In this week’s wrapup, we talk about rising cocoa prices, Visa and Mastercard's antitrust case, Amber Dalal's Ponzi scheme, AI washing and RBI's latest directive on trading currency derivatives.
For the markets edition, we tell you how Landmark Cars is riding the demand wave for luxury and premium cars. We talk about how the car dealer makes money and whether its play on the aspirations of young India buying premium cars could translate into exponential sales.
You can read all about it in our Markets edition here.
Meanwhile, here’s a recap of what we wrote over the week.
Chocolate Chaos
Cocoa prices have been going through the roof. At the beginning of the year, cocoa was trading at $3000 a ton. But cut to today it has hit a record high of $10,000 a ton. And people are even calling it the new Bitcoin!
So what's going on?
Our Monday's newsletter answers that for you. We talk about the reasons behind the cocoa price rise and tell you if our beloved chocolate will get more expensive. You can read the story here.
Why the Visa and Mastercard antitrust case isn't over
Visa and Mastercard have just slid a proposal across the table to a bunch of American merchants. They want merchants to accept a settlement that could keep card-swiping fees under control until 2030. We're talking about the fees that these card networks charge merchants every time they accept a card payment from customers at their store.
But this isn't the first time these card networks have come up with a settlement. They've done this a couple more times in the past, only to disappoint merchants. Could this time be different?
Find out in our Tuesday's newsletter here.
Did Amber Dalal run a Ponzi scheme?
Sometime last month, a bunch of investors barged into a Mumbai police station and alleged that a man named Amber Dalal had duped them of crores of Rupees. It seemed like a huge accusation. So the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) decided to investigate. And what did they find out?
This man, a Chartered Accountant took over 600 unsuspecting investors for a ride and pocketed a neat sum of ₹400 crores!
So in Wednesday's newsletter we tell you how he pulled off this stunt. Click here to read it.
What the heck is AI Washing?
A couple of weeks ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped a $400,000 penalty on two investment advisory companies Delphia (USA) Inc. and Global Predictions Inc. for AI (Artificial Intelligence) washing.
It's a term used to describe the false hype that companies create by lying about their AI capabilities to attract investors and drive their valuations higher. And it's been rampantly increasing over the years.
So we thought of writing about it and telling you why companies have been resorting to this dubious practice. You can read all about it in our Thursday's newsletter.
RBI’s crackdown on currency trading?
The RBI just kicked India’s $5 billion-a-day currency derivatives market in the gut! And that's because the banking regulator now wants people to sign a declaration to confirm that the currency derivatives, they're trading in is linked to a genuine foreign currency transaction. Like a foreign currency liability, they're trying to hedge. Simply put, they have to confirm that it’s not a speculative bet they're making, at the cost of letting the Rupee fall.
But that could be a big blow to the currency derivatives market because over 70% of the volume in the futures market is driven by people who simply want to take bets and speculate. So then why is the RBI introducing such a harsh measure?
We broke it down for you in our Friday's newsletter.
Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩
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That's it from us this week. Have a great weekend!
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