Good morning! The Economic Times reports that Revuelto, Lamborghini’s latest supercar, is sold out in India till 2026. Priced at ₹8.89 crore ($1.6 million), Lamborghini had launched the car just two days ago. Although, this craze is nothing new for the company. All of its models in India are sold out till 2024, with a waiting period of 20 months after that. Forget Archies, Zoya Akhtar needs to adapt Crazy Rich Asians to India. 

🎧 Long workdays are taking you nowhere. Also in today’s edition: what India can learn from China when it comes to air pollution control. Listen to The Signal Daily on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Venkat Ananth and Adarsh Singh also contributed to today’s edition.

The Market Signal 

Stocks & Economy: Asian equities were mixed after Moody’s’ China downgrades and expectations that Japan was set to shift out of negative interest rates. Bank of Japan governor Kazuo Ueda said monetary policymaking was heading into choppy waters by the end of the year. 

US tech stocks rallied after Google unveiled its advanced AI model Gemini and AMD said its AI accelerator chip could have a $45 billion market. 

In India, action moved to mid- and small-cap stocks as topline shares became too costly in the post-election rally. 

All eyes will be on the Reserve Bank of India today, which will reveal its thinking and action on interest rates. The wide belief is it will continue to hold rates, although there are signs food and vegetables could become more expensive. The government is trying to counter likely shortages with export curbs. The fall in oil prices offers the RBI some comfort.

WORK

Yehi Hai Right Choice Baby

Kinda ironic that one of Pepsi India’s most famous ad slogans seems better suited for rival Coca-Cola—at least when it comes to being the better employer. That’s the finding of the American Opportunity Index (AOI), which measures US companies’ investment in their workforces.

Details: The AOI—created by the Harvard Business School, labour-focused nonprofit Burning Glass Institute, and the Schultz Family Foundation (a philanthropic organisation started by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz)—conducted a five-year analysis of the professional trajectories of 4.7 million workers. Of the 400 employers tracked, Coca-Cola topped the list for career longevity, corporate culture, pay, and opportunities for employees to move up the leadership ladder. Its top earners are four times more likely to have been hired internally than PepsiCo, which came 19^th on the list.

Meta, Mastercard, and Dell were placed 6^th, 18^th, and 20^th, respectively.

GEOPOLITICS

US, Europe, Next Vietnam

Was China’s economy playing false notes? Recovery expectations got a setback in November when imports declined by 0.6% and exports rose 0.5%, the opposite of what economists were expecting. 

The import decline combined with Moody’s downgrade of China’s credit outlook and warnings on banks and state-owned enterprises does not bode well for Beijing. Moody’s staff reportedly avoided going to office ahead of the downgrade, fearing a blowback. 

Trade talks: President Xi Jinping met European leaders three weeks after a four-hour tête-à-tête with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco. Xi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel that China wants to see Europe as a “trusted partner”. Europe has already risked a trade war trying to stop ultra-cheap Chinese EVs. 

Meanwhile, Xi will visit Vietnam next week. The two countries have contesting claims in the South China Sea. 

CONGLOMERATE

Adani’s Sails Catch the Wind

Adani is back. With a bang. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is in talks to buy Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group’s Gopalpur Ports in Odisha for about ₹1,200 crore (~$144 million), The Economic Times reports. 

The asset: The deep-draft port, which has an annual cargo handling capacity of 25 million tonnes, lies between Paradip and Vizag ports on the country’s eastern seaboard. It shares 7.5% of its revenue, generated largely from handling minerals shipped from Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, with the Odisha government. 

Why sell: The SP Group has been selling assets to reduce its massive debt burden. It sold its 50% stake in PNP Ports in Raigad, Maharashtra, to JSW Infrastructure (JSWI) a few days ago. JSWI, which is emerging as a competitor, albeit a distant one, to Adani Ports, is reportedly interested in Gopalpur Ports as well.

The Signal

The eponymous conglomerate led by billionaire Gautam Adani has well and truly recovered from the $150 billion market value bashing it got after US short-seller Hindenburg Research called it the “largest con” in corporate history. It had to give up potential acquisitions to conserve cash in the report’s aftermath. Although an investigation into the allegations is still on, it is already in the clear after the US government determined Hindenburg’s charges, especially in the case of Adani Ports, to be irrelevant. Bagging Gopalpur will tighten Adani Ports’ grip on India’s marine services, built through a string of acquisitions. It will then operate 14 ports, seven on either coast. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Another One

In an unexpected move, Google has released its GPT-4 competitor, Gemini. The multimodal AI comes in three forms: Nano, Pro and Ultra. 

Nano is built for on-device tasks and is already shipping out on Pixel 8 Pro phones. Pro is limited to Bard for now, with developer access coming soon. Ultra, the slowest but most capable of the lot, will launch next year.

Mixed results: Gemini is Google’s future. Using industry benchmarks to compare it with GPT- 4, Gemini outperformed its rival. However, the difference isn’t anything exceptional. While it can interpret videos, which GPT-4 cannot, Gemini feels underwhelming given Google’s resources and the fiasco at OpenAI.

Future tense?: With its conscience keeper Geoffrey Hinton gone, Google will accelerate its AI push. Frankly, it doesn’t have any other option. Apple is joining the bandwagon and Amazon, despite its problems, will be an interesting player. An epic battle awaits Google. 

ENERGY

No Sweet Spot Here

It’s the runup to the 2024 general elections, meaning the government will do all it can to rein in domestic food prices. There are the extended export curbs on rice and sugar, and now, the Centre is mulling restrictions on cane-produced ethanol.

Details: Sugarcane production has decreased by over 10% from a year earlier due to poor rainfall. This has prompted the government to restrict the use of cane juice for biofuel, since doing so will prevent sugar inventories in India from dropping further. The move will sow uncertainty in states and public companies planning ethanol investments.

The kicker: The curbs may have limited impact on food inflation but certainly hit the transport ministry’s ambitions for ethanol. 

In other news: Reliance Industries is in talks with sugar mill operators to source press mud feedstock for its compressed biogas plants, The Economic Times reports.

FYI

Ka-ching: Chennai-based artificial intelligence company Sarvam AI raised $41 million in a Series A funding round. Sarvam’s backers include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures.

Chief ministerial race: Three union ministers, Narendra Singh Tomar, Renuka Singh Saruta, and Prahlad Patel, who contested and won state assembly elections, have quit their ministerial positions.

Prudence rules: The government has restricted its additional spending for FY24 to ₹58,378 crore (~$70 billion) and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there won’t be any “spectacular announcements” in the interim Budget on February 1.

Debut: BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, will roll out its generative AI tools to clients next month. The tools include building “copilots'' for its Alladin and eFront suites, which are a part of its technology services.

The eyes have it: US Senator Ron Wyden warned in a letter that several foreign governments were surveilling smartphone users via push notifications. Wyden added that both Apple and Google had received requests for notification data.

Turbulence: Aviation leasing watchdog Aviation Working Group has downgraded India’s rating from positive to negative, citing lessors’ difficulty in repossessing aircraft from the grounded Go First. However, SpiceJet could raise between $120-144 million in fresh capital to pay salaries and revive its grounded fleet.

Press pause: Indian banks have asked their fintech partners to stop issuing small-ticket personal loans following the Reserve Bank of India’s clampdown last month, Reuters reported.

THE DAILY DIGIT

4.7 billion

The number of people expected to fly in 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association. It also expects airlines to earn a whopping $964 billion in revenue next year. (Forbes) 

FWIW

Mass culture: France, a country that takes its food very seriously, is in for a rude shock. The country’s younger generation is tossing the baguette for crispy fried donuts. A wave of American fast food companies like Krispy Kreme, McDonalds, Burger King etc. have struck gold in France. They’re increasingly expanding their presence in the country and are welcomed by long queues and enthusiastic fans of their products. Some are blaming Netflix and social media for this trend. Others are busy eating burgers.

Indians takeover: Every year Wikipedia releases its top 25 most viewed pages of the year. This year, there was a major change. Pages related to India and Indian events like the Cricket World Cup and IPL dominated their search results. Even films like Jawan and Pathaan made it to the list as some of the most-viewed pages. That India is dictating web results shouldn’t come as a surprise really. But what should come as a surprise is Andrew Tate’s inclusion in the list. Really disappointing. 

The kids are not fine: Why else would they start making PPTs to get the Christmas gifts they want? But that’s exactly what’s happening in the US. Spurred on by social media, slick slides consisting of a curated list of wants are dictating holiday gifting this year. Parents are not really sure how to feel about this. Many are trying to look at the positive side, that their kids' presentation skills will improve. A few have also joined their kids and are making slides for their spouses and siblings. Make of that what you will.