Good morning! There’s a new conspiracy theory in town, and it’s the belief that Taylor Swift is part of a covert US government op to help Joe Biden bag a second term as president. Citing a Monmouth University poll that surveyed 902 American adults, Bloomberg reports that nearly a third of Republican voters believe Swift is a weapon of psychological warfare. This isn’t the most far-out conspiracy theory we’ve come across though. Those who believe in the Lizard People will know what we’re talking about.

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

🎧We’re decoding the Supreme Court’s electoral bonds verdict. Also in today’s episode: Physical books may have Gen Z and BookTok to thank. And, why are motorbikes piling up in Vietnam? Tune in to The Signal Daily on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: Soaring US equities are pulling global stocks along. Led by old economy companies in the banking and energy sectors, the S&P 500 set a new peak. The sentiment percolated to Asia in the morning trade with almost all major indices shooting up. 

The Lunar New Year appears to have brought a change in fortune for Chinese stocks as well. Investors now see long-term value in several Chinese stocks with even sanctions-hit chip companies presenting opportunities. 

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs says at least a third of S&P 500 companies are now enamoured of artificial intelligence and discussed the technology in earnings calls with analysts. 

The UK’s economy slipped into a recession after the country’s GDP shrank for two consecutive quarters beginning July 2023. 

Indian equities are expected to follow global cues on Friday. The GIFT Nifty indicates a flat opening.

INVESTING

Indian Billionaires’ Go-to White Knight

Billionaire Anil Agarwal-led metals and mining group Vedanta is reportedly in talks to sell an equity stake worth $1 billion in its India-listed entity to US-based private equity firm GQG Partners. 

Done deal: Part of the sale already appears to have taken place in the form of a bulk deal worth ₹2,250 crore (~$270 million). Vedanta has been struggling under a mountain of debt; $6.4 billion to be precise, of which $4.5 billion has to be repaid in FY25.

Midas touch: Rajiv Jain-led $92 billion GQG is known to take bets on businesses such as oil, tobacco, and mining, which woke investors tend to shun. The fund became famous in India last year when it helped billionaire Gautam Adani in a pinch. GQG’s India portfolio, which includes Patanjali Foods and JSW Energy, is now worth ~$10 billion.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR PARTNER

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MEDIA

Profits? Booked

Bloomsbury Plc was making bank from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter more than a decade after the series’ last book was published. Now, fantasy is even more lucrative for the publisher. It reported 11% growth in both revenue and profit in the six months ended August 2023, its best performance ever. Bloomsbury’s shares hit an all-time high.

All thanks to Sarah J. Maas. 

High on romantasy: Bloomsbury reported that sales of Maas’ series of ‘romantasy’ (romance + fantasy) novels rose 79%. ‘BookTok’—TikTok accounts dedicated to book reading—and Gen-Z celebrity book clubs have fuelled a surge in reading, particularly the fantasy genre. Sales of physical books in the UK hit a record high of 669 million last year. 

Pricey picks: Physical books sales are up worldwide, but led by a price rise. In India, book sales were up nearly 9% (pdf) in the first eight months of 2023. 

POLITICS

Freed From Our (Electoral) Bonds

Nearly seven years after they were introduced, electoral bonds are now illegal. A five-judge bench including Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud struck them down (pdf). The bench ruled that by concealing the source of political party funding, electoral bonds violated citizens’ right to information because it restrained democratic participation. The bench also said the bonds encouraged governments to offer favours to powerful corporate interests for big money. 

We will soon know who’s been donating this money. The Supreme Court ordered SBI to submit details of who purchased every electoral bond encashed by a political party in India since April 2019 by March this year and to refund any uncashed bonds. 

The Signal

The decision may be a blow to smaller political parties and corporate interests using electoral bonds to make inroads into India’s power structures. Once the names of electoral bond buyers are published, smaller corporate donors will risk greater public and regulatory scrutiny. 

However, their fundraising plans may not be heavily affected this close to general and state elections. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already received the lion’s share of organised funding for years now, per data from the Association for Democratic Reforms. 

Since FY17, the BJP received nearly 85% of the total corporate funds raised by political parties. In FY18, the party accounted for nearly all money raised from electoral bonds; this fell to about 57% in FY23 as the Congress, TMC, and DMK also raised funds from the bonds. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

OpenAI Joins Search Party

Sam Altman’s OpenAI is coming for Google’s core business: search. The ChatGPT maker, per The Information, is developing a “web search product” that will be partially powered by investor Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Buzzy startup Perplexity is also vying for the moonshot AI search space.

Reinventing the wheel: The development is curious given that Bing was primed to challenge Google in the early days of Microsoft’s integration with OpenAI. That, however, hasn't quite materialised, as Google remains a dominant player in search. Google, on its part, has been pitching its recently launched Gemini as prepping for a future beyond just search.

Okay, but: Even as it gets into newer areas such as AI agents and search, questions are cropping up about the viability of its long-term business model, which could largely lean toward enterprise. This is despite a quick dash to $2 bn in revenue on an annualised basis.

SOCIAL MEDIA

A Bridge Too Far

Federated, decentralised, interoperable. These were the buzzwords for social media of the foreseeable future when Twitter/X imploded under Elon Musk’s ownership. Meta has long been working on making its Twitter alternative, Threads, interoperable with platforms (such as Mastodon) that use the ActivityPub social networking protocol. In fact, Meta has gone further with its open source/interoperability strategy, having used it in AI (the Llama large language model) and now doing the same with WhatsApp.

But there’s a problem. People using federated platforms aren’t likely to trust the “other”. Take Mastodon and Bluesky. The latter runs on the AT Protocol, not ActivityPub, and one developer’s efforts to bridge the two using something called Bridgy Fed is being met with fierce resistance because of Bluesky’s early connections to Twitter and its co-founder Jack Dorsey, TechCrunch reports. Company structures, the prevailing cultures on these platforms, and approaches to moderation are major pain points.

FYI

Hungry for more: Reliance Industries is reportedly in talks to acquire Walt Disney Company’s 30% stake in Tata Play in a bid to strengthen its presence in the television distribution market. The deal could also help the company extend JioCinema’s reach.

Del-exit: Elon Musk will reincorporate SpaceX in Texas, making it the second company he's shifted from Delaware this month. Last week, he shifted Neuralik’s incorporation out of Delaware to Nevada.

Hitching a ride: The Tata Group is in talks to forge a strategic partnership with ride-hailing giant Uber in a bid to increase engagement on its super app Tata Neu, The Economic Times reported. The group is also exploring a spinoff of its battery business Agratas as an independent unit. 

Chop chop: Meta is reportedly slashing funding for news and fact-checking organisations that debunk misinformation inside WhatsApp. The cuts come during a pivotal year when countries such as India and the United States go for elections.

To the bourses: Online jewellery retailer BlueStone is planning to raise Rs 2,000 crore (~$241 million) through an initial public offering (IPO). The company originally intended to IPO in 2022, but opted against it and raised Rs 550 crore ($66 million) in funding from existing and new investors.

In the bag: IT services major Infosys has bagged a $300 million, three-year contract from Pacific International Lines, a shipping company in Singapore. Last month, it also bagged a seven-year mandate from Irish food retail company Musgrave to automate its IT functions.

Under the scanner: More payment banks could face regulatory scrutiny after the Financial Intelligence Unit spotted several thousands of accounts without know-your-customer verification engaged in alleged money-laundering activities.

THE DAILY DIGIT

$124 billion

That's the increase in net worth of 30 individuals such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and Jeff Bezos, whose companies’ fortunes are closely tied to AI stocks. (Bloomberg) 

FWIW

The original home of ⚽: In footballing folklore, a quaint old South Yorkshire town hardly evokes the reverence that some of England’s other cities do. By which we mean Manchester, or even London, where Wembley is situated. But Sheffield occupies a unique place in footballing history. Not only is it home to the sport’s oldest football clubs — Sheffield FC (the oldest) and Hallam FC (the second-oldest) — but it’s also where football’s first rules were penned. Certain “obsessives” are going down the archival rabbit hole to document Sheffield’s role in the sport, which could be critical to the town’s identity. After all, Sheffield was cast as a left-leaning “steel and coal town” a few decades ago, famous for iconic music bands such as Pulp and Arctic Monkeys. We hope the town gets its due.

No rides for you: Pakistani politics is fast turning into the theatre of the bizarre. The supporters of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML (N) have called for a boycott of Careem, Uber’s local ride-hailing unit in the country, for its use of a catchphrase slogan “Program war gaya?” (program gone bust) adopted by supporters of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI). The phrase, Bloomberg reported, was “first coined by a PTI leader after a brawl with a PML politician on television last year.” In a post on X, the PML (N) officially accused Careem of “showing its true colours” and being “more interested in pushing political agendas”, while asking its supporters to look for alternatives. FYI, this is the party on the verge of forming the country’s next government.

Where’s my 🏍️? If you are in Vietnam, probably in the impound lot. That's where a lot of abandoned motorbikes are piling up in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, where city governments are cracking down on drunk driving. But here’s the catch: the steep fines have now surpassed the value of the confiscated bike, and many aren't reclaiming them, and the police are equally clueless about what to do with them. As it turns out, motorbikes, once a ubiquitous form of everyday transport for the Vietnamese, might be losing their appeal, with more people transitioning to the middle class and buying their first cars. Beyond motorbikes, these campaigns are having an impact on…alcohol consumption, with a decline in beer sales. The moral of the story: don't chug and ride. Unless, maybe you want a new car!