There’s always an upside

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Tesla’s investors are not excited about Elon Musk’s desire to own Twitter. The shares of the company have tumbled nearly 31% since the Oracle of Twitter tweeted his intention to buy the social media platform. There has been a fear that Musk has been overextending himself by running not just Tesla but also SpaceX and Boring Company. It seems Twitter may be one thing too many.

Bitcoin’s On A Slide

The slide was steep. Oh wow. It was brutal.

Yesterday, we spoke about Terra, today, Bitcoin.

What’s happening? The price of the most popular crypto asset slid about 18% over the last week, and the price of the token fell to under $30,000. That’s a 10-month low. But it recovered a little to settle at around $32,001.

Why is it happening?Analysts insist that there is nothing wrong with crypto or its fundamentals. The underlyings are all ok, but investors are spooked. You see, the US is struggling to get a handle on its inflation. To battle this, it is doing what most central banks across the world are doing: raising interest rates. The US Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points. That has caused a sell-off, which some describe as the one reminiscent of the infamous 1939 Wall Street crash.

Now what?Money is leaving the markets. With interest rates high, investors seem to want to play it safe. One thing that has taken a hit is tech stocks. NASDAQ fell around 4% today because of the number of tech companies that list on the exchange. In fact, it is down 25% this year so far. Lockdowns forced by the pandemic had helped people invest in public markets, especially tech companies, and cryptos. And there seems to be a correction from the overly inflated prices from back then.

Anyone of note who has been affected?It’s not fair to drag one company out and point to it. But since we’re talking about crypto, Nvidia seems to be suffering. Not only has it been struck with a ~$5 million fine for failing to disclose some of its financials during 2018-19, but there seems to be a cool down when it comes to miners buying GPUs to run their operations.

What does it mean for you?Depends on your investment school of thought. The old adage goes, buy low, sell high. It is low. But is it the lowest it can get?

Rupee In A Tizzy

There’s good news and bad news. We’ll start with the bad first. The rupee hit an all-time low on Monday, before recovering to 77.32 levels a day later.

Oil prices are on shaky ground ever since the Russia-Ukraine war. Since we import about 80% of our oil needs, the impact was almost immediate. The US Fed’s rate hike added more chaos. Now we are stuck with a falling rupee that’ll make a lot of things expensive. Imported phones, foreign trips, and even a Harvard degree, to name a few.

Here’s the good newsLet’s break it down. We export and import in dollars. So when the rupee falls, we end by paying more for imports and simultaneously get paid more for exports.

Falling rupee rates mean good times for exporters. India is big on exports. It clocked a magic figure of $400 billion in exports, a record of sorts. Our government is also nudging companies to make in India, for the world. In fact, multiple deals are underway. At the current rupee levels, making products locally can mean bigger bucks.

Got any NRI family?Since the rupee fell, NRIs who send money back home may unintentionally send more. If you’ve got family members who wire money regularly, now may be a good time to ask for a small top-up.

All blues, for now?The outlook doesn’t look good. The rupee is likely to worsen against the dollar in the days to come, given that another Fed hike is on the cards. The RBI has little room to help, given that its own forex kitty is below $600 billion.

We’ve seen these cycles before. Remember the crushing times of 2013 when the rupee plunged 29%?

And that’s it for today. If this email was forwarded to you, please consider subscribing. It’s free. We’ll never show you an ad or charge you for this. We swear.

Who are we? There is a lot happening in our world. Everything has layers, and each layer has to be carefully peeled so you, the reader, know how the world of money is changing every day. That’s our promise. Help you unpeel the onions, which are the public markets in the US, India, and crypto, so that you know just a little more.