Good morning! Feeling a bit adventurous for the weekend? How about trying a Mexican whisky made with corn? Yes, you read it right. As per The New York Times, Gran Maizal, a distillery in Merida, Mexico, is pioneering the making of this whisky. Made with three indigenous varieties of corn including nal t’eel, the whisky is now looking to take on bourbon. If the craze of local Indian whisky is anything to go by, the nal t’eel whisky will surely be a success.

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

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: US stocks made an abrupt turnaround on Thursday, once again buoyed by optimism about the business prospects of artificial intelligence companies after the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) projected higher future revenue. TSMC shares shot up 10% while others such as Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm also rose. 

The US Congress has cleared temporary spending by the government, averting parts of it shutting down over the weekend. 

Former Millennium Management co-chief investment officer Bobby Jain’s attempt to raise up to $10 billion in what would have been the world’s largest hedge fund has likely fallen through. Jain has reportedly tempered his ambitions and will now launch Jain Global with about half the original target. 

The positive sentiment on Wall Street wafted over to Asia this morning where equities hit a purple patch again. Early trades in the GIFT Nifty hint at a lukewarm though positive opening for Indian equities.

CONSUMER

Huffing On Slim Pickings

Back in the 1990s, a tobacco giant began expanding rapidly, listing on the stock exchange and diversifying into beauty, food, and real estate. No, not ITC, we’re talking about KT&G, the formerly state-owned South Korean tobacco conglomerate that’s (illegally) flooding India’s cigarette market.

KT&G’s Esse brand of slim cigarettes has grabbed up to a quarter of the market for smuggled tobacco products in India, Mint reports. This market is estimated to be at 30 billion sticks worth ₹22,300 crore (~$2.68 billion). 

Free from rules: Since Esse is sneaked in—no taxes, you see—it is cheaper than local smoke sticks. They also don’t affix mandatory warnings on their packaging, fooling users who already believe slimmer cigarettes are ‘healthier’. 

The government and Indian tobacco companies aren’t the only losers; tobacco farmers say they’re losing business worth ₹5,000-6,000 crore (~$600 million-$720 million) annually. 

🎧 The (Illegal) Cult of Esse Lights. Also in today’s episode: The rise of fake booze, and oddball car insurance claims. Tune into The Signal Daily on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

AVIATION

Boeing’s loss is Airbus’ gain

Airbus has wrested two-thirds of the market from the accidents-hit Boeing. The European aeroplane maker bagged the record of the world’s biggest plane maker for the fifth straight year in 2023. 

Not all rosy: Despite the lead, the company isn’t celebrating yet. The past few years saw it reeling from a corruption scandal and losses of $1.1 billion. Moreover, Spirit AeroSystems, the company whose fuselage panel blew out in the Alaska Airlines flight, is also a supplier to Airbus. 

Hope: The world’s biggest aircraft leasing company AerCap has backed Boeing’s management to turn things around. Its CEO, Aengus Kelly, believes focusing on safety will ensure that. Even Indian airline Akasa is backing the company, with an order of 150 jets. PM Modi will inaugurate Boeing’s largest campus outside the US in Bengaluru today.

Meanwhile: In a Supreme Court hearing, lenders cast doubt on the Jalan-Kalrock Consortium’s ability to revive Jet Airways. 

ENTERTAINMENT

Superheroes Await Free-use Nightmares

Duck for cover—it’s off-brand Superman! Copyright protection for some of the world’s oldest superheroes will begin expiring in the next ten years. Soon after, filmmakers and writers may flood the market with their adaptations of early versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

“Keep ‘em fresh”:  Warner Brothers Discovery is already protecting its cast of DC Universe characters, going by an internal memo from way back in 2001, Variety reports. 

WB’s lawyers advised Warner Brothers to keep updating characters on screen with features from later comics as earlier versions become public. They also suggested using trademarks on characters’ signature features and maintaining high quality control so other superhero versions look like cheap knockoffs. 

The Signal

As childhood classic characters enter the public domain, audiences are loving their ‘perverse’ versions. Already, a Winnie-The-Pooh slasher flick is a massive hit and its makers are filming another starring Pinocchio. Meanwhile, a horror film starring the ‘Steamboat Willie’ avatar of Mickey Mouse was announced just hours after the character’s copyright expired. 

But creepy superhero knockoffs are the least of WB’s concerns. Its DC Extended Universe is a disaster, now being revived by former Marvel regular James Gunn. Marvel isn’t doing great either; Disney CEO Bob Iger said it had goofed up by making too many mediocre films and shows. 

Maybe a campy, creepy Superman is the cure to the audience’s “superhero fatigue”.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Home Is Not Where The Heart Is

Shriram Home Finance (SHF) is on the block. Shriram Finance, which owns 85% of the specialist in financing affordable home buyers, is talking to Bain Capital and Warburg Pincus for a possible deal at around ₹5,000 crore (~$600 million). SHF has assets of nearly ₹10,000 crore (~$1.2 billion).

The Shriram Group has been looking to align its financial services business with the changing shape of the banking industry. Its 86-year-old founder, R Thyagarajan believes regulations do not favour the lending business. He wants Shriram to focus its energies on insurance and servicing diversified businesses. Thyagarajan, who is now retired, says as banks look for newer areas to lend, shadow banks will have to cede territory.

Bigger footprint: Bain and Warburg are new entrants into the Indian financial services sector. Bain bought Adani Capital and Adani Housing Finance last year while Warburg purchased MSME lender Vistaar Finance in 2022.

TECHNOLOGY

Google’s Search Woes Continue

You've likely heard this line before: Google’s core product aka the search engine is getting worse. Or dying. That debate has cropped up again, with a year-long University of Leipzig study that all but confirms Google’s decline.

The kicker: “We can conclude that higher-ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality.” Simply put, Google is rife with low-quality SEO-spam, and is likely to get progressively worse, given the rise of AI-generated spam. In December, Google’s search results were spam attacked. A recent investigation highlighted Google’s not-so-positive role in shaping the internet as we know it today.

Ripe for disruption: Microsoft saw an opportunity with BingGPT in 2022. But that too hasn't moved the needle. AI-led moonshot efforts such as the Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity AI are emerging, with an opportunity to provide answers directly, as opposed to links.

FYI

More pink slips: Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the company would eliminate more jobs this year. Pichai’s announcement follows YouTube laying off 100 employees from its operations and creator management teams.

Going solo: Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Group (ABG) will tussle with Tata Sons for the title sponsorship of the 2024-2028 Indian Premier League editions. While ABG is the sole bidder currently, Tata has the right to match its bid.

Singapore calling: India’s biggest private lender HDFC Bank has applied for a banking licence in Singapore as part of its global expansion plans. HDFC Bank has an overseas presence in London, Hong Kong, and Bahrain. 

Tit-for-tat: A day after Iran launched strikes against separatist group Jaish al-Adl, Pakistan carried out retaliatory air strikes against terrorist hideouts in the border city of Saravan in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Alexa, pay up: Amazon is working on a paid subscription version of its voice assistant Alexa. The paid version, tentatively called Alexa Plus, will offer more “conversational and personalised AI technology,” per Business Insider.

Chipping in: Indian snack major Haldiram’s is looking to consolidate its presence in the potato chips market by acquiring rival Prataap Snacks in a deal worth $350 million, Reuters reported.

Red signal: The European Union’s antitrust watchdog is leaning towards blocking Amazon’s $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the company that makes Roomba.

THE DAILY DIGIT

148.6 million units

The number of smartphone shipments in India in 2023, according to Canalys. That represents a 2% drop from 151.6 million units in 2022. (The Economic Times) 

FWIW

 Cost of living: Living long but not well is a tradeoff that a lot of Americans are seen to be making. As per a University of Washington analysis, the average proportion of life spent in good health has gone down. In 1990, the number was 85.8% which has decreased to 83.6% now. Doctors have termed this as a person’s health span and they believe our longer lives and new-found abilities to catch diseases might be the reason behind this decrease. Hmm… maybe it's time to join the bio-hack bandwagon? 

Doesn’t work: EV promoters will not be pleased to read this. In Chicago, where temperatures have dropped below 0, EVs are dropping dead right in the middle of nowhere. Why? It turns out the cold isn’t exactly a friend of batteries and reduces its driving range. Moreover, charging time also works inversely proportional to the temperature. Norway, which is equally cold and has the highest number of EVs, has managed this problem by installing more charging stations and increasing driver awareness. But given how things work in the US, that sounds like a lot of work. 

Preserving heritage: Blas Omar Jaime is no ordinary man. The Argentinian is the last known speaker of Chaná, the language of an indigenous tribe in Argentina and Uruguay. By working along with UNESCO and a linguist, Blas has produced a dictionary of roughly 1,000 Chaná words. This is a major turnaround for the language, which was last recorded in 1815 and is spoken from the throat with negligible tongue or lips. This was the result of the tribe’s reverence for silence. With more than 40% of the world’s languages under threat of extinction, we surely hope that Blas’ efforts succeed.