BUSINESS
E-commerce startup Udaan to trim costs ahead of 2025 IPO
Udaan, which competes with Reliance Industries Ltd. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart in helping smaller merchants source their goods, will make an operating profit within 18 months, Chief Executive Officer Vaibhav Gupta said in an interview. That’s set to happen around the same time as its initial public offering, he said.
MARKETS
Morgan Stanley says oil at $110 could prompt RBI to hike again
A $10 increase in oil prices boosts inflation by 50 basis points and contributes to a 30 basis-point widening in the current account balance, Morgan Stanley’s economists estimate.
WORLD
Emerging Asia currencies buoyed by rate hikes set to outperform
In the view of Brendan McKenna, an emerging market strategist at Wells Fargo & Co., the Indonesian rupiah, Philippine peso and Thai baht are among the best bets.
WORLD
Elon Musk debuts ‘rebellious’ grok AI bot to challenge ChatGPT
Dubbed Grok, it’s the first product of Musk’s xAI company and is now in testing with a limited group of US users. Grok is being developed with data from Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, and is thus better informed on the latest developments than alternative bots with static datasets, the company’s website said.
BUSINESS
Vedanta nears deal to raise $1.25 billion via private loan
The Indian conglomerate is nearing a deal after weeks of negotiations with lenders, including Cerberus Capital Management LP, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, Varde Partners Inc., and Ares SSG Capital Management Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the matter is private.
TRENDS
Saudi Arabia eyes stake in $30 billion worth Indian Premier League
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s advisers have sounded out Indian government officials about moving the IPL into a holding company valued at as much as $30 billion, in which Saudi Arabia would then take a significant stake
WORLD
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announces move to Miami from Seattle
Jeff Bezos — the world’s third-wealthiest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — made the announcement Thursday via Instagram, which included video of him in his Seattle garage where he founded Amazon in 1994.
WORLD
Google and Microsoft bet on 27-year-old Stanford alum to make AI work for a billion users
Preethi, who goes by a single name, as is common in the region, is among the 70 workers hired in Agara and neighboring villages by a startup called Karya to gather text, voice and image data in India’s vernacular languages.
WORLD
World’s top sugar trader is having Deja Vu of an epic shortage
Consecutive years of deficits, weather damage in key crops and shipping bottlenecks are reminding the world’s top sugar trading company of 2010 and 2011, when prices of the sweetener hit a three-decade high.
TRENDS
Google and Microsoft bet on 27-year-old Stanford alum to make AI work for a billion users
After three days of working with Karya, Preethi earned 4,500 rupees ($54), more than four times the amount the 22-year-old high school graduate usually makes as a tailor in an entire month.
BUSINESS
Worst of Nigeria’s Naira devaluation over, Airtel Africa boss says
BUSINESS
Investcorp Capital seeks up to $403 million in UAE listing
The price range for the investment vehicle was set at 1.90 dirhams to 2.30 dirhams per share, according to a statement
TRENDS
Where to feast Diwali this year in London like never before
The food is so ingrained in British culture that in 2001 then-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook dubbed chicken tikka masala the national dish.
WORLD
Abu Dhabi weighs investment pledges worth $50 billion for India
Any new investments would follow Narendra Modi’s meetings with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed in July.
ECONOMY
CEA Nageswaran sees RBI holding fire if Fed hikes again
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday while still keeping alive the possibility of more hikes given inflation remains above its 2% target and economic growth is strong.
MARKETS
A record number of Indian firms are going public this year
India’s major equity benchmarks touched record levels earlier this year, with earnings and the economy growing despite the highest interest rates since 2018.
WORLD
China offers cash to rocket startups in hunt for its own SpaceX
The China Manned Space Agency, which on Tuesday returned three astronauts to Earth who had been working since May on the Tiangong space station, wants to pay private-sector companies for future missions.
BUSINESS
Powell hints Fed is done with hikes in pivot cheered by markets
Powell’s dovish pivot cheered markets, with the S&P 500 index closing more than 1% higher on the day.
BUSINESS
Fed holds rates at 22-year high, signals concern on yield rise
The decision left the target range for the benchmark federal funds rate unchanged at 5.25% to 5.5%, the highest since 2001, as part of a strategy to slow the pace of rate increases as the central bank nears the end of its tightening campaign
TECHNOLOGY
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt bets AI will shake up scientific research
The nonprofit, Future House, plans to develop AI tools that can analyze and summarize research papers as well as respond to scientific questions using large language models — the same technology that supports popular AI chatbots. But Future House also intends to go a step further.
BUSINESS
Apple plans hypertension, sleep apnea detection for next watch
Bloomberg News reported on these projects for the first time in an investigation published on November 1 on Apple’s evolving approach to health care.
BUSINESS
Infosys asks some staff back in office 10 days a month, bucking global trend
In an email to select employees in entry- to mid-level roles, the company asked them to come in for that minimum number of days, starting Nov. 20. Since the pandemic, they had been allowed to work remotely full-time, and the company’s other employees are still permitted to do so.
WORLD
Fed’s ‘hawkish pause’ to keep option to hike
The Federal Open Market Committee will keep rates unchanged at its two-day meeting ending Wednesday in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, a level first reached in July.
WORLD
Stan Druckenmiller says he has ‘massive’ bullish bets on 2-year notes
In recent weeks, “I started to get really nervous,” Druckenmiller, founder of Duquesne Family Office, said in an interview with hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones at a conference last week. “So I bought massive leveraged positions” in the short-term notes, he said.
