Jack loves crypto 🥰
FB got issues, Oyo needs cash, and HDFC rips an acceptable one.
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✅ Modern conflict — Facebook found itself in the crosshairs with regulators for failure to stop spreading vaccine misinformation — with Biden straight up saying “they’re killing people”. Some pretty serious words, and team FB quickly responded with a vehement rebuttal. Meanwhile $FB investors are starting to get chills, wary of 2019-like mayhem coming for the stock.
Sundays are sleepy news days… let’s do a quick rundown. 🧐
Square ripping like a pro 💳
What happened — Square, the payment processing giant run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, will be building a new business vertical, creating a crypto powered infra layer that will make it easy to create and deploy crypto-apps for independent developers.
In simple terms — developers can utilize Square’s new platform, to harness the “decentralized” benefits of the blockchain (Bitcoin), to build crypto native apps, distributable to millions of existing consumers and merchants on the Square ecosystem.
Square gets a tiny commission for every transaction.
Grand strategy — the company that started out as a simple way for street side merchants to accept payments via an airpods sized card reader, has since then widely expanded — to a P2P Digital Wallet, a POS terminal business, a Bitcoin wallet, all of which process well over $120 billion in payments volume.
And now the optionality to build at the center of this high-velocity financial transaction pool (online + offline + P2P) is unlike any other, and MASSIVE.
Big picture — if there’s a live business capable of bringing mass adoption to crypto-powered services, without people shooting each other over why their coin is better, this move by Square is a pretty LEGIT shot.
And with stock 5x’ing in the past year alone, $SQ investors don’t mind some rapid innovation that promises to keep the growth wheel moving.
Koni cash deta ka, cash? 🙄
Oyo managed to raise $660 million in debt funding from Wall Street staples Fidelity, Citadel, and a few others — to see the company through as the ever-prolonging second wave makes it hard to keep lights on.
Funds come with a 6 year repayment schedule, with an option to extend credit up to a billion if needed. Oyo will use the $$ to pay off and consolidate past debts, routing the remainder to investments in tech.
Biz is still down nearly 60% from 2019 peaks. But… if Airbnb is any proxy, the market knows how quickly fortunes could turn here if revenge travel picks up as expected. All about putting your head down and waiting.
Meanwhile, Oyo CFO was seen telling Moneycontrol that the company’s board has been pressing to think about that IPO. Hmmm…
HDFC, old friend, how it hangs? 🧐
Global markets are now entering PEAK earnings season — Dalal Street was busy decoding signals from the country’s biggest private lender last night.
Expectations were low going in, considering financial services was one of the most vulnerable segments in this mayhem, but the numbers hold up pretty well!
Quick look:
Profits of ₹7.7K crores, up 16.1% YoY — bit behind estimates, but forgivable
Interest income of ₹17K crores, up 8.6% YoY
Deposits of ₹13.4 lakh crores, up 13.2% YoY
Bad loans ratio stretched a tiny bit to 0.48%, (vs. 0.4%) barely 3 months ago — but things aren’t exactly out of control.
Big picture — markets will wait for other major banks to roll in to get a comprehensive picture, but considering how meek the outlook was given commentary from Bajaj Finserv and others in June, things aren’t looking that bad so far!
Aight folks, that’s all for today. Hopefully tomorrow’s a bit busier.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
🚙 Recalls galore - Ford recalled 775,000 models of Explorer SUV from around the world after reports of six injuries due to steering issues.
😷 COVID-lympics begin - Organizing members as well as players at the Tokyo Olympics have tested COVID positive. Games start in few days, gonna be tricky!
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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yo Marathi represent 🙏