Happy Monday, Munchers! 🙏

Hope the weekend was fun. If it wasn't, at least you managed to catch up on all the missed sleep. 💀

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

Over the weekend, America popped a Chinese balloon, Goldman bet on oil prices passing $100, and an Egyptian unicorn was born. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Investors piled into the dead-cat bounce pretty hard. The Nasdaq is up almost 8% in the last 4 days and it looks like that whole "recession" is a thing of the past. 🤦

• Markets are pricing in the end of the inflation problem and very, very heavily discounting that tail risk we saw every other day last year.

• Last year's most beaten up assets are starting to be this year's best performers. Bitcoin is up over 40%, ARKK is up 50%, and Meta is up almost 60%. 🙏

Story Roundup

1 - America shoots down a Chinese aircraft. 🤦

Good morning - say hello to World War 3!

Yesterday, a Chinese aircraft got onto the US military's radars.

They insisted that it was a spy balloon sent to peer over American land, and they very quickly shot it down.

It's explosion lit the sky up and sent debris flying everywhere - and news of this went all the way to Beijing.

China is furious. They kept telling the US that it was a civilian balloon and didn't have any James-Bond type stuff going on.

America very evidently didn't buy that.

And tensions between the big boys ramp up... again. 🙈

2 - Goldman bets that life is gonna get tough at the gas pump. ⛽

In a world where nothing is reliable, the only thing you can trust is that oil prices are gonna keep going up.

Goldman Sachs is betting that a barrel of oil will run you $105 by the end of the year, and there are quite a few reasons behind this boom.

China is reopening pretty fast. Factories are gonna start churning out all sorts of stuff, which means that they will need tons of fuel.

Plus, US oil producers have been relatively unable to increase output, which means that prices go 🆙. Basic economics.

Demand is set to go up 2.7 million barrels/day this year - which is a mammoth increase.

Slippery business. 🛢️

3 - Egypt spots it's newest unicorn. 🦄

The land of the pyramids rarely sees exotic animals... but it looks like a unicorn has decided to make Egypt it's home.

Fintech giant MNT-Halan raised a staggering $400mn at a $1bn valuation.

MNT offers the dream digital banking package for the unbanked - giving small businesses access to business loans, consumer finance, payments, and a lot more.

They're gonna be using this money to support their loan book and spam millions on growth.

It's the MENA region's biggest round since 2021, and it's a very welcome boost to the local ecosystem.

These are just the start of the GCC's golden years... 🤩

4 - India's richest banker says that Adani is no biggie. 🤷

Adani has lost $62 billion of his own wealth since the start of the year, and almost 3x as much of other people's.

But India's biggest banker Uday Kotak thinks that all will be well.

He's saying that "there is no systemic risk" stemming from Adani's implosion, and this stuff looked to be true ever since the RBI asked banks to share their Adani exposure.

Market regulators have put in "surveillance measures" to control excess volatility in individual shares after last week's saga.

India needs to strengthen their underwriting and ability to stomach stuff like this - but it's a good start.

Rocket. 🆙

5 - Ukraine preps for a rejuvenated Russian attack. ⚔️

Stuff is heating up on the front lines, and Ukraine is getting ready for a BIG Russian invasion.

Russia is heading for Ukrainian borders before the West sends over high-tech supplies.

There have been significant movements and build-ups of Russian troops in Southeast Ukraine and that just cements their decision.

Putin also gave them orders to seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk by March.

Only time will tell what happens... 💀

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