Good morning! Hindenburg has nothing on Hamas. As per The Economist, the latter reportedly shorted an ETF index of Israeli share prices before the October 7 attacks. This claim is based on a working paper by Robert Jackson Jr, a former commissioner of the US Securities & Exchange Commission and professor at Columbia University. According to Jackson, a whopping 227,820 shares were shorted on October 2. The transaction is said to have minted a $2 million profit for whoever was behind it. Now that’s scary.

Roshni Nair, Dinesh Narayanan, and Adarsh Singh also contributed to today’s edition.

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: Even as Russian President Vladimir Putin makes a rare visit to West Asia to meet fellow OPEC+ leaders, oil prices fell to six-month lows. Markets are worried that cooling western economies will dampen demand so much that in-place production cuts will not support prices at current levels. 

Wall Street was subdued and so were Asian markets in morning trade. Indian equities may open in the negative territory, although mostly for profit booking. Growth factors seem to be aligning well for the economy, which is set to become the third largest by 2030, per S&P Ratings. Broking firm Nomura is expecting India to be the fastest-growing economy in Asia in 2024. 

Meanwhile, GQG Partners' ~$2 billion investment in Adani group stocks has grown to ~$7 billion. 

Moneycontrol.com reports that Warburg Pincus is likely to sell its 1.3% stake in IDFC First Bank for $100 million.

FOOD & BEVERAGE

A Matter Of Taste

Should Delhi’s priority be clean air or tasty food? Sounds like a stupid question, right? But for some of the most famous eateries in the city, it’s a dilemma worth considering. 

Byzantine laws: Charcoal-burning tandoors and grills are one of the major contributors of PM 2.5 particles. Which is why the Delhi Pollution Control Committee banned such tandoors in 2018; only those with emission control systems were allowed. However, with Delhi’s pollution levels (still) rising this winter, the Government enforced Stage-1 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). GRAP mentions a ban on all tandoors except wood-charcoal ones. The fine print has led to conflicts between officials and restaurateurs. 

Nothing like the original: Most restaurants have moved to LPG-fired ovens. But connoisseurs miss the OG tandoor’s charred flavour, which is otherwise unachievable in LPG tandoors because of uneven heat application. Fair point, but seriously?

🎧 If you’re in Delhi, enjoy tandoori chicken and naan straight from the ‘bhatti’ while it lasts. Listen to The Signal Daily on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

FINTECH

Singed By Regulation

The Reserve Bank of India’s regulatory chokehold has claimed its first major victim. ZestMoney, a buy-now-pay-later startup that was once valued at $475 million, is pulling down shutters on operations and laying off its 130 employees. 

Zest is among scores of fintech startups that built businesses on the India stack that enabled easy online identification and digital payments. However, the RBI, alarmed by the growth of unsecured loans and the voracious appetite of borrowers, cracked down on the fintech industry. The financial impact of the pandemic and high inflation that followed it on individuals and small businesses is still unclear. Hence, the central bank has been circumspect in letting credit expand freely. But that has crimped emerging businesses.  

The payment aggregation business of fintechs such as RazorPay, Paytm, Cashfree, and PayU is stagnating as they wait for the green flag to onboard new customers.

WORK

Till Death Do Us Part

Wedding vows pale in comparison to the dedication we have to work. And if society and the money men had their way, we’d literally work to death. More than 750,000 people die every year because of the stress of long working hours—more than 55 hours a week. 

For white-collar workers, much of that >55-hour work week may be going into pointless meetings. At what point does a meeting become completely useless? Two hours a day: a global survey of 10,000 workers found that beyond that, they’re unable to focus on actually doing the work. 

I’ll sleep when I’m dead: You might not. a16z-backed US startup Prophetic has built a headband-like device that lets the wearer have lucid dreams. Great for a sensory adventure, right? Wrong. Prophetic is pitching the ‘Halo’ as a means to work while you’re asleep. 

The Signal 

We may be in an era of more workers than actual work available. Yet, the pressure to be ever more productive has warped social attitudes to working. How will we reconcile this paradox? 

Job creation in major economies, including China, is slowing. Lower-level white collar jobs are under threat from automation: prominent startups are already replacing all but the topmost human layer with AI. In tech alone, more than 250,000 workers have lost their jobs just this year. 

More workers—and more kinds of workers—are pushing back against unrealistic work expectations. Just look at unionisation efforts in the US; the latest to join are American healthcare workers. 

TECH

Public Display Of Exception

There’s a tug of war to dominate the beating hearts of emerging technologies (semiconductors and batteries), but as Financial Times points out, there’s another territorial slugfest for something so fundamental in consumer tech, we take it for granted: displays.

What: Samsung Display has filed a complaint against Chinese state-owned company BOE at the US International Trade Commission for allegedly using stolen technology.

So?: South Korea dominates the display manufacturing industry. That’s now under threat because of BOE.

In 2003, BOE acquired Hyundai Display Technology—a subsidiary of the SK Group conglomerate—before driving it to bankruptcy. In 2018, senior employees of Samsung Display subsidiary Toptec were charged with leaking trade secrets to the Chinese company.

BOE, now one of the world’s largest display makers, has been eating into Korean rivals’ market share in low-end LCD displays. It’s now coming for Samsung, LG, etc. in the high-end display market.

CORPORATE

Gillette’s Not-So-Clean Shave

Proctor & Gamble (P&G) is taking quite the haircut on Gillette, trimming $1.3 billion from its valuation.

Bumps: While P&G insists that its grooming business is “strong”, Gillette’s strong market leadership, once pegged at 70% (US) and 65% (global), is threatened by a clutch of direct-to-consumer startups (Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, etc.) and bearded men. P&G’s archrival Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion in 2016, before selling it to a private equity firm in October 2023.

Ouch: Gillette responded to competition by slashing razor prices up to 20%. Antitrust concerns quelled its bid to acquire women’s shaving and body-care company Billie in 2021.

Slump: The $57 billion P&G paid for Gillette in 2005 was a record for the FMCG giant and was key to its grooming business. But its valuation eroded to $14.1 billion by June 2023, per WSJ.

FYI

AI unleashed: Google has launched Gemini, its most advanced AI model. The rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT can run on smartphones and handle audio, video and text. Meanwhile, AMD released a new AI accelerator chip series to rival Nvidia’s.

Metro ration shop: The Indian government is entering the retail grocery sector. It will pilot with stores selling cut-price grocery and veggies in Delhi’s metro stations and if successful, will extend to metros in other cities.

Reconsider: IPO-bound Ola Electric has slashed sales projections for 2023-2025 by over 50% and cut its revenue target for the current fiscal by more than 60%, Reuters reports.

Relocate: Apple has directed component suppliers to source batteries for the latest generation of iPhones from India and ramp up domestic capacities for the same, Financial Times reports.

Sachet cut: Paytm is cutting down on small-ticket loans under ₹50,000 (~$600) after the RBI tightened consumer lending norms; these account for 40-50% of postpaid loans disbursed on the platform.

End of the road: Italy has pulled out of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. It was the only G7 country that had joined the Chinese trade-cum-diplomatic overture. 

Never ever gonna give you up: The US Federal Trade Commission is appealing an earlier judgement that declared Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision legal; the antitrust watchdog is also investigating oil giant Exxon Mobil’s ~$60 billion takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources.

THE DAILY DIGIT

$4 trillion+

India’s stock market value. The country reached the milestone on Tuesday; the market cap of listed Indian companies increased by $1 trillion in under three years. (Bloomberg)

FWIW

Reality imitates art: In a move straight out Jurassic Park, researchers have discovered the oldest-known fossils of mosquitoes. Entombed in pieces of amber, the fossils belong to two male insects dating back 130 million years. But don’t worry, they don’t wish to recreate dinosaurs. They want to use the fossils to study the evolution of mosquitoes over the years. They’ve already found some interesting details; the two fossils are hematophagous (science talk for blood-sucking). This is in sharp contrast to current times, where only female mosquitoes are hematophagous. What, why, and when are the questions researchers are looking into.

End of an era: In a clear sign that Covid is definitely in the rearview, two face mask providers, the nonprofit Project N95 and Mask-C, are shutting shop. Both made  top-of-the-line N95 and KN95 masks, which filter out 95% of the riskiest particles. The organisations cited low demand and flooding of the US market with cheap masks from China as the reasons behind their decision. While every end comes with a little sorrow, this one only brings relief.

It’s a wonderful life: Calm, the sleep and meditation company, has published a bedtime story for subscribers in the voice of legendary actor Jimmy Stewart. They partnered with  Respeecher, a company that uses AI to produce synthetic speech and clone voices, for the project. A spokesperson for the company mentioned that they collaborated closely with the deceased actor’s estate on the project. While there’s nothing wrong with it, the move would make Hollywood unions squeamish as they've been protesting against the use of AI for likenesses. Not so wonderful for them, huh?