Equity, Startups & Economy Insights | Co-Founder @CalQuity : AI for Financial Institutions | CFA | FRM | Cleared NISM XV | views are own , not advice.
India
Joined December 2018
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UK gilt 10y yield at critical technical. BoE Thursday + Budget context create binary: easing bias confirmed → gilts rally. Guidance shifts to "wait" → gilts sold. 15bp+ yield swing material for duration-heavy portfolios. Thursday commentary is execution risk.
Titan vs Lenskart - Who to trust
Titan just mentioned in their concall that Eyewear market size is ~30k Crs right now, and ~45k Crs in 2030
Lenskart says eyewear market size is ~75k Crs now, and 1.5 Lac Crs in 2030. Their estimates for market size is basically 2.5X of Titan
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” – Warren Buffett
#quoteoftheday
10/ Zepto’s move reads like a startup in denial: “If we just get big enough, the math will fix itself.”
History says otherwise. Remember TinyOwl? Freecharge? The graveyard is full of volume-first martyrs.
Watch the runway. Not the GMV.
9/ Blinkit & Instamart aren’t standing still. They’re selectively matching on hero SKUs while preserving basket margins. Zepto? All-in on the race to zero.
The leader in quick-commerce won’t be the fastest—it’ll be the last one with cash.
8/ Quick-commerce isn’t zero-sum on speed—it’s zero-sum on cash. Zepto’s betting the house that scale will force suppliers to bend and dark-store rents to compress.
But scale without margin is just faster bankruptcy.
7/ The deeper trap: the customers they’re “acquiring” are fee-sensitive ghosts. Zero loyalty. When fees return (and they must), churn will be biblical.
This isn’t growth. It’s a controlled demolition of unit economics to delay the inevitable.
6/ Their $450M round?
• USD to INR: ~₹3,800 Cr
• ÷ ₹125/order burn = ~3 Cr orders sustainable
• At 15L/day → ~200 days of runway
That’s mid-2026. Then what?
5/The burn math is brutal—and it’s not gossip. Cross-verified whispers from Flipkart, Swiggy, Blinkit ops put Zepto at Rs 120–130 loss per order.
At ~15L daily orders, that’s Rs 18–19 Cr burned every day.
4/ Rewind to Diwali: Zepto flooded the app with near-free items. AOV collapsed. Unit economics? Obliterated.
It bought a brief GMV spike, but the cohort that showed up was pure price-chasers. Retention post-Diwali? Cratered.
3/ Context: these fees funded the hyper-local dark-store model. Removing them means subsidizing every ride, every picker, every bag.
They’re not chasing efficiency. They’re chasing orders—any orders—to mask the bleed in daily active users.
2/ Overnight, Zepto axed:
• Delivery fees above ₹99
• Handling charges
• Surge pricing
• Rain fees
These weren’t niceties. They were margin. Rs 6–30 per order, gone. This isn’t optimization—it’s a distress signal.
1/ Zepto’s playbook is unraveling in real time. The desperation isn’t subtle—it’s in every pricing decision they’ve made this week. 🚨
They’re hemorrhaging market share, and the response has been to torch every revenue lever that once kept them afloat.
5/n
$BHARATWIRE block
Authum bought entire 18L @ ₹210
Seller: Promoter-linked (Alpana Dangi)
Delivery: 68%
Stock +3.2%
Authum’s prior distressed plays: Yes Bank, DHFL
Strategic stake signal
#SmartMoney
4/n
$DREDGECORP bulk + MoU
Invesco MF bought 1.53L @ ₹851.7
Same-day MoU: ₹17,645 Cr fleet expansion
Delivery: 74%
Volume: 3.2L (vs 1.1L avg)
Stock +0.8%
MF entry aligns with capex cycle
#Institutional
3/n
Nifty 500 breadth
Stocks > RSI 50: 300 (vs 252 prior)
Stocks > 200 DMA: 346 (vs 323 prior)
Advance/Decline: 300/197
Mid/small-cap indices outperformed Nifty by 0.6–1.2%
#Breadth
2/n
FPI cash provisional: -₹1,884 Cr
DII provisional: +₹3,516 Cr
FPI actual (prev day): -₹7,606 Cr
FPI MTD (Oct): +₹14,610 Cr
FPI YTD: -₹1.40 Lakh Cr
DII YTD: +₹6.27 Lakh Cr
DII absorbed 186% of FPI sell-off
#FPIDII
🧵 1/n
FPI Index Future L/S Ratio: 0.18:1
Historical CMP: 0.18
10-DMA: 0.42
Range label: Oversold (0–20)
FPI sold ₹1,194 Cr index futures
Short add: 6,522 lots
Net position: -₹1,318 Cr Nifty futures
#FPIActivity