Happy morning, Munchers!

Hope you had a great weekend. Grab a cuppa or two. Start the week right. 😎

Here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 5 minutes and 10 seconds.

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

What's in Store? 🛒

A decent slew of economic data is on the way this week.

• US CPI (inflation data) on Wednesday the 10th

• US Crude Inventories on Wednesday the 10th

• US PPI and Jobless claims on Thursday the 11th

• UK GDP on Friday the 12th

• India CPI and FX reserves on Friday the 12th

Story Roundup

1 - Warren Buffett slows down his investing and takes a $45bn knock. 🚨

Berkshire Hathaway - Warren Buffett's investment company - slowed investment in the second quarter as "a drop in global financial markets heavily weighed on their portfolio".

In the last 3 months, their holdings fell in value from $391bn to $328bn - with purchases slowing from $51.1bn to $6.2bn.

Mr. Buffett also mentioned that the "atmosphere at their headquarters had become lethargic".

A harsher macro environment directly means lesser billions being splashed out by Berkshire. Not as many big multi-billion dollar deals as we saw from 2020 till early this year.

And I'm sad when I lose $50 on ElonMoonCoin.🤷‍♂️

Report is here for anyone interested.

2 - Chinese military concluded their largest military exercise around Taiwan. 💣

Beijing's done it's job - intimidated Taiwan, and shooed the US away for the meanwhile.

In addition, they trained for an "island attack campaign" - sending 22 jets over the Taiwanese side of the Taiwan strait and deploying 44 more as part of a drill.

These drills have been characterised as 'punishment' for the US for sending Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

The last few drills have been unprecedented in terms of proximity to the Island of Taiwan - and tension is TIGHT between the US and China.

A new-age powder keg. 😬

3 - Canadian home sales cratered by 50%. 🏡

Home sales in Canada's biggest markets are down anywhere from 40-50%.

Buyers have been pushed to the sidelines as a result of sky-high mortgage rates, and a general rally in real estate over the last two years.

Consumer sentiment is still very low - with 70% of people believing that home prices are due to fall more in the coming 6 months.

Rising rates and general uncertainty in the world's largest producer of maple syrup (😉) are definitely taking their toll.

4 - Energy carries this quarter's earnings season. 💀

One sentence to describe this earnings season?

Could have been a lot, LOT worse.

Most stocks trended up after earnings - not on the fact that they were amazing earnings, but more so because of how much more there was to lose this quarter.

75% of companies met or beat expectations in terms of revenue and profitability for the quarter, along with offering weaker outlooks into the remaining half of the year.

5 - A better economy is giving us a worse-off stock market. 🤷

The US economy 528k new jobs, unemployment slid to 3.5% (a 50-year low), and wages grew 5.2% year-on-year.

This all sounds like cause for celebration, but stock markets took on a bit of a gloomy tone.

A strong economy shows that global central banks will have to stick to their plans of aggressive interest rate hikes to start cutting away at aggregate demand so that inflation can finally be tamed.

Stonks no longer go only up. 🤷

Aaaand that’s a wrap.

Happy Monday y'all. Peace out. Good luck for the week ahead.

Thanks a ton for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. Any feedback is open - positive or negative. Hit my line at [email protected] or https://www.linkedin.com/in/aryaansh/.