In this week’s wrapup, we talk about NASA's budget problems, Amazon spying on Flipkart, Lloyd Electric's financial fraud, economics of modifying the weather and hedge fund algorithms.

For this week's Markets Edition, we talk about Indus Towers and its role in the telecom space.

For the uninitiated Indus Towers sets up telecom towers and then rents them out to telcos so that they can use it. And its business can expand because of 3 things-expanding demand for towers in rural areas, the 5G rollout and Vi's (formerly Vodafone Idea) revival through a FPO (Follow on Public Offer) worth ₹18,000 crores!

But how is Vi's revival relevant to Indus Towers' growth? Find out in our Markets Edition here.

Meanwhile, here’s a recap of what we wrote over the week.

NASA has a budget problem

In FY24, America's space agency, NASA wanted about $27 billion to keep all its space missions going. But it only received funds that were close to 9% lower than its expectations.

And this isn't new. In fact, if you look at NASA's funding as a percentage of the total US government spending over the years, you'll see that it has been nosediving. So in Monday's newsletter we explained why that may be happening. You can read it here.

Did Amazon spy on Flipkart and others?

Corporate spying is actually a normal part of business. And by this, we mean that companies simply resort to closely observing their competitors' products and strategies to be one step ahead of them. They may even have a dedicated team called the 'Benchmarking' team that does this job. And it's legal.

But it only remains that way until corporates start planting moles within a rival firm. And guess what? Amazon has been accused of antics like this. So in Tuesday's newsletter we told you what's happening.

Lloyd cooked the books?

Lloyd Electric sold a lot of air conditioners in India. With a 12% market share, it was the third-biggest player in the country at one point after Voltas and LG. But in 2019, a fund manager who picked up a stake in the company, pointed out that it may have been up to something fishy, perhaps a fraud that involved siphoning off funds.

And a few days ago, markets regulator SEBI passed an order in the case. What did it find out? Well, that's what we wrote about in Wednesday's newsletter.

The economics of modifying the weather

Heavy downpours in the UAE last week flooded the glitzy city of Dubai and shuttered its busy airport too. And this suddenly sparked rumours that cloud seeding may have been the culprit!

Now, experts disagree with that theory. So, we can't really blame cloud seeding. But we thought we could talk about the good and bad economics of it. And so we did in Thursday's newsletter. Click here to read it.

Who owns a hedge fund’s algorithm?

A few days ago, Jane Street, a hedge fund in the US took another hedge fund Millenium Management, to court. Its complaint? Millenium had copied a “really awesome” strategy helped Jane Street rake in $1 billion in profits. And losing tis secret code meant that Jane Street would also lose some prospective clients which would have otherwise landed up at its door.

How did Jane Street know that it was the same strategy and how will it prove that it actually owns a strategy that its former employees may have churned out? Find out in Friday's newsletter.

Now you're probably thinking that we didn't publish on Friday because you didn't get our email or see the story on our app and website. Sorry folks! That was a technical glitch, which we've now fixed. So you can read this story here.

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That's it from us this week. Have a great weekend!

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