Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

First Monday of the new month! Hope you're all well and have had a restful weekend.

Fingers crossed that markets fare better this month compared to the last one - which was in fact the worst month of the year for stocks. Tech stocks are sobbing rn. 😥

We're back at it - let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• OPEC+ planned a pretty substantial oil cut, which is gonna push up oil prices. 🛢️

• Credit Suisse reassured it's investors over the bank's liquidity - setting off fears that something's rotten. 🪱

• Cryptocurrencies traded pretty flat. Not much moving markets over the weekend. 💸

Story Roundup

1 - NATO sends out a warning to Russia. 💣

The NATO has tried to show Russia that they're not playing any games.

They warned of "severe consequences for Russia" if they were to use nuclear bombs in Ukraine.

Remarks like this are very rare - and it's even scarier when both sides mean business.

Putin has showed some of his sharpest stances on nuclear weapon use, threatening to drop his nukes if "Russia's territory was threatened".

The West has showed that they aren't gonna take it sitting down - with multiple warnings against nuke use by a lot of leaders.

One thing's for certain - there are no winners in a nuclear war. ☢️

2 - Europe might be in for a chilly winter. 🥶

This European winter looks like a long, hard, and cold one.

Governments have been trying to puzzle together the pieces to solve an energy crisis that has rocked the continent, and this weather warning seems to be yet another hurdle.

Europe is likely to feel lesser wind and rainfall than normal, along with a decrease in temperature.

In short, it's gonna be cold and dry.

Colder winters are problematic since the heater needs to be on for a longer time - which puts more strain on the power bills.

Hot stuff. Or not so much. 🥵

3 - Credit Suisse says that there's nothing to worry about. 😅

This weekend was a pretty fun one - but not if you're a Credit Suisse senior.

Word on the Street is that they spent the weekend reassuring large investors, clients, and counterparties that their liquidity is strong and they're financially healthy.

Their shares are down almost 57% this year, showing how investors have fled from the company. In addition, their CDS spreads (a contract that lets buyers make money when a company defaults on their debt) are at their highest level since 2008.

Only time will tell how this plays out, but Michael Burry put his thoughts perfectly.

"Our capital position at the moment is strong" - Lehman Brothers' CFO on Sep 8, 2008

Lehman Brothers collapsed exactly a week later, on the 15th of September.

Go figure. 🙏

4 - TikTok makes a hard push into e-commerce. 🛒

TikTok's turning into teleshopping - and it's a big, big market.

After their attempts with ecommerce failed in the UK, they've been hunting for their next big break. And it looks like they might have it.

TikTok will be trialling a feature in the US that lets users buy products directly from creators' live streams.

This service has been lucrative in China - hosting 9 million broadcasts that sold a total of 10 billion products.

They're now targeting your very impulses! 🧠

5 - Investors head for the emerging markets' exit door. 🏃‍♂️

The numbers never lie - and this time, they're showing us the plight of investor confidence.

Investors have withdrawn over $70 billion from emerging market bond funds this year, with $4.2 billion of those outflows coming in the last week.

There are two big culprits behind this investor flight - - a stronger US Dollar- higher rates in developed economies

A stronger dollar means that dollar-denominated debt is now more difficult to service (since you now need more money to buy the same amount of dollars). This is also why importing American stuff is more expensive for developing countries.

Higher rates in developed countries make the typically high yields of emerging markets look unattractive - because if you can get a similar return by taking on a lot less risk, why wouldn't you!

Follow the smart money. 📊

A few nibbles from OpenBB

Have you ever wanted the power of a Wall Street hotshot in the palm of your hand?

Look no further.

OpenBB is the most advanced, customizable, and powerful investment research platform on the block.

You can get access to data on thousands of stocks, cryptos, ETFs, and even some good ol' macro for the old-school investor in you.

It’s written entirely in python, and you look super cool while using it.

Have I also mentioned - their terminal is completely free to use.

You can check it out here.

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!

You might also wanna follow up on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

Aryaansh