinking and ageing population means that an army of grey-haired folks could increase the disease burden and aggravates labour-force shortages.
Time to book that Japan flight. 🤩
"Digital fentanyl", "addictive", and "destructive".
Those were the words of a Republican Congressman, and they're laying bare TikTok's dark nature.
America wants to completely ban TikTok, and it's not looking pretty.
Their biggest concern is privacy.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance sends all their data to the CCP.
And obviously the US doesn't like it.
The only way they'll let TikTok wild in America is if the US operations are owned by a local company.
Classic - it's illegal unless we can profit from it. 🤷🏼
Shopify is gonna let retailers pool their customer data, then upload it to Facebook/Google ads.
It's gonna help Shopify users find "lookalike" customers since they bought similar products.
The system is designed to skirt Apple's tracking rules, which have put a multi-billion dollar dent in the bottom lines of many advertising companies.
Shopify has been through some tough times, with earnings evaporating and advertising revenue vanishing.
Looks like the ball is in Apple's court. 🎾
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!
Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏
Aryaansh