Rally Derailed 📉

☀️ Happy Monday

🍔 Swiggy’s debut was rocky—stock finished down 7% by Friday. What weighed on things further is Sensex finishing 2% down for the week.

📈 Global markets will be watching two bigg things this week—can the Trump rally sustain, and what does Nvidia have in store for earnings.

Let’s hit it.

1 Big Thing: Mamaearth Struggles To Delight 💄

Mamaearth's sparkle is fading as stiff competition and ever-changing customer preferences take a toll on its business momentum.

The deal: for the July to September quarter, Mamaearth’s sales dropped by 7% year-on-year, a concerning trend for a growth-stage company trading at expensive multiples. Even worse, profits went from ₹42 crore same quarter last year to a loss of over ₹18 crores this time around.

However, management points to a different issue: the decline apparently was driven by a shift in how Mamaearth sells its products in offline channels, moving from a super-stockist distributor model to a direct distributor model, which led to inventory corrections.

But profitability also dropped, with the company’s total expenses increasing over 9% during the quarter, and its unclear what’s causing the stink.

Regardless, markets have spoken, and the stock has been on the shit list so far in 2024. Also, worth noting that in order to keep investing and to stay competitive, Mamaearth had recently sold ₹1,763 crores worth of stock, which wasn’t loved by the markets either.

Bottomline: while the addressable market for cosmetic products remains attractive, the Mamaearth and its peers need to do it profitably. Declining top-line makes achieving that objective even harder.

2. Nvidia big task at hand 💸

Nvidia’s earnings are set for Wednesday, bit later than most of the other Magnificent 7 companies, but far more consequential to the market’s sanity.

Markets will be focusing on a few key areas, particularly growth in Nvidia’s Data Center segment, which sells chips to AI buyers.

The big questions will revolve around:

• Commentary on big deals of Blackwell GPUs and the delivery pipeline for 2025.
• Improvements in margins and the uptake of Nvidia’s software offerings.

Big picture: market places a lot of weight on “Godfather of AI,” Jensen Huang’s signals to judge whether AI’s momentum will sustain or if the boom is nearing its peak. This call is important to set the tone for 2025.

3. Who got the bag? 💰

• In India, vehicle intelligence startups Vecmocon raised $10 million from Ecosystem Integrity Fund, as well as previous investors Blume Ventures. The company provides various components for the EV ecosystem, along with software to measure performance. (Story by Entrackr)
• In Europe, The Exploration Company raised $150 million. The company plans to offer a European solution for transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station, challenging the current duopoly of solution providers, both based in the U.S. (Story by TechCrunch)

What else are we snackin’ 🍿

🥊 Streaming Wars: Spotify is stepping up its competition with YouTube by launching new tools for video podcasts, including creator payments based on engagement.

🚀 Missle Milestone: India has joined the elite club with successful test of its first long-range hypersonic missile, surpassing 1500 km range.

📺 JioHotstar Saga: The JioHotstar saga has finally ended after siblings Jainam and Jivika transfered the domain to Reliance for free.

That’s a wrap for today! Don’t let the weekday blues get to you. We’ll be back tomorrow, like clockwork!

If you enjoyed today’s issue, hit that 💚