Happy morning, Munchers! 🙏

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 42 seconds.

Yesterday, Dell slashed their workforce, Adani pays off some bills early, and Magic raises $23mn to phase devs out. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Both European and American markets slid a little as investors pondered the Fed's path to 2% inflation. Some funny stuff is in store and the "smart money" doesn't know where we're going... 🤔

• Asian markets stagnated as policymakers reiterated their stance that growth comes first.

• UK construction activity fell to it's lowest level since 2020. Looks like Brixton's builders are leaving the ends.

Story Roundup

1 - Dell slashes up thousands of employees. ✂️

Tech bros last year wouldn't accept anything below a $500k starting salary.

Tech bros today will be happy for $2 and a Mars bar.

Dell just added some salt to the wounds of hundreds of kombucha-guzzlers around the world with 7,000 job cuts.

They tried to stay away from stuff like this for as long as possible - but cutting travel, reducing service spending, and pausing hiring were no longer sufficient.

Dell wants to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to stuff like this, and they want to run a very lean, very tight ship. Can't blame them for doing so.

PC and laptop demand is also slowing globally (with shipments down 30% in Q4 of 2022) - so that might be another tell-tale that things aren't as good as they seem.

Looks solid. 🙏

2 - Adani flexes his bank account on all of us. 💸

Nothing says "all is well" like paying off debt that you don't even need to.

But Adani's waving the chequebook around, and he's just posted funds to repay a $1.1 billion loan.

He's basically saying - "here, I have over $1 billion in cash just lying around to give back to you".

Adani is not-so-desperate, but there are still a lot of questions that hang over his head.

First of all, there's the case of the hundreds of share manipulation allegations that are being thrown around.

Then, there's the story of the thousands of Adani-owned corporate entities that do nothing but pump the stock.

There's something sinister going on... but that's for another day.

On we march. 💀

3 - Magic raises millions to replace software devs. 🧑‍💻

The software industry has a never-ending hunger for talent.

There is always another guy who's been building AI models since he was 9 and can solve a Rubik's cube with his eyes closed.

Magic is a startup that's building a code-generating platform, and it can build AI models, outclass 9 year olds, and definitely solve Rubik's cubes.

They just raised $23 million to take on Github's Copilot - a code completion tool that's been making waves.

Training AI is notoriously expensive and estimates have said that a production-quality tool that is capable of creating reliable code could cost over $100mn.

Magic wants to do it in a fraction of the cost.

It's lovely to see double-digit million dollar deals pick up again.

Nature is healing. 🏞️

4 - Rothschild goes private. More so than before. 🤐

The Rothschild family (yeah, the guys that own basically everything) are planning to take their investment bank private.

Rothschild and Co. is one of the biggest names in the world of finance, and the Rothschilds are splashing $4bn on taking it private.

Their businesses are more judged on long-term growth (which is why a take-private deal makes sense) and it's gonna be a handy boost in an otherwise dry dealmaking slump.

Offer is gonna be at a 19% premium to the stock's last close - and the deal looks good as done.

Big money. 💶

5 - Earthquakes rock Middle Eastern soil. 🗻

Mother Earth isn't happy with us, and she's sent tons of tremors our way.

Turkey and Syria have been ravaged by earthquakes - 8 magnitude beasts that have spread across cities and killed 2,000+.

These earthquakes are devastating because of how much damage they cause - but even more so because they put daily life on a standstill.

Turkey's economic situation already balances on a knife's edge, and natural disasters beyond their control just add insult to injury.

Entire buildings have simply evaporated in instants - which means that life is looking pretty scary.

Prayers go out to everyone affected. ☹️

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