TMS Ep552: Market trends, social media, convenience fee, Li Keqiang index

Indian markets suffered their worst weekly sell-off since mid-September last week. Surging US Treasury yields and oil prices, coupled with simmering tension in West Asia, dragged benchmarks 2.5% lower in barely 4 sessions. But Friday came as a relief. So is this pullback rally a sign of trend reversal? Or is there more pain in store for the Indian markets?

While checking the stock prices, do you sometimes, or often, wander off and open your Insta, Twitter or Facebook account. Well you are not alone. That feeling of restlessness, that anxiety of missing out on something crucial ... It is increasingly gripping people. Kids too are hooked to it and are reportedly losing focus. In the United States, at least 30 states have sued Facebook parent Meta for allegedly jeopardising young minds. Find out if it’s high time to regulate access to social media usage for children.

The rise of social media and small screen entertainment has dealt a big blow to movie theatres too. Single screen halls, which used to dot the city landscape, have almost disappeared. And not all can afford to watch movies in multiplexes. Thanks to costly tickets. Even well healed too complain about several additional charges. One of them is convenience fees. Several other platforms too are charging it, which is at times as high as 20%. So is someone looking out there? What are the regulations around it?

China, on the other hand, has proposed to limit children’s smartphone time to a maximum of 2 hours a day. In 2019, it had restricted children’s daily online game time to 90 minutes a day. Moving on, the country lost a key political figure last week. Former premier of China, Li Keqiang, died of a heart attack. He was also a prominent economist whose mistrust of official GDP numbers gave birth to an economic indicator. It was named after him. Find out more on it in this episode of the podcast.