📉 ₹4.5 Lakh Crore Vanishes Pre-Holiday

🌞 Good Morning, Chai Fam!

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi! 🙏 While Indian markets take a breather today for the festival, the global economy isn’t slowing down. Tariffs are shaking up trade, airlines are signing record deals, and startups back home are raking in fresh funding. Let’s pour into the news before your modak sugar rush kicks in.

📰 Chai Shots

• 📦 Tariff Tsunami Hits India’s Exports: US’s new 50% duties kicked in today, covering two-thirds of India’s $86.5B exports to the U.S. Textile hubs, seafood suppliers, and handicraft makers are already panicking over competitiveness. More in the Big Brew 👇

• 📉 Sensex Tanks 849 Points: Tariff jitters wiped out ₹4.5 lakh crore in investor wealth as Sensex and Nifty plunged, with foreign funds leading the sell-off.

• 🛫 IndiGo Promoters Keep Cashing Out: After selling over 9% this year (raising ₹12,900 crore), the Gangwal family is chipping away further. This sale is priced at a 4% discount to market and managed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley.

• 📈 Wall Street Shrugs Off Trump’s Fed Drama: S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended higher, with investors focusing on Nvidia earnings instead of Trump’s bid to oust Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

📊 Market Masala

• 📉 Tariffs Drag Markets Down: Sensex and Nifty slipped over 1%, with Reliance, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank leading losses. FMCG stocks bucked the trend on hopes of GST cuts.

• 📉 Indian Markets Shut Today: No trades on Aug 27 as exchanges remain closed for Ganesh Chaturthi. But the pre-holiday session saw Sensex sink to 80,787 and Nifty to 24,712, erasing ₹4.5 lakh crore in market wealth.

• 🏗️ Adani Gets CCI Nod for Jaypee Assets: Adani has regulatory approval to buy up Jaiprakash Associates, which owes ₹57,000 crore. The acquisition covers Jaypee Greens real estate, hotels, and cement plants.

• 🍺 United Breweries Ups Canning Game: With demand for Kingfisher, Ultra, and Heineken cans outstripping supply, UBL is investing ₹90 crore to add 0.4M hectolitres of capacity at its Telangana plant. The move strengthens its hold in India’s beer market, now leaning heavily toward canned formats.

• 🍲 Zomato’s Parent Hit by ₹40 Cr GST Claim: Eternal Ltd, Zomato’s parent, has been slapped with three tax orders for 2017–20, including alleged excess credit claims. The company is appealing and insists the hit won’t dent its finances.

• ⚡ BluSmart Insolvency Snowballs: Nearly 200 creditors have filed claims worth ₹500 crore against the EV ride-hailing startup. Catalyst Trusteeship leads with ₹250 crore, followed by IREDA’s ₹130 crore. Even co-founders filed claims for unpaid dues.

🌍 Global Masala

• 📈 Wall Street Keeps Climbing: The S&P 500 rose 0.4% as traders looked past Trump’s unprecedented move to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, focusing instead on Nvidia’s blockbuster earnings due today. Long-term worries about Fed independence linger.

• 🚗 German Autos Slash 51,500 Jobs: Nearly half of all German industrial job losses came from the auto sector, squeezed by Chinese EV rivals, high costs, and Trump tariffs.

• 📚 Anthropic Ends Copyright Fight: Authors suing Anthropic over book training practices reached a “historic” settlement, despite a June court ruling that AI training counted as transformative fair use. The deal avoids a landmark trial.

• 🎥 YouTube’s “Hype” Goes Global: Fans can now hype smaller creators’ videos, pushing them onto leaderboards. Paid boosts are being tested in Brazil and Turkey.

☕ The Big Brew 🚧 India’s Tariff Nightmare: Exports Under Siege

India’s export engine just hit a massive speed bump 🚧. From today, U.S. tariffs on Indian goods have doubled to a punishing 50%, putting nearly two-thirds of India’s $86.5B exports to its biggest trade partner at risk. What looks like a trade skirmish on paper could translate into shuttered factories, job losses, and a hit to GDP growth.

• 📉 Billions on the Line: Industry body FIEO warns that $47–48B worth of goods — textiles, gems, jewellery, shrimp, carpets, and furniture — now carry a 30–35% cost disadvantage compared to cheaper rivals like Vietnam, Bangladesh, and China.

• 🧵 Textile Towns Under Stress: Production lines in Tirupur, Noida, and Surat are already slowing or shutting down. Shrimp exporters, who send 40% of their catch to the U.S., are facing stockpile losses and potential farmer unrest.

• 🏭 Wider Sector Fallout: Leather, ceramics, handicrafts, and chemical producers are bracing for cancelled orders and thinning margins.

• 📊 Macro Ripple Effect: The Global Trade Research Initiative projects India’s U.S. exports could collapse 43% in FY26 — enough to shave 0.9% off national GDP growth.

• 💊 Pharma Stands Tall: Generic drugmakers may escape most of the pain, thanks to globally diversified revenue streams and strong balance sheets, even if short-term contracts take a hit.

• 🤝 Policy Response Demands: Exporters are calling for interest subsidies, one-year loan moratoriums, higher credit limits, and urgent fast-tracking of FTAs with the EU, Gulf, and Latin America to soften the blow.

✨ What does this mean?
This isn’t just about higher duties — it’s about competitiveness 🏁. Labour-heavy industries like apparel and seafood are staring at an existential crisis, threatening lakhs of jobs. Without quick government action — relief packages at home and fresh trade deals abroad — India risks losing export share permanently to smaller but nimbler rivals. Pharma and IT may cushion the fall, but the “Make in India” dream could quickly get outpriced in America’s aisles.

🚀 Startup Scoop

• 🧮 Matiks Raises $3.1M: The math-focused mobile gaming platform, backed by Tanglin Ventures and Info Edge, also counts Aman Gupta and Gaurav Munjal as angels. It plans to expand offerings, ramp up hiring, and push into global markets.

• 👶 Peeko Raises $3.2M: The babycare quick-commerce platform, still in its first year, delivers within 60 minutes in 10 Bengaluru pincodes. Backers include Stellaris Venture Partners and Titan Capital’s Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal.

• 🌱 Hexafun Nets ₹4.5 Cr: The sustainable lifestyle brand for Gen Z reimagines socks, stoles, and luggage covers into eco-friendly, expressive designs. Funds will fuel offline retail expansion and new product launches.

• 🎓 Vaave Bags ₹6.6 Cr: Alumni engagement startup powering networks for IITs, IIMs, IISc, and Tata Steel raised its first major round to double down on product innovation and expansion across institutions and corporates.

🤓 Chai Break Trivia

Did you know 🥤❄️ the world’s first carbonated drink was concocted in 1767 by chemist Joseph Priestley, who infused water with carbon dioxide. He called it “water with fixed air.” Thankfully, branding has improved — or we’d all be ordering “water with air” at restaurants.

🔮 What’s Brewing Next

• 🛫 India’s $1B Jet Engine Deal: HAL and GE are finalizing an order for 113 F404 engines

That’s all for today! 🎉 Even with the Indian stock markets closed today, the brew was brimming with action — from tariff shocks hitting exports to homegrown startups raising fresh cash.

So dig into those modaks 🍬 (the only kind of surplus anyone’s happy about today), soak up the festive calm, and gear up — trading screens light up again tomorrow, and so will the fireworks.

Stay festive, stay sweet, stay caffeinated,
Masala Chai Team 🫶