Hey folks!

Ever felt like you’re just pretending to show up at work? You know, reaching the office, grabbing your chai or coffee, popping into a couple of meetings, catching up with colleagues, and then quietly sneaking out by lunchtime? If that sounds familiar, congratulations, you might just be a “coffee badger”!

This quirky term was coined by Owl Labs in its 2023 State of Hybrid Work report. And it describes employees who show up at the office just to prove that they’re working, only to head home, slip into comfy pyjamas and continue working remotely until clock-out time.

And while this trend might sound a bit far-fetched, it’s apparently happening right here in India too, especially in hybrid workplaces where fixed office days don’t exactly suit everyone’s preferences.

In the US though, coffee badging seems to be more rampant. More than half of hybrid employees reportedly engage in it, dragging themselves to the office on days they’d rather stay home.

If you’re wondering why, well, it’s partly because the US job market’s cooling. Last month they added just 2.3 lakh jobs — a steep drop from the 4 lakh jobs added monthly in 2022. With fewer opportunities to job-hop, many employees are playing it safe. Basically, they’re holding onto jobs that offer some form of flexibility, even if it means sneaking out midday.

But here’s the thing. Employers seem to have caught on to this little secret. Some companies are cracking down, mandating specific office days, or even telling employees to quit if they’re not on board.

Would you risk coffee badging to fight for flexibility, or stick to your employer’s rules?

Well, we don’t know about you, but numbers from the Indian Staffing Federation suggest that flexible jobs are actually on the rise in India. For context, the country added 2.2 lakh new flexible jobs in 2023, which is a 15% increase from the previous year.

And while these figures aren’t earth-shattering, the trend is promising. So, maybe, just maybe, it means we won’t have to resort to coffee badging after all. What do you think?

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Unfold by Karthick Iyer

You can thank our reader, Gauri Vaidyanathan for this beautiful rec.

Ready to roll?

What caught our eye this week 👀

What's the Santa Claus rally, anyway?

What do Santa Claus and the stock markets have in common?

Well, turns out they both get a little extra jolly during the Christmas season. And no, we’re not making this up. Since 1969, the S&P 500, an important stock market index, has rallied by an average of 1.3% during the last five trading days of December and the first two of January. And it’s even got a festive name — the Santa Claus rally.

But why does this even happen, you ask?

Well, you see, the US tax year runs from January to December unlike India’s April to March cycle. And by December, investors take a closer look at their portfolios. If they see that they’re holding stocks that haven’t performed well, they sell them to book losses. This helps them offset gains made on other investments and reduce their overall tax burden.

Now, you might think all that selling would drag markets down, right? Well, it does… temporarily. But here’s the twist. Investors often plan to buy back those very stocks. Enter the January Effect.

They patiently wait to follow something called the ‘wash rule’, which suggests that you can’t claim a tax loss on a stock if you buy it back within 30 days of selling. So, investors patiently wait for the clock to run out and then swoop in to repurchase their stocks, creating fresh demand and lifting the markets as the new year kicks off.

And since the US stock markets are like trendsetters, their moves ripple across the globe. And other markets like India’s for instance, take cues from these rallies.

Now, we were curious about this and crunched the numbers to check how much the Santa Claus Rally affected India’s markets and we found out that since 2020, indices like the BSE SENSEX and NIFTY 50 have gained an average of 2.5% during the last week of December and the first week of January.

But here’s the catch. The party seems to be losing its sparkle. The most significant rally was between December 2021 and January 2022, and the gains have been shrinking ever since.

And this year might be even quieter. That’s because the US Federal Reserve recently cut interest rates by 0.25%. That’s like waving a shiny lure at foreign investors, tempting them to pull money out of India and reinvest in the US.

But hey, who’s saying that this can’t spark some excitement back home too? If the US markets rally, maybe, just maybe, the festive cheer will spread, and we’ll see a little Santa Claus magic here as well. What do you think?

Infographic 📊

This Day in Financial History 📜

16th of December 1773 – The Boston Tea Party sows the seeds of American liberation

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the British crown controlled nearly half of the world, spanning almost three centuries. Over 65 countries that were earlier British colonies have claimed independence so far.

But do you know which nation was the first to free itself from British control?

Well, it was none other than the United States of America. On July 4, 1776, 13 American colonies severed their ties with Great Britain. However, the British government officially recognised the independence declaration only in 1783.

But the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, was what sowed the seeds of the American Revolution for liberty.

You would be surprised to know that it was not the Indigenous people of America who revolted against British control. The colonists, who couldn’t tolerate British rule's whims and fancies, took matters into their own hands. These colonists were American settlers, most of whom had migrated from Britain and a few from other European countries to the North American British-controlled colonies in the 17th century.

By the 18th century, the British East India Company exported various goods to British colonies worldwide, including spices, cotton from India and tea from China.

However, everything transported to the American colonies was heavily taxed. Colonists had to pay taxes on everyday essentials such as paint, paper, glass, lead and tea. The Stamp Act of 1765 also taxed colonists on every printed piece of paper they used, from business licenses to newspapers and legal documents.

And all of this without a say in the British parliament. These unfair British policies left the colonists extremely unhappy.

However, over time, Britain eventually repealed taxes on most daily essentials. Still, it was not ready to let go of the tax on tea exported to its American colonies. These colonists settled in America consumed nearly 1.2 million pounds of tea a year. This gave the British government massive tax revenue, which was used to pay their debts.

But the colonists weren’t ones to keep mum. They were Europeans, after all.

In protest, the colonists boycotted tea from the British East India Company and instead smuggled Dutch tea, leaving the company with millions of pounds of surplus tea.

Then the British Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773, allowing the British East India Company to sell tea duty-free directly to the colonies. That disrupted the smuggling networks as British tea became cheaper than smuggled Dutch tea.

The colonists saw the Tea Act as a symbol of British overreach and a direct assault on their economic autonomy.

Thus, to protest against the British, these colonists, disguised as Native Americans, boarded British ships transporting tea and dumped it all into the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.

The value of all frittered tea would total nearly $2 million in today’s prices.

And this act of defiance against British policies is now famously or rather sarcastically called the Boston Tea Party.

Readers Recommend 🗒️

This week, Tripti Joshi from our Marketing team recommends reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.

“True to its name the novel is about the delicate balance between misery and survival, hope and despair and how small events can catalyse great tragedies. The book is set against the backdrop of The Emergency of the 1970s and talks about normal people trying to live in abnormal times and situations. It's a lengthy read but worth every minute spent”, she says.

Thanks for the rec, Tripti!

Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩

It’s time to announce the winners of our last two weekly quizzes. And the winners are…🥁

Vishwa K and Ranju Jha. Congratulations! Keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll get in touch with you soon to send over your Finshots merch. And for the rest of you, we’ve moved the quiz to our weekly wrapup. So make sure you answer all the questions correctly by 12 noon on December 28, 2024 (Saturday) and tune in here next week to check if you got lucky.

Anyway, that’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday! Until then, send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Also, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today's edition. Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message: morning@finshots.in).

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