Market summary: 📊
No stopping the train in India. Investors continue to pile on, taking major indices another notch higher yesterday. US saw some respite from the relentless flogging, with major indices finishing in the green.
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.28%
Nasdaq - up 0.38%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.87%
Sensex - up 0.88%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
📈 It’s coming for ya’ll — celebs who shilled crypto for a quick buck are starting to pay the price. Kim Kardashian and boxer Floyd Mayweather are being sued for artificially inflating the price of a shitcoin, EthereumMax (tf is that anyway), to their followers on Instagram — making misleading and false statements in the process. The coin has apparently lost 97% of its value since like mid-July, putting folks tens of millions into the hole. Not the last time we’ll hear news like this!
👀 It’s all fugazi — inflation is eating into your wallets. US reported 39-year high inflation rates of 7% for the month of December, shocking the markets and regulators. India isn’t too far behind. Consumer price index stood at 5.59% for December, the highest for the year since like July. Food and fuel drove most of it. Stay invested, save yourself!
India’s IT giants are kicking it 🔥
COVID shocked global enterprises, exposing their weak systems and IT wares. Billions were spent in the aftermath to fix things — and that’s helping Indian IT consultants blast back to back phenomenal quarters.
TCS, INFY, Wipro, all reported excellent numbers yesterday — setting the markets mood just right for 2022.
Quick rundown for ya… 🤙
TCS grew its business 16.3% for the December quarter versus same-time the year before, bringing in ₹48,885 crores in revenues. Profits jumped a nice 12.3% — a tad slower due to Omicron and other challenges, but still above estimates. TCS managed to add 10 new $100 million-plus clients during the quarter — a clear indicator of strong IT spending environment from big corporations. TCS also announced a mega share-buyback, capping off the day on a high.
Infosys followed, blasting a 22% YoY growth in revenue, while growing profits by almost 12%. INFY management sees the market improving through the next year, and revised its growth target to almost 20% for the year — investors love to see that confidence.
Lastly, Wipro grew its revenues by 21.3% YoY, a respectable bounce back, but well below a 30% growth rate markets were looking for. Profits tanked too. Stock was beaten down 8% by investors. It’s aight.
Big picture — global IT spending in total is expected to top $4.5 trillion in 2022. Migration to the public cloud, Security, Data management, as well as emerging ideas from the Metaverse to Web3 are acting as drivers of growth.
What’s poppin’ on Venture Street 💰
Refyne, an early-pay platform, closed an $82 million Series B from Tiger Global, QED Investors and other. Valuation wasn’t disclosed.
Refyne works with employers to allow salaried folks to draw cash earlier than the monthly/bi-weekly disbursal cycle — helping employees meet unforeseen expenses or payments. The model’s been quite popular in the US, and it seems India is catching up too.
Refyne reaches 700K+ end users, across 150 enterprises large enterprises.
While we are on fintech, 👇
OneScore, which is building the Credit Karma of India, raised a $75 million Series C from Sequoia and QED — at a $750 million valuation.
OneScore lets about 10 million users check their credit score in India for free. The platform then markets cards, loans, and other lending products to folks on its app. OneScore’s own credit card, called OneCard, reports some 250K customers, processing ₹450 crores in monthly payment volumes.
Forget EVs, GM is coming for used cars 🚘
What happened — General Motors, one of the US’ largest auto vendors, is launching a used car marketplace called CarBravo, taking on tech companies playing within the space, like Carvana and Vroom.
Lots of money here — new car manufacturing stalled after COVID, with supply chain glitches and other production problems common, which has set the used car market on FIRE. Prices on average have jumped 40% in the US, even doubling in some markets and categories.
Anyways, GM believes there’s some easy money on the table. It will display used inventory held by its dealers to kick things off, showing some half a million vehicles.
Worth mentioning — ~40 million used vehicles are sold annually in the US, 2x the number of new cars and trucks.
Closing out — here comes the gangsta IPO 📈
India has decided to value LIC at $203 billion — for what will be the nation’s largest freaking IPO to date, incoming next month.
The valuation seems a bit lower than what folks were expecting, but that avoids a PayTM like scenario at open, hopefully.
Fyi, the insurance empire holds $460 billion+ in assets, making over $75 billion in revenues a year, selling its wares through 2,000+ offline offices, with almost a million agents on payroll.
Big picture — insurance has been on everyone’s mind post-COVID, urban and rural. Plenty of low-hanging fruit for the firm to go after this decade.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
💳 Everyone wants fintech - Tata kicked off a financial entity called Tata Fintech, which will deal in basic financial products and a payment gateway.
👎 Make do for now - Sony’s newly launched PlayStation 5 supply chain is so messed up that Sony will continue to produce the old PS4 through 2022, just so consumers have something to buy.
😎 We got ya’ll - Jack Dorsey and his friends kicked off a legal-defense fund for Bitcoin developers. Got legal problems? Call the long-bearded monk.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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