Category: Protected – UOL Spring 2023

Trump’s push to Make America Great Again is falling apart (Daily Telegraph, Hans van Leeuwen) takes a look at Trump’s rein so far – and the role that tariffs have played in that. Last year’s tariff bonanza came to a juddering halt on Friday with the Supreme Court’s decision and now it’s been suggested that the allies could now take the initiative and either refuse to acquiesce to his one-sided trade deals or drag their feet in implementing them. Trump is now looking down the barrel of a potential $130bn-plus loss of tax revenue which could affect his ability to fund tax handouts and spending increases. His popularity in the polls is slipping, corporate America is taking him to court over refunds of tariffs and anything American is now greeted with distrust. BTW, if you want a good laugh, have a look at this BBC Verify fact-check of Trump’s State of the Union speech the other day. Wall Street Traders Are Pouncing on the Tariff Refund Chaos (Wall Street Journal, Caitlin McCabe, Ben Glickman and Sarah Nassauer) highlights a novel reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision – that American corporates are now selling the rights to any refunds that they might get as a result of it. They are doing so because they just don’t want to deal with a long drawn-out mess and traders are in the middle. “Claims trading” is an area where investors pay up for the rights involved in everything from tax refunds to bankrupt companies with a view to scoring a big payout when a final decision is made. * SO WHAT? * It is worth noting that the Supreme Court has not, thus far, decided whether the government would have to dish out refunds on the tariffs already paid – which amount to over $133bn – but that hasn’t stopped American companies filing lawsuits to claw their money back. Investors that have bought claims thus far include King Street Capital Management, Anchorage Capital Advisors and Fulcrum Capital. It’s interesting, isn’t it, to see how investors make money out of a situation like this!

And in terms of other trading opportunities, Japan is the ultimate Halo trade (Financial Times, Leo Lewis) highlights another emerging trend – investors buying into the “Halo trade”. “Halo” in this case is an acronym for Heavy Asset, Low Obsolescence and the trend itself refers to the ditching of the more ephemeral (and expensive) charms of AI companies in favour of more mundane companies that actually have assets. The rationale here is that investors want some respite from the sentiment rollercoaster that pervades AI and tech stocks. Japan has loads of companies that have remained unloved for quite some time because investors have favoured asset-light companies over asset-heavy ones. Now that AI threatens obsolescence for a number of industries – like some SaaS companies, for instance – the pendulum has swung back and so companies like Mitsui Kinzoku, Nittobo and Dowa have suddenly become more popular. These companies make unique products that can’t be easily replicated and they supply the cutting edge

manufacturers of things such as AI chips. In other words, Japan is selling the shovels and picks in the gold rush rather than the gold itself. At the moment, Japan is benefitting from the Halo trade, but it remains to be seen as to whether this is just a phase or not…

Meanwhile, UK military spending set to account for smaller share of GDP in 2027-28 (Financial Times, Lucy Fisher and Sam Fleming) shows that UK expenditure on armed forces and materials is on track to account for 2.13% of GDP in 2027-28, which is less than the 2.2% estimated in September. This actually reflects the size of the UK economy rather than a reduction in spending for the MoD. * SO WHAT? * This stands in contrast to European allies who are putting through big spending increases in this area. It also runs counter to what PM Starmer said recently about wanting to accelerate defence spending. This does potentially highlight a massive contrast between what the government says and what it’s ACTUALLY doing!

Return of UK house price bunching to avoid mansion tax (Financial Times, James Pickford) shows that the property market is already responding to the High Value Council Tax Surcharge (HVCTS – aka “the mansion tax”) which was announced in the autumn Budget and is coming into force in April 2028. A surcharge of £2,500 will be levied on homes in England over £2m, with a higher charge for houses worth over £2.5m, £3.5m and £5m. The Valuation Office is planning this year on which homes fall into which categories – and this is something that will be recalibrated every five years. What is happening now is that house prices are now bunching up below the thresholds. * SO WHAT? * I think that this is a ridiculous system because it will be so difficult to get right and implement consistently (just look at how unsuccessful the business rates system – which is also being overseen by the Valuation Office – has been!). OK so the sums involved are pretty minor for people who can afford to buy such properties but there’s no guarantee that these sums will remain the same in future. This sounds good to voters, though – especially if it’s called “mansion tax” 🤣! I am just sceptical about whether it’s really going to raise a meaningful amount and that it’s more about having a nice soundbite.

Then in France’s Engie strikes deal to buy UK Power Networks for £10.5bn (The Guardian, Jillian Ambrose) we see that the French utility has agreed to buy the company that owns the electricity cables and power lines in London, the south-east and east of England and serves 8.5million customers. The UK’s electricity distribution and network companies are about halfway through a plan to invest over £22bn in upgrading and expanding their networks by 2028 under a five-year plan.

Volkswagen bids to be Europe’s self-driving vehicle ‘champion’ (Financial Times, Sebastien Ash and Kana Inagaki) highlights VW’s ambitions to be the “European champion” in self-driving vehicles, an area that’s currently dominated by the likes of Waymo and Tesla. It’s going to launch driverless taxis later this year in LA with Uber. VW’s robotaxi unit, MOIA, already has 100 specialised ID Buzz test vehicles on the road in Germany, Norway and the US. I say good luck to ’em!

Then in Aston Martin to cut a fifth of its workforce as losses continue (The Times, Robert Lea) we see that the luxury car maker is planning to cut up to 20% of its workforce in Warwickshire and South Wales as it battles heavy losses. This is all part of a broader target to cut costs by about £40m. Most of the losses will be in the UK and will apply across the business. Aston Martin continues to struggle with sluggish sales volumes and rising debt. Then there’s the uncertainty of the US tariff impact to deal with…

Diageo slides after new chief slashes dividend and signals price cuts (Financial Times, Madeleine Speed) highlights more bad news for Diageo as the new CEO halved the dividend and announced price reductions in order to win back customers. The share price tanked by almost 13%, a record one-day drop for the company. * SO WHAT? * The CEO, who’s only been in the role for the past eight weeks, called out the company’s “very poor” customer service and said that he’d invest more in its mass-market brands including the likes of Smirnoff Vodka and Captain Morgan rum. This represents a departure from the “premiumisation” strategy that it’s been following for more than a decade, which relies on customers drinking less but going for more expensive spirits. It doesn’t sound like Dave Lewis is going to ditch this approach completely but he’s certainly going to review what’s been going on and try to be more targeted. His argument is

that Diageo lost out on being “under-represented” in the mass market which meant that when consumers’ disposable incomes were squeezed they could not benefit. Somewhat ominously (for the employees!) he said at the interim results presentation that there were “significant cost opportunities” at Diageo. It also looks like the company needs to address weak performances in the China and US markets as well.

Then in Doom Bar maker Sharp’s Brewery in Cornwall to be closed by US owner (The Guardian, Alex Daniel) we see that the Cornish brewery that makes Doom Bar is going to be shut down by Molson Coors, which has owned it for 15  years. Another cask ale brand bites the dust…I guess this is the risk you run if you sell to a foreign multinational!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Nvidia stock downbeat despite blockbuster quarter (Financial Times, Michael Acton) shows that Nvidia’s share price was flat despite another strong set of quarterly results and sunny outlook because investors are more worried about the sustainability of the AI investment boom. * SO WHAT? * Nvidia is seen to be a bellwether for AI given the central role its chips play in the cutting edge of the technology. It seems to me that Nvidia is a serial outperformer. However, if it starts to get negative, I think that there will be panic…

Elsewhere, John Lewis scraps £500m deal to build 1,000 rental homes (The Guardian, Sarah Butler) shows that the John Lewis Partnership is pulling out o a deal to build almost 1,000 residential rental homes in Bromley, Reading and West Ealing. * SO WHAT? * AT LONG LAST! COMMON SENSE HAS PREVAILED! This is a further nail in the coffin for the ridiculous plan touted by former chair Sharon White who made a right old pig’s ear of the company when she was in

charge. I don’t normally get this riled about a company leadership but I still don’t understand to this day how she got the top job at such a retailer at such a critical time in the company’s history with ZERO experience in retail. She had a good reputation prior to that – but she was clearly the wrong appointment. As I have said ALL ALONG, rather than faff around at the periphery, the company needed to focus on its core offering when the chips were down. Things definitely feel like they are on the up now that they are addressing this.

Then in HSBC hands out bigger bonuses in push to rival Wall Street (Daily Telegraph, Tom Saunders) we see that HSBC gave its top bankers better bonuses this year – 11% better than last year as the bonus pool increased by 10% to its highest level in a decade! It’s also not going to be shy in “doughnut-ing” (i.e. giving bankers ZERO bonus) staff that don’t perform. The bank’s full year results looked pretty solid.

This video is so heart-warming – it shows shelter dogs choosing their new owners 🥰! Ahhhhhhhhh!

In markets news, Wall Street rallies as software sell-off slows (Financial Times, Emily Herbert, Rachel Rees, Ian Smith and Kate Duguid) highlights a rebound and reprieve for tech companies after a tough few weeks of trading that have led markets down to levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of Trump’s “liberation day”. European traders celebrate decade-beating performance (Financial Times, Simon Foy and Joshua Franklin) cites data from Visible Alpha which shows that Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Société Générale , Barclays and UBS last year had their highest revenues since at least 2015 thanks to all the market volatility fuelled by AI concerns/euphoria and geopolitical uncertainty. ‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets (The Guardian, Aisha Down and Dan Milmo) suggests that a Substack post from a little-known US firm called Citrini Research that spooked investors with its report about a near-future where AI systems crash the entire US economy was at least partly responsible for the most recent tech sell-off and AI panic reels in America’s oldest tech giant (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) observes that even venerable tech company IBM got swept up in it all thanks to fears that an AI tool from Anthropic could be used to dramatically cut the cost of maintaining and updating “Cobol”, the coding language developed in the 1960s that IBM’s machines are built on. Given that about 70% of Fortune 500 companies – and over 90% of the world’s banks – rely on IBM’s machines, this nice little earner is now looking vulnerable to the Claude Code tool. Whether or not companies – particularly banks – will be comfortable in unleashing an AI bot on their computers is another question, however. AI upheaval forces software industry to ask if this is an ‘adapt or die’ moment (Financial Times, Richard Waters) takes a closer look at the potential winners and losers in the software industry that increasing numbers of people think will implode thanks to AI. Although many of them publicly dismiss the worries as being overblown, privately they acknowledge that the threat the AI poses is different and will progress rapidly. That is not a reason to sell all of them off, however, because there could be opportunities we haven’t yet seen – something that has happened before when big tech changes have occurred. That being said, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have seen limited return from their own investments in AI thus far. * SO WHAT? * I guess that investors are less worried about existing companies being able to adapt and more worries about them being rendered obsolete by the new crop of AI start-ups. I would have thought that the biggest SaaS companies will be the winners because they have the deepest pockets, the biggest client networks and the ability to buy up AI assets to enhance their own offerings.

Meanwhile, it seems that there’s a whole lotta ranting going on stateside! Trump hails ‘golden age of America’ in longest State of the Union on record (Financial Times, Alexandra White, Zehra Munir and Peter Wells) shows that the president delivered a 100 minute-plus rant on how great he is, what he’s done and his belief that the “golden age of America is upon us”. Affordability is still an issue and there was no mention of the Epstein files but he also used the speech to warn Iran about an impending US attack if it doesn’t curb its nuclear programme. Then in Pete Hegseth threatens to cut Anthropic from Pentagon supply chain in showdown with CEO (Financial Times, George Hammond and Steff Chávez) we see that the US defence secretary threatened to cut Anthropic out of his department’s supply chain unless it allowed its tech to be used for military purposes. Anthropic has been resisting pressure to give unrestricted access to its models for classified military use and Hegseth said that if Anthropic does not agree to play ball by 5.01pm this Friday, he will invoke the Defense Production Act, which will hand over control to the president. The start-up could take legal action if Hegseth goes down this road. Hegseth has been in talks with Google, OpenAI and xAI about replacing Anthropic. * SO WHAT? * This suggests that Anthropic is central to America’s defence/war efforts and it is worth noting that Claude was used in Maduro’s capture last month. It seems that Anthropic is particularly nervous about its tech being used in lethal missions without a human in the loop because it believes that its models aren’t reliable enough in those contexts.

Back home, Reeves aims to reassure business with ‘boring’ Spring Statement (Financial Times, George Parker, Sam Fleming and Ashley Armstrong) shows that our chancellor is aiming to unveil a “boring” Spring Statement next week that is unlikely to include anything particularly new. Instead, she’s expected to respond to economic forecasts from the OBR. In a way, this sounds like what business needs – but really a lot of them need help!

Why 2026 will be a blockbuster year for biotech M&A (Financial Times, Lex) suggests that this year is going to be a big one for drug company deals. Recent transactions include Novartis’s $12bn acquisition of Avidity Biosciences, Pfizer’s $10bn offer for Metsera and, this week, Gilead Sciences’ takeover bid for blood cancer specialist Arcellx for up to $7.8bn. * SO WHAT? * There’s a lot of pent-up demand out there following on from last year where tariff uncertainty curtailed such activity. Big pharma has now emerged out of the other side with financial firepower, a bit more tariff certainty and the proximity of the widely-publicised patent cliff to incentivise more deals. Everyone in the deal chain will be rubbing their hands in anticipation! Presumably this is one of the reasons why we’ve been seeing senior M&A lawyers getting poached…

Elsewhere, Paramount’s Newest Bid Could Open Door to Beating Netflix Deal, Warner Says (Wall Street Journal, Joe Flint) shows that Warner Bros Discovery is potentially open to Paramount’s new higher offer to buy the whole company as the latter looks to derail a rival bid from Netflix which wants to buy part of the company. The drama continues…

Then in Meta agrees $60bn deal with chipmaker AMD despite AI bubble fears (The Guardian, Aisha Down) we see the latest tech megadeal – this time it’s Meta promising to buy $60bn worth of AI chips from AMD over a five year period. It’s yet another example of leading AI players doing deals to diversify their supply of chips.

In fund-raising news, UK’s Wayve valued at $8.6bn in global race for driverless cars (The Times, Guy Taylor) shows that the driverless car company managed to get $1.5bn from its latest funding round, at an implied company valuation of $8.6bn, which is higher than a number of the FTSE100’s existing constituents!

Then in Stripe valuation soars to $159bn in latest share sale (Financial Times, Akila Quinio) we see that the payments company’s value has shot up by over 70% in the past year as it agreed its latest employee share sale! Stripe is not publicly listed

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Young bearing the brunt of UK tax and wage changes, says BoE economist (The Guardian, Tom Knowles) is the latest of a slew of recent articles focusing on youth unemployment – but this time it’s an assessment by the governor and the chief economist of the Bank of England who are saying that the combination of higher NICs and the increase in the “national living wage” are hitting jobs.

Then in Student loan crisis spreads to property as accommodation giant hit (Daily Telegraph, Pui-Guan Man) we see that the share price of Britain’s biggest university accommodation provider, Unite, dropped by a chunky 10% yesterday as it issued its third profit warning in three months. It put its tricky situation down to more students in the UK opting to save money by living at home while they go to uni. * SO WHAT? * The latest UCAS data shows that the proportion of 18 year-olds intending to live at home while studying hit a record high in December, rising by 7% versus the previous year. Changes made to the student loan repayment terms are also hitting this part of the property market. Until recently, Unite has been able to rely on international students to take up the slack – but those numbers have been falling as well.

Why London looks ‘very vulnerable’ to an AI jobs cull (Daily Telegraph, Eir Nolsøe) is an interesting article that takes a look at how AI could affect careers in finance, legal and accounting. This is a big deal for the UK, because these are areas in which we excel! Some areas of the legal profession – like conveyancing, which is more commoditised and heavily process-driven – will be more vulnerable than others which require more human judgment and input. That being said, it is already making inroads into something that trainee solicitors have been doing

forever – reviewing dense legal documents and summarising in layman’s terms – and that is likely to mean that firms will take on fewer juniors. In consulting, AI is already changing workflows but the head of consulting at PwC maintains that there will be a “human premium” and that AI will amplify expertise, not replace it. It will, however, bring down prices. * SO WHAT? * I’d agree with most of this in that there is bound to be an initial shock regarding the impact of AI on workflows, but it feels to me like the impact thus far has been over-egged and that while jobs evolve, a human premium will emerge. 

On a more positive note, More homes become cheaper to buy than rent as interest rates fall (The Times, Jessica Newman) cites Zoopla as saying that falling mortgage rates will mean that it will be cheaper to buy a property than to rent it, on average, based on whether the buyer has a 20% deposit to put down. Affordability stress tests have been eased and now a number of high street lenders allow mortgage applicants to borrow at last six times their salary! There are also more properties on the market at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see how momentum builds going into the traditionally busy spring season.

Following on from what I said yesterday, Novo Nordisk halves US price of weight-loss drug (Financial Times, Patrick Temple-West and Aanu Adeoye) shows that the Danish company announced yesterday dramatic cuts in the wholesale prices of Wegovy (50% from January 2027) and Ozempic (35%). This means that prices will be considerably cheaper than wholesale prices for Eli Lilly’s more effective Zepbound. It sounds like this was the only course of action it could take! Tough times…

Watson’s Daily is all about learning – and hopefully enjoying the process! But it’s not just all about the business and finance news. It’s also about learning new skills – like this 😁! I am definitely going to give this a go. I may even post the result on Watson’s Daily socials…

The US Supreme Court’s ruling won’t stop Donald Trump’s tariffs (Financial Times, Peter Navarro) is a defiant article written by Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, spinning the tariff defeat in the Supreme Court on Friday into “a strategic win”. He chose to emphasise that the court did not deny the president’s “broad and powerful authority” under various other laws. Donald Trump’s 10% global tariff to go into effect despite threat of higher rate (Financial Times, James Politi) shows that a new global tariff of 10% is going to be coming into force today (notably not the 15% rate announced at the weekend). This is as a result of the reaction of trading partners who pushed back against the higher 15% rate, but Trump reserved the right to impose a 15% rate later. Trump threatens ‘obnoxious’ tariffs as UK and EU seek clarity on trade deals (The Guardian, Lisa O’Carroll, Pippa Crerar and Alex Daniel) cites the president as saying that he could use tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way” while Trump’s tariff turmoil triggers worst run for private equity since 2008 (Daily Telegraph, Tom Saunders) cites a report by Bain & Co which shows that all of the uncertainty created by Trump’s tariffs last year contributed to lower returns for private equity firm investors for the fourth consecutive year in 2025. * SO WHAT? * I think that Trump and his team are just going to continue to find loopholes that they can use to justify tariffs and this is going to be a constant feature for the next few years. It will inject some uncertainty into negotiations but I would have thought that world leaders are going to listen more to what Trump says than what the courts say (in the US) because he’s still got scope to cause a lot of pain via other means.

In other markets news, US software and private capital shares hit with fresh wave of selling (Financial Times, George Steer, Emily Herbert and William Sandlund) shows that US software stocks took a pasting yesterday on investor fears that AI would disrupt the likes of Workday, CrowdStrike and Datadog along with Salesorce, ServiceNow and Oracle. Blue Owl is spoiling private credit’s sales pitch (Financial Times, Lex) highlights the dangers of private credit as the fund has decided to permanently restrict redemptions (i.e. stop people from taking money out of the fund). Prior to all the recent drama, investors had been allowed to withdraw the cash

equivalent of 5% of their fund every three months. This just highlights two of the big problems with private credit – that valuations are opaque and that getting your money out can be tricky.

Then in World Liberty’s stablecoin attacked, Trump-backed crypto group says (Financial Times, Jill R Shah and George Steer) we see that the USD1 stablecoin fell from the $1 it’s supposed to trade at because hackers had apparently gained access to some of its co-founders’ X accounts in a “co-ordinated attack”. World Liberty Financial (WLF) insisted that the flagship stablecoin was “completely safe” and that social media influencers were paid to spread “FUD” – aka Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt – in order to hit the value of USD1 and benefit from the chaos they manufactured themselves. * SO WHAT? * USD1 is the fifth biggest stablecoin in circulation. Tether is the biggest, followed by Circle. WLF’s knee-jerk reaction is clearly an attempt to talk down any panic that may become self-perpetuating. If this successfully manages to stamp out further speculation, then the drama will end here. If not, this could grow into something quite interesting on closer scrutiny! More broadly, crypto is having a tricky time at the moment. Bitcoin fell below $64,000 in trading yesterday which takes it down by almost 50% since it peaked in early October!

Elsewhere, Panama hands canal ports control to Maersk and MSC after ejecting Hong Kong group (Financial Times, Milagro Vallecillos and Jude Webber) shows that a Danish company and a Swiss company respectively have now taken over operations of the two key ports of Balboa and Cristóbal following the ejection of the previous Hong Kong-based operator CK Hutchison Holdings last month. The Panamanian government formally took control of the port facilities yesterday and will continue in this role until a new concession is awarded within the next 18 months. Trump was keen on kicking the Chinese out but CK Hutchison is not taking this lying down and has taken Panama to arbitration following the Supreme Court ruling that kicked them out.

UK unemployment to ‘rise above pandemic high within months’ (Daily Telegraph, Tim Wallace and Szu Ping Chan) cites forecasts by JP Morgan who reckon that UK unemployment will hit 5.5% in the first half of this year thanks to businesses continuing to hold off on hiring after the chancellor effectively jacked up employment costs since last April. This is particularly sobering when you consider that “peak” unemployment was reached in December 2020 at 5.3%. Young and low earners fall behind despite rise in average income (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the latest report from the CEBR which further highlights that young people have been the hardest hit by the cost of living crisis despite rising disposable incomes over the last five years. The stark difference in financial fortunes between younger and older generations in the UK continues to widen. One shocking stat from the report states that young workers allocate almost 70% of the weekly income to cover bare necessities while they also face higher tax bills than other age groups. * SO WHAT? * This is such a frustrating state of affairs and, by the looks of things, the government has largely been the author of its own disaster. When you throw in that student loan thing as well, it doesn’t seem like the government is being very supportive of young people.

Then in Bloated human resources sector ‘is costing businesses billions’ (The Times, Tom Howard) we see that a report by the centre-right think-tank Policy Exchange concludes that the HR sector is too big and its equality, diversity and inclusion policies push is costing British businesses billions of pounds per year. Although they acknowledge that the policies are well-intentioned, the report says that they result in “significant costs” to companies. Interestingly, the HR industry in the UK is proportionally almost double the size of the EU and 60% bigger than in the US! Apparently, between 2011 and 2023, there was an 83% increase in the number of people working in HR in the UK! * SO WHAT? * This feeds into the narrative that has been gaining momentum for some time now in America where such initiatives have been discredited by president Trump and subsequently adopted by companies eager to please him. There was also perhaps probably an element of relief to get “cover” to ditch business areas that some deemed as limiting potential. The question is whether that Trump “disdain” is going to travel over to the UK…

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Uber launches autonomous vehicles services venture in robotaxi push (Financial Times, Rafe Rosner-Uddin) shows that the company announced yesterday that Uber Autonomous Solutions would offer customers an array of services including insurance, roadside assistance and other things to help make vehicle autonomy commercially viable. Uber has been busy signing up partners for its robotaxis around the world and faces increasingly stiff competition. * SO WHAT? * We’re still not quite there yet, but it’s interesting to see that the infrastructure of the future is taking shape. I think that, ultimately, there will only be room for a small number of operators because, as in all things like this, scale is what you need to make the big bucks. There will be plenty of M&A opportunities out there in the meantime I am sure – and all the advisers in the chain will gladly get involved!

Wegovy and Ozempic owner dealt blow as next-gen weight-loss drug is labelled ‘obsolete’ (The Guardian, Julia Kollewe) highlights the latest bad news for Novo Nordisk as it turns out that its highly-anticipated new weight-loss treatment fell way short of expectations in clinical trials. The company’s share price fell by a chunky 16.5% in Copenhagen to its lowest level since

June 2021. Its share price has fallen by almost 60% over the last year. Eli Lilly’s was up by 4.3%. * SO WHAT? * What a nightmare for the company. It reminds me a bit of the raging success that BioNTech enjoyed during the pandemic only to become a near-nobody nowadays. This will serve as a salutary lesson to an Eli Lilly that is riding high at the moment that it needs to make hay while the sun shines and use any profits generated now to futureproof the company against being a one-hit wonder. This is easier said than done!

Then in AI data centres risk doubling Britain’s energy use and pushing up bills (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) we see that the energy regulator Ofgem has admitted that if all projects that are currently seeking grid connections go ahead and operate at full capacity, they will require more power than Britain’s peak energy demand! * SO WHAT? * Sky-rocketing demand for power is making it even less likely that Ed Miliband’s goal to meet 95% of Britain’s electricity demand with clean power by 2030 will be met. Like I said last week, I would not be surprised if we started to see more push-back on datacentres like we’re seeing in America at the moment.

Given everything that’s going on in the world right now, I thought that this would be the right moment for a musical interlude…

Satellite images reveal surge in US fighter jets in Middle East (Financial Times, Steff Chávez, Alan Smith and Steven Bernard) confirms the serious build-up of air power in Jordan and Saudi Arabia this month ahead of a potential weeks-long military campaign against Iran if the regime doesn’t play ball. Trump is pushing for a deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear programme and backing it with threats of US military intervention.  Iranian students mount further anti-regime protests (Financial Times, Najmeh Bozorgmehr) shows that tensions are rising as Iranian uni students have been staging protests and clashing with pro-government groups and Iran agreed secret shoulder-fired missile deal with Russia (Financial Times, Miles Johnson, Charles Clover and Max Seddon) highlights a secret arms deal signed in Moscow in December where Iran ordered €500m worth of shoulder-fired missiles intended to shore up air defences that were severely depleted in last year’s war with Israel. Perhaps these stocks will run even lower if the situation worsens with the US…

So – on Friday night, we heard that the Supreme Court ruled that most of Trump’s tariffs, which he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to enact, were illegal. He followed this up with initially imposing a flat 10% tariff across the board and then swiftly changed that to 15%. Donald Trump’s new flat-rate tariff is a boost for China and Brazil (Financial Times, Peter Foster, Steff Chávez and James Politi) cites research by Global Trade Alert which shows that Brazil will enjoy the biggest reduction in average rates by 13.6 percentage points, while China will get an effective reduction of 7.1 percentage points. The countries that will do the worst out of it include the UK, the EU and Japan. The new flat rate will come into force tomorrow but it will only be valid for 150 days, whereupon further authorisation by Congress will be required. Britain is biggest loser from Trump’s new tariffs (Daily Telegraph, Tom Haynes) shows that although the effective increase in tariffs to the UK is “just” 2.1 percentage points, it is the biggest increase among the US’s top trading partners. Starmer has held the US-UK trade up as once of his top diplomatic achievements – so that looks like it’s going up in smoke! * SO WHAT? * Washington is currently saying that all current trade deals still stand. Both governments and individual companies are desperately trying to work out what their exposure is, so I guess that we’ll see some market volatility in the coming days as everyone tries to second-guess all the winners and losers from this latest development. What does Trump’s latest tariff threat mean for his previous trade pacts? (Financial Times, Peter Foster) suggests that governments are unlikely to ditch the trade pacts that they already signed despite the court decision and that this is unlikely to have that much impact for now – although trade discussions already in progress

might slow down as partners try to exploit this latest situation. Ralph and I discuss this on our latest weekly podcast 🎙️(we recorded this yesterday but I was unable to load it up for some reason – but I managed to do so this morning!).

In Trump warns Netflix of ‘consequences’ unless it pulls top Democrat from board (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) we see that the president has told Netflix to get rid of the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”. Rice served as national security adviser to Barack Obama and UN ambassador – but it seems that her “crime” was to say on a recent podcast that corporations, law firms and news organisations that bent the knee to trump will face their own consequences if the Democrats come to power. * SO WHAT? * This is just the latest example of Trump sticking his oar into the Netflix/Paramount Skydance tussle to take over Warner Bros Discovery. It’s also another example of his vindictiveness and desperation to control the narrative.

Then in commodities news, Japan mines Pacific Ocean mud for rare earths to counter China’s chokehold (Financial Times, Harry Dempsey and Ian Bott) shows that Japan is looking to extract rare earth elements from the floor of the ocean in an effort to chip away at China’s dominance in rare earths. Japan had discovered resources off a remote island that lies within its exclusive economic zone back in 2011 but there’s much more urgency now to do something about this, hence the recent state-backed expedition that successfully retrieved rare-earth rich mud. * SO WHAT? * Given that Japan is the world’s second biggest consumer of rare earths after China, this is a positive development. China controls 60% of the mining and over 90% of refining of rare earths. PM Takaichi said that this deep sea extraction test was the “first step towards the industrialisation of domestically produced rare earths. She is even looking to ask Trump to get involved in the project when she visits him at the White House next month. Interestingly, deep sea mud has especially high concentrations of rare earths but clearly there are environmental considerations to take into account.

Anglo American Halves Value of De Beers Diamond Business (Wall Street Journal) highlights the ongoing downfall of diamonds as London-listed miner Anglo American wrote down the value of its diamond business by $2.3bn – its third cut in three years! This is all due to sluggish economic growth in China and the rise in popularity of lab-grown diamonds. Anglo American is also trying to sell this business, but the prospects aren’t looking good…

In business trends news, China overtakes US as Germany’s top trading partner (The Guardian, Lisa O’Carroll) cites the latest data from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office which shows that China has now taken the #1 spot from the US as Germany’s top trading partner. * SO WHAT? * This comes ahead of chancellor Merz’s first visit to Beijing since taking office. He’ll be heading there tomorrow and I’m sure he’ll be treated well as China tries to take advantage of general disillusionment towards America.

Canada Retail Sales Climb After Pullback in December (Wall Street Journal, Robb M. Stewart) cites the national statistics agency’s receipts for January which show that retail sales in Canada are on the rise. January’s figure was the strongest advance since the end of 2024 and potentially indicates a rebound in household consumption after a tricky 2025. This sounds like good news but I guess it’s early days.

Consultancies set for fastest growth in years on back of AI boom (Financial Times, Stephen Foley) is an interesting article that points to AI as being a very nice little earner for consultancies as US companies seek out advice on using AI to boost productivity and how to supply power to datacentres. Research group Source Global reckons that the US consulting market is set to grow by 7% this year. This will be the fastest pace since the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic. * SO WHAT? * I would have thought that the AI productivity thing will probably be remunerative for the next few years but once people get the hang of it, they will consult themselves out of a job. I would have thought that the other part of this – advising on datacentres and, more broadly, the provision of energy at affordable prices – will have more legs although even that will peak out.

The Gen Z prenup boom coming to Britain (Daily Telegraph, Melissa Lawford) cites research from The Harris Poll which shows that, between 2010 and 2023 the proportion of married or engaged Americans who signed a prenup shot up from 3% to 20% – and among Gen Z and millennial respondents the proportion was 41% and 47% respectively! This has resulted in a mushrooming of new start-ups in the market that promise to make the whole process cheaper and more accessible. HelloPrenup is an app that was founded in 2021 has done booming business in this area, as has pre-seed start-up Neptune that was launched a year and a half ago. Online prenup service First was launched last year with $4m in seed funding has since expanded to 45 states in only 10 months! * SO WHAT? * This is really interesting and I wonder whether we’ll see other legaltech companies that concentrate on other specific niches popping up. The growth in the popularity of prenups has a number of drivers. Firstly, people are getting married later – and that means that they will have had more chance to have built up some assets prior to marriage. Secondly, many adults getting married these days are children of America’s divorce boom which peaked in the 1980s. About 50% of marriages in the 70s and 80s ended in divorce and so adult children are wary about exposing themselves financially in the same way. Thirdly, we are currently seeing the biggest wealth transfer in history as boomers pass their cash to their kids and grandkids. Millennials are set to be the biggest recipients – and that means that everyone has more to lose! This trend appears to be making its way over here as UK start-up Wenup, launched in 2023, breached £1m in revenue last year and churns out about 70 prenups per month!

Capturing the nine-to-five: why ‘WorkTok’ films are gripping Gen Z (Financial Times, Kimi Chaddah) focuses on the rising trend of employees videoing their daily office routines. “Day in the life” and “OOTD” (Outfit Of The Day) videos continue to be an extremely popular area for

influencers to tap into. The article mentions influencers in management consulting and the law. * SO WHAT? * Posting about your day-to-day can actually be a double-edged sword from the employer’s point of view. On the one hand, it’s free publicity for the company that gets far more engagement than the official sanitised stuff but then on the other hand, there are potential security and privacy risks. From an employee point of view, I feel that doing too much of this can be a high-risk strategy. While it is obviously laudable to want to help others coming up behind you and giving people who may not otherwise have the knowledge a window into what actually goes on in the daily nine-to-five is a great thing that never used to exist – BUT I think that it can become a distraction that can quite easily tip into all-consuming obsession and a source of stress when the person feels an obligation to post content when they would probably be better off having an early night and de-stressing (that sounds flippant – but it really isn’t. This stress can really build up over time). The other thing is that it can put a target on your back because if anything goes wrong, bosses will undoubtedly bring up the social media element as a reason for real or perceived underperformance. I know that this is going to be a highly unpopular thing to say but I think that, early on in your career, you need to concentrate on your career and minimise distractions to give you the best chance of enjoying and succeeding at what you do rather than leaving yourself open to easy pot shots that come from becoming a social media star. What I am about to say is also going to be unpopular, but I really think that, unfortunately, most people really don’t care about anything other than themselves. So putting yourself out there for the good of your audience brings quite a lot of risk for you personally and while your audience may “support” you with likes and other engagement, they are not the ones who are actually going to be there to pick up the pieces if you get fired. The sad fact of the matter is that if you’re not there, the audience will just go and follow someone else. Although I’m all for multi-tasking, I’d argue that, for the majority of people, you can either be good at your job or be good at social media – rarely both. One notable exception I’d point to is William Peake, who is the global managing partner at the law firm Harneys (and no, I don’t know him and I don’t have any reason to “push” him!). His content is excellent, engaging and very useful because he’s actually DONE stuff and can talk with authority about what works and what doesn’t in an entertaining way. In this world of AI, I’d concentrate on getting the skills first before giving everyone the insights.

Meanwhile, Youth jobless crisis as AI and rise in national insurance bite (The Times, Isabella Fish) cites the latest data from Adzuna which shows that job vacancies have fallen to their lowest level in five years thanks to a mix of graduate recruitment freezes, rising employment costs and growth in the use of AI. This downturn was particularly stark for young people as fewer than 10,000 graduate jobs were advertised last month – the first time they’ve fallen below this level since Adzuna began tracking it in 2016. * SO WHAT? * Now is not a good time for “quiet quitting”, “enforcing boundaries” or aggressively pushing for “work/life balance” because there are a lot of people out there who would gladly take the place of people who slow down. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t seek this stuff out – but what I am saying is that I would advise a solid back-up plan before you get off the merry-go-round. And by the way that doesn’t include getting more qualifications (adds hugely to expenditure for arguably not that much return) or going travelling (again, just costs money and doesn’t necessarily enhance your prospects). I’ve seen so many people do this in the past when I was a headhunter and all this did was get people further into debt because it’s amazing how much money you use when its only ever going out of your bank account! It’s tough out there and my heart really does go out to people who are struggling.

Investors pour record sums into European stocks (Financial Times, Emily Herbert) cites the latest data from EPFR which shows that European equities are on track to see their biggest ever monthly inflows in February via ETFs and mutual funds. The money is flowing in because investors are showing an increased desire to cut exposure to the US – and particularly to expensive AI-linked stocks.

In World’s biggest PE houses struggle to exit China deals (Financial Times, Arjun Neil Alim) we see that firms such as KKR, Blackstone and CVC have struggled to cash out of their China investments for a second consecutive year, according to data from Pitchbook and Dealogic. Disposals have been made more difficult by higher interest rates squeezing valuations and the increasingly competitive landscape. China continues to be a tricky place for global investors.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Net zero blamed as British factories pay nearly twice as much as France for electricity (Daily Telegraph, Jonathan Leake) cites findings from the Adam Smith Institute think-tank which shows that British businesses are now having to pay almost double the price for power than their French counterparts, putting them at a “significant competitive advantage”. The think-tank argued that the reason for this is our reliance on “expensive renewables” rather than the reliable, low-carbon electricity that French companies can enjoy. * SO WHAT? * One of the main issues here is the rate of decline of our nuclear power output. Clearly this is something that really needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Scaffolder shortage deals fresh blow to Labour’s building plans (Daily Telegraph, Emma Taggart and Pui-Guan Man) piles on the misery for the government as the National Access and

Scafffolding Confederation said that we are facing a shortage of 6,000 scaffolders per month in order to keep construction projects on track. * SO WHAT? * The government’s plans to build 1.5m new homes before the next election continues to get further out of reach by the day! At the moment, there are just under 34,000 scaffolders working in the UK today.

Then in Lamborghini pulls plug on plans to launch all-electric supercar (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) we see that the Italian sports car company is the latest car maker to rein in its EV ambitions and it will instead focus on making plug-in hybrids. It unveiled what would have been its first all-electric concept car, the Lanzador, in 2023, but it will not now go into production. It will instead be replaced by a plug-in hybrid.

Did you know how to make cream cheese?? I didn’t! Apparently it’s not difficult and it tastes better than what you get at the shops – so here’s how to make it!

Trump gives Iran 15 days to strike a deal or ‘bad things will happen’ (Financial Times, James Politi, Steff Chávez and Abigail Hauslohner) highlights Trump’s latest threat – this time it’s that Iran has to do a deal “or else”. The Americans have built up their biggest military presence in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq invasion. The two sides have been trying to hammer out an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme. This build up and the trash talk has spooked oil markets, pushing the Brent oil price up to its highest level in six months because traders are concerned that conflict could restrict oil supplies and/or lead to Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a bottleneck for exports from the Gulf. Trump’s critics say that he needs to get approval from Congress for a war but clearly he doesn’t care about what they think.

Meanwhile, ‘Retribution’: Trump family’s Mar-a-Lago crypto bash doubles as a show of force (Financial Times, George Steer and Jill R Shah) highlights a rather glitzy event at Mar-a-Lago where Trump’s family, chums and celeb hangers-on gathered for a summit to hype up World Liberty Financial (WLF) and the future of crypto. Attendees did not seem to be troubled by the major sell-off of bitcoin and other digital tokens since last October. WLF itself applied for a US banking licence this January that will ease its access to the traditional financial system that the company will use as a springboard to other ventures or, as co-founder Zak Folkman put it, “We’re building the entire infrastructure for the future”. * SO WHAT? * Surely the Trump involvement is putting a floor underneath the value of crypto assets. Whatever happens in the midterms, there’s still a good few years left of Trump being at the helm making all the rules and calling all the shots!

Then in Donald Trump to help Britons bypass online safety laws (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb) we see that Trump’s administration is launching a website, called freedom.org, that could enable British and European internet users skirt online safety laws by acting as a kind of VPN. The UK and Europe are tightening restrictions on social networks to weed out harmful or illegal content but the Trump administration has been a vocal critic of the new laws, branding them as being “tyrannical and absurd”. * SO WHAT? * The safety regulations are going to be put in place for good reason. Given that the companies that will predominantly be affected are mostly American, you can understand why the administration is so critical.

Then in Repsol aims to triple Venezuelan oil output after securing US permit (Financial Times, Verity Ratcliffe) we see that Spanish energy group Repsol has big expectations for Venezuelan oil production over the next three years after having secured permission from the US to operate in the country. The company said that it was open to exploring new opportunities in Venezuelan oil and gas (but surely it had to say that!). * SO WHAT? * The reticence of oil majors to commit to the country whose regime was deposed by Trump last month is notable – so perhaps Repsol’s eagerness will break the seal and spark interest again.

In business trends, Nando’s and KFC among 8 UK restaurant chains to drop chicken welfare pledge (Financial Times, Madeleine Speed and Stephanie Stacey) highlights eight restaurant owners – including Nando’s, KFC and Burger King – yesterday announced that they are abandoning the “Better Chicken Commitment”, which is a set of environmental and welfare rules that were established a decade ago to protect chickens. Signatories to the agreement also included the likes of Waitrose, M&S, Pret A Manger and Greggs. The restaurants are now abandoning this due to supply issues in the face of growing demand and say that the agreement requires signatories to exclusively source from slower-growing breeds. The companies have formed a new group called the Sustainable Chicken Forum (SCF) which they say will take a less restrictive approach but critics branded the SCF as a “coalition of cruelty” that encourage the production of fast-growing “Frankenchickens” which are bred to produce as much meat in as little time as possible. * SO WHAT? * I guess that this is just a function of rising production costs and the growing demand for chicken. Given the tricky state that these casual dining restaurants are in, I can see why they are doing this but it isn’t great for the chickens.

Prediction betting craze wipes £19bn off gambling giants (Daily Telegraph, Chris Price) highlights the effect that prediction betting companies are having on mainstream names in the gambling sector. What distinguishes prediction market companies like Polymarket and Kalshi (which aren’t available in the UK) from their more traditional gambling cousins is that these platforms allow betting on crypto, politics and other events – in addition to traditional sports betting. * SO WHAT? * The share prices of companies like Flutter (which owns Paddy Power) and Entain (which owns Ladbrokes) have tanked by a whopping 40% and 25% in the year so far as

investors worry that the newcomers are going to take market share from them. Matchbook, is expected to launch the UK’s first prediction market in the next few weeks. I would suggest that the scope of the prediction market players is much broader – but I’d imagine that the risk is higher given that how many more knowledge bases they have to cover.

Then in Live Nation Reports Growing Annual Concert Attendance as Federal Antitrust Trial Looms (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Sayre and Dave Michaels) we see that the live entertainment ticket provider reported strong sales in its latest quarter thanks to demand for concerts, outperforming market expectations. The company is also very bullish about the outlook for the coming year. However, the company faces a federal antitrust trial that kicks off on March 2nd regarding whether it’s too strong in concert booking and ticketing. * SO WHAT? * If the Justice Department wins, Live Nation could be forced to divest Ticketmaster, which would be a massive blow. The merger was actually allowed in 2010 but since then there have been allegations of the enlarged entity using its power to dominate tours, venues and ticketing.

In employment trends, Accenture ‘links staff promotions to use of AI tools’ (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) shows that Accenture are now tracking staff use of its AI tools and taking it into consideration come promotion time. Its been collating data on weekly log-ins after having trained its staff as part of its $1bn annual budget for learning. * SO WHAT? * This makes absolute sense given that the company is touting itself as being at the cutting edge of the technology. The company has previously threatened to “exit” employees who could not get to grips with using AI at work. I can see other companies adopting this ethos!

In Nvidia and OpenAI abandon unfinished $100bn deal in favour of $30bn investment (Financial Times, George Hammond and Michael Acton) we see that Nvidia is putting the finishing touches on a $30bn investment to replace the long-term $100bn commitment it originally agreed with OpenAI last year as part of the latest massive funding round for the AI start-up. * SO WHAT? * This is a VERY interesting development given how the original “letter of intent” between the companies seemed to prompt a huge amount of cross-investments in the sector. However, investors have been getting very nervous recently about the complicated web of mutual investments in the AI space and perhaps this latest development reflects that.

Meta cuts staff stock awards for a second straight year (Financial Times, Hannah Murphy) highlights a cut in equity-based awards for the second consecutive year for most of the company’s employees as Zuck puts more and more money into hiring top AI researchers and building datacentre infrastructure. Meta employees have packages that comprise of base

salaries, annual bonuses and “equity refreshers”, depending on their roles. * SO WHAT? * Staff have an anonymous employee message board called Blind and there were various pathetic comments on there like “Cutting my work hours 5%” and “Another reduction. I guess that’s what I get for trying! Bye Meta!” in response to the cut in awards. First of all, how naiive are they – and secondly, good luck finding another job in tech. I say if you don’t like where you are, stop whinging and get another job. And as for “trying” – surely that’s just a given??

In ‘Latecomer’ Hyundai races Tesla on robots and self-driving cars (Financial Times, Song Jung-a) we see that Hyundai appears to be making up a lot of ground in robotics and the company now says it plans to deploy humanoid robots in its US factories by 2028. It also aims to launch driverless taxis in Las Vegas by the end of this year. The company is banking on its large amount of production data and manufacturing expertise to catch up with the likes of Tesla and BYD. It’ll be interesting to see how it does in the race for supremacy!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Nestlé plans ice cream exit as it slims down under new chief (Financial Times, Madeleine Speed) shows that the Swiss multinational is going to cut its portfolio down into four divisions and sell the ice cream business as the new boss does his thing to turn things around at the company. He said the four areas of focus will be coffee, petcare, nutrition and food and snacks. Nestlé is finally changing its recipe for the better (Financial Times, Lex) says this is a good development but I’d say it’s uninspired and is just a boringly classic move by a new CEO (i.e. do a review of the business, make cuts and then potentially get your mates in for the top jobs). Still, maybe it’ll work. Nestlé certainly needs a spark – I just think something a bit more dramatic might be better, particularly given the new pressures that weight-loss drugs are having on consumer snacking habits.

In other news, Depop sold to eBay for 25% discount on price five years ago (The Times, Guy Taylor) highlights the sale of the British vintage fashion app from current owner Etsy to eBay. * SO WHAT? * Given that about 90% of the app’s users are under the age of 34, the acquisition seems to be a good strategic move given that eBay is looking to broaden its existing demographic. It might be a good move for Depop as well as it continues to face strong competition from rival Vinted.

In financials news, Bank of America commits $25bn to private credit lending (Financial Times, Akila Quinio) shows that Bank of America has become the latest Wall Street lender to take on non-bank rivals in what has been seen to be a tasty growth sector. This is interesting timing given increasing scrutiny of private credit and recent news that private credit group Blue Owl is going to restrict client withdrawals from its private retail debt fund. Then in Klarna stock sinks 27% after bad loan costs soar (Financial Times, Laith Al-Khalaf) we see that Klarna shares tanked after having already halved since it floated in New York in September! The BNPL group reported a $273m net loss for 2025 and increased bad loan provisions. * SO WHAT? * FWIW it seems to me that Klarna is slowly becoming a vanilla credit company – and in doing so is opening itself up to comparison with other way more established players like Visa and Mastercard. I would argue that its uniqueness is gradually being chipped away.

Elsewhere, Amazon Is Now America’s Biggest Company. Its 17-Year Journey to Surpass Walmart. (Wall Street Journal, Sarah Nassauer and Sean McLain) shows that Amazon has finally overtaken Walmart as America’s biggest company by revenue. Its business model has changed a great deal since its start in Jeff Bezos’s garage as a book seller. Nice work!

What are your favourite designs from this collection?? TBH I love a secret room, so any of those are good in my book! The roof one is also pretty clever as well!

Trump adviser says New York Fed economists should be ‘disciplined’ for publishing study on tariffs (Financial Times, Myles McCormick) cites the director of the National Economic Council who said in an interview on CNBC yesterday that Federal Reserve economists should be “disciplined” for publishing a report which said that US businesses and consumers were the ones paying the most for Trump’s tariffs. Kevin Hassett said that the study was an “embarrassment” and failed to include the full effect of the tariffs. He said “It’s I think the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system”. * SO WHAT? * Wow. Publish a paper that the government doesn’t like and they throw all their toys out of the pram. And these people are supposed to be adults – and qualified ones at that. It seems to me that corporates are having to jack up their costs and Americans are feeling the impact through their weekly grocery shop. To me, I would always take the word of what corporates are saying in their numbers and what consumers are feeling on the day-to-day over what politicians have to say.

Donald Trump’s AI push fuels revolt in Maga heartlands (Financial Times, Joe Miller) shows that even the MAGA faithful are having their resolve tested because they don’t want to live next to massive datacentres that suck up water and electricity. * SO WHAT? * Trump’s administration has been doing all it can to support the AI cause by fast-tracking permits for datacentre construction and approving the sale of advanced chips to China whilst also protecting AI companies from the crackdown on chatbots. Along with affordability issues, the growing problems related to rapid AI expansion could damage the Republican cause heading into the midterms at the end of the year. A poll by Public First for the FT showed that about 60% of Trump voters were worried about the rapid development of AI and almost 80% think that the tech needs more regulation. Opposition to this rapid AI-related roll-out has been gaining momentum as dozens of data centre developments have been delayed because of local push-back in places including Kentucky, Georgia, Texas and other Republican states.

Then in Texas town blocks ICE detention centre in backlash to Trump crackdown (Financial Times, Guy Chazan) we see further evidence of push-back as the owner of a warehouse in Hutchins, Texas, has refused to sell or lease the property to the US government. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approached the owner with a view to buying the property to use as a detention centre for illegal immigrants. The DHS has been looking at ways of expanding its capacity to detain, process and deport illegal migrants. * SO WHAT? * OK, so this is just one property (other sites have been found and purchased) but it does show that there is some resistance to the administration’s immigration policies. It does sound like the owner of the property had been under a lot of local pressure not to sell up to the DHS. Activists will take heart from this and you wonder whether they will become a growing force if they manage to co-ordinate with similar-minded groups in other states.

Elsewhere, Canada’s Liberal Party inches closer to majority as third Tory MP defects (Financial Times, Ilya Gridneff) shows that Carney’s party is inching closer to getting a parliamentary majority after another Conservative MP defected to the Canadian PM’s government. Mark Carney’s government has been luring opposition MPs over to their side so they can get a majority that will ease the pushing through of reforms. At the moment, Carney has had to rely on opposition support to pass legislation. * SO WHAT? * At the moment, Carney is riding high with a 60% approval rating since he took office but he’s got a tricky year ahead of him what with the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement review scheduled for July against the backdrop of ongoing Trump tariffs on Canada’s lumber, steel, aluminium and cars.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Christine Lagarde to leave ECB before the end of her 8-year term (Financial Times, Olaf Storbeck, Mercedes Ruehl and Sarah White) shows that the president of the ECB is looking to end her term before the French presidential election in April next year in order to facilitate France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz choosing her successor rather than run the risk of a populist Eurosceptic (someone supported by Rassemblement National, for instance) getting a say in who gets the role. The official date of Lagarde’s departure is October 2027. Spain first to enter race for Lagarde succession at ECB (Financial Times, Olaf Storbeck, Barney Jopson, Anne-Sylvaine Chassany and Sam Fleming) shows that Spain has openly expressed an interest in fielding a candidate to get the top job at the ECB in what would be the first time for a Spaniard to become the ECB president in the ECB’s 28-year history! The official line is that Lagarde is going to stay to the end of her term but…

Back home, UK inflation falls to 3%, boosting hopes of early cut in interest rates (The Guardian, Phillip Inman) shows that inflation suddenly dropped in January to its lowest level since March last year. Along with the disappointing jobs data, this makes it more likely that the Bank of England will cut interest rates at its meeting next month. Falling prices for petrol, air fares and food drove the level down. The Bank’s inflation target remains at 2%, which it believes will be reached this year.

Reeves to do ‘as little as possible’ in Spring Statement despite pressure to spend (Daily Telegraph, Tim Wallace) suggests that the chancellor is likely to ignore calls to change tax and spending plans in the upcoming Spring Statement to maintain Labour’s manifesto pledge to only have one major fiscal event per year. The idea is to project the impression of economic stability. One Treasury source even went as far as saying “We want this to be a complete non-event”. Well that would make a change!

Amidst all the gloom about employment at the moment, Ministers look at slowing plan to increase minimum wage for younger UK workers (Financial Times, David Sheppard) shows that ministers are reconsidering their plans regarding the implementation of the minimum wage increase due to booming youth unemployment. That being said, Starmer appeared to pour cold water on that yesterday when he said that the government won’t U-turn on the matter of removing “the discriminatory age bands”. The increase already announced for April is going to go ahead as scheduled. It’s not sounding good for job prospects for younger people though – unless the economy picks up in a meaningful way. Gail’s boss: ‘Mood among employers is darkest I’ve ever seen’ (Daily Telegraph, Hannah Boland) cites Luke Johnson, the serial entrepreneur best known for being the man behind Pizza Express among other ventures, who observes the dour mood among employers. He said that “I’ve spent 40 years growing businesses and creating jobs, and the mood amongst employers and those who invest in this country is the darkest I’ve ever seen”. * SO WHAT? * Employers have got a LOT to contend with, what with NIC rises and the business rates hike. The timing of this increase isn’t great and is unlikely to improve the jobs situation.

City law firm uses AI chatbot to interview graduates (The Times, Catherine Baksi) shows that Mishcon de Reya is currently using a chatbot for first-round interviews with potential hires. The law firm maintains that the AI tool uses information from candidates’ applications to give them a “tailored interview”. Interestingly, the candidates don’t have to write a long application form and instead expand on their experiences and motivations during the interview. A transcript of the interview is then reviewed by the early careers team. The firm says that the candidates will be able to tell them more about themselves rather than being limited by an application form. The AI tool was developed by Bright Network, the graduate careers platform. * SO WHAT? * This sounds quite interesting and, given the data that Bright Network must have amassed over the years about candidates, should be pretty good. I can imagine that this will get pretty popular because I would have thought that more candidates can be screened this way and presumably tweaks can be made to increase the chances of getting the most suitable candidates. I do wonder, though, whether we’ll eventually see AI that does things the other way around – that as a candidate you can put in your details and AI will recommend which companies would be most suitable for you.

Just imagine the volumes you could get from that! You could charge candidates a small fee and then corporates a bigger fee so you’d get “double bubble”! This would also help candidates out because they could apply for jobs that they actually stand a chance of getting. The “candidate” version could even pinpoint why a company is a good fit and why you were singled out. This could save both companies and candidates huge amounts of time I would have thought! Obviously, its efficacy will hugely depend on the accuracy of the tech and the ongoing input of the companies that are on it. As an aside, I would say that I believe that if HR made more of exit interviews and kept tabs with ex-staff and what they do, they may be able to better target candidates at the beginning of the recruitment process.

In property-related news, Biggest drop since financial crisis for inner London house prices (The Times, Tom Howard) cites the latest ONS data which shows that house prices in inner London boroughs fell by 4.6% on average during 2025. This is the biggest annual drop since 2008! Central areas suffered most while prices the ‘burbs remained steady or increased. * SO WHAT? * It seems that things are stabilising in the property market at the moment – and with the likelihood of more interest rate cuts this year, you would have thought that the market will continue to strengthen.

Why is the UK falling back in love with credit cards? (Financial Times, Lex) is an interesting article that highlights the rising use of credit cards over the course of last year. NatWest, Lloyds and Santander UK all reported double-digit percentage growth in their credit card books over 2025 while Barclays said that customer balances were at their highest level since 2017. Bank of England data shows that net credit card lending grew by 12.4% year-on-year in December while outstanding debt reached an all-time high of £78bn. * SO WHAT? * Pessimists will interpret this as a sign that consumers are having to turn to credit cards to fund daily life because of years of high inflation while optimists will say that it’s a sign that consumers are willing to spend. The most recent GfK consumer confidence survey suggests that households are feeling more positive about their finances despite the tricky economic backdrop and the willingness to make big purchases is at its highest level since early 2022. I would suggest that this is good news for banks’ prospects and bad news for BNPL players like Klarna because there is clearly more competition now!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds (The Guardian, Kate Connolly) cites large-scale analysis from the Fraunhofer Institute which shows that Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) use way more fuel on the road than official manufacturer marketing implies. This is the most comprehensive study to date and its findings are based on the data transmitted wirelessly by PHEVs from a number of manufacturers while they were on the road. All the cars were produced from 2021 to 2023. The study says that the vehicles actually require about 300% more fuel to run than had previously been thought. * SO WHAT? * Well this will be a bit of a shocker for some but I’m not sure whether this is going to affect sales all that much because it seems to me that consumers are voting with their wallets and buying cars that they believe get the best of both worlds – better fuel consumption without the charging anxiety that some people get with EVs. Still, it’s not great!

In UCL students win £21mn over Covid disruption in watershed UK settlement (Financial Times, Laura Hughes and Alistair Gray) we see that a group of around 6,500 students has come to a “confidential” agreement with UCL regarding compensation for Covid disruption. Lawyers for 194,000 claimants at 36 other universities will be watching this decision closely. A large chunk of the compensation will be going to litigation funders. Law firms Asserson and Harcus Parker have said that more claimants are signing up. * SO WHAT? * Clearly, there was huge disruption over Covid that tarnished the whole university experience for a huge number of people. However, universities are already cash-strapped and suffering, so such compensation claims are going to add to their woes and potentially negatively affect the experiences of current and future students. No-one’s really going to win from this.

Then in Britons living in EU face repayment hikes amid Reeves student loans row (The Guardian, Rupert Jones) we see that the government’s decision to lower the salary threshold where repayments of student loans kick in on some UK nationals working in Germany and Belgium is going to result in a sudden rise in monthly repayments. Those who earn above the threshold have to repay 9% of everything they earn above this level. Some people say that their monthly loan repayments will double as a result. This is another kick in the teeth for the UK’s graduates…

In tech-related news, UK to require tech firms to remove abusive images within 48 hours (Financial Times, Kieran Smith) shows that tech companies are going to be forced to take down abusive images from the internet within 48 hours of being reported or face fines of up to 10% of their global revenues or even have their services blocked in the UK under new laws being put forward by PM Starmer. This is part of a wider strategy to cut down violence towards women and girls. * SO WHAT? * This is way overdue in my opinion. Let’s hope it gets implemented and that tech companies actually abide by it.

British researcher raising $1bn to build superhuman intelligence (The Times, Louisa Clarence-Smith) highlights the efforts of a leading British scientist, a former AI researcher at Google DeepMind, to raise $1bn in funding for his London-based start-up, Ineffable Intelligence. The company is trying to build AI that learns for itself to solve problems that humans can’t. This would be a great boon for British AI which feels like the much poorer version of its far glitzier San Francisco cousin!

You know that Watson’s Daily always has your back, right? Well I thought just in case you found yourself in icy conditions, had a spare outboard motor and an ice saw on you here’s a way to protect yourself from polar bears! It also doubles as a pretty useful treadmill. However, my main question is, what happens when the fuel runs out 🤣??

Donald Trump escalates assault on US consumer protection agency (Financial Times, Joe Miller and Stefania Palma) shows that the president is now turning his attention to the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB), saying that the agency is costing Americans billions of dollars and reducing credit availability because of the regulatory burdens it imposes. A report by the Council of Economic Advisers (the CEA) reckons that its actions have cost American consumers somewhere between $237bn and $369bn (what a ridiculously wide range!). The CFPB has has been accused of advancing a “radical agenda that achieves precisely the opposite outcomes of what its leftist champions claim” but it was originally set up to protect consumers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. * SO WHAT? * There could be some truth to this, but I think that this is really about creating noise and distracting people whilst pinning the blame for the higher cost of living on a convenient target. I sounds like a whole load of bluster to me…

Meanwhile, Japan Plans $36 Billion in U.S. Investments Under Trump Administration Deal (Wall Street Journal, Meredith McGraw and Gavin Bade) highlights Japan’s big investments in the US, which Trump dubbed “Our MASSIVE Trade Deal with Japan” involves Japan investing

decent sums into a gas-fired power generation facility in Ohio, a deep-water crude export facility on the Texas Gulf Coast and a diamond grit manufacturing facility in Georgia. This follows Trump’s visit to Japan in October and comes ahead of Takaichi’s visit to the White House next month. I guess Japan’s just aiming to win brownie points here.

Then in Rheinmetall wins approval for Italian munitions expansion after years of wrangling (Financial Times, Amy Kazmin) we see that the German defence giant has got the go-ahead to expand munitions production at a plant in southern Italy after years of back-and-forth talks that led nowhere and ultimately to production shutting down. The quarrel was between Rheinmetall’s Italian subsidiary, RWM Italia, and Sardinia’s regional government which is controlled by the ant-war Five Star Movement. Production is expected to start soon. * SO WHAT? * This whole debacle has highlighted the tricky planning processes involved in expanding defence production in Italy but it also highlights the current government’s commitment to play an active role in the expansion European defence industry capacity.

UK unemployment rate hits five-year high of 5.2% as wage growth cools (The Guardian, Tom Knowles) highlights the rather depressing release from the ONS yesterday which showed that UK unemployment hit its highest level since the quarter to January 2021. It was even worse for younger people as the unemployment rate for 18 to 24 year olds hit 16.1% in the three months to December (BTW I corrected this mistake – the original Guardian article got it wrong – putting it at 14%). This is the highest rate for five years if you include the pandemic or almost 11 yeas if you don’t. Pay rises in the private sector increased by 3.4% – the lowest rate in five years – while public sector workers enjoyed a 7.2% pay rise. Fears for a generation as youth unemployment hits 11-year high (The Times, Jack Barnett) underlines the feeling of gloom among the young and ‘It’s soul-crushing’: young people battle to find any work in bleak jobs market (The Guardian, Tom Knowles and Nicola Slawson) gives some anecdotal examples of the plight of grads who just can’t get a job at the moment. Over the years, the advent of the “national living wage”, then the increase in employer national insurance contributions, the Employment Rights Act and pensions auto-enrolment have all come together to make employing young people an increasingly unattractive prospect. Labour’s own goals on jobs (Financial Times, the editorial board) puts a lot of the blame for the current situation at the government’s door although, in reality, things were already losing momentum before they came to power. That being said, a lot of the job losses since Labour has come to power have been concentrated in lower-paid areas like retail and hospitality which are most exposed to to younger workers who are often on the statutory

minimum. This is because these are the first sorts of jobs to go when costs go up. * SO WHAT? * All of this makes improving the economy even more urgent than it was before because an expanding economy will lead to more job opportunities for everyone. As you know, I really think that the whole AI “jobpocalypse” is a bit of a fallacy and that although AI will undoubtedly change the entire employment landscape, it won’t wipe everything out at once and industries and individual companies will be affected differently. All Starmer needs to do now (!) is avoid more distracting mistakes and concentrate on getting the UK economy back on track.

On a more positive note, John Lewis hands shop floor staff 6.9% pay rise (Financial Times, Philip Stafford) shows that the John Lewis partnership announced an above-inflation pay rise this year. I think it is about time given that their workers have not had an annual bonus for four years! The chairman said that the pay rise was not instead-of the bonus – it was separate to the bonus, which will be decided by the board in March. At its peak, the annual bonus equated to up to 24% of salary! * SO WHAT? * OK, so having such a bonus is an anomaly in the sector, but that’s just how the partnership is set up. Over the years, the level of the bonus came to be seen as a barometer of consumer confidence among the middle classes and for the last few years the cupboard has been empty because of a mix of management incompetency and circumstance. Given that newsflow about both John Lewis and Waitrose seems to have been getting consistently positive, it makes sense that the workers get some reward. The John Lewis Partnership runs 36 department stores and over 300 food stores currently.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Nvidia secures multibillion-dollar Meta deal as it battles chip rivals (Financial Times, Michael Acton and Hannah Murphy) highlights the latest megadeal – this time it’s Meta agreeing to renew and expand its purchasing of Nvidia’s chips in a multi-year deal worth billions of dollars. This comes at a time when the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft are upping their respective game by making chips in-house. Meta is also engaged in making its own chips. Nvidia will report earnings next week.

Then in Perplexity drops advertising as it warns it will hurt trust in AI (Financial Times, Cristina Criddle) we see that the AI start-up has decided to ditch advertising after gradually phasing them out late last year. The company believes that users need to believe that an answer is the best one – and not one powered by a sponsored ad. Perplexity said that although the ads were clearly labelled and had no actual influence on the chatbot’s response, having them makes users start doubting everything. * SO WHAT? * This is a particularly interesting development given that Perplexity was one of the first generative AI companies to introduce ads in 2024. It was also one of the first to introduce shopping functionality on its platform – a move that is subsequently being followed by Google and OpenAI. Perplexity now makes most of its money from subscriptions. The company said that it is focused on making sure that its answers are accurate. Good on them!

Japan’s largest toilet maker is undervalued AI play, says activist investor (Financial Times, David Keohane) highlights a potentially surprising change of direction of Japan’s biggest toilet maker – Toto – from being known for their amazing “Washlet” bidet toilets to becoming a serious player in AI! Toto’s advanced ceramics division generates about 40% of the company’s operating profits and it is this division that makes electrostatic chucks which are used to make Nand memory chips. Prices for these chips has boomed in the last few months thanks to demand from AI-focused companies. The company has been making electrostatic chucks since the 1980s but they’ve only started to become a major driver of the business in the last few years. Sounds interesting!

Then in Raspberry Pi shares surge as chatbot fuels micro-computer frenzy (The Times, Waseem Mohamed) we see that the microcomputer maker has seen its share price boom by a whopping 36% in the last two days thanks to social media users raving about its ability to run OpenClaw software which helps users to perform everyday tasks. This sounds a bit fragile to me but Raspberry Pi itself seems to be neither confirming nor denying this use. I have to say I think this is a bit of a niche trading idea but you never know…

Would you like a kitchen island like this?? I would! Maybe it’s an age thing…

Federal Reserve set to loosen US bank rules in attempt to boost mortgage lending (Financial Times, Martin Arnold) highlights efforts to spark life into the property market as the Fed is looking to relax US bank capital requirements in order to free-up lending. * SO WHAT? * Trump’s team has been pushing to remove restrictions in order to get banks more involved in the US mortgage market because banks have been pushed out of this area of business since 2008, largely by specialist financial service companies including Rocket Mortgage and Cross Country Mortgage. Back then, banks had a 60% share of the US mortgage market but it has since fallen to 35% in 2023. The shift has occurred over time because of tightening capital requirements brought in after the financial crisis, so there is a push now to address this and give borrowers more choice.

Back home, Starmer cancels plans to delay 30 local council elections in England (Financial Times, Mari Novik, Jim Pickard and Jennifer Williams) shines a light on the PM’s latest U-turn – he won’t be delaying elections for 30 councils in England after all because he’s been advised that doing so would be against the law. The elections are due in May and Reform UK launched a legal action on this last month, presumably because the party thinks it would win a lot of seats given its standing in the polls right now. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) had invited 63 councils to delay their elections in order to enable a broader

restructuring of local government. 30 went for it – but obviously the situation has changed now. What a shambles!

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer says Britain needs to ‘go faster’ on defence spending (Financial Times, Lucy Fisher) shows that the PM is pushing for an acceleration in raising military spending as he targets using 3% of UK GDP for defence. Starmer previously set out an “ambition” to spend 3% of the UK’s GDP on defence in the next parliament, which is expected to run from 2029 to about 2034, but there’s talk of bringing this deadline forward. When the current government came to power in 2024, defence spending stood at about 2.3% of GDP and it is expected to hit 2.5% from 2027. Thus far, the details of how we’re going to reach these levels of spending have been vague.

Then in Soaring gold price forces vaults to reduce insurance cover (Financial Times, Lee Harris) we see further implications of the higher-for-longer gold price – that prices are now so high that some vault operators are having to leave more of their bullion uninsured because prices have risen so much that they are hitting coverage limits! There are insurance coverage limits for single locations but the gold price has risen so much that holders are having to move at least some of their stash to other locations – which is also helping specialist gold transport services.

EU cross-border banking deals jump to highest since 2008 crisis (Financial Times, Martin Arnold and Simon Foy) cites data from Dealogic which shows that the value of cross-border mergers between EU banks hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis! There were €17bn worth of such deals made last year, which brought an end to a barren period for dealmaking activity. The banking landscape remains fragmented – so it’s likely that such activity will continue. The game is in deciding who’s next!

In Goldman Sachs Plans to Scrap DEI Criteria for Its Board (Wall Street Journal, AnnaMaria Andriotis) we see that things have moved on a bit further since the investment bank decided to drop its commitment last year to support board diversity for clients that it was taking public. It has now ditched commitments to diversity criteria for its own board! * SO WHAT? * This is hardly surprising given Trump’s disdain for all things DEI and corporate zeal to toe the new line. You would hope that the bank will still try to do the decent thing – but you can’t always rely on this!

In employment trends, Third of bosses to cut hiring over Labour’s workers’ rights reforms (Daily Telegraph, Eir Nolsøe) cites the latest CIPD survey which shows that around 37% of employers said that they’d hire fewer permanent staff because of the Employment Rights Act and 75% think that it will increase hiring costs. * SO WHAT? * This legislation comes at a time when overall hiring plans are at their lowest level outside Covid. Critics say that the ERA will actually backfire because it’ll just result in employers relying more on temp staff and contractors.

*** NEWS JUST IN – UK wage growth cools further as unemployment hits highest level since pandemic (Financial Times, Sam Fleming) *** cites the latest data release from the ONS which shows that UK wage growth slowed down at the end of 2025 and the unemployment rate hit 5.2% in the final quarter – its highest level for five years! * SO WHAT? * This is clearly not brilliant – but as I’ve said before, I think a lot of this gloom is to do with the much-later-than-usual Budget held right at the end of November last year which essentially ground the whole economy to a halt as panic and speculation set in during the run-up to it. This could make an interest rate cut at the next Bank of England meeting next month more likely.

Meanwhile, Household debt surges amid Gen Z borrowing binge (Daily Telegraph, Emma Taggart) reflects on the latest S&P Global Consumer Sentiment Index which shows that household debts are increasing at their fastest pace in seven months. This increase is being powered by a rise in borrowing from all age groups apart from 25 to 34 year-olds, with borrowing rising the fastest in the 18 to 24 year old demographic. * SO WHAT? * Despite consumer and business sentiment appearing to turn a corner last month, THIS survey suggests that households were overall more pessimistic regarding their financial prospects for the next 12 months and confidence in making big ticket purchases is at its lowest level for 10 months. The beginning of the year is always tricky after everyone splashes out over Christmas and New Year but high levels of unemployment – particularly youth unemployment – will not help to lighten the mood.

US carmakers spooked by Chinese rivals gaining foothold in America (Financial Times, Christian Davies, Kana Inagaki and Gloria Li) shows that American car manufacturers are getting increasingly worried about the prospect of having to compete with Chinese carmakers in their own backyard after Trump made comments recently that he would “love” Chinese carmakers to build plants in the US. This, along with hints by Geely that it could potentially enter the US market within the next three years, is making more car manufacturers nervous. At the moment, the industry seems to be torn between teaming up with the Chinese or defending against them.

Back in Europe, EVs must be 70% made in the EU to qualify for state support, Brussels says (Financial Times, Alice Hancock and Kana Inagaki) shows that the European Commission is planning to force EV manufacturers who currently benefit from state support to make sure that at least 70% of the components in their cars are made in the EU. This is all part of a wider effort by the EU to try and save its €2.6tn manufacturing base. * SO WHAT? * This sounds great in theory but the execution could be difficult and there’s a risk that such moves could increase costs. If

costs rise, then there’s even more reason for consumers to avoid buying EVs and/or buy cheaper Chinese vehicles. I think that the devil will be in the detail here and such plans need to be enacted in conjunction with restrictive policies on the import of Chinese EVs.

Then in Volkswagen aims to cut costs by 20% by 2028 in restructuring plan, report says (The Guardian, Lisa O’Carroll) we see that VW’s got some pretty aggressive cost cutting plans – and they’re going to involve plant closures among other things. This is all part of an ongoing concerted effort to prepare the company for a much more competitive landscape. * SO WHAT? * It’s all a bit of a mess as far as I can see. VW went from being the biggest-selling foreign brand in China to suddenly falling all the way down the pecking order as local manufacturers made huge advances. VW has suffered from sluggish domestic demand whilst also pouring money into China. I think there’s a real danger that it’s going to be hit in Europe by poor demand while attempts to make cars in China to sell in Europe to improve margins will face resistance from European rules designed to protect the bloc from an influx of Chinese imports – so VW’s going to get squeezed from both directions.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears (The Guardian, Kalyeena Makortoff) shows that bosses from Santander UK, NatWest, Nationwide, Lloyds Banking Group, Link and Coventry Building Society are all going to be meeting up to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard. Around 95% of UK card transactions are made via payment systems owned by Visa and Mastercard and this becomes increasingly stark as we move towards becoming a cashless society. One observer pointed out that “If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s”. We already saw what could happen when Visa and Mastercard were turned off in Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine – and the two companies were responsible for “just” 60% of all payments over there. Trump’s recent threats about Greenland and his general behaviour over the last year have prompted concerns about what would happen if he did what he did in Russia in the UK and Europe. It sounds like a new payments system could be in place by 2030. Visa and Mastercard are assisting with efforts. * SO WHAT? * This sounds like a great, but long overdue move. I think that there’s a wider trend going on here where areas that have long been dominated by the Americans – like tech, defence, satellites etc – are now feeling pressure to field local champions, or at least nurture them. Yes, it’s probably too little too late – but I’d also say it’s better late than never! As I keep saying, though, there also need to be efforts made to ensure that our best efforts don’t just get snapped up by American companies with very deep pockets – otherwise all that effort is going to come to nothing.

In Hapag-Lloyd to Buy Israeli Rival Zim for $4.2 Billion (Wall Street Journal, Dominic Chopping and Joshua Kirby) we see that the German company has made an all-cash offer for rival Zim to further boost its existing capacity. The deal is expected to complete by the end of this year but shareholder and regulator approvals will still be needed for the deal to move forward.

Back home, Flight of landlords from buy-to-let properties slows (The Times, Tom Howard) cites research from analytics provider TwentyCi which shows that the mass exodus of residential landlords could be bottoming out. * SO WHAT? * This should be positive for the rental market because the supply of rental properties should hopefully increase from here as well. The lack of such properties has pushed rents up to heady levels.

Then in Topshop returns to high street in John Lewis stores (The Times, Isabella Fish) we see that John Lewis has launched Topshop across its shops, marking a major moment since its collapse in 2020. It’ll be interesting to see whether this works in bringing a younger demographic to the stores!

I reckon this lady is very impressive. If only this was an Olympic sport – it would be phenomenal!

Donald Trump plans to roll back tariffs on metal and aluminium goods (Financial Times, Aime Williams and Andy Bounds) shows that the president is looking to rein in some tariffs on certain goods in response to the affordability crisis that is hitting his ratings. He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports with tariffs of up to 50% last summer and then expanded them to include goods made from these metals. That list of products is now being reviewed. Meanwhile, The Break Is Over. Companies Are Jacking Up Prices Again. (Wall Street Journal, Ruth Simon) shows that US companies across the board have either raised prices already or are about to imminently after trying to hold them down for several months. They had already raised prices in response to tariffs imposed last year but they’ve tried to delay increases and/or offered discounts to entice shoppers where they could until now. However, this can’t go on forever and companies usually put up prices at the start of the new year. According to UBS research, this year’s January price rises have been greater than normal due to a combination of the tariffs, higher labour costs and health insurance premium hikes. The Adobe Digital Price Index shows that online prices had their biggest monthly rise for 12 years in January, particularly in electronics, computers, appliances, furniture and bedding. * SO WHAT? * TBF to Trump, he did say that there would be a period of pain with regard to the effects of the tariff increases but consumer/voter patience sounds like it’s starting to wear thin. He is going to need to spend some of that nigh-on $500m campaign war chest that he’s amassed to brainwash people into forgetting about affordability issues but as I’ve said before, if something as basic as the weekly grocery shop is forcing people to make choices they don’t want to make on a regular basis then that job is going to be a lot harder.

Then in Ottawa’s shift away from US defence manufacturers aims to create 125,000 jobs (Financial Times, Ilya Gridneff) we see that Canada is planning on awarding Canadian firms

70% of the country’s defence spending – up from the current 50% – in a move that’ll boost domestic companies’ revenues and create about 125,000 jobs. This is all part of plans to increase military spending to 5% of GDP over the next decade. * SO WHAT? * The US and Canada have co-operated on the procurement of military goods and services for decades but Trump’s behaviour is forcing many countries to rethink their allegiances. In addition to “buying Canadian”, Ottawa plans on building a “new, ambitious, and comprehensive partnership with the EU and UK” whilst also looking to collaborate with partners including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

Franc’s relentless rise alarms Swiss companies (Financial Times, Mercedes Ruehl and Ian Smith) highlights the strength of the Swiss franc and the effect this is having on Swiss companies. It’s already risen by 3% so far this year – in addition to its 14% appreciation in 2025 – and is now at a level versus the dollar that it hasn’t seen since 2015. The problem is that exports account for more than 70% of Switzerland’s GDP and so a highly sought-after currency makes those goods and services more “expensive”. Roche, Swatch Group and Richemont are among the growing number of Swiss companies to feel the impact of a stronger currency and Trump tariffs. * SO WHAT? * The franc is seen as one of those “safe haven” currencies that investors turn to in times of geopolitical strife and if its appreciation against both the euro and dollar continues, there are growing concerns that investment decisions may have to be delayed, which in turn could dent Switzerland’s industrial base. I guess there’s not really much they can do apart from hope that the central bank will cut interest rates to negative levels once more (interest rates are already at zero per cent!).

US military used Anthropic’s AI model Claude in Venezuela raid, report says (The Guardian, William Christou) highlights Anthropic’s rumoured involvement in the US raid on Venezuela as it is thought to be the first AI developer to be used in a classified operation by the US department of defence, although its role remains unclear. It is thought that Claude was used in the operation via its partnership with Palantir. AI is being used with increasing frequency on the battlefield, particularly with drones.

Then in Amazon’s Andy Jassy bets on $200bn AI spending drive to revive AWS (Financial Times, Rafe Rosner-Uddin) we see that Amazon’s recently-stated plan to increase its investment in AI infrastructure is all about the fact that it feels that its cloud business, AWS, is losing ground to competitors in winning corporate AI contracts – and that it wants to reverse that trend! There are also concerns that it hasn’t fully capitalised on its early lead in cloud computing. AWS is the world’s biggest cloud provider and this division now accounts for over 60% of Amazon’s overall profits but analysts reckon that Microsoft’s cloud business will overtake it in the next three years. * SO WHAT? * It’s an expensive battle for all concerned but there is clearly a lot to play for here.

Elsewhere, OpenAI hires OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger (Financial Times, Cristina Criddle) shows that OpenAI has just hired the founder of OpenClaw, an open source project that allows users to create personal AI agents. It has previously been known as Clawdbot and Moltbot and it has been used to connect to WhatsApp, Slack and iMessage, instructing them to manage e-mails and calendars. Peter Steinberger will join OpenAI’s Codex team to bolster ChatGPT’s capabilities. * SO WHAT? * This is an example of something that I think we’re going to see more

and more of – big AI  players buying up small players, their founders and/or their teams. Unless there is something hugely compelling, this is presumably a much cheaper course of action than actually buying a whole company. You get none of the red tape and you get what you really want – the talent itself!

UK to tighten online safety laws to include AI chatbots (Financial Times, Mari Novik) highlights PM Starmer’s push to tighten online safety laws following the recent deepfake scandal involving xAI’s Grok chatbot. The government wants to close a legal loophole so that AI chatbots will be covered by the Online Safety Act alongside other social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok. An amendment to the crime and policing bill will force companies that operate chatbots to shield users from illegal content. Breach of the Online Safety Act can result in fines of up to 10% or £18m of the company’s global turnover – whichever is higher.

Then in KPMG partner fined over using AI to pass AI test (Financial Times, Nic Fildes) we see that a partner at KPMG in Australia was fined $7,000 for using AI tools to cheat on an internal training course about using AI! The partner, who initially used AI to help answer questions, had to redo the test. This is the latest example of a professional services company having issues with staff using AI to cheat on exams or even when producing work for clients. * SO WHAT? * I’ve said previously that I think that methods of learning assessments are going to have to change because traditional methods – like essays and online tests – just leave too much opportunity for chancers.

White-collar workers who are leaving their jobs for the trades (The Times, Fintan Hogan, Bill Curtis and Elspeth Rees) highlights a rising trend where people are switching careers because AI is shaking up the labour market. When you consider that early careers job ads have dropped by almost a third since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, that about 40% of recent graduates are currently “underemployed” (working in jobs that don’t need a degree) and that there are about 140 applications per graduate role these days it’s highly understandable that alternative career options are pursued. She was earning £65,000 before AI came along. What happened next is a warning to us all (Daily Telegraph, Eir Nolsøe) looks at how people in white collar jobs are suddenly finding themselves out of a job that they have spent years honing their skills for because AI is replacing them. I would argue that this is more stressful mid-career than it is at the start of a career because it requires a bigger mindset shift as you are more likely to have different personal circumstances and commitments that require more money. Still, Britain’s youth unemployment tops Europe for first time (Daily Telegraph, Emma Taggart and Szu Ping Chan) cites the latest figures from the OECD which show that unemployment among 16 to 24 year-olds has hit a scary 15.3% in the three months to September, overtaking the EU’s rate of 15%. Increases in the minimum wage, higher taxes on employers and AI are all having a negative effect and making it harder for people to get that all-important first job. Meanwhile, PwC graduate job applications surge 35% amid AI threat (The Times, Tom Howard) shows that the

number of applicants to entry-level roles at PwC has risen by an incredible 35% year-on-year, highlighting the increasing competition for white-collar jobs. Interestingly, PwC says that it is committed to making sure their graduate intake learns the basics properly, rather than relying on AI to do all the grunt work. * SO WHAT? * This all makes for rather depressing reading. I think that the key thing here – and I’m telling this to my own kids – is that the days of just getting swept along by GCSEs, A-levels, degree and then first job eventually taking you to retirement are well and truly over. It is imperative that more people take charge of their own career paths by really understanding their own strengths and weaknesses, being fully aware of their priorities and then pursuing the path that is most meaningful for them rather than relying on other people – or Fate – to guide them. This is not easy to do but it means that it is even more important than it ever was to gain practical experience and pick up skills and experiences along the way that can be used for your next move. And it won’t end when you get a job either – I’d say that people should always be mindful of the advance of technological changes and whether they need to tweak things in order to stay on track financially. Priorities change over your lifetime but I think it will be more important than ever to always be conscious of your circumstances and be willing to adapt.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, End of EV euphoria triggers $65bn hit for carmakers (Financial Times, Kana Inagaki and Harry Dempsey) does a decent job of collating all the recent projections from automotive makers who have been banking on a shift to EVs that hasn’t happened. Companies including Ford and Stellantis are just two of a long list of companies that have had to adjust targets and cut model line-ups to adapt to a landscape of sluggish demand and weaker regulatory support. Trump’s lack of support for the EV narrative has also dented the sector’s lustre. * SO WHAT? * The fact of the matter is that car companies have to plan way in advance. I think it takes roughly four years to take a car from design to production and so it’s always a risk to pinpoint future sales. However, back in the late teens and early ’20’s carmakers were being reassured that consumers were increasingly going to be forced into buying EVs and so manufacturers planned accordingly. Years later, demand has been sluggish, there’s been a reshuffle in the world order of car manufacturers, and the strict laws that were meant to cajole buyers into going electric have been loosened. There has obviously been a great deal said about the negative aspects here – but actually, if the manufacturers have done their job right, consumers who have become accustomed to the acceleration and the serene calmness and convenience of their current EVs, there really is a chance that they’ll want their next car to be an EV as well! The problem with that, though, is that the percentage of people with EVs currently is still pretty low…

Then in Uber enters 7 new European markets in food delivery push (Financial Times, Kieran Smith) we see that Uber is going to launch delivery services in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Czech Republic, Greece and Romania this year. It’s on a roll at the moment in terms of building market share in UK, Germany, France and Spain. Uber wants to shake things up, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens…

Weight-loss race: how switch from injections to pills is expanding big pharma’s hopes (The Guardian, Julia Kollewe) highlights the expectation that the pill form of highly successful weight-loss drugs like Wegovy is going to transform the market and accelerate demand given that the delivery of the drug will be less intrusive. The Wegovy pill got off to a great start in the US last month and I would have thought the success will continue!

House prices level off after strong start to year (The Times, Tom Howard) cites the latest data from Rightmove which shows that the average asking price for newly-listed homes has gone sideways over the last month – but that’s not due to weak demand, it’s due to more supply of property on the market. You would have thought that this is going to gain momentum now that Reeves’s Budget is out of the way, the direction of interest rates is likely to be down and mortgage rates get more competitive.

Then in BrewDog seeks rescuer as losses mount (Daily Telegraph, Joe Wright) we see that the Scottish brewer has put itself up for sale and is looking to be rescued from the consequences of higher taxes and growing losses. It has appointed AlixPartners to get them some options. Co-founder James Watt, who ran the company until 2024 when he had to step down in the wake of allegations that he created a toxic work culture, still owns a 21% stake in the company and is thought to be considering an offer. It seems that all options are on the table.

Crazy Frog is annoying at the best of times, but I like this version!

The US president has been a busy lad. US and Taiwan sign trade agreement to seal chip investment (Financial Times, Aime Williams) shows that he signed an agreement yesterday to cut tariffs on Taiwan to 15%, in line with the tariff levels in Japan and South Korea, in exchange for making a $250bn investment commitment in the US chip industry. Donald Trump scraps legal basis underpinning US climate regulation (Financial Times, Myles McCormick, Martha Muir and Christian Davies) shows that the US Environmental Protection Agency scrapped a landmark ruling yesterday that has underpinned the regulation of emissions since 2009 as Trump said “This radical rule became the legal foundation for the green new scam – one of the greatest scams in history”. This is his biggest move yet to ditch environmental regulations that he maintains damaged American industry and pushed prices up for consumers.

In more uncomfortable news for the president, Donald Trump’s border tsar announces end of Minnesota immigration crackdown (Financial Times, Steff Chávez) shows that Tom Homan has diffused the Minnesota situation by ending the aggressive immigration crackdown that started over two months ago in Operation Metro Surge and led to huge outrage and two fatalities. Still, Homan declared the operation a success after it had resulted in over 4,000 arrests. * SO WHAT? * Clearly, something needed to be done and Trump has got midterms to think about. An AP-NORC poll released yesterday said that 62% of respondents thought that the deployment of federal immigration agents in American cities went too far.

US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says (Financial Times, Myles McCormick and Claire Jones) cites the latest Federal Reserve research which shows that US businesses and consumers paid almost 90% of the cost of Trump’s tariffs last year. This obviously runs counter to the president’s narrative that foreign companies are taking the load and paying for the privilege of selling to America. Interestingly, foreign exporters took on more of the burden as the year progressed. A Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his tariffs is expected very soon. * SO WHAT? * White House spokesperson Kush Desai observed that “America’s average tariff rate has increased nearly sevenfold in the past year – yet inflation has

cooled and corporate profits have increased” and added that “Trump’s economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs and energy abundance are reducing costs and accelerating economic growth”. TBF, the impact of tariffs on consumer inflation has not had as negative an impact as many economists had expected. Some think that the impact will continue to feed through in 2026 as stockpiles built up before the tariffs came into force start to fall and companies increase their prices but many others believe that America is now over the worst, in terms of impact. The tariffs are thought to have raked in a tidy $124bn in for the federal government in the fiscal year to date – which is over 300% more than the same period on 2025! Meanwhile, according to the Tax Foundation think-tank, the tariffs led to an average tax increase on US households of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 in 2026.

Back home, UK economy grew by just 0.1% in final months of 2025 (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the latest figures from the ONS which showed that the economy managed to grow by the skin of its teeth in the final quarter of 2025. Analysts had expected it to grow by 0.2% over this period. * SO WHAT? * TBH, I think that ANY growth was an achievement in Q4 given the government’s decision to have a Budget so late on in the year! There was a lot of speculation and panic flying around in the months leading up to the Budget itself which led to funds being withdrawn, less spending and general caution among households. We’ve already seen signs that people are spending again so we’ll have to see whether this becomes more sustainable.

Then in Weight-loss jabs push sugar price to five-year low (Financial Times, Susannah Savage) we see that the rising take-up of weight-loss drugs has led to people reaching less for sweet treats – and therefore sugar. This has had a knock-on effect to sugar prices, which have fallen to their lowest level since October 2020 and less than 50% of where they were in late 2023. * SO WHAT? * It doesn’t sound like the situation is going to get better in the near term because it’s difficult to cut supply quickly as sugarcane needs big initial investment and long planting cycles. Pressure is likely to intensify with the advent of the pill forms of the latest weight-loss drugs because they will be cheaper and easier to administer than the injections.

US stocks fall sharply as tech sell-off resumes (Financial Times, Kate Duguid, Emily Herbert and Ian Smith) highlights the on-again-off-again sell-off of the tech sector, which resumed yesterday. Big Tech names were sold off and AI-led mobile app development firm AppLovin cratered by a whopping 19.7% as the market reacted to its results that were published after market close on Wednesday. Why the AI attack on software has unnerved so many industries (Financial Times, Richard Waters) takes a look at why markets are so volatile at the moment. The thrust of it is that investors are getting jumpy about AI start-ups disrupting the business of big companies that rely on the provision of information to customers. This means that companies in finance, legal services, media and software have been hit badly on the release of AI-powered tech from companies like Altruist. Share values of property services firms tumble over fears of AI disruption (The Guardian, Julia Kollewe) highlights the latest sector to be hit by fears that AI will disrupt its business model as the share prices of Savills, IWG, British Land, Landsec, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield were among those to see selling pressure.

Investors seem to be rotating out of high-fee, labour-intensive business models that will feel AI disruption. * SO WHAT? * I have to say that I think that there are going to be some very good buying opportunities out there because I think that the sell-off has been too broad-based because companies are going to get disrupted in different ways and to different extents. These are companies that have been very well-established and have solid reputations in their fields being sold off because of some new AI model. I expect investors to look very closely at just how much each company is ACTUALLY going to be badly affected by AI.

Then in Anthropic raises $30bn at a $350bn valuation in latest funding round (Financial Times, George Hammond) we see that the AI company has just raised a hefty chunk of money that gives it an impressive implied valuation of $350bn. This will just give it more ammo to mix it with the likes of Google, Meta and OpenAI. Not bad for a company that only started in 2021!

Schroders agrees £9.9bn takeover by US investment manager Nuveen (Financial Times, Mary McDougall and Emma Dunkley) heralds the takeover of the famed UK asset manager by US rival Nuveen. This comes after a bruising ten years of Schroders getting stuffed by the increasing popularity of low-cost passive investment managers. The deal now needs shareholder approval. Chicago crashes the Square Mile’s club with deal to buy Schroders (Financial Times, Mary McDougall, Emma Dunkley and Eric Platt) points out that the enlarged group will almost double Nuveen’s size and be one of the world’s biggest active fund managers (this means that humans decide which stocks to buy and sell rather than an algorithm). * SO WHAT? * This sounds like a good deal on a strategic basis because Nuveen is strong in the US and private markets while Schroders has never quite succeeded over there and was looking to build a presence in private markets. There seems to be little overlap and the Schroders brand is going to remain – along with

its chief exec. This does mean, however, that another name is going to disappear from the London Stock Exchange…

Meanwhile, Broker Clear Street postpones IPO as AI fears roil US stocks (Financial Times, George Steer) shows that New York broker Clear Street has decided to postpone its IPO, blaming volatile market conditions. It had hoped to raise up to $1.1bn but interest from investors proved to be lukewarm. The decision came as US stocks fell sharply in trading yesterday. * SO WHAT? * This is why I have been saying that companies with IPO ambitions need to be ready to float ASAP because the stellar valuations that many companies are enjoying at the moment aren’t going to last. IMO, they need to lock in that valuation before the moment disappears – as it did with Clear Street!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, L’Oréal hails upswing in US and China as beauty market recovers (Financial Times, Adrienne Klasa) highlights further signs of the recovery of the beauty market in the second half of 2025 in its two biggest markets. This is good news (although the company’s numbers actually fell shy of market expectations) because it has had a tough time of it since the pandemic-era surge. This is good news and certainly seems to chime with a recent recovery in the luxury sector.

Pinterest Tumbles as Advertiser Pullback Weighs on Fourth-Quarter Earnings, Guidance (Wall Street Journal, Elias Schisgall) highlights investor reaction to it predicting slowing revenue growth over Q1 due to falling advertiser spend. Its share price fell by an impressive 18.5% in after-hours trading. The CEO said that the company is suffering from bigger retailers reining in their ad spend to protect their margins against Trump’s tariff onslaught.  I have a feeling this is becoming increasingly widespread and if it does become more common, then we’re going to see growing disquiet with the president’s policies.

Then in Why life is so unaffordable in Britain (Daily Telegraph, Tim Wallace) we take a look at why everything seems to be so darn expensive at the moment! Energy bills, house prices and childcare costs are just some of the things that seem to have accelerated in terms of cost over the last few years. Some are saying that this is self-inflicted by the government and although wages have increased by 143% since the year 2000, energy bills have risen by over 360%, house prices by 247% and childcare costs have risen by over 40% in the last decade alone! * SO WHAT? * Given the pressure that Starmer has been under recently, it’s thought likely that he’s going to lurch more to the left as Andy Burnham’s influence grows – and with it could come more cost and more regulation. The main problem with this is that people get angry and motivated when prices go up – and it’s this anger that brought Trump to power as voters expressed their frustration with a rising cost of living under Biden. Starmer’s got a tricky tightrope to tread in order to avoid the same fate as Biden…

Times are tough at the moment – but not for all! Can you imagine what it would be like to spend this amount on flights without flinching??

Zelenskyy planning elections in Ukraine and vote on peace deal (Financial Times, Christopher Miller, Henry Foy and Max Seddon) shows that Ukraine’s president has started to plan presidential elections and a referendum to run alongside any peace deal with Russia as the Trump administration turns the screws on Kyiv to decide both by May 15th. If this doesn’t happen, the Americans have threatened to withdraw proposed US security guarantees. Presumably, Trump wants to use this to burnish his peace credentials in the run-up to the midterms in early November. Officials say that the plan for presidential elections and a referendum will be announced on February 24th, which is the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

US House of Representatives votes to overturn Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada (Financial Times, Lauren Fedor and Aime Williams) heralds a bump in the road for Trump as the House of Representatives voted to terminate the national emergency that Trump invoked in February last year to empower him to slap tariffs on Canadian imports. Notably, six Republicans crossed party lines to join the Democrats to support the measure. They did this despite being threatened by Trump in a Truth Social post yesterday evening that “Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!”. Opinion polls show that the majority of Americans are against Trump’s use of the tariffs. * SO WHAT? * This development will no doubt make it more likely that other tariffs will be questioned and potentially overturned. Mexico and Brazil could be up next. On a broader level, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of Trump’s tariffs over the next few months and whether he had the right to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to dish out the taxes on the rest of the world. Congress should be the body that regulates foreign trade and taxes but Trump has been using IEEPA to bypass all that.

There’s good news and bad news in US smashes forecasts to add 130,000 jobs in January (The Times, Jack Barnett) because, on the one hand, more jobs were generated in January than had been expected – but then on the other, projections for job creation for the whole of 2025 were downgraded by a large margin. Apart from the recessions caused by the 2008 financial crisis and Covid, 2025 was the worst year of employment growth in the US for twenty years! According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), job creation was strongest in health, construction and professional services. * SO WHAT? * The better-than-expected figures will make it less likely for the Fed to lower interest rates at its next meeting because the focus has shifted from taming inflation to helping the jobs market. Given that it turned out better than expected for January, a cut may be seen as less necessary.

How China wants to create a ‘Polar Silk Road’ through the Arctic (Financial Times, Joe Leahy and Richard Milne) takes a look at what may be behind China’s push in the Arctic. A new

icebreaker concept that can break through floes of up to 2.5m thick was unveiled in December in a sign of things to come and stoked western concerns about Chinese and Russian advances in the Arctic. As polar ice caps melt, everyone wants to get access to new shipping lanes (voyage distances can be cut by 30-40% using Arctic routes versus the traditional Suez Canal route!) and rich natural resources and China has been upping its efforts in establishing a presence there in recent years. Icebreakers play an important role in projecting power in polar regions because they give countries access to often frozen territory and help them maintain a presence.

Back in Europe, Switzerland to vote on plan to cap population at 10mn (Financial Times, Mercedes Ruehl) shows that the country is going to go to the polls to decide whether or not to restrict its population to no more than 10m before 2050. The current population is 9.1m. The vote, which is to be held in June, is backed by the powerful right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP). Interestingly, it has one of the highest proportions of foreign residents in Europe, standing at about 27% according to official numbers. Switzerland’s population has grown by a whopping 25% since 2000! * SO WHAT? * Domestic support for the vote is high and the SVP, which is the country’s biggest party, maintains that the growth in population is putting strain on infrastructure, is negative for the environment and is pushing rents ever higher. This referendum seems to be symptomatic of increasing concerns about immigration across Europe and far-right parties are tapping into this. If this cap did come in, it would make life tricky for Switzerland’s global companies like Nestlé, Novartis and Roche who rely heavily on foreign workers. A research paper by lobby group Economiesuisse also highlighted that EU/Europe Free Trade Association workers contribute way more to the Swiss Pension system than what they take out. Europe will be watching with interest!

Then in Nickel price jumps as Indonesia slashes quota at world’s biggest mine (Financial Times, Camilla Hodgson and A.Anantha Lakshmi) we see that prices for the metal boomed yesterday thanks to the Indonesian government ordering a cut in production at the world’s biggest nickel mine, putting immediate pressure on supply. The “normal” production quota limit is 42m tonnes but that will be slashed to 12m tonnes for the year. * SO WHAT? * Overproduction has put pressure on the nickel price over the last few years, forcing authorities to put measures in place to limit output via permits and quotas to push prices up. Just to give you an idea of the scale of the problem, the price breached $100,000 a tonne in 2022 – and it’s been below $20,000 for the last 18 months! Nickel is used to make stainless steel and EV batteries.

Apple faces new tensions with Trump administration (Financial Times, Michael Acton) shows that tensions between Apple and the administration have ratcheted up, this time because the FTC reckons that Apple promoted “leftist outlets” in its news feed. * SO WHAT? * Trump has been attacking Big Tech companies for what he perceives to be the suppression of conservative commentary. He probably wasn’t too enamoured with Tim Cook (aka “Tim Apple” – remember this 🤣??) posting a selfie with Bad Bunny before the Super Bowl’s halftime show that Trump described as being an “affront to the greatness of America”. This is both childish and another example of Trump’s desperation to control the narrative by silencing dissenters and manipulating the media.

In Russia blocks Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service (Financial Times, Mehul Srivastava and Anastasia Stognei) we see that Russian authorities removed WhatsApp and cut millions of Russians off suddenly yesterday afternoon. This follows months of effort to force people onto a “national messenger” service called “Max”, built for surveillance. It has been modelled on China’s WeChat. WhatsApp’s removal from an online directory has essentially erased it from Russia’s internet. There had been previous attempts to slow the app down but this is a proper cut off. Moscow also erased Facebook and Instagram from the directory for being “extremist” and YouTube has also been degraded. Russia had also, earlier this week, increased its disruption of Telegram, which is more popular than WhatsApp in the country. This caused widespread outrage even among Putin’s supporters. * SO WHAT? * This is all part of Putin’s attempt to control the narrative and monitor dissenting voices. Does this remind you of anywhere else??

Then in Elon Musk overhauls xAI’s leadership as he sets lofty space data centre ambitions (Financial Times, Hannah Murphy and Cristina Criddle) we see that Musk has been undergoing an overhaul recently following the merger of xAI and SpaceX ahead of his push to launch a network of data-centre satellites to run advanced AI models from space. It all sounds very impressive and ambitious!

In other AI-related news, Mistral’s revenues soar over $400mn as Europe seeks AI independence (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw and Leila Abboud) shows that the French AI start-up has seen its revenues skyrocket by 20 times over the last year thanks to burgeoning demand from European businesses and governments who want to have European alternatives to American incumbents. This has undoubtedly powered a huge turnaround for the company which many had written off, such is the dominance of US and Chinese companies. Mistral continues to build and run its own AI data centres and not rely on US “hyperscalers” like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Shares in UK wealth managers hit as AI contagion spreads (Financial Times, Emma Dunkley, Mary McDougall and Emily Herbert) follows on from the sell-off we’ve already seen of US brokerages, price comparison websites and software companies – and yesterday it was the turn of UK’s wealth managers – including St James’s Place, AJ Bell, Quilter and Aberdeen Group – to see their share prices fall sharply on worries about US fintech Altruist’s AI-powered investment tool. Even Switzerland’s Julius Baer, Europe’s biggest wealth manager, was sold off – as waw France’s Amundi. * SO WHAT? * I think that this is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, AI is probably going to affect these companies but the real hit they will take to their business models will depend on their client demographic, how they earn their fees and the time it takes for people to believe AI over humans in something that is so personal.

Then in 25-year-old founder raises $220mn for secretive UK AI chip start-up (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw) we see that a young entrepreneur, James Dacombe, has raised an impressive chunk of cash for his company Olix (originally called Flux Computing) which aims to make AI chips that are faster and cheaper than Nvidia’s by focusing on growing demand for AI “inference”. If it’s successful in achieving this in future, let’s hope that it doesn’t just get bought out by a US Big Tech.

Kraft Heinz halts break-up plan as new chief targets turnaround (Financial Times, Gregory Meyer and Oliver Barnes) highlights a bit of a dramatic turn of events in that, having embarked on efforts to split itself into two entities the company’s new CEO has decided not to split the company up after all in a bid to turn its fortunes around. The “pause” on a split does not have a deadline and he’s committed to chasing organic growth. Other than that, the company announced weak quarterly results. * SO WHAT? * The company WAS going to split itself into the more pedestrian grocery store staples businesses and faster-growing sauces spreads and seasonings business. The break-up plans were only announced six weeks into the current CEO’s tenure (he started five months ago) and were not taken particularly well by investors. Deciding against a split now would imply, to some at least, that the whole business is weak.

Heineken to cut 6,000 jobs as people drink less beer (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) shows

that the Dutch brewer is going to cut about 7% of its workforce over the next two years as the company struggles with weakening demand for beer. Heineken also cut its forecasts for profit growth this year. * SO WHAT? * This is just further evidence of the seemingly global phenomenon of falling demand for alcoholic beverages as experienced by the likes of Diageo, Pernod Ricard and many others.

Oatly banned from using word ‘milk’ to market plant-based products in UK (The Guardian, Mark Sweney) heralds a difficult development for the Swedish-based alt-milk manufacturer. The UK supreme court ruled that it won’t be able to use the world “milk” to market its plant-based products. Plant-based producers have been having a rough time of it in the last few years and this will be a blow.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, McDonald’s Says Its Value Campaign Is Paying Off (Wall Street Journal, Heather Haddon) shows that both footfall and sales have increased over the quarter thanks to ongoing efforts to make its food more affordable as customers continue to feel the pinch in household budgets.

Ford falls behind BYD as China upends car industry (Daily Telegraph, Matt Oliver) piles on the misery for Ford, whose poor performance I mentioned yesterday, as it turns out that it has been overtaken in sales for the first time by Chinese carmaker BYD. Ford has been losing ground for some time in Europe and China.

Meanwhile, Housing market in England and Wales ‘showing tentative signs of recovery’ (The Guardian, Tom Knowles) cites the latest RICS survey which shows that there are “tentative signs” that the housing market in England and Wales is set for a rebound after the slowdown it experienced in the last few months of 2025. RICS said that its members were more optimistic

about the outlook than they have been at anytime since December 2024. Inquiries from new buyers, agreed sales and house prices are all on the upward path.

Then in How AstraZeneca shot for the moon — and hit (Financial Times, Lex) we see that pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is on a roll at the moment as ambitious targets announced a year and a half ago appear to on schedule to be achieved well ahead of the 2030 deadline. It’s done this by getting better at discovering new drugs more effectively than rivals. * SO WHAT? * The industry average probability of taking a drug from a pre-clinical stage to phase 3 development was around 8% – but AstraZeneca’s percentage was a much healthier 22%! The company is trading at a premium to the sector as a result and it helps that the company isn’t facing as bad a patent cliff as many of its rivals because of its strong R&D pipeline and relatively low levels of debt. This means that it is less desperate to go and buy other companies compared to its rivals that need to plug holes in their own pipelines.

These guys must have Grade 8 in playing the barcode reader! Who knew you could be so creative with something so mundane 😮?!?

Wall Street’s anything-but-tech trade shakes up US stock market (Financial Times, George Steer, Rachel Ress and Jonathan Vincent) highlights a general sector rotation as investors are getting increasingly nervous about toppy tech company valuations (and AI capex plans!) and putting money into supermarkets, energy companies and manufacturers in a move dubbed by some as the “anything-but-tech” trade. Funds that concentrate on shares outside the tech sector have seen $62bn-worth of inflows over the last five weeks alone – which is amazing when you consider that they only added $50bn over the entirety of 2025! Some observers have noted a significant rotation into “AI-immune” sectors including utilities, food, mining, construction and telecoms. Meanwhile, US brokerage shares slide in latest sell-off driven by new AI tool (Financial Times, Peter Wells) highlights share price falls in trading yesterday for Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley and Raymond James after fintech Altruist announced the launch of a tax-planning tool on its AI platform, Hazel. Altruist said yesterday that the tool can help advisers create personalised tax strategies in a matter of minutes by scanning their tax returns, payslips and meeting notes. It can also come up with multiple scenarios that will also help with planning. In a similar vein, MoneySuperMarket and Go Compare hit by AI car insurance quotes (The Times, Guy Taylor) highlights the vulnerabilities of two of the UK’s biggest price comparison websites as a new tool developed by Insurify uses AI to dish out personalised insurance quotes based on its extensive database. Mony Group – which owns MoneySuperMarket – and Future – which is the company behind Go Compare – saw their respective share prices fall by 8.6% and 3% by the close of trading yesterday. The tool lets users ask questions in plain language to get

quotes. * SO WHAT? * There is a real trend going on at the moment where it seems that everyone assumes that the launch of a new AI tool will immediately decimate the area that it enters. Last week saw RELX’s share price tank by 17% and Sage’s drop by 12% over a number of days because Anthropic launched a tool that can automate work in the legal industry. I think that such panic is inevitable at the moment but I think that such tools aren’t always as great as you’d think they’d be when you look really closely. They will undoubtedly improve and when they do I am sure that they will clean up at the lower end of the market where demands aren’t complex. However, I think that businesses that concentrate at a higher end where more trust is required, humans will still have a place – and I actually think that customers will be willing to pay a premium for this in certain areas.

Elsewhere, BP halts share buy-backs as annual profits slide (The Guardian, Jillian Ambrose) shows that the oil major reported weakened annual profits and had the dubious honour of becoming the first big oil company to suspend its share buy-backs as a result. * SO WHAT? * Oil companies have been seeing lacklustre performances over the last year, so it’s possible that this move by BP could break the seal and prompt other majors to take the same action. This will be the first time that BP will have suspended quarterly share buy-backs since the early stages of the pandemic. It’s currently trying to de-emphasise its green commitments and go deeper into fossil fuels.

Ferrari reassures investors with better than expected forecasts (Financial Times, Kana Inagaki) shows that the company released strong results yesterday that came in above market expectations and had a positive outlook for the year. Investors got nervous towards the end of last year, thinking that such robust performances weren’t sustainable but yesterday’s statement should have reassured them. Ferrari plans to launch six new models this year.

On the other hand, Ford’s EV woes continue to plague carmaker despite writedown (Financial Times, Christian Davies) highlights ongoing repercussions from the company’s EV business as the company announced a full-year net loss of $8.2bn for 2025 following the $19.5bn EV writedown it reported in December. Ford doesn’t expect its EV division to break even until 2029. The impact of Trump’s tariffs and two factory fires at a key aluminium supplier also factored into

the performance. On the plus side, it reckons that US sales of pick-ups and SUVs will be robust. It’s certainly going to take a while to turn the business around!

Then in British self-driving giant on track for $9bn valuation (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) we see that Wayve, the British self-driving car start-up, is in talks at the moment to raise over $1bn in what will be one of the biggest ever funding rounds for a British AI start-up. Wayve develops what is essentially a robot brain for driverless cars. * SO WHAT? * Wayve is one of the companies involved in the imminent launch of driverless taxis on UK roads. The distinguishing feature that Wayve has over rivals such as Waymo is that it does not rely on detailed maps of new cities before its cars can start to operate. Its software adapts and learns new roads as it goes along.

Co-founders of Elon Musk’s xAI join exodus from start-up’s tech team (Financial Times, Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy) highlights the latest co-founder to leave xAI as tensions among its tech team continue to mount. Jimmy Ba was the leader of research, safety and enterprise efforts. * SO WHAT? * Six of the twelve original co-founders have now left. The sale of xAI to SpaceX also added to ongoing tensions. This can’t be good, but then I’m sure that Musk’s star power will continue to attract replacements…

Apple and Google pledge to overhaul ‘unfair’ app store rules (The Times, Waseem Mohamed) shows that the two tech giants have promised to make their mobile app stores fairer for third party apps after reaching agreement with the Competition and Markets Authority. Apple and Google promised that they wouldn’t give preferential treatment to their own apps to the detriment of rival third-party apps. They also said that they would stop using data collected from

third party apps to give their own apps an unfair advantage. Apple made additional commitments to give developers an easier way of requesting access for features within Apple’s operating system to use within third-party apps, including the digital wallet and live translation functionality. * SO WHAT? * It seems that the CMA is taking a softer approach than its counterparts in the EU, something that has disappointed campaigners who want to level the app playing field.

Then in streaming news, Spotify triples profits after raising prices (Financial Times, Anna Nicolaou) shows that the streamer managed to add a record number of users over the quarter and tripled its profits versus the same period a year ago despite raising prices around the world. The latest results don’t include the impact of a price rise in the US, which it implemented just last month. Impressive!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Mattel shares plummet 31% after toymaker’s holiday sales falter (Financial Times, Gregory Meyer) highlights an absolute shocker for the toy maker as December sales had been so bad that it had to cut prices for toys and games. It announced a decrease in operating profit in Q4 versus market expectations for an increase. * SO WHAT? * This is all a result of Trump’s tariffs – and Mattel has suffered particularly badly because the toys it sells in the US are made overseas! Interestingly, Mattel’s fate contrasted with that of Hasbro, which reported revenue and profits coming in above expectations. The outlook for both toy companies is muted, though, because consumers continue to rein in discretionary spending against an uncertain economic backdrop.

Europeans shunning US as Emirates and Asia travel prove popular, says Tui (The Guardian, Lauren Almeida) shows that Europeans are booking fewer trips to the US amid weakening demand for long-haul travel and concerns about Trump’s increasingly stringent immigration policies. Tui is Europe’s biggest travel operator and gets most of its bookings from customers in Europe. As demand for the US wanes, travellers are choosing the Emirates, Asia and, increasingly, the Caribbean. Several European countries have issued advisories about travel to the US regarding stricter border scrutiny and ICE protests. Apparently, overseas visits to the US from Western Europe fell by 4% in December last year versus December the previous year.

Despite all this, the travel operator had its best Q1 for over ten years! The cruise business has been particularly strong. * SO WHAT? * I would not be surprised to see sharper weakness in demand for the US as a destination this year because of ongoing disbelief at what’s going on in America at the moment and the fact that your social media has to be vetted before going.

Back home, UK first-time buyers too pessimistic about securing a property, study says (Financial Times, James Pickford) cites research from the Building Societies Association, which represents all 42 building societies in the sector. It said that buyer perception does not reflect the reality as 47% of respondents who said they were keen to buy had never spoken to a lender or mortgage broker to look into their finance options. However, 67% subsequently said that they could make a purchase sooner than they had thought once they had been shown the financing options! Perhaps the advent of low-deposit mortgages like the one Santander announced last week might help to change this because at least this will prompt discussion! * SO WHAT? * This perception is affecting other areas of life. 20% of respondents said that they were delaying marriage or a commitment to their partner, 25% were delaying having kids and 18% were putting off starting a business until they had bought a home! It seems to me that the government is trying to encourage lenders to be more encouraging to buyers but it’s always going to take longer to convince the potential buyers themselves.

Valentine’s Day is closing in, so I thought that Star Wars-themed chat up lines might be appropriate 😁…

The Epstein repercussions continue in US lawmakers call on Howard Lutnick to step down over ties to Epstein (Financial Times, Lauren Fedor and James Politi) where the attention now turns to commerce secretary Howard Lutnick who is now being accused of lying about his connections to the dead child sex offender. Lutnick was the chief exec of Cantor Fitzgerald for almost thirty years and it has now become apparent that he had dealings with Epstein despite saying that he’d had no interactions with him since 2005. * SO WHAT? * It seems to me that Lutnick has been a fiercely loyal Trump stooge and so it’ll be interesting to see how this is treated within the White House itself. TBH, it doesn’t seem at this stage like there’s any dodgy dealings à la Andrew Windsor – it’s more that he had the odd interaction here and there with Epstein on investments and other things but lied about it. I can’t see him being a sacrificial lamb here because if HE gets put into the shredder, more questions will be asked about Trump.

A post-Trump restoration is still possible (Financial Times, Gideon Rachman) is a really interesting story which questions received wisdom that America is permanently a lost cause to the world because of Trump. Although he’s fractured many deep-rooted relationships, it seems that resistance to his outpourings has been increasing of late – and that might signal the possibility further down the line off a rapprochement of sorts with the international community. On the world stage, Carney’s speech at Davos was a rallying call for “middle powers” to unite against America’s agression, Starmer criticised Trump’s denigrating remarks about the sacrifices made by British and allied troops in Afghanistan and last week, the speaker of the Polish parliament refused to sign a petition calling for Trump to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Within America itself, citizens protested against ICE’s violence in Minneapolis, Republicans have spoken out against his threats towards Greenland and then even more of his own party were outraged by the racist meme that he posted about the Obamas at the end of last week. Even Ken Griffin, CEO of hedge fund Citadel, felt emboldened enough to observe that Trump was lining his – and his family’s – pockets via various decisions he’s been making thanks to the privilege of his office. Recent special elections have not gone well for Republicans, even in traditional strongholds. At the moment, some of the senior party bods are getting worried about November’s midterms. * SO WHAT? * The implication of all this is that it’s still possible for international relations with America to be mended. However, even if Americans vote against him, he is unlikely to accept it (just look at what happened at the 2020 election), he’s surrounded himself by a hard core of loyalist and, I would add, there’s still a lot of time between now and the midterms. I maintain my belief that, if things don’t go well, he’ll still try to buy votes at some point by doling out cheques to citizens that he’ll maintain have been funded by all those tariffs (which is incorrect – he’s just giving back money that citizens have paid out in the form of higher prices). Let’s not forget also that he has amassed an election war chest of epic proportions. I think that the default position for countries outside America now should be to make sure they reduce reliance on it and build strong relationships elsewhere. As the saying goes, “hope for the best, prepare for the worst”.

In China steps up dangerous air encounters near Taiwan (Financial Times, Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille) we see that Chinese fighter jets engaged in manoeuvres close to Taiwanese F-16 aircraft – and fired flares at them – during an exercise on December 29th, according to a Taiwanese defence ministry report. Apparently, tensions have been running particularly high in recent months.

Then in Sanae Takaichi targets changes to Japan’s constitution after landslide election win (Financial Times, Leo Lewis and Harry Dempsey) we see that the newly-emboldened Japanese

PM is going to have a go at amending Japan’s constitution for the first time in almost 80 years. She said that she felt a “heavy, heavy responsibility to strengthen Japan”. However, doing this will be fiendishly difficult because changing the constitution necessitates a two-thirds majority in both the lower and upper houses of Parliament, the National Diet, in addition to a majority in a public referendum. There has never been a referendum. The fact that the LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, got a supermajority of over two-thirds in the weekend’s election means that constitutional change is now possible, but the LDP lacks a majority in the upper house and would have to do a ton of deals with other opposition parties to get enough votes. And if that wasn’t hard enough, there’s a referendum to think of! There was no word as to which bit(s) of the constitution Takaichi wants to change but surely at least a part of it will be changing Article 9, which says that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”. Japan has been able to maintain a “Self Defence Force” but changing article 9 would free up the military, particularly in current testing times. Other than that, Takaichi said she will go forward with her promise to suspend consumption tax on food and beverages for two years. * SO WHAT? * Takaichi has been quite feisty in regard to China and that seems to have gone down well domestically, given how well she did in the election! However, I’d say that the idea of Japanese pacifism is soooo deep-seated in Japan that I doubt Article 9 would ever get changed UNLESS China really did invade Taiwan or if North Korea’s “missile testing” got even closer. Convincing Japanese people to change their mindset BEFORE either of those scenarios will be an uphill task IMO. The consumption tax thing is interesting and I would have thought that this will really help to stimulate consumer spending. It is an expensive way of doing this, though…

Back in the UK, Starmer defies call to quit as UK prime minister (Financial Times, Jim Pickard, Lucy Fisher and Anna Gross) shows that the embattled-PM is managing to stand his ground (for now) despite all the calls for his resignation and Starmer stumbles on as rivals balk at killer blow (Financial Times, George Parker, Jim Pickard, Lucy Fisher and Anna Gross) shows that his position was bolstered by members of his cabinet standing by him and further reinforced by Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner – both potential replacements for Starmer – eventually coming out in support of him staying in office. Rise in UK borrowing costs reverses after cabinet backs Starmer (The Guardian, Graeme Wearden) shows that UK borrowing costs calmed down yesterday on the prospect of Starmer staying in office. They had been rising because of all the Epstein/Mandelson-related fallout over the weekend. * SO WHAT? * I really don’t think that it’s in the government’s interest to throw Starmer to the dogs at this stage in the electoral cycle. There aren’t any real alternatives who would be able to take the position now and the instability a change would cause at a time when things seem to be turning a corner in the UK economy would be hugely detrimental to the country. Everyone expects that the government would lurch to the left if Starmer was forced out – and that would mean even greater tax and spend in addition to tighter labour laws, which would further increase the pressure on businesses who are only just starting to think about hiring again after the NIC shock last year. I think that Starmer should potentially hobble/isolate Streeting whilst thinking of a plan to somehow sideline Rayner at a later stage. However, I also think that he needs to have a reshuffle and come back with a plan of action that will win the public over as quickly as possible to show that he’s moving forward. It would also help businesses to give them a clear roadmap to work with. Will it start off with the crowd-pleasing policy of a social media ban for the under-16s??

Retail spending bounces back after disappointing in December (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the latest figures from the BRC which show that retail sales grew by 2.7% on an annual basis in January versus growth of just 1.2% in the previous month. It seems that shoppers were holding out for bargains in the January sales. * SO WHAT? * This is great but there’s a risk that retailers can only increase sales if they offer discounts and for all the relief, the latest ONS data shows that retail sales are still 1.5% below pre-pandemic levels. Still, it does feel like sentiment is showing some signs of improvement and the next couple of months will be watched very closely to see whether this becomes a trend we can believe in.

Then in Ocado prepares to scrap 1,000 jobs in scramble to cut costs (Daily Telegraph, Tim Wallace and Tom Saunders) we see that Ocado is looking to cut 1,000 employees from its staff

of roughly 20,000. It looks likely that the axe will fall in Ocado Group, the bit of the business that builds robot warehouses and owns 50% of online grocery business with Ocado Retail. * SO WHAT? * The company has had a torrid time of late with Kroger in the US and Sobeys in Canada deciding to close down warehouses due to the sluggish performance of online retail so it is perhaps inevitable that the company needs to take action. The company’s share price has fallen by over 40% in the last six months alone! It really is difficult to know what to do here because Ocado has tried to move away from its retail routes and become a “tech company”. The problem is that, since the pandemic, online grocery shopping has lost its lustre. Clearly, the company has to make inroads in other markets – but with diminished pricing power.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, NatWest to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7bn (The Guardian, Alex Daniel and Kalyeena Makortoff) highlights NatWest’s success in out-bidding Barclays to buy Evelyn Partners, one of the UK’s biggest wealth managers. This will be its biggest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008. The deal is all about strengthening its wealth management business. NatWest already owns the private bank Coutts. Evelyn Partners was formerly known as Tilney Smith & Williamson

and offers financial planning and wealth management services. It has around £69bn of client assets under management. NatWest picked a bad day to do a decent wealth management deal (Financial Times, Lex) suggests that although the acquisition hasn’t come cheap, it makes sense strategically, as wealth management is an area that many banks are looking to build a presence in. This deal will also help to insulate it from interest rate moves by further diversifying its income streams.

Just for a bit of a change, I thought I’d bring you some puns today. Love the dad jokes vibe here 😁

Japanese stocks soar to record after Sanae Takaichi’s landslide election win (Financial Times, David Keohane and Leo Lewis) heralds a big win and a massive vindication of Japan’s PM Takaichi decision to gamble and hold a snap election just months after becoming leader of the LDP. Her party now has a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house – the LDP’s biggest majority since it was formed in 1955! Both the Nikkei 225 and Topix hit new highs on the prospect of her implementing economic stimulus and pushing corporate investment in key sectors. This is huge.

Venezuela learns to live without its strongman (Financial Times, Ana Rodríguez Brazón and Joe Daniels) provides an interesting insight into a Venezuela without Maduro. It sounds like it’s quieter, for starters! Like his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro had a penchant for making long and rambling speeches, which invariably targeted suspected dissidents. They were carried in full by state broadcasters. Since acting president Delcy Rodríguez took over when Maduro was snatched and taken to New York, things have changed a lot and her TV appearances have, in contrast to both strongman leaders, been short and to the point. As one pensioner in Caracas put it, “Maduro isn’t on television all the time attacking people – and that alone is a major change”. She’s also allowed small democracy-protests, hundreds of political prisoners have been released and opposition leaders are now appearing on state media. On Thursday last week, lawmakers put forward an “amnesty law” which, if approved, will lead to pardons for political crimes committed over the last 26 years! The question is whether this is being done to appease the Americans or whether this is actually a real change in direction. Still, it sounds like a positive move for now at least…

Back home, Keir Starmer faces crunch week in battle to hold on to power (Financial Times, Anna Gross, George Parker and Jim Pickard) shows that the pressure on his leadership isn’t letting up in the ongoing aftermath of the latest release of the Epstein files. His chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned yesterday as he took responsibility for the Mandelson appointment – but none of that stopped calls for Starmer to do the same! The PM is no doubt going to try to take the initiative this week and try to draw a line under all this and Ousting Starmer could turn Britain into an economic basket case like France (Daily Telegraph, Robert Bootle) observes that if the PM is forced to fall on his sword, it’s likely that Rachel Reeves will go as well – and the likely

replacements will be more left-leaning, which means higher spending and higher debt to be funded by more borrowing and even higher taxes. It is arguably likely that the minimum wage will go up again and there will be tighter labour market legislation which will pile pressure on corporates – and particularly those in the already under-pressure hospitality sector. If this happens, it’s likely that the pound will weaken and if the pound weakens, it will be more difficult for the Bank of England to cut interest rates much further. We’ll just have to see what happens this week…

In Retail traders double down on silver even as price plunges (Financial Times, Rachel Rees) we see that retail investors have been pouring money into silver despite the recent price collapse that has pretty much wiped out all of the gains it made this year! Last week, they put $430m into SLV, the biggest silver ETF, according to data analysis by Vanda Research. * SO WHAT? * Silver has made huge gains and it seems that investors are chasing that meme-stock-like rebound. I guess that an additional attraction of silver over gold is that it has more industrial uses in addition to it being nice and shiny.

Bitcoin is still about $70,000 too high (Financial Times, Jemima Kelly) is an interesting article that is pretty scathing of bitcoin and wallows in a veritable bath of schadenfreude, pointing out loads of negative factoids about how far it has fallen, including a dig at bitcoin-hoarder Strategy’s CEO who said “If you want to get me a birthday gift, buy some bitcoin for yourself”. Understandable when you consider that Strategy holds about 3.4% of bitcoin in circulation! The article makes a very valid point that despite having a hugely crypto-friendly president who is personally tied into bitcoin’s fortunes, even he hasn’t been able to stem the tide of selling. The writer says that “People are beginning to wake up to the fact that there is no floor in the value of something based on nothing more than thin air”. * SO WHAT? * We’ve been here before and each time we’ve seen a collapse, there’s been a rebound. I’m not a bitcoin expert or particular fan but I think that, despite what everyone says about it all being based on fantasy, enough people believe in it now to give it legitimacy. It does seem to have lost its previous “safe haven asset” status. Lord knows why it got that status in the first place but there we are. Trump and chums are up to their necks in crypto so I just don’t think it can fail.

In US companies accused of ‘AI washing’ in citing artificial intelligence for job losses (The Guardian, Eric Berger) we see that there’s growing suspicion that the rising incidence of employers blaming the advent of AI for making job cuts is, in reality, less of a sign of technological revolution and more of a hangover of tariffs, over-hiring during the pandemic and the desire to maximise profits. More observers are starting to call this out as “AI-washing”. That being said, blaming layoffs on AI is less politically problematic than blaming them on the impact of tariffs. Remember when Amazon was going to publish just how much of an impact Trump’s tariffs had on product pricing, to which the White House reacted by saying this was a “hostile and political act”. This was then followed by a hasty retreat by Amazon. * SO WHAT? * I do not dispute that, over time, a great deal of the elements of current roles will be replaced by AI but I think that it’s going to take more time than everyone seems to be saying!

That being said, Barclays cuts jobs in AI and offshoring drive (Daily Telegraph, Louis Goss) highlights the culling of almost the entire Canary Wharf-based copywriting team of 50 people, the responsibilities of which will be transferred to India. These workers will be supported by AI. * SO WHAT? * This is part of broader plans by the company to cut £2bn in costs. Although the copywriting team in India will be bigger, they will still be cheaper to employ and I suppose that AI will be relied upon to support them. This is clearly not a replacement by AI but more of a cost issue.

Unemployment climbs despite ‘encouraging’ start to the year (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the latest survey from REC and KPMG which shows that although unemployment has hit a high of 5.1% there are “encouraging” signs that the sharp fall in hiring is bottoming out. Companies are even lifting hiring freezes now that the uncertainty of last year’s Budget is behind us. * SO WHAT? * This certainly sounds encouraging but maybe the feelgood might be nipped in the bud if Starmer has to step down, rendering the economic outlook more uncertain.

Then in World’s priciest hotels charge record prices in defiance of luxury slowdown (Financial Times, Stephanie Stacey) we see that research by CoStar shows that the world’s most expensive hotels charged record prices last year as affluent travellers bucked the slowdown in the broader luxury sector. Revenue per available room (aka “Revpar”, which is a key measure of growth in the hospitality industry) at luxury hotels boomed by a chunky 10.6% last year, which is more than triple the annual growth rate of the hotel sector in general. Average daily rates for such hotels hit $1,245, which represents growth of more than 8% versus 2024. Occupancy rates also increased by 2.3%, showing that wealthier travellers were not put off by the higher prices. * SO WHAT? * Hoteliers are now, understandably, prioritising more affluent travellers who aren’t as affected by economic ups and downs as those lower down the socio-economic food chain. There is an increasing contrast between the fortunes of ultra-luxury hotels and those that serve the broader market. It is interesting to note that the difference is especially stark in the US.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Hims & Hers abandons copycat weight-loss drug in face of FDA probe (Financial Times, Patrick Temple-West) highlights good news for Novo Nordisk because Hims & Hers said that it would stop selling a discounted version of Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss pill Wegovy less than two days after the FDA said that it would investigate Hims & Hers and other companies making compounded weight-loss drugs. Hims & Hers was planning on offering a cheaper version of Wegovy for $49 per month. Novo Nordisk was planning to sue, but presumably it won’t have to now.

Then in Banks push for speedy European IPOs to cut market risk (Financial Times, Emily Herbert) we see that banks are accelerating their marketing periods for IPOs in Europe because they want to get them in before any Trump related shenanigans can torpedo valuations. The average number of bookbuilding days (where investors are invited to made bids once an IPO has been announced) has halved to five since 2022 as a result! For instance, the IPO of Czechoslovak Group, Europe’s biggest ever defence IPO, had a bookbuilding period of just three days! * SO WHAT? * Interestingly, the bookbuilding period has been getting shorter and shorter since the 2008 financial crisis but I guess this has gained growing impetus recently given the sudden shocks that Trump in particular is likely to impose on the markets. After all, if you’re in the middle of a bookbuilding process the last thing you want is Trump stirring things up, scuppering all your well-made plans. As I have said before, if I was an investment bank, I’d be pushing clients to do as many IPOs as quickly as possible to take advantage of extremely high current valuations.

Can Europe get kids off social media? (Financial Times, Leila Abboud, Barbara Moens and Nic Fildes) highlights the growing momentum in Europe of prizing kids off their attachment to social media. France, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark are all some way towards implementing some kind of social media ban for younger people and the UK parliament is giving it some serious consideration. * SO WHAT? * Past attempts to restrict access just haven’t worked because there are so many ways of getting around them (including the use of VPNs) and the patchy approach that different countries have taken in this matter. The thing is that if more countries adopt such bans, the less useful these countermeasures will become. Although there is a push for age verification to be done at an operating system or app-store level, rather than on a per-app basis, I would also suggest that something needs to be done about VPNs given that they are an easy get-around.

Then in Tesco buys Amazon Fresh shops as it expands convenience stores (The Times, Isabella Fish) we see that Tesco bought a few Amazon Fresh stores to enhance its planned rollout off more than 70 new Express convenience stores by March 2027. At the moment, it operates just over 2,000 convenience store outlets across the UK and Ireland. * SO WHAT? * It’s interesting to note that other supermarkets – including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda – are also trying to grow their convenience store offerings. This is pushing out smaller players who can’t compete with the buying power.

I have to say that when I saw this, I was very impressed! Seems a bit dark, though. Also, if it’s peeing down with rain, doesn’t it just let all the rain in when he goes in and out??

In the latest on Trump’s musings, Donald Trump calls for new nuclear treaty with Russia as New Start expires (Financial Times, Steff Chávez and Amy Mackinnon) shows that the president is pushing for a new “modernised” nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia and not just an extension of the now-expired New Start treaty. In true Trump style, he described the previous agreement (on Truth Social – where else?!?) as “A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated!”. The treaty, which limits the number of operational nuclear missiles and warheads for both sides, expired yesterday. It was originally signed in 2010 and extended in 2021. * SO WHAT? * Getting an agreement on this is important given that both nations hold 86% of the world’s nuclear weapons. China has been building up its own arsenal in recent years, which is probably why Trump wants China involved in negotiations – but it is thought that China is unlikely to participate in the near future.

Donald Trump endorses Japan’s Sanae Takaichi ahead of general election (Financial Times, Demetri Sevastopulo) highlights Trump’s support for Japan’s PM ahead of Sunday’s general election while Trump rows back his criticism of UK’s Chagos Islands deal (Financial Times, Steff Chávez and Lucy Fisher) shows some back-pedalling on the president’s part as he rescinded his previous criticism of the UK’s plan to transfer ownership of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (which he had previously endorsed). He had only last month accused Britain of “great stupidity” and “weakness” over the deal 🤷‍♂️.

Then in White House launches TrumpRx as drug companies warn of sales hit (Financial Times, Patrick Temple-West) we see that the president launched his direct-to-consumer drug platform yesterday. The platform herds people to websites where they can find drugs at a “discount” and it currently offers over 40 medicines, with more to come. * SO WHAT? * This is all part of Trump’s campaign to reduce costs for the consumer and cut out the middleman. However, the discount depends on what you’re comparing to because at least some of the medicines here can be considerably cheaper when bought by patients who have prescriptions.

Meanwhile, US job cuts surge to highest January total since 2009 (Financial Times, Myles McCormick, Peter Wells, Taylor Nicole Rogers and Kate Duguid) cites the latest figures from the employment services company Challenger, Gray & Christmas which show that employers cut more jobs in January than at any start to the year since 2009! Additional data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that US job openings dropped to their lowest level in over five years in December. A separate report showed that the number of people filing for unemployment

insurance spiked at the end of January. * SO WHAT? * This certainly seems to show that not only are there fewer jobs around, the general feeling is that unemployment is going to rise. If that is the case, then the Fed might have to go back to the drawing board because it was only a week ago that the Fed chair said that the jobs market was displaying signs of stabilisation – and left interest rates unchanged. That being said, the unemployment rate is actually low by historical standards at 4.4%. All eyes will be on the delayed January employment report that will be published next week. If the jobs market isn’t looking good, then the Fed might have to start cutting interest rates again to stimulate the economy.

Back home, Starmer on borrowed time as MPs weigh up how to mount leadership challenge (Financial Times, George Parker, Lucy Fisher, Chris Smyth and Anna Gross) shows that the PM is on the ropes thanks to the Epstein/Mandelson calamity but he’s perhaps helped by the lack of real leadership challengers right now. Sterling hit by Starmer leadership speculation and BoE decision (Financial Times, Ian Smith) highlights investor reaction as the pound weakened against the dollar and euro. * SO WHAT?* Concerns are growing about the potential for a big rise in borrowing if Starmer gets booted because potential successors could take a more “traditional” course of tax and spend (although, TBH, that’s kind of what’s happened already). Also, any expectations of a period of calm before the May regional elections have gone out of the window for now…

Bank of England keeps interest rates at 3.75% as inflation concerns persist (The Guardian, Heather Stewart) shows that our central bank decided to keep interest rates on hold yesterday despite forecasting weaker growth and lower inflation than it did at the last quarterly forecast it made in November. Governor Andrew Bailey thinks that inflation will drop to about 2% by the spring and hinted that interest rates could go lower from here…

Then in Bitcoin falls below $65,000 to wipe out ‘Trump rally’ (Financial Times, Jill R Shah) we see that bitcoin got caught up in the tech sell-off yesterday and lost 12% to fall below a level not seen since 2024. Bitcoin has lost over 25% of its value versus the dollar this year! Bitcoin-hoarding company Strategy saw its shares fall by 17.1% and crypto exchange Gemini announced that it would lay off 200 employees and wind down some operations in an effort to reduce costs. Gemini’s share price has plummeted by a whopping 80% since it listed in September! Interestingly, prediction market platform Kalshi reckons that there’s an 85% chance that bitcoin will fall below $60,000…

Amazon shares sink as it prepares $200bn AI spending blitz (Financial Times, Rafe Rosner-Uddin) shows that Amazon shares took a bath yesterday when investors reacted to its eye-watering plans to spend a huge amount of money on building AI infrastructure. Amazon spent almost $130bn in 2025 so $200bn is a big jump, particularly as the market was expecting perhaps $150bn. Its share price fell by up to 11% in after-hours trading on the news of the spending plans.

Big Tech’s ‘breathtaking’ $660bn spending spree reignites AI bubble fears (Financial Times, Stephen Morris, Michael Acton and Rafe Rosner-Uddin) looks more broadly at AI infrastructure spending plans across Big Tech, which currently total an incredible $660bn. To give you an idea of scale, this amount of money is more than the entire GDP of Israel 😱! * SO WHAT? * All of this

is just going to ratchet up the pressure on Big Tech companies to show results from this enormous expenditure.

Then in Anthropic launches new Claude model as AI fears rattle markets (Financial Times, Melissa Heikkilä) we see that the company yesterday launched Claude Opus 4.6, which Anthropic described as its “most capable” model for businesses and knowledge work. It said that this model is the best-performing model for getting information, analysing it and generating outputs that need less editing. * SO WHAT? * It is interesting to see that Anthropic is concentrating more on enterprise customers whereas rivals including OpenAI and Google are trying to appeal more to consumers. The latest developments this week will come in handy given that Anthropic is currently engaging in a funding round where it hopes to raise about $20bn.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Pandora to replace silver jewellery with platinum as prices go haywire (Daily Telegraph, Tom Haynes) shows that the world’s biggest jewellery maker, Pandora, is planning on selling less silver jewellery and move to using platinum after the recent wild swings in the silver price. At the moment, about 60% of the company’s products are made of silver but it is thinking about pushing that down to about 20% over time. The company said on Wednesday that it could experience its first sales fall since the pandemic. * SO WHAT? * If Pandora DOES switch to platinum, prices are bound to rise significantly. I’m not sure whether the switch is a good idea given the big price differential between the two metals. This does show, however, some of the effects of volatile precious metals prices!

Meanwhile, Greenland tensions drive outflows from equity funds (The Times, Emma Powell) shows that threats made earlier this year by Trump about Greenland prompted British investors to pull £697m out of equity funds in January. This marks the eighth consecutive month of net selling, according to global funds network Calastone. It is interesting to note, however, that the pace of January outflows was way less than the rate of outflow heading into Rachel Reeves’s Budget in November!

Electric car market goes into reverse amid pay-per-mile tax threat (Daily Telegraph, Christopher Jasper) cites the latest SMMT figures which show that EVs sales went sideways in January, falling below the 21% share of new car sales as overall car sales grew at their fastest rate since Covid. This is the weakest market share for EVs for nine months and is way below the 33% target that is mandated by the government. Incidentally, Tesla sales collapsed by a whopping 51% as the slide in the brand’s popularity appears to be accelerating. * SO WHAT? * High prices, plans for a pay-per-mile tax and the prospect of the petrol/diesel deadline getting delayed are all chipping away at the need to buy EVs right now. If you throw in tightening household finances, then you’ve got a suboptimal recipe for strong EV sales!

Then in Rio Tinto and Glencore abandon revived $260bn merger plan (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) we see that the two mining giants have decided to ditch plans for a merger as they “could not reach an agreement that would deliver value to its shareholders”. It would have created the world’s biggest mining company.

I showed you this a little while back but thought I’d say that I did actually make it – and it was really good! I did variations on it (scrambled egg, smoked salmon, sour cream and – controversial – a bit of sweet chilli sauce, for instance) and obviously the combinations are endless! However, tips I’d have for you if you’re going to do this are a) put a CLEAN wet tea towel underneath the wet rice paper – it makes the whole thing much easier to work with, b) make sure you have all your fillings lined up because you have to work quickly and c) try to wrap as tightly as you can. If you get any air bubbles, I just pricked them with a toothpick. They are a bit fiddly – but worth doing! And yes – use baking/non-stick paper! Good luck!

Starmer engulfed in leadership speculation as he backtracks over Mandelson papers (Financial Times, George Parker, Jim Pickard, Mari Novik and Chris Smyth) shows that the PM is really up against it now as it turns out that he went ahead with appointing the now-disgraced Lord Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador despite being warned by officials about the latter’s relationship with Epstein. He managed eventually to quell attacks on his leadership but this is surely a golden opportunity for his opponents to come out of the woodwork and finish him off. If they manage to administer the coup de grâce, we’re bound to enter a period of UK economic uncertainty just as things were looking like stabilising – and if someone like Rayner gets in, I suspect markets will tank and businesses will panic. I imagine that Trump is going to stay quiet on this given that he’s probably quite pleased that everyone else is getting heat for the Epstein thing – for now. Talking of which, Leader of Paul Weiss Resigns Over Epstein Ties (Wall Street Journal, Erin Mulvaney) shows that Brad Karp resigned as chair of one of America’s biggest law firms because of the new revelations about his relationship with Epstein, in the latest example of the fall-out from the release of documents.

Elsewhere, British companies set to gain access to €90bn EU loan for Ukraine (Financial Times, Paola Tamma and Andy Bounds) shows that EU members decided to give British

companies the go-ahead to be part of the group of companies that could win military procurement contracts to supply Ukraine. The French had wanted to restrict British participation but they were overruled. * SO WHAT? * Ukraine is going to use €60bn of the €90bn loan to buy military kit while the remaining €30bn would go towards budget support. I would have thought this is a positive development not only for British defence companies, but also for Ukraine who can get more flexibility on what they have access to.

Then in Tether retreats from $20bn funding ambitions after investor pushback (Financial Times, Jill R Shah) we see that the world’s largest stablecoin issuer has been slapped down by investors as it tried to raise $15bn-$20bn in a new funding round – and it has now opted to aim to raise $5bn instead, due to their push-back. Tether’s stablecoin USDT is the reserve currency of the digital asset market. * SO WHAT? * The fund raising is being watched with interest as a bellwether for crypto as a whole. Tether is targeting a $500bn valuation which its CEO says is justified given its profitability – it made about $10bn in profit last year thanks to returns on the assets it holds to back USDT’s value. This valuation would put Tether on a par with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and ByteDance and although Tether is profitable, it faces regulatory risks as it has been under a lot of scrutiny since it was founded in 2014.

US tech stocks hit by fresh wave of selling as chipmakers Qualcomm and AMD tumble (Financial Times, George Steer, Emily Herbert and Melissa Heikkilä) reflects another sell-off yesterday of US tech stocks prompted initially by chipmaker AMD’s disappointing results while Arm CEO says AI software sell-off is ‘micro-hysteria’ (Financial Times, Michael Acton) cites Arm’s CEO as saying that the sell-off is being overdone and is a result of confusion surrounding the impact of AI on coding and workplace tools. How Anthropic achieved AI coding breakthroughs — and rattled business (Financial Times, Melissa Heikkilä, Suzi Ring and Daniel Thomas) looks into the market panic which stemmed from Anthropic unveiling a set of tools that some believe will pull the rug from under specialist providers of AI tools. Anthropic’s launch of Claude Code last year prompted a boom in “vibe coding” that enabled users to create apps and software quickly. It followed this up last month with the launch of Cowork which uses Claude Code to automate work tasks and then last Friday it released a set of freely available “open source” plug-ins for Cowork, one of which was a tool for legal services – but it also released tools aimed at sales, finance, marketing and customer support. This is why markets panicked! That being said, Not all software faces the same threat from AI (Financial Times, Lex) suggests that the sell-of was too broad and doesn’t properly reflect how much each company is really exposed. Big companies especially are loathe to embrace new technologies, particularly when legal, regulatory or security risks are involved so it is questionable as to how quickly the likes of, say,

RELX will actually be affected – certainly in the short term. Meanwhile, Google set to double AI spending to $185bn after strong earnings (Financial Times, Stephen Morris) highlights big spending plans at Google powered by the ongoing success of its advertising and cloud businesses. Investors initially took fright at the capex plans but then recovered composure. At the moment, the company “hasn’t seen any evidence of cannibalisation” of ad revenues as it’s managed to hang on to users with its “AI mode” and “overview” answers. * SO WHAT? * It seems to me that investors are looking for excuses to sell as they get increasingly nervy about nose-bleed level valuations. Yes, the new tools are an interesting development but they’re not going to be adopted by everyone in the same way and at the same time. Also, the huge spending on AI infrastructure is needed – and in Google’s case, it’s got a lot of money coming in because it has ACTUAL products so although the spend is high, it’s doable and makes it more difficult for upstarts to follow it.

Meanwhile, AI voice company ElevenLabs valued at $11bn after latest fundraise (The Times, James Hurley) shows that the London-based company has managed to raise $500m in a deal that gives it an implied valuation of $11bn. * SO WHAT? * The company’s valuation has now more than tripled in a year and has come a long way since it was founded in 2022! The company said it would use the newly-raised funds to expand its R&D and international expansion.

Ford January U.S. Sales Decline as EV Sales Slow (Wall Street Journal, Adriano Marchese) shows that vehicle sales in the US fell in January while it continues to cut EV production. Ford has lost $13bn on its EV business since 2023! * SO WHAT? * It made a big thing about de-emphasising its EV business, but let’s face it – the rest of the business isn’t exactly motoring is it?!? I think that Ford is going to milk the EV thing for a while – but the fundamental problem in my mind is that American consumers are feeling the pinch and they can’t afford big expenditure.

Elsewhere, Chinese carmaker Chery to launch fourth brand in UK (The Guardian, Jasper Jolly) shows that Chery is going to launch a fourth brand in the UK as part of a broader effort to win market share. Its Lepas (pronounced “le-pass”, rather than “lepers” 😱) cars will initially be made in China and then shipped to the UK but the government hopes it will eventually make

those cars in the UK. It already has the Omoda, Jaecoo and Chery brands here. Meanwhile, Leapmotor: China’s no-frills EV maker aiming to become the next BYD (Financial Times, Edward White, Gloria Li and Kana Inagaki) highlights Leapmotor’s ambitions as its performance has been gaining huge momentum over the last few years. The company now has designs on conquering the international markets and has traditionally concentrated on a mass-market offering rather than going for more affluent customers. As things stand, Leapmotor is not keen to rush into localised production in Europe because of the high energy and labour costs. * SO WHAT? * The Chinese are coming – and it’ll be interesting to see whether European manufacturers will be able to survive.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Are UK consumers about to rediscover their mojo? (Financial Times, Chris Giles) asks an interesting question given that recent data releases seem to be showing that UK consumers – and businesses – are getting less gloomy. Given that consumption accounts for about 60% of GDP, you can see why everyone is watching it closely for signs of recovery! Households have been trying to save more for a variety of reasons – deposits for properties, taking advantage of higher interest rates, lack of confidence in the broader economy, building up funds for future emergencies etc. – and so spending has taken a back seat. However, interest rates are falling, the FCA has loosened restrictions on mortgages and lenders are reacting to this accordingly. Also, the Bank of England reckons that we’ll hit the 2% inflation mark this spring. If you add all that together, along with improving sentiment, it looks like things could get better for 2026 barring any new crises. I wonder whether I’m speaking too soon 🤪!

No joy in shopping? Mary Portas blames ‘low rent’ deliveries (The Times, Richard Tyler) is an interesting article which cites retail guru Mary Portas as saying that customers should be able to choose which logistics firm delivers their orders. That way, you get brand loyalty and you’re more likely to spend with that retailer because you’ll trust that what you buy will actually arrive at your address. * SO WHAT? * I’ve actually experienced delivery woes myself recently! Everything has been fine for YEARS and then it seems that any time Evri is involved, we end up playing delivery lottery! And it’s not just me – everyone in our road has had the same problem for the last few months! I guess the problem is that the retailer negotiates with one or a few delivery partners to get the best price, so we’d have to pay more to get someone else to deliver. I do think that retailers need to take this seriously because it beggars believe that when Evri is consistently

voted as one of the worst – if not THE worst – in terms of deliveries there’s not really much that we, as consumers, can do about it! If we were given the option, maybe Evri would get its act together. I really do think that this will have a positive effect on e-tailing because people would be more inclined to buy more – and perhaps more expensive – goods if they know they are going to arrive! And as I said above, consumer spending is key to the economy!

Pubs and restaurants suffer longest period of job losses since financial crisis (Daily Telegraph, Eir Nolsøe) cites the conclusions of the latest S&P Global services PMI which show that prolonged weakness in pub and restaurant hiring has proved to be a major factor in the longest continuous streak of job losses for 16 years! Staff numbers in the services sector have fallen every month since October 2024 when the chancellor hit employers with a massive tax raid. No wonder hospitality in particular is fighting for its survival…

Elsewhere, Cyber-attack and yacht insurer agrees £8bn deal in latest UK stock market exit (The Guardian, Julia Kollewe) shows that Beazley has finally agreed to Zurich Insurance’s takeover after Zurich improved its latest offer. There are still hoops to jump through but this is a major step forward for the deal.

Then in Asda loses title of cheapest British supermarket to Tesco (Daily Telegraph, Hannah Boland) we see that Asda lost its crown as the cheapest British supermarket in the latest monthly Which? survey. Tesco is now the cheapest! This is the latest kick in the teeth for chairman Allan Leighton who has been trying to turn the supermarket around for over a year now. If things continue like this, I’d give Leighton a year max before he’s booted. The problem is, who would want to take the job on??

Now this looks like it could be decent exercise but I’d argue that it’s not going to catch on long-term because a) it looks a bit silly and b) I would imagine that going up any inclines on this will be a no-goer. What do you think??

Donald Trump signs bill to end partial US government shutdown (Financial Times, Lauren Fedor) shows that the president signed a bill yesterday afternoon that ended the partial government shutdown. The legislation will fund most of the federal government until the end of September but there will still be tricky negotiations over funding the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. At the moment, DHS funding will run out on February 13th unless another deal is made as Democrats want significant changes made to how the administration carries out immigration enforcement.

Trump administration strikes $9bn copper deal to challenge China (Daily Telegraph, Nora Redmond) heralds a major deal made by Orion CMC, which is backed by the US International Development Finance Corporation. Orion CMC has bought a 40% stake in two DRC mines from commodities and mining giant Glencore. This is all part of the Trump administration push to source more raw materials to counter China’s dominance.

Meanwhile, Citadel’s Ken Griffin says Trump White House has ‘enriched’ family members (Financial Times, Amelia Pollard) is an interesting article that cites billionaire investor Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fund Citadel, as saying “This administration has definitely made mis-steps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those in the administration”, adding the question, “is the public interest being served?”. White House spokesman Kush Desai snapped back, saying that “this administration is delivering for every

American”. I have said it before and I’ll say it again – I find it incredible that Trump is so blatantly allowed to line his pockets – and those of his friends and family – whilst in public office while everyone seems to think this is perfectly fine! It seems that anyone who would normally question this has either been been silenced or is invested directly or indirectly in the whole thing themselves. Maybe taking everyone on his ride is a way of buying and ensuring their loyalty. Why aren’t the Democrats shouting more about this?? Or are they waiting to make more of it ahead of the midterms??

Why India Will Struggle to Reduce Its Reliance on Russian Oil (Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Feng) follows on from news I mentioned yesterday about India signing a deal with the US where it promised to stop buying Russian oil in return for not having to pay such high tariffs. Basically, there’s a lot of scepticism about how possible this actually is because the world’s most populous nation has become addicted to cheap Russian oil since Russia invaded Ukraine. * SO WHAT? * Russian oil imports now account for a third of all of its oil imports – as opposed to the 2% it used to be before the invasion! India has remained notably sketchy on the details of how it’s going to wean itself off Russian oil. Cutting a long story short, it’s not going to be straightforward – and China won’t necessarily be able to absorb it either, mainly for strategic reasons – because if it did, Russian oil would potentially account for over 20% of China’s total oil imports!

How Elon Musk used SpaceX to rescue xAI and build a $1.25tn colossus (Financial Times, Stephen Morris, George Hammond, Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy) follows on from the story I mentioned yesterday about SpaceX buying xAI, which created the most valuable private company in history. Musk said that this was necessary to launch data centres in space, put factories on the moon and colonise Mars. Critics say that this was all about bolstering xAI and its horrendous cash burn rate of $1bn a month. Whatever the motivation was, Musk will run it and the deal will close on March 16th. Musk has found a way to cash out his failed Twitter bet. But could it damage SpaceX? (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) points to the relative failure of “Twitter” which became X which became xAI and now SpaceX. This will smooth the way to a proposed flotation at an expected valuation of about $1.5tn. Musk says that, within three years, space is going to become the cheapest way of generating AI computing power. One industry source put it brilliantly – “He gets to monetise his accidental purchase of Twitter and takes an AI share hype lift”. The new rules of finance, courtesy of Elon Musk (Financial Times, Lex) highlights just how this deal smashes a lot of the received wisdom of finance! It shows that you can do anything if your deal involves AI, that conventional approaches to justifying market cap are old hat, that shareholders don’t care too much about a say as long as the company’s growing, that tech companies are becoming impervious to outside harm because of all the interlinking deals they’ve made with each other and that earthly valuations are for losers. It also helps if your name is Elon Musk and investors think you are a god 🤣. Is Elon Musk’s SpaceX really worth more than London’s top seven? (The Times, Tom Howard) points out that the enlarged entity will be bigger than HSBC, AstraZeneca, Shell, Unilever, Rolls-Royce, British American Tobacco and Rio Tinto combined 🤯. * SO WHAT? * If you add up the individual bits of Tesla and look at the sales and the conventional methods of valuation, the company’s market cap just doesn’t stack up. I would say that the same is true of the new SpaceX – however, what you’re paying for in a Musk company is Musk’s genius and the chance to partake in a slice of the future. Even when he’s failed, Musk has come up smelling of roses.

Then in French prosecutors raid Elon Musk’s X offices in Paris (Financial Times, Adrienne Klasa and Tim Bradshaw) we see that French prosecutors raided Musk’s offices and summoned Musk and X’s former chief exec Linda Yaccarino for “voluntary interviews” in Paris in April as part of their ongoing investigation into X following the whole Grok-related outcry regarding the spread of sexualised images of women and children. * SO WHAT? * It’s great that prosecutors are doing this but I’m not confident that this is going to change anything. The only way THAT will happen is if regulators AROUND THE WORLD say the same thing, IMO. The UK’s ICO is also conducting its own investigation into X.

In AI-related news, ‘Deepfakes spreading and more AI companions’: seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety report (The Guardian, Dan Milmo) takes a look at the

International AI Safety report, which is an annual survey of AI’s technical progress and the risks it poses across a broad number of areas. It was originally commissioned at the 2023 global AI safety summit. The main conclusions to be drawn from the current edition are that the capability of AI models are improving (although progress can be variable across different areas), deepfakes are improving and getting more common, AI companies have implemented biological and chemical risk safeguards so users can’t us the tech to create biological weapons while AI companions have become much more popular and humans are becoming more emotionally dependent on them. Also, AI isn’t yet capable of launching fully autonomous cyber-attacks and AI systems are getting better at disabling attacks from oversight systems but it’s still not clear as to how AI is going to impact on jobs, particularly in traditionally white-collar roles. * SO WHAT? * It’s good that at least one independent party is monitoring this. I guess we all kind of knew many of these conclusions already but I think this kind of report is going to become particularly interesting over time. Surely its value is its potential use in the creation of AI-related policy.

Meanwhile, US stocks drop on fears AI will hit software and analytics groups (Financial Times, George Steer, Daniel Thomas and Philip Stafford) shows that tech stocks dropped sharply in trading yesterday on news that Anthropic had launched some productivity tools for its Claude Cowork platform that can automate legal work. Gartner, S&P Global, Moody’s, Equifax and Intuit were among the fallers as investors fretted about the impact of AI on companies that use and manipulate vast quantities of data. * SO WHAT? * The thinking here is that if the legal world can be disrupted, so can consulting and financial services. In the UK, Relx saw its share price tank by a chunky 14.4% as it owns the legal information and analytics platform LexisNexis.

In chip news, Nvidia AI chip sales to China stalled by US security review (Financial Times, Michael Acton, Demetri Sevastopulo and Zijing Wu) highlights the latest hiccup for Nvidia’s chips to China as its H200 chips are still waiting for final approval from Washington to go there. Chinese customers have stopped ordering the chips until the situation is clarified. What a carry-on! Then in AMD Sales Climb on Help From Data-Center Business (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Hamilton) we see that AMD announced strong Q4 sales performance thanks to its data centre business. Client and gaming revenues were also strong but the share price fell as the whole sector was sold off on AI bubble worries.

In social media news, Spain to ban social media access for under-16s (Financial Times, Barney Jopson, Leila Abboud and Barbara Moens) shows that Spain is going to join France and Australia in efforts to shield young people from the potentially harmful impact of online content. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the move yesterday as he attacked the “digital wild west”. Both France and Spain are calling for more stringent age verification systems. The UK is also considering the move…

Food and drink companies suffer as US shopper sentiment sinks (Financial Times, Gregory Meyer and Taylor Nicole Rogers) indicates that companies such as Mondelez International, Chipotle, PepsiCo and others are seeing weaker performances because of “economic anxiety and low consumer sentiment”. * SO WHAT? * This was something that was reflected by data published by the Conference Board last week which showed that US consumer confidence fell to its weakest level in over a decade. The issue of affordability, particularly for low and middle-income consumers, is not going away…

Chinese EVs will destroy jobs unless Government acts, supplier warns (Daily Telegraph, Christopher Jasper) highlights the urgency of the plight of European car manufacturers as the CEO of US-based Dauch Corp, the owner of UK car parts supplier Dowlais, said that a deluge of EVs from China could kill huge numbers of suppliers in the West stone dead if they are allowed to do their thing without any restrictions. He said that this wasn’t just a case of losing jobs – it was a case of losing industries. * SO WHAT? * Europe is highly vulnerable to cheap Chinese EV imports given how cheap and – let’s face it – how good they are! Consumers are feeling the pinch and Chinese EVs are a very attractive prospect. Last year almost 28% off the EV sold in the UK were Chinese – so this is a sign of things to come. I reckon that 2026 will see Chinese manufacturers blitz the UK especially and Europe where they can as poor demand in their domestic market incentivises them to sell their wares abroad.

In property-related news, Demand for UK rental properties drops as buying becomes more affordable (Financial Times, Valentina Romei) cites the latest Zoopla data which shows that demand for UK rental properties hit its lowest level in January since 2019 thanks to better affordability for first-time buyers and falling levels of immigration meaning that there’s less competition among tenants. This conclusion was also reflected in the most recent RICS data. It’s early days yet, though…

Then in Santander offers 98% mortgage for first-time buyers – with strict rules (The Guardian, Rupert Jones) we see that Santander is providing an offer that’s gone beyond the traditional 95% on the high street for the first time in years. The deal, though, is for first-time buyers only, and is a fixed five-year loan needing a deposit of at least £10,000 for a maximum loan of £500,000. It will not be available for flats, new-builds or any properties in Northern Ireland. Self-employed buyers are also excluded and if the property is to be bought jointly, both buyers must be first-timers. * SO WHAT? * Santander is the biggest lender to go beyond 95% but it’s not the first – both Skipton and Yorkshire building societies have stretched as far as offering 100% and 99% mortgages respectively! Certainly, this is an eye-catching offer and something that will be attractive to many, particularly as affordability seems to be improving.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Meet the fintech worth more than Revolut (Financial Times, Michael Pooler) highlights Brazil’s Nubank as an inspiration for Revolut. It’s now worth $90bn valuation and is the most valuable financial institution in Latin America! Nubank is two years older than Revolut and has a slightly different business model and Revolut has not yet floated. At the moment, it’s thought to be worth around $75bn – so there’s a lot to go for! Both of them will be rivals in the US market…

Then in Paul Weiss poaches top energy dealmakers in raid on Kirkland & Ellis (Financial Times, Oliver Barnes and James Fontanella-Khan) we see that the US law firm has poached a

rainmaker from a rival as the war for top legal talent continues to intensify. Paul Weiss had a great 2025, advising on almost $400bn worth of M&A deals worldwide. It was ranked at sixth for total deal volumes in the US while Kirkland was top. Given the ripe conditions for more M&A and IPO action, I am sure that top lawyers will continue to be in demand…

Then in Novo Nordisk warns sales could slide 13% as obesity competition mounts (Financial Times, Aanu Adeoye) we see that the drug company outlined a downbeat outlook as competition in the obesity treatment market grows. Sales for 2025 were up but pricing is expected to get trickier although its new Wegovy pill could prove to be a bright spot.

This guy’s beatboxing is pretty epic! His friend, however, not so much 🤣…

A world without nuclear arms control begins this week (Financial Times, Amy Mackinnon, Max Seddon and Ian Bott) highlights the rather sobering fact that the New Start treaty, which limits the number of operational missiles and warheads held by Russia and the US, expires this Thursday. This will bring to a close over fifty years of both sides attempting to restrict the size of their respective arsenals which all started in 1972 under Nixon and Brezhnev. The first big limit on nuclear weapons was enshrined in the 1991 Start I treaty which put in place an inspection regime. There was a bit of a lapse and then New Start was signed in 2010, it was extended in 2021 and then collapsed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Apparently Putin has suggested that both sides voluntarily continue to stick to the current limits, Trump sounds like he’s thinking along similar lines – but he also wants to involve China in any related talks. We are living in challenging times.

Meanwhile, in news on the latest Trump initiatives, US to launch $12bn critical minerals stockpile to counter China’s dominance (Financial Times, Camilla Hodgson and Jamie Smyth) shows that the US government is launching a push to build up a critical minerals stockpile in order to counter Chinese dominance in this area and bolster domestic manufacturers in the event of any shortages. The US Export-Import Bank (Exim) will stump up $10bn in debt financing for the initiative, aka Project Vault. The remaining $2bn will come from private capital. Exim said that the push would “protect domestic manufacturers from supply shocks, support US production and processing of critical raw materials, and strengthen America’s critical minerals sector”. It will involve buying materials including rare earths, copper and lithium sourced from three trading companies – Traxys, Mercuria and Hartree Partners. * SO WHAT? * This sounds like a good idea but obviously it’s going to take time to make any kind of impact on Beijing’s current dominance. It’s a move in the right direction though…

I referred last week to companies that were doing well out of Trump’s immigration crackdown and How DHS Spent $35 Billion Since Trump Retook Office (Wall Street Journal, Shane Shifflett and Nate Rattner) emphasises the point as it turns out that the Department of Homeland Security’s spending on contracts boomed by 35% over the course of 2025, with tech supplier Anduril and construction firm Fisher Sand  & Gravel doing particularly well from border surveillance and Mexican border wall building respectively. Prison operators CoreCivic and GEO Group have also done well, as has deportation airline CSI Aviation. Palantir shares jump as US government and business contracts power growth (Financial Times, Rafe Rosner-Uddin) shows that the data intelligence group reported a hike in revenues for Q4 thanks to its US government contracts, powering it past Wall Street expectations. It’s also outlined a very punchy outlook. It was interesting to note that CEO Alex Karp observed that US companies are behind its growth and that there was “real hesitance” among European customers to use its tools. They showed a preference for using homegrown products instead. * SO WHAT? * These companies are, of course, benefiting hugely from Trump’s domestic initiatives. Given the general mood at the moment, it’s unsurprising that Europeans are reluctant to use Palantir – but although the company might find that regrettable, they are probably not all that worried given that there’s plenty of work going on in its own backyard.

In other Trump-related news, Tech billionaires fuel Donald Trump’s $429mn haul ahead of midterm elections (Financial Times, Joe Miller, Ian Hodgson and Paul Caruana Galizia) shows that Trump and chums have built up an enormous war chest ahead of the midterm elections this year. His funds dwarf what the Democratic Party has available! There’s no official word as to how he’ll deploy the money but it’s likely that he’ll pour it into the campaigns of his loyal allies. The

biggest contribution last year came from crypto exchange Crypto.com who donated $30m! It’s also interesting to note that Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of Open AI contributed $12.5m in December while his wife donated another $12.5m. Funny, that…

Then in Trump to slash India tariffs after Modi ‘agrees’ to stop buying Russian oil (Financial Times, Peter Wells, Andres Schipani, Krishn Kaushik and Peter Foster) we see that the president said that he’d cut tariffs on India to 18% after PM Modi “agreed” to cease purchases of Russian oil. The tariffs were at 25%. Back in August, Trump accused India, which imports around 90% of its crude oil, of funding Russia’s war machine and slapped an additional 25% tax on India on top of the 25% “reciprocal” tariff. This put India’s duties up to 50%, which was one of the highest rates in the world. Going the other way, Trump said that India would reduce its “tariffs and non-tariff barriers” on the US to zero and Trump said that the country would commit to buying over $500bn-worth of American goods. Analysts were immediately sceptical about this because India only bought $41.5bn worth of goods from the US last year! Still, it sounds good doesn’t it…

China is the main beneficiary of Trump’s Arctic antics (Financial Times, Isaac Kardon) is an interesting article which suggests that American aggression towards adversaries and allies alike is playing into China’s hands because China is becoming increasingly likely to fill the void that America is leaving behind it. It is increasingly being seen as the reasonably stable superpower and least bad option and the funny thing about Trump’s argument that he needs Greenland is that China can only get to the Arctic Ocean via Japanese and American waters and there aren’t any Chinese vessels anywhere near Greenland. China is emerging as the only realistic hedge for middle powers to protect their interests from a Trump invasion. I have to say that this is not a sentence I’d ever thought I’d use!

In Europe, France adopts budget after premier survives no-confidence vote (Financial Times, Leila Abboud and Ian Smith) shows that French PM Sébastien Lecornu managed to a) survive a no-confidence vote in the French parliament yesterday and b) enact a budget. This was impressive given the months of wrangling involved to get to this point! There were a lot of compromises made, but I think that the fact they got something through was a positive. France’s deficit for 2025 is thought to be about 5.4% and the measures in this budget are projected to bring it down to about 5%. Still, that’s a long way off the 3% target set by the EU. France hopes to hit this by 2029. * SO WHAT? * Macron’s government seems to lurch from one drama to another but this should buy him a bit of time.

In markets news, Oil tumbles as US-Iran tensions ease (Financial Times, Verity Ratcliffe) shows that oil prices fell sharply in trading yesterday as the prospect of a diplomatic solution had a calming effect and Gold and silver prices seesaw as FTSE 100 hits record high (The Guardian, Lauren Almeida) shows that precious metal prices also fell and subsequently recovered. Rollercoaster for gold creates havoc in Hatton Garden (Daily Telegraph, Matt Oliver, Eleanor Harmsworth and Chris Price) highlights what these wild swings mean for jewellers in London’s Hatton Garden. Over the last few weeks they’ve been inundated with secondhand jewellery as people tried to cash in on booming gold and silver prices. Somewhat amazingly, some retailers were melting down inventory to pay the bills! Gold is down by around 13% and silver by about 33% since the new Fed chairman was announced on Friday. Kevin Warsh is seen as a safe pair of hands and so that pared back some of the anxiety that was a powering force behind the rise in precious metals prices.

In American brands have lost their cool (Financial Times, Elisabeth Braw) we see that American brands are losing popularity and it’s starting to show. Last September, Levi’s identified “rising anti-Americanism as a consequence of the Trump tariffs and governmental policies” while McDonald’s CEO said that “the aura around America has dimmed a bit”. In polls taken last year, almost two-thirds of Germans said that they wanted to avoid US brands while 70% of Italians and 69% of Swiss and Austrians said that they would stop buying American brands altogether. Earlier this year, 83% of Swedes said that they weren’t buying US brands. Apps are popping up that identify brands linked to the country so consumers can boycott them, Estonia’s government is testing a US-free IT system and the French government announced last week that it would replace Zoom and Microsoft Teams with French video-conferencing tool Visio. * SO WHAT? * OK, so politicians are trying their best to play nice with Trump but they have broader issues at stake. Companies and individuals, on the other hand, don’t – so if they just stop buying American stuff there’s not much that Trump can do about it.

Back home, UK manufacturing growth accelerates as export orders rise (The Guardian, Tom Knowles) cites the latest manufacturing PMI survey which shows that British manufacturers had one of their best months since Labour came to power as activity in January rose thanks to new export orders increasing for the first time in four years. Perhaps even more amazingly, optimism about the year ahead hit its highest level since before the 2024 autumn budget! * SO WHAT? * It sounds like things are turning up in the UK! The combined manufacturing and services PMI for January presented the biggest upturn in business activity since April 2024 – and when you take that in combination with retail sales coming in better than expected in December and GDP rising unexpectedly in November, things may not actually be as gloomy as they seem!

In employment news, US jobs report delayed again amid government shutdown (The Guardian, Michael Sainato) shows that America’s closely-watched January 2026 jobs report, that was originally due to be published this Friday, will be postponed to when the latest government shutdown ends. The data’s been collected but the release of the report has been

delayed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has already hit setbacks and delays following the last government shutdown at the end of last year.

In the UK, London was the place to start a career. Now graduates can’t get a job (Daily Telegraph, Emma Taggart) highlights difficulties that graduates are facing in getting a job in the big smoke. Figures from the ONS showed that in the three months to November, London’s unemployment rate was 7.2%, the highest of any region in the UK! However, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year-olds in London was a staggering 18.6% in the three months to September 2025, which was up from 16.1% the same period a year earlier! Graduates are facing increased competition for fewer jobs and, according to the latest Institute of Student Employers’ stats, 140 applicants applied for every grad vacancy last year – up from 38 in 2003! Grads are also facing the prospect of AI reducing the number of available roles even further. * SO WHAT? * This is clearly a nightmare for those affected. However, I would say that it has never been easy to get a graduate role in London. Of course 140 applicants per role is somewhat different to 38 – but 38 applicants per role is still tricky. The best thing I can say is to concentrate on you and don’t worry about everyone else – easy to say, difficult to do. Also, I would say that you need to make sure that you REALLY identify your strengths and weaknesses because if you can do that properly, you are half way there to making sure you apply to the right roles. Whenever anyone says that they’ve applied to x-hundred jobs to no avail, I am inclined to think that they were either a) applying to the wrong jobs and/or b) just blasting everyone with the same bland applications.

UK house prices rose 1% in year to January after budget blip (The Times, Tom Howard) highlights what consumers have been doing in the property market as it cites the latest Nationwide report which shows that house prices rose by more than expected last month. Developers and estate agents all reported a slowing down of the housing market over autumn and winter ahead of the Budget so it’s still early days yet to say whether or not this is going to be a sustainable rebound.

SpaceX, xAI Tie Up, Forming $1.25 Trillion Company (Wall Street Journal, Micah Maidenberg, Meghan Bobrowsky and Berber Jin) highlights a huge deal that was confirmed yesterday. SpaceX was one of xAI’s first customers back in 2024! This tie-up had been expected and was all part of Musk’s plan to bring together rockets, satellites and AI under one roof.

Devon Energy to Buy Coterra for $21.5 Billion to Create Shale Giant (Wall Street Journal,

Elias Schisgall and Benoît Morenne) highlights an all-stock deal that will create one of America’s biggest oil and gas producers as the sector consolidates. The combined entity will be known as Devon Energy and become one of the biggest players in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. It will also be one of the world’s biggest shale producers. This deal is expected to close in Q2.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Disney slides as it warns of fall in visitor numbers to US theme parks (The Times, Emma Powell) shows that the “house of mouse” had a strong quarter going into December but its outlook was more cautious as it expected visitor numbers to its US theme parks to fall. Revenues for the quarter at its experiences division – which includes theme parks and cruise ships – accounted for almost 75% of group operating profit, so I guess that it’s reasonable to be a bit downbeat about the outlook if fewer people are travelling to the US.

Ikea assembles China strategy with closure of seven big stores (Financial Times, Thomas Hale and Richard Milne) shows that the Swedish furniture retailer has shut seven big stores in China as it pursues its strategy of having smaller stores in city centres and boosting its online presence. This is happening around the world. It said that it will, however, open 10 smaller stores in Beijing and Shenzhen over the next two years.

Meanwhile, China bans Tesla-style hidden door handles over safety fears (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) shows that China’s going to be bringing in a ban on car doorhandles that sit flush with the door after a string of fatalities involving suspected door failures. Some have been

alleging that passengers have been unable to escape from burning vehicles. China is the first country to ban this design and these designs rules will only apply to China.

Britain’s biggest Bitcoin company pledges to keep buying after losing $100m (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb) shows that the Smarter Web Company reiterated its commitment to buying bitcoin after losing almost £73m in three months! By buying bitcoin, the web design company has become Britain’s biggest “bitcoin treasury” business. Will it be averaging down in the current market I wonder??

Then in Lammy’s raid on law firms puts thousands of jobs at risk (Daily Telegraph, Louis Goss) we see that the Justice Secretary is proposing a £100m tax raid on law firms to take a massive slice of the interest paid on client accounts. At the moment, law firms handle client money when homes are bought and sold or temporarily hold funds from a deceased person’s estate and they keep at least a proportion of the interest accrued. Lammy says this is “unearned income” and should be invested in the UK’s legal system. * SO WHAT? * If this came into force, property law firms are likely to take a massive hit as a lot of them earn a hefty profit from interest on client accounts. This will, in turn, hit jobs and even the very existence of the law firms themselves.

I must admit I’d never have thought of this, but actually it makes a lot of sense! I might just have to hunt out the waffle plates for my toastie maker to do this…

UK to reconsider joining EU defence fund (Financial Times, George Parker, Leila Abboud, Peter Foster and Sam Fleming) shows that the PM is going to reconsider joining the EU rearmament scheme despite talks breaking down last year due to the EU side demanding an exorbitant entry fee of around €2bn. * SO WHAT? * The Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme involves the EU using its balance sheet to back cheap loans to members for defence projects. SAFE also benefits members because it allows them to supply up to 50% of a collaborative project with other fellow members. UK and EU ministers are meeting today to discuss a reset of relations with Europe, so this could be on the agenda.

In markets news, Gold and silver slide deepens as rally loses steam (Financial Times, William Sandlund) highlights the sell-off in precious metals after last week’s rally as investors reacted to the nomination of Trump’s candidate to head the Fed, Kevin Warsh. Warsh is seen as a more conservative choice than some were expecting, so this might have calmed things down a bit. * SO WHAT? * I would have thought there was a lot of profit taking in there – but I don’t think that any of the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s administration that drove prices up in the first place has really diminished all that much.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin wipeout erases entire Trump-era gains (Daily Telegraph, James Warrington) highlights the price of bitcoin which fell over the weekend to around $77,000, its

lowest level since last April when it tanked after “liberation day”. Bitcoin surged to $125,000 last year but this latest sell-off has wiped out all of the Trump era gains. Still, Trump sold ‘spy sheikh’ $500m stake in family crypto empire (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb) shows that the deputy ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Tahnoon – who is also national security adviser – has poured money into Trump’s assets. Clearly, he’s not doing this out of generosity. Tahnoon’s company, Aryam Investment, is now the largest shareholder in World Liberty as a result of this latest development. * SO WHAT? * I still find it shocking that a leader who is in a position to make all the rules and fill relevant positions to consolidate what he does with his friends and family is allowed to do so in full view in a modern democracy. His massive about-face on crypto, subsequent relaxing of the rules and barefaced promotion of his own interests is quite something – and yet everyone’s acting as if this is normal…

Then in energy news, Europe’s gas storage falls to lowest level since 2022 (Financial Times, Ryohtaroh Satoh and Verity Ratcliffe) highlights a worrying state of affairs as the EU’s gas storage levels have hit a new low for this time of year, which means that prices have risen to their highest level for ten months. You would have thought that higher utility bills are more likely as a result…

In business trends news, Super Bowl ad slots hit record prices as brands return to TV marketing (Financial Times, Daniel Thomas) highlights ad prices at the upcoming Super Bowl hitting record levels. Some of the world’s biggest brands are spending over $10m for a 30-second Super Bowl advertising slot. Comcast-owned NBC Universal said that it had sold out of Super Bowl advertising slots earlier than usual this year. Interestingly, brands were extending their campaigns after the Super Bowl and almost 40% of advertisers were new to the event. Mark Marshall, chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBC Universal observed that the TV advertising market had been strong over the last six months. Tech and pharmaceutical companies were keen clients. * SO WHAT? * This is an interesting turn of events as “traditional” advertising has been suffering the digital advertising onslaught for years now. However, I just don’t believe it will stick because it feels to me like everything is getting more personalised and better-targeted, something that traditional advertising just can’t do. Maybe for big events like this there’s more of an argument for a “communal feel” but I think that’s where it stops.

In How protein rose to the top of the food chain (Financial Times, Gregory Meyer and Madeleine Speed) we see how the protein trend is currently infiltrating our daily lives! Everyone’s at it – from supermarkets to consumer goods companies to coffee shops, everyone seems to be offering products with added protein. Research from Ingredion found that over two-thirds of customers were willing to pay between 5% and 30% more for products with high-protein content – so no wonder everyone’s falling over themselves to include it! * SO WHAT? * The dairy industry has really benefitted from the trend. Whey protein was once seen as merely a byproduct of cheese production and everyone was wondering what to do with it, but now it’s in great demand because of the current trend! It sounds to me like a trend that is being used as an excuse to charge customers more money and it does sound a weeny bit like a con to me. I’ve seen mushrooms with extra protein on sale in supermarkets – how much protein can they actually have and is it really worth it? Why not just have an extra scoop of yoghurt??

Meanwhile, British factories hit by Trump’s tariffs mayhem cut exports to US (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites research from MakeUK and DHL which shows that 20% of factories have either stopped or cut exports to the US following Trump’s tariff threats. An additional 16% of factories said that they’d cut their reliance on the US market. Price of consumer goods could surge as shipping costs soar, industry body says (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) cites research from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) which shows that prices of a wide range of consumer goods could rise this year thanks to surging shipping costs. Procurement teams are often the first within companies to notice price moves. * SO WHAT? * I can understand why Trump tariffs could make UK exports to the US trickier than in the past, but I’m surprised that shipping rates are projected to rise because a) there’s an expected overcapacity of shipping,

b) calmer conditions in the Middle East will open op the Suez Canal and Red Sea corridor and cut shipping times and c) the price of oil is expected to continue to be relatively weak. I guess we’ll have to wait to see, though…

Then in Record number of breweries shut down across Britain (Daily Telegraph, Tom Haynes) we see that the number of independent breweries is falling at its fastest rate in 50 years under the Labour government, according to the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates. Industry bosses blame “suffocating” tax rises including beer duty and business rates but I would also add that drinking behaviour is changing, particularly among younger people.

In consumer news, American Express Revenue Rises as High-Income Consumers Keep Spending (Wall Street Journal, Nicholas G.Miller) shows that affluent Americans are doing just fine as Q4 restaurant and retail spending were strong while demand for Amex’s premium cards also increased but Colgate Sales Rise, but Consumer Uncertainty Clouds Outlook (Wall Street Journal, Connor Hart) shows that everyone else is getting more jittery about stocking up on staples such as toothpaste and dish soap because money is tight and the economy looks uncertain.

Back home, UK restaurants offer deep discounts in ‘last resort’ to lure spend-shy diners (Financial Times, Stephanie Stacey) cites findings from data tracker NIQ and accounting firm RSM which showed that UK restaurants and fast-food chains had a tough month and had to offer steep discounts and special offers to get the punters in. Unsurprisingly, we’re all dining out less because it is just more expensive. Margins are already under pressure so this isn’t good.

In employment-related news, UK unemployment ‘will reach a five-year high this year’ (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the outlook as espoused by the EY Item Club that unemployment could peak at 5.2% in the first half of this year, slightly higher than the current level of 5.1% and the highest since January 2021. They say that the “tightening of fiscal policy, alongside ongoing global uncertainty, is expected to drag on UK growth over the next year or so”. Nothing particularly earth-shattering there…

Then in Most bosses expect pay growth to stabilise or increase this year (The Times, Jack Barnett) we see that a survey by Incomes Data Research which covered 121 businesses who employ almost 3m people showed that the majority of employers expected pay growth to go sideways or increase this year. IDR found that almost two-thirds of employers reckon inflation will figure largely in their pay awards. I guess that this isn’t disastrous – but it’s not ragingly positive either!

UK new car buyers drive a bargain as average discount nears £6,000 (The Guardian, Jasper Jolly) suggests that now could be a good time to buy an EV as findings from Insider Car Deals suggest that manufacturers and dealers are cutting prices by 11.4% for “traditional” cars while the discount is even bigger for EVs – at 12.9% – if you include all the government incentives as well. The general advice here is to haggle – particularly at the end of a month or a quarter when dealers might be more willing to offer discounts in order to hit sales targets. Breakthrough moment for electric cars — thanks to the French (The Times, Robert Lea) highlights the Renault 5 E-Tech as being the first model to pretty much close the gap between the price of an EV and its petrol equivalent. In its first six months in the showroom, it was the bestselling electric car in the retail market – i.e. private motorists rather than company fleet buyers. If you include subsidised

electric car grants, it’s possible to buy one for £21,000 or a bit over £200 a month on a three-year contract. It’ll be interesting to see how this stands up to the ongoing Chinese onslaught!

I thought that Lemonade turns self-driving cars from threat to opportunity (Financial Times, Lex) was worth mentioning because it takes a look at the potential future of insurance for driverless cars! The US “insuretech” company said last week that it studied data from Tesla to determine how safe its autonomous driving function was – and concluded that it was able to offer Tesla drivers a 50% lower premium! * SO WHAT? * It’s early days yet and despite what the hype says I don’t think we’ll be seeing loads of driverless cars on the streets for many years to come.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Artificial intelligence researchers hit by flood of ‘slop’ (Financial Times, Melissa Heikkilä) shows that AI conferences have been rushing to cut down the use of LLMs for writing and reviewing papers over the last few months after being flooded with so-called “AI slop”, which is denting confidence in the industry’s scientific work. * SO WHAT? * This does make you wonder what’s going on at universities these days and how institutions are protecting the integrity of degrees…

Then in SpaceX stops Russia’s ‘unauthorised’ use of Starlink, Elon Musk says (Financial Times, Christopher Miller) we see that SpaceX announced that it had successfully stopped “unauthorised use by Russia’s military of its Starlink satellite network. * SO WHAT? * This sounds lovely and all, but I think that it also underlines the key role that Musk is playing in the Ukraine war. Although he didn’t follow through with his threat in the past, he did previously say that he could just “switch off” the internet. This is something that we all have to consider…

I may have mentioned something like this before – so if I have, I’m sorry! Anyway, when I was at uni in Tokyo many many years ago, one of the things that I and my fellow students dreaded most was going to get a haircut! This was because we were all learning Japanese but our language was not sufficiently advanced to describe what we wanted as a haircut (although, to be fair to us, this is difficult enough for us in English don’t you think??). Anyway, I remember my first cut at a traditional Japanese barber shop was quite something – and here is an accelerated example of what you go through! I had no idea about what I was going to experience but it was pretty amazing as I’d never known anything like it! The shaving of my earlobes and forehead (!) were particularly weird and when I eventually emerged from the shop, I could feel the slightest breeze on my newly completely shaved face 🤣 – and I mean the completely shaved face (and neck)! I was quite fortunate though. My female friends had much more of a nightmare because when they went into a Japanese salon they were quite often met with horror because the staff panicked, saying that they did not have the expertise to cut westerner hair! They had to shop around quite a bit before finding someone who’d do it…

In an update on some of Trump’s pet projects, Panama court kicks Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison out of canal ports (Financial Times, Jude Webber and Michael Stott) shows that Panama’s top court has given Trump what he wanted – CK Hutchison out of the region and a gap for the US to step into to exert its authority. He promised last year to “take back control” of the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Caribbean, so will love this decision. US moves to open Venezuela’s vast crude reserves to Big Oil (Financial Times, Myles McCormick, Joe Daniels and Jamie Smyth) shows that the US Treasury department yesterday eased legal restrictions that had stopped American oil businesses from doing business in Venezuela, a key stop towards opening up Venezuela’s oil sector to investors. A “general licence” will now allow American groups to buy and resell Venezuelan oil. Then in Companies reap $22bn from Trump’s immigration crackdown (Financial Times, Peter Andringa, Clara Murray, Stephen Foley and Rafe Rosner-Uddin) we see that companies including Palantir and  Deloitte have benefitted to the tune of over $22bn from contracts related to the huge increase in spending on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Spending really ramped up following the passing of Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, which came into force in July. Fisher, Sand & Gavel has earned over $6bn from CBP contracts while CSI Aviation, a broker of charter flights, has secured over $1.2bn worth of work over the last year. However, the work is not just restricted to American companies – G4S has had contracts worth $68m from ICE from January last year providing “ground transportation services” for detainees and Smiths Detection has earned over $62m from CBP contracts during Trump’s second term. It doesn’t look like the spending’s going to slow down any time soon…

Meanwhile, Emerging markets make roaring start to 2026 as dollar slides (Financial Times, Joseph Cotterill and Alan Livsey) highlights markets in Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Chile, Mexico and Taiwan that have risen by at least 10% in dollar terms this month while Colombia and Korea have boomed by over 20%. This is largely thanks to appreciating currency and commodity prices as investors have shifted money to places where they feel there is more upside and less exposure to a potential bursting of the Big Tech bubble.

Then in Donald Trump warns Keir Starmer against closer business ties with China (Financial Times, George Parker) we see that Trump is sticking his oar in the current talks between Xi and Starmer, saying that it is “very dangerous” to build closer ties with China after Starmer described his “very warm and constructive” talks with Xi on his official visit. Thus far the two sides signed deals to halve Chinese tariffs on whisky from 10% to 5% and introduce visa-free travel for British citizens. China rolls out the red carpet for Keir Starmer (Financial Times, George Parker and Joe Leahy) shows that some positive steps were made and it gave Xi a chance to project himself as the voice of a calm superpower versus while the visit received positive coverage in the state media. The visit will continue today. * SO WHAT? * OK so there’s not been a raft of substantive deals agreed just yet but this is the first official visit from a UK PM for quite some time. There have been some knotty issues to deal with over the intervening years, like the financing of Russia in Ukraine and the trade wars prompted by Trump, so it will take time to get something out of this. Still, with Trump making ever more unpredictable moves, it is vital for the UK to lock in alternative trading partners.

Apple’s blockbuster iPhone sales power record $144bn quarter (Financial Times, Michael Acton) highlights a great quarter for iPhone sales thanks to holiday purchases and a strong rebound in China, which helped it to smash through already-ambitious expectations. That being said, investors continue to worry about how long this sales boom is going to last, rising costs and Apple’s relative sluggishness when it comes to AI so Apple buys Israeli start-up Q.AI for close to $2bn in race to build AI devices (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw and Michael Acton) suggests that Apple is trying to do something about it by buying the secretive start-up Q.AI which has tech that can analyse facial expressions to understand “silent speech”. This is actually Apple’s second biggest ever acquisition (its biggest was Beats in 2014, which cost $3bn) and patents filed by Q.AI show the tech being used in headphones or glasses. It’ll be interesting to know how Apple’s going to use this!

In AI news, South Korea’s ‘world-first’ AI laws face pushback amid bid to become leading tech power (The Guardian, Raphael Rashid) is an article that I missed yesterday that highlights new laws for AI regulation that some see as being that most comprehensive set of laws governing AI anywhere in the world. These laws will force companies to label AI-generated content in different ways, “high impact AI” which includes systems used ofr medical diagnosis, hiring and loan approvals will need humans to do risk assessments and document how decisions are made while very powerful AI models will need to provide safety reports. If companies are found to be in breach, they will face paltry fines of up to £15,000 and have at least a year before the penalties are imposed. * SO WHAT? * The rules sound quite strict, but the penalties sound pretty pathetic. However, this is the most comprehensive AI-related legislation to be fully enforced by a country so I would have thought that everyone else is going to be watching this with great interest. AI start-ups themselves are obviously going to moan about it but I guess if everyone else starts to adopt a similar approach it might prove to be a nice gentle run-in to tighter measures in future. This legislation differs from the EU’s risk-based regulatory model, the UK and US’s narrower and market-driven approaches and China’s state-led policy and service-specific regulation. South Korea has gone for a more flexible, principles-based framework.

In chip chat, Top chipmakers warn AI-driven supply squeeze will worsen (Financial Times, Song Jung-a) shows that the world’s two biggest chipmakers – Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix – are warning that demand for AI-related chips is currently outstripping supply, so chip shortages should be expected in the short term until new capacity comes online.

Sandisk Profit, Revenue Jump on AI Demand (Wall Street Journal, Elias Schisgall) highlights strong AI-related demand for the data storage technology company as its revenues trounced market expectations. However, demand is so strong that it’s unable to keep up with demand. * SO WHAT? * This demand has sent the share price through the roof since Sandisk was spun out of Western Digital in February last year. Clearly it’s doing extremely well from AI – so one to watch if the wheels start falling off. 

Elsewhere, Amazon in talks to make $50bn bet on OpenAI (The Times, Robert Miller) follows on from what I said yesterday about OpenAI’s latest funding round and suggests that the e-tailing giant is pondering a potentially massive investment in OpenAI. This is all part of OpenAI’s latest efforts to raise up to $100bn in funding. It’s not finalised yet and the talks are still ongoing but the sums being bandied around are incredible!

Meanwhile, Microsoft shrinks by $400bn as investors shun huge AI costs (The Times, Robert Miller) highlights a big sell-off of the tech giant’s shares as investors continued to fret about the huge sums of money the company is pouring into AI. I mentioned this yesterday but the sell-off continued and Microsoft saw its biggest one-day drop since March 2020 in a full day of trading on Thursday! This downward lurch helped to drag the NASDAQ down.

Big US companies set to lay off at least 52,000 workers as jobs market cools (Financial Times, Taylor Nicole Rogers, Ian Hodgson and Claire Jones) reflects plans by the likes of Amazon, UPS, Dow, Nike, Home Depot and other companies to lay off tens of thousands of workers as many say that they are right-sizing their organisations for an AI future after spending the last few years hiring. Over here, Lloyds boss warns bankers must ‘reskill themselves’ to survive AI boom (The Guardian, Kalyeena Makortoff) cites the Lloyds Banking Group’s CEO as saying that bankers are going to have to adapt to survive in the coming AI boom whilst also admitting he doesn’t know quite how everything’s going to be affected. So far, so depressing.

So that’s why I thought that The AI Shift: Could AI make — rather than take — jobs? (Financial Times, Sarah O’Connor and John Burn-Murdoch) would be a nice counterbalance! This article takes a look at the opportunities that AI is going to create rather than just focusing on how many

people are going to lose out. The main argument here is that while every new technology results in some jobs becoming obsolete, many others pop up in its place. If AI automates the production of something, the price could go down, meaning demand goes up. If demand goes up, the other tasks that can’t be automated will need to be done more often. * SO WHAT? * I really do believe that in some professions, the drudgery part of the jobs will be taken out, tasks will take less time to complete and that means that more tasks can be done. I would also argue that human skills will be more highly valued as a result of people becoming increasingly numb to AI. I would suggest that everyone needs to check in with themselves from time to time to judge how their jobs are changing and then try to pick up the skills needed to gravitate towards newer more relevant areas and, to that end, careers will be accelerated because it will take less time to collect more skills and, as I’ve said before, jobs that demand humanity and empathy will become increasingly valued.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Lloyds and Deutsche show the good times can continue for Europe’s banks (Financial Times, Lex) highlights strong performances from Deutsche Bank, ING and Nordea in Europe and Lloyds Banking Group in the UK. Yes, they’ve all seen strong share price performances for a while now but it seems that there’s more to come because they are all increasing their lending. Lloyds may get an additional boost from a loosening of regulations (the Bank of England has already announced a cut in some capital requirements) and it looks like there will be more in store. Meanwhile, Santander to close further 44 branches as it gears up for £2.6bn takeover of TSB (The Guardian, Kalyeena Makortoff) shows that the Spanish lender is making deeper cuts, with 12% of branches set to close as it prepares to take over TSB. Once this is completed the enlarged entity will be the third largest UK bank in terms of personal account deposits behind Lloyds and NatWest. * SO WHAT? * At the end of the day, there is a LOT of overlap here so unfortunately, this was inevitable.

Elsewhere, Visa First-Quarter Sales Climbed on Strong Holiday Shopping (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Hamilton) shows that the payments company posted higher revenue and profit for Q1 thanks to strong consumer spending throughout the holidays, something that Deckers Third-Quarter Sales Rise on Demand for Hoka (Wall Street Journal, Kelly Cloonan) confirms as consumers loved its Hoka running shoe brand! Demand for Hoka increased in the US and around the world and the company expects this to continue.

Then in pharmaceuticals-related news, AstraZeneca to invest £11bn in China after rowing back on UK expansion (The Guardian, Julia Kollewe) confirms AstraZeneca’s desire to spread its

wings and expand its existing medicines manufacturing and R&D in China while Weight-loss drugs linked to risk of pancreatitis, UK regulator warns (Financial Times, Aanu Adeoye) highlights findings from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which show that there is a small risk of developing severe inflammation of the pancreas when using GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Symptoms include severe stomach pain, potentially with nausea or vomiting. It sounds bad, but then again so do the symptoms so I guess that it will be relatively easy to spot…

In Ocado hit by fresh warehouse closure in North America (Daily Telegraph, Matt Oliver) we see that Ocado’s been dealt another blow – this time by its Canadian partner Sobeys deciding to shut one of its robotic warehouses due to disappointing growth in the online grocery market. It comes less than three months after Kroger in America decided to scrap three warehouses. * SO WHAT? * This is a nightmare for Ocado because it’ll dent its pricing power with future customers (because they’ll know that Ocado’s a bit desperate) and call into question their future growth strategy. Will this be it now – or will there be more??

Then in US robotaxis undergo training for London’s quirks before planned rollout this year (The Guardian, Robert Booth) we see that about 24 Waymo robotaxis are training on London’s streets and getting used to things like zebra crossings before they are unleashed on the public sometime in the last quarter of this year. This will be the first rollout of the tech outside the US!

As you will know by now, I’m half-Japanese, did my degree in Law & Japanese (during which time I spent two years studying at a university in Tokyo), got my first job on graduation as an interpreter for the head architect of a £1bn project to build a European base for a big Japanese company and then when I was a stockbroker, I worked in Tokyo for two-and-a-half years but spent my entire time over my thirteen years as a stockbroker either speaking to Japanese clients or advising on Japanese companies! I love Japan. So here’s a bit of advice for you if you go there – if you want to find a decent lunch spot, follow the downtrodden salarymen! Why? Because traditionally, their wives allocate them “kozukai” (“pocket money”) that they can spend on lunch and/or after-work beers/entertainment. This means that if they go out for lunch (because a lot of them have home-made bento at their desks) they seek out the best bang for their yen in terms of quality and quantity because they know they’ll be in the office for many more hours. Favoured lunch spots are passed down the ranks and, as a result, they tend to congregate in some amazing places! The places they choose are usually incredible value for money because they want their kozukai to stretch as far as possible! One of the best places I ever went for lunch in Tokyo was when one of my clients at Nomura Asset Management took me to an office favourite – a curry rice place that was in a small brick building on a backstreet that had a few lively and friendly old ladies dishing out curry from big vats and rice from huge rice cookers. The queue snaked down the road, there was nowhere to sit, it was cheap and the line moved fast. Don’t get me wrong – I like the “posh” stuff, but this kind of food is good for the soul (and the wallet)!

Federal Reserve holds interest rates as Trump piles on pressure (The Guardian, Lauren Aratani) shows that the Fed decided to leave interest rates unchanged after a flurry of three consecutive cuts going into the end of last year. It continues to face pressure from the president to cut them because doing so generally boosts markets – and that makes Trump look good.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump warns Iran ‘time is running out’ for deal to avert US military action (Financial Times, Steff Chávez) highlights ongoing stirring by the president as he ratchets up the pressure on Iran to get itself sorted out or else face US intervention via the “massive Armada…heading to Iran” that is “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm and purpose”. Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada (Financial Times, Ilya Gridneff and Myles McCormick) shows that far-right separatists from the oil-rich province of Alberta have met up with US state department officials three times since April last year and are pushing for another meeting to get a $500bn credit facility to help finance the province if an independence referendum gets passed. Officially, though, Washington denies any involvement and some describe those in the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) as “attention seekers”.

Europe would lose more than the US in a trade war, research finds (Financial Times, Peter Foster and Amy Borrett) cites some analysis by Aston University in Birmingham which shows that Europe would suffer more than the US if the two get locked in a trade war. The research also found that it would not be in the interests of the UK to join any European retaliation over a Greenland-linked tariff war. That being said, the US would also suffer. * SO WHAT? * This is an interesting academic exercise but I think it’s ultimately useless because there are so many moving parts and different players involved that it’s impossible to predict. A snapshot of now is, of course, possible but predicting what might happen in future (which is far more useful) is impossible for a bunch of academics who aren’t “in the room” with the grown-ups who are actually involved in the process.

Then in Keir Starmer tells Xi Jinping UK wants more ‘sophisticated’ relationship with China (Financial Times, Joe Leahy and George Parker) we see that the PM is looking to improve the relationship with China on his current trip to Beijing, which is the first by a British PM in eight years. Putting it bluntly, as far as I can see, Starmer wants to get some trade going and Xi wants to take advantage of the growing rift between Trump and the world.

In markets-related news, Meta and its peers are everything, everywhere, all of the time (Financial Times, Lex) highlights the sheer power of Big Tech as it continues to lead the market according to its fortunes – not surprising when you consider that it makes up over 40% of the S&P500 by market cap! The problem is that although the chorus of well-respected voices warning about an AI bubble and the potential damage that AI will cause to society continues to grow the market seems to be ignoring it! However, I’d say that the web of circular deals being made within the sector could either be its saviour or its downfall given how intricately they are all tied together.

Meanwhile, Gold climbs to record high after slide in dollar (Financial Times, William Sandlund) highlights gold reaching yet another milestone – this time breaching $5,300 per troy ounce – as geopolitical tensions continued to push investors into safe haven assets. It is also worth noting that the sell-off of the dollar has made gold cheaper because it’s priced in dollars, so investors can – in theory – buy more of it.

Indonesian stocks tumble for second day (Financial Times, Diana Mariska) shows that the Jakarta Composite Index dropped by up to 10% yesterday after index provider MSCI said that it might downgrade its status from emerging market to frontier market because of its doubts surrounding the Indonesian Stock Exchange’s data feed. If this actually happens, the market will be sold off as investors are forced to exit.

Meta predicts sharp rise in spending as it pursues superintelligence (The Times, Robert Miller) highlights great revenues but narrowing profits thanks to capex on AI infrastructure, which is set to increase even further this coming year. The company continues to bring in chunky advertising revenues but it’s spending huge amounts on huge datacentres.

Then in Microsoft shares slide after net income rises 60% to $38.5bn (The Times, Louisa Clarence-Smith) we see that although the company’s quarterly sales expectations came in above consensus estimates, investors worry that its massive capex on AI infrastructure won’t translate into profits. * SO WHAT? * The pressure on Big Tech to show that the big bucks they’re spending will turn into fat profits continues to intensify. Given Microsoft’s strong positioning in the corporate market via its office software I think that there’s a decent chance it’ll be able to monetise in a meaningful way within a reasonable timeframe.

Meanwhile, OpenAI in talks to raise $40bn in investments from Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft (Financial Times, George Hammond) highlights current talks between Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon as part of an effort to raise up to $40bn, which itself is part of a $100bn funding round! This would give OpenAI an implied valuation of $750bn. * SO WHAT? * The funding is still ongoing but the amounts we’re talking about are eye-watering! I suspect that if OpenAI doesn’t hit its $100bn target, some of the flakier investors will interpret this as signifying the top of the market and we’ll see the beginnings of a sell-off. Also, I would suggest that rivals will start finding it difficult to hit their funding targets. As I’ve said before, if I was a privately-owned AI tech company right now I’d be pushing for an IPO as soon as possible to take advantage of the momentum to get the best valuation. If funding round targets are missed, I think there’s a real chance that sentiment could change – and if that happens, investors will be more wary about buying into an AI flotation and want the shares to price lower to take into account the risk.

In Tesla trims car line-up in pivot to AI as annual revenue falls for first time (Financial Times, Kana Inagaki and Stephen Morris) we see that the company announced yesterday that it would scrap the Model S and the Model X vehicles an instead invest $2bn into xAI as part of its shift to AI and robotics. It also reported its first ever fall in annual revenue. On the other hand, Tesla’s Japan victory is more retail than revolution (Financial Times, Lex) highlights rising sales in Japan, although EVs still form a miniscule part of the market. It is interesting to note that this happened because of a shift to selling from dealerships rather than concentrating on online sales. * SO WHAT? * The announcement that the company is going to cut its line-up was probably inevitable since there’s been no announcement of any truly “new” models or quite some time. I would have thought this will make the used market tricky and it could herald a big fall in prices because potential buyers may want to avoid buying a car brand that might not actually make cars that aren’t taxis in the near future. There have been well-publicised shortcomings in terms of build quality – and if Musk’s attention shifts away from making passenger cars then there’s the possibility that he won’t care about keeping current owners happy. Let’s hope he behaves decently and does the right thing by his loyal customers.

UK car output at its lowest in 70 years, but there is a spark or hope (The Times, Robert Lea) cites the latest figures from the SMMT which make for depressing reading. * SO WHAT? * Surely to goodness this leaves the field wide open for a Chinese manufacturer to come over here and save the industry, no? The UK is one on of the only markets where Chinese EV manufacturers can’t be taxed out – and demand is clearly there at the right price point. Starmer’s in Beijing, soooooo…announcement incoming??

Carvana shares plummet 14% after report by short seller Gotham (Financial Times, Dan McCrum) shows that online used car dealer Carvana is feeling the heat after short seller Gotham City Research published a critical report trashing the company. It was particularly scathing of Carvana’s sister company DriveTime Automotive’s incredible rate of cash burn. * SO WHAT? * It looks like Gotham has taken on the mantle from now-defunct short-seller Hindenburg Research which highlighted dodgy accounting at Carvana in January last year. Carvana managed to avoid bankruptcy by the skin of its teeth in 2022 but then, incredibly, became profitable in 2023. Get the popcorn ready – this is going to get interesting!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Immigration crackdown hits tequila sales as Hispanic consumers in US stay at home (Financial Times, Madeleine Speed and Gregory Meyer) shows that the world’s biggest tequila producer – Becle, which makes Jose Cuervo – has observed that anxiety and insecurity have made Hispanics rein in their spending on this popular spirit. This echoes the trend that Constellation Brands’ Modelo has already been experiencing with beer sales among Hispanics who are now choosing to stay at home more and avoid the ICE raids. Things have got so bad now that some consumers were fearful of going to shop at grocery stores. What an awful situation.

Amazon axes 16,000 jobs amid push to replace office workers with AI (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) highlights the decision by the e-tailing giant that it’s going to cut about 4% of its workforce as it shifts the workload from office workers to AI. The company’s warehouse workers will not be affected. Ouch.

On a more positive note, Starbucks Sales Jump as Coffee Customers Return (Wall Street Journal, Heather Haddon) shows that the world’s biggest coffee chain reported growth in same-

store sales across all its regions in the last quarter. This would indicate that turnaround efforts are starting to work under the CEO Brian Niccol who started about 16 months ago in the top job.

Then in the world of accountancy, Pay for mid-tier accounting partners soars to record level against Big Four (Financial Times, Clara Murray and Ellesheva Kissin) shows that partners at mid-tier accountancies are closing the earnings gap with their counterparts at the Big Four thanks to them winning more higher margin work that used to just go to the biggies. Meanwhile, KPMG partners overtake PwC to be second-best paid in the Big Four (The Times, Waseem Mohamed) highlights pay at the Big Four. * SO WHAT? * I would think that corporate advisers – be they investment banks, law firms and accountants – will have done well last year because of all the uncertainties and changes that have happened since Trump came to power. Broadly speaking, advisory businesses do well in an environment of uncertainty – and I think they’re about to do even better this year if the hopes of a 2026 IPO and M&A bonanza come to fruition.

Ever seen a dog in a backpack?? No, me neither. Here’s how one owner manages to fit in his massive dog! Not sure how I feel about this as I do fear for the safety of the dog – but I guess at least he’s having fun!

In markets news, Dollar slides as Trump says he is not concerned with its recent decline (Financial Times) highlights ongoing dollar weakness while gold continued to climb, breaching $5,200 per troy ounce. Tether scores $5bn windfall as gold price rockets (Financial Times, Nikou Asgari) shows just how much this gold boom has benefited the world’s biggest stablecoin company as it holds quite a lot of gold to back its stablecoin! According to Jefferies estimates, its gold holdings were worth $14.4bn as at the end of September last year but they are now thought to be worth about $24bn! Tether is one of the world’s biggest holders of gold, owning about the same amount of bullion as Qatar’s central bank, according to World Gold Council data. Meanwhile, Swiss franc surges to decade high as traders seek last ‘reliable’ haven (Financial Times, Ian Smith and Mercedes Ruehl) reminds us about the performance of other “safe haven” assets! The Swiss currency is already up against the dollar by over 3% this year after seeing a 14% gain last year! Then in US health insurer stocks plummet on Trump Medicare spending plan (Financial Times, Patrick Temple-West) we see that the likes of UnitedHealth and Humana, who are the biggest providers of government-subsidised insurance plans known as Medicare Advantage schemes that are aimed at older Americans, saw their share prices crater by around 20% in trading yesterday in response to the Trump administration saying that it would restrict its spending on the schemes. This cut is just a proposal at the moment, so it’s possible that we might see a TACO move here but it spooked investors enough to make them head for the exit.

In trade news, ‘Mother of all deals’: EU and India sign free trade agreement (The Guardian, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Jennifer Rankin) shows that India and the EU have signed a major free trade agreement after almost twenty years of intermittent negotiations! Tariffs are going to be reduced to zero for a whole array of industrial products including almost all iron and steel, plastics, chemicals, machinery and pharmaceuticals. It is thought that this will double EU exports to India by 2032 but it will need to be ratified by EU member states, the European parliament and the Indian cabinet before it can fully come into force. The two sides also signed a labour mobility agreement aimed at young professionals and seasonal workers. * SO WHAT? * For all Trump’s tariff wielding and threats, one thing that he does seem to have achieved is hardening the resolve of other countries to get their trade agreements sorted! 

Then in Canada’s oil industry thrives as sales to China soar (Financial Times, Ilya Gridneff and Jamie Smyth) we see that Canada’s push into Asian markets to offset its reliance on US sales is going well as it is pumping out record volumes. Right now it seems that the fear of massive amounts of Venezuelan oil coming onto the market have been overdone.

Texas Instruments Says Data Centers, Industrial Recovery Driving Growth into First Quarter (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Hamilton) shows that the semiconductor company reckons that it will post earnings growth in the current quarter – which is notable because it normally has lower earnings in Q1 versus Q4. This year, though, it’s doing well because the benefits of being exposed to datacentre expansion are now feeding through.

In US TikTok faces investigation over claims of censoring anti-Trump posts (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) we see that the Democrat governor of California has launched an investigation into allegations that TikTok’s US business is censoring critical content about Donald Trump. Some users have claimed that they have been unable to post Jeffrey Epstein’s name on TikTok because it was said to violate its community rules. Following the recent deal, American user data is being handled by Oracle, the founder of which is Larry Ellison – a prominent Republican donor.

Then in UAE launches ‘sovereign’ open AI model to counter Chinese rivals (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw) we see that Abu Dhabi’s top tech university, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), just launched its latest model – the K2 Think – which independent researchers say stacks up well next to the best open models from the US and China. * SO WHAT? * It makes sense for the UAE to make its own model and I guess the fastest and most cost-effective way of doing this is going down the “open model” route. K2 Think was trained for a fraction of what it costs to train OpenAI, Google or Anthropic’s latest models and uses fewer than 2,000 of Nvidia’s H200 chips. Abu Dhabi is investing huge amounts of money in AI infrastructure, so this is a decent milestone.

GM Shares Jump on Earnings Beat, $6 Billion Share Buyback (Wall Street Journal, Christopher Otts) shows that GM is banking on higher-than-expected cashflows this year and expects to return more cash to investors via a 20% dividend hike and $6bn share buy back despite a tricky tariff environment and an expensive retreat from EVs. * SO WHAT? * I have to say that I find these projections hard to believe given the overall environment, namely the tricky domestic environment in terms of consumer finances and the fact that its expensive foray into EVs has gone so wrong. I really think that there’s a risk here that sales could disappoint as consumers baulk at buying big-ticket items and the company gets left behind electrification. Still, I guess that the company’s bought some feelgood here and we’ll just have to wait to see how it all goes.

Then in Electric car sales overtake petrol in Europe for the first time (Daily Telegraph, Matt Oliver) we see that EVs are now outselling petrol cars in Europe for the first time ever as companies like BYD continue to make inroads into the Continent. * SO WHAT? * This is happening despite the recent talk of the relaxation of petrol car deadlines but because this has only happened really recently, it’ll be interesting to see how EV sales behave this year. If the car industry gets the deadline pushed back from the current 2035 to 2040 then that could potentially slow things down for EV adoption.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Boeing reports highest quarterly revenue since 2018 (Financial Times, Christian Davies) shows that the plane maker saw strong revenues, cash flow growth and order flow as it seems that the company’s fortunes are finally turning around after years of suffering the blowback from serious quality control issues.

UPS to cut up to 30,000 jobs and close facilities as Amazon shipments drop (Financial Times, Zehra Munir) reflects some major cost cuts as the logistics group reacts to a fall in package volume from Amazon, which is its biggest customer. The number represents about 6% of UPS’s global workforce and the cuts will fall mainly on employees who are responsible for handling and delivering packages. UPS pointed out that although Amazon was its biggest customer, it was not its most profitable. UPS will continue efforts to make ground in other areas such as healthcare logistics, for example in the delivery of products such as vaccines. * SO WHAT? * The move into more specialist areas sounds like a decent shout by UPS to make the most of its network as parcel delivery gets commoditised. It’s not great for those workers who are affected though…

Investment in Europe’s chemicals sector plunges over 80% in 2025 (Financial Times, Jamie John and Alice Hancock) cites a report from the European Chemical Industry Council which highlights a huge drop in investment and the doubling of plant closures. The report went on to warn that the Continent would become increasingly reliant on China for the raw materials needed for its automotive, healthcare and defence industries if this lack of investment continues. * SO WHAT? * The sector is struggling as a result of high energy prices, restrictive bureaucracy and the continued influx of cheap Chinese imports and when you learn that we are already now 95% dependent on vitamins from China and India, you can see where this is currently headed and why action needs to be taken. Will new European unity against Trump’s trade policies change anything I wonder??

LVMH beats sales forecasts as luxury begins to shine (The Times, Guy Taylor) highlights a strong Q4 for the luxury company as it managed to beat expectations in Q4 off 2025. * SO WHAT? * This signifies further evidence of a recovery of the luxury sector following a tricky period last year. Watches and jewellery did particularly well (something that was echoed at Richemont earlier this week) but fashion and leather goods put in a weaker showing, as did wines and spirits in its Moët Hennessy division. 

Back in the UK, Pubs and live music venues to get support after business rates backlash (The Guardian, Rob Davies, Mark Sweney and Tom Knowles) heralds the Treasury’s support package for pubs and live music venues in England that was announced yesterday. The climbdown from the November Budget shocker was applauded by the pub industry but a number of trade bodies said that it didn’t go far enough or cover other struggling areas of the hospitality industry. The package is expected to be worth over £80m a year which, TBH, doesn’t sound like all that much to me!

Then in UK veterinary sector reforms planned to tackle high costs of pet care (The Guardian, Rupert Jones) we see that ministers have announced a raft of measures to be implemented in the wake of an investigation into the UK vet sector. The proposals will now be debated but they will be centred around pricing and making it clearer for pet owners. * SO WHAT? * It’s estimated that 60% of UK households have a pet. This review all came about because the CMA found that vets fees have risen by almost double the rate of inflation! The CMA has been conducting an investigation into the sector since 2024, published provisional findings in October and is due to publish its final report in February or March this year. Given how many people bought pets under lockdown I think it’s high time a review was done for the sake of the pets themselves and the owners.

This is an example of how other nationalities might view the British obsession with tea…there are a few naughty words in there – just to warn you!

Donald Trump signals shift on immigration crackdown as ICE backlash intensifies (Financial Times, Lauren Fedor) shows that Trump is now changing tack to dampen the growing outrage in Minnesota. He has sent his border tsar Tom Homan there and cooled his rhetoric about Democratic leaders there having spoken to Tim Walz, the state’s Democratic governor. This is quite a step for Trump given that he has described him as “grossly incompetent” and a “stupid, low-IQ governor”. Matters took a major turn for the worse after ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Recent opinion polls reflect public opinion on his immigration tactics at an all-time low. Trump has agreed to allow state authorities conduct independent investigations into the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good. * SO WHAT? * It seems to me that the Democrats have been pretty rubbish at standing up to the Trump whirlwind thus far. I’d say that this is the only major issue that they’ve really been able to rally around and if they have any ambitions to topple the president from his perch, they need to make the most of this momentum. I’m not convinced they will, however, as they don’t really seem to have anyone credible in the wings to co-ordinate things. What this incident DOES show, though, is that the president has the capacity to back down domestically – so it’s not just trade where he walks back threats.

What with all the NATO-bashing, Davos shenanigans, Greenland sabre-rattling and violence in Minnesota underlining just how dangerous the president can be, Trump threats fuel concern over UK reliance on US defence and military satellites (Financial Times, Lucy Fisher, David Sheppard and Sylvia Pfeifer) highlights rising concern in the UK government about our reliance on the US for defence. At the moment, American defence giant Lockheed Martin is in the running with Europe’s Airbus to win a contract to build next-gen military satellites. Airbus has overseen the UK’s existing space programme for over 25 years but if it doesn’t win this contract, other expected deals may not happen. The pros and cons will be debated today in front of the House of Commons defence committee and it’s likely that Trump’s behaviour is going to be at the top of the agenda. However, there is definitely a shift across Europe where governments are already becoming much more wary about buying American defence equipment. Europe must stop ‘dreaming’ about defence without US, Rutte warns (Financial Times, Henry Foy) cites NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte as saying that a fully independent European defence capability would be impossible and potentially be a boon to the bloc’s adversaries. France has been particularly vocal about reducing reliance on the Americans and last year, NATO allies all agreed to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. Rutte reckons that, in order to fully replace the Americans, European countries would have to spend more like 10% of their GDP on defence. It’s difficult to tell here whether Rutte is saying this for Trump’s benefit or whether he actually believes this.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump to raise tariffs on South Korea to 25% (Financial Times, Aime Williams and Daniel Tudor) shows Trump back in tariff-wielding mode again as he made the threat to increase taxes on South Korea for dragging its feet in enacting the trade deal it made with the US last year. He said it would apply to all goods covered by his “reciprocal” tariffs in addition to cars, lumber and pharmaceutical goods. * SO WHAT? * This will no doubt prompt panic among other countries who also have trade agreements in place. Mind you, it’s also caused confusion in South Korea because the “deal” that Trump is referring to is in a factsheet and a memorandum of understanding rather than a formal treaty. All of this underlines the flimsy nature of his “deals”, something that is currently being tested in the courts as many of the tariffs he’s put in place over the past year could be ruled as being illegal by the US Supreme Court. 

US long-term unemployment hits 4-year high (Financial Times, Taylor Nicole Rogers) cites the latest labour department data which shows that it’s taking unemployed Americans longer to find a new job than at any time in the last four years. About 26% of the 7.5m jobless actively searching for work have been job hunting for over six months. This is certainly going to be

weighing on the minds of the Fed governors who decide the direction of the interest rate as they ponder whether to prioritise growth (which involves jobs) or inflation.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Liz Truss moment threatens world with $9tn debt meltdown (Daily Telegraph, Tim Wallace and Eir Nolsøe) highlights potential risks for the Japanese PM who last week called for an election to capitalise on her popularity. PM Takaichi talked about the possibility of tax cuts and suspending the country’s 8% consumption tax on food – moves which are causing concern about the effect they’ll have on Japan’s massive debt pile, which currently stands at an eye-watering 230% of its economy! It has been able to cope with its massive debt largely thanks to its low borrowing costs but those costs are now rising. Some are starting to worry that this could become Japan’s Truss moment…

Back home, Pubs to get £100mn a year support package after business rates U-turn (Financial Times, George Parker and Ashley Armstrong) shows that the Treasury is poised to unveil a new support package for pubs today after facing intensifying pressure from the industry. Sadly, this is going to come too late for the Revel Collective (which used to be known as Revolution Bar Group) which More than 3,000 jobs at risk as UK pub chain collapses (Daily Telegraph, Tom Haynes) tells us that the chain has filed for administration. This follows years of tough trading for the group. Alcohol health warning plan sparks drinks industry outcry (Financial Times, Daniel Thomas, Madeleine Speed and Jim Pickard) highlights further pressure on the drinks and hospitality industry in the form of the potential implementation of new alcohol labelling rules. It looks like the government is going to impose strict and explicit labelling for beer, wines and spirits warning against cancer and other health risks. There are worries that this is going to push sales down and increase costs, particularly if cigarette-style labels are imposed. Alcohol sales have already hit record lows in Britain thanks to a combination of the cost of living crisis and the growing trend for moderation. * SO WHAT? * It seems that everyone is down on alcohol these days. Young people are drinking less, beverage companies are trying to pivot and provide low or no-alcoholic options to boost sales and now the government is looking at labelling that’s designed to shock. Even if people wanted to go out to drink, the number of pub closures means that there are fewer places to go! I think that timing on labelling is not good right now but if they really think that this will be a good thing to do it may be a better idea to delay.

Back in the UK, Shop price inflation picks up again, dashing hopes it had peaked (The Times, Guy Taylor) cites the latest data from the BRC which shows that monthly shop price inflation rose in January thanks to higher meat, fish and fruit prices. * SO WHAT? * This is disappointing because the general feeling was that shop price inflation had peaked. The bad news compounded last week’s data release which showed that UK inflation had risen for the first time in five months over Christmas. It certainly makes it less compelling for the Bank of England to make further interest rate cuts in the near term if they are still aiming to control inflation.

In markets news, Dollar sinks to 4-month low and gold soars past $5,000 as yen leaps (Financial Times, Ian Smith, Leslie Hook, Leo Lewis and David Keohane) highlights the ongoing flight to safe haven assets in an uncertain world and Iranian stocks sell off as US ‘armada’ approaches (Financial Times, Bita Ghaffari) shows that Iranian stocks suffered from a sharp sell-off thanks to rising worries of a US attack, given the military build-up in the region. Market weakness is also down to concerns about inflation and the weakening national currency.

In commodities news, US natural gas prices soar to highest level in 3 years after winter storm (Financial Times, Martha Muir and Jamie Smyth) shows US natural gas prices responding to higher heating and power demand and restricted production. This is likely to feed through to customers’ gas and electricity bills that are likely to rise as a consequence. Winter Storm Fern has driven power demand to record levels.

Georgia leads push to ban datacenters used to power America’s AI boom (The Guardian, Timothy Pratt) is an interesting article which shows that lawmakers in a number of states are seeking ways to ban the building of new datacentres because of concerns that they soak up too much power. Right now Georgia, Maryland and Oklahoma are looking at state-wide moratoriums on new datacentres but Georgia is at the forefront. Consumers feel that datacentres get tax breaks while they see their utility bills go up – and they’re not happy about it. Will actions like this see an overall slowdown in the advance of AI?

‘Humanity needs to wake up’ to dangers of AI, says Anthropic chief (Financial Times, George Hammond and Melissa Heikkilä) adds to the chorus of voices cautioning about the future impact of AI as Anthropic’s boss, Dario Amodei, published a 20,000 word essay yesterday on the risks of AI if it is allowed to developed unchecked. He said that “Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it” and identified areas as diverse as large-scale job losses and bioterrorism. It is indeed interesting to hear an architect of AI saying that the current safeguards around AI are insufficient. But who is going to actually rein it in? Meanwhile, Artificial intelligence costs more UK jobs than it creates (The Times, Tom Howard) cites research from Morgan Stanley which says that the introduction of AI led to a net 8% fall in the number of roles over the past 12 months. This is double the average reported by companies in America, Germany, Japan and Australia! Will we be able to retrain our workforce in time to avoid huge job losses?? Meanwhile, UK AI start-up Synthesia hits $4bn valuation (Financial Times, Melissa Heikkilä) shows that the AI start-up managed to close a new $200m funding round giving it an implied valuation of $4bn. This is almost double the equivalent valuation from a year ago! The company is going to use the money raised to develop its conversational AI avatars. UK rivals such as ElevenLabs are also currently raising money. * SO WHAT? * I get that AI is going to affect the jobs market in a profound way but I think that individuals have to take responsibility for their own futures as well as governments. I think that governments should give us the space and backing to evolve but I don’t think as individuals we should wait for them to save us – everyone needs to take responsibility for their own areas and adapt accordingly. In the meantime, there seems to be

no end of funding for promising AI companies – let’s just hope that Big Tech don’t just cherry-pick the best ones because we could do with some home-grown heroes!

France to replace US video-conferencing tools with its own (The Times, Louisa Clarence-Smith) highlights the French government’s decision to replace Zoom and Microsoft Teams in all state services with the French video-conferencing tool Visio. They say this is due to security concerns and that this move will “put an end to the use of non-European solutions to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool”. Interestingly, the European parliament passed a “technological sovereignty” resolution on Thursday that upholds the idea of reducing the EU’s reliance on foreign tech providers for chips, cloud infrastructure, software and AI systems. * SO WHAT? * I’d say this is better late than never but you do wonder what the quality and functionality is going to be like. Also, European cloud infrastructure is dominated by the Americans with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud who, between them, have a 70% market share. Although a transition is going to be a right pain, I think that it is a necessary pain that must be endured to ensure longer-term viable alternatives to American providers.

Elsewhere, TikTok suffers blackout in the US after transfer to new American owners (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) shows that the short-form video platform had a blackout from Sunday which TikTok US subsequently blamed on a power failure at one of its data centres. Some claimed that this was all about stopping the spread of criticism of Trump and ICE but this remains unsubstantiated. Hmmm.

Then in EU Says WhatsApp Channels Must Obey Digital Services Act’s Tougher Rules (Wall Street Journal, Edith Hancock) we see that the European Commission wants to class the WhatsApp Channels service as a Very Large Online Platform for the purposes of the Digital Services Act. VLOPs are obliged to do more to protect uses from illegal and harmful content. The regulator said that Meta’s got until mid-May to comply with the tougher obligations.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Nvidia invests $2bn in CoreWeave in new data centre push (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw and Zehra Munir) highlights the latest tech deal between AI-related companies which they said would help CoreWeave to speed up the construction of specialised datacentres by 2030. Nvidia first invested in CoreWeave in 2023, buying $2bn worth of stock at $87.20 per share. That share price went up to $104.26 in early trading yesterday and Nvidia now owns over 11% of the company. CoreWeave is seen by many to be the barometer of excitement in AI…

Anta Sports Set to Become Puma’s Largest Shareholder in $1.8 Billion Deal (Wall Street Journal, PR Venkat and Kimberley Kao) shows that the Chinese sportswear company will become Puma’s biggest shareholder after buying the chunky 29.06% stake in the company from the Pinault family, famous for founding Kering. This puts to bed months of speculation as to who

might buy a big slug of Puma which is in the middle of an overhaul at the moment. * SO WHAT? * This is good news for Anta, which wants to take more market share outside China but it also gives Puma a nice backstop and potential path to improving its share in India and China. Anta already owns labels including Fila and Jack Wolfskin.

European IPO market starts 2026 at record pace, sparking hope of revival (Financial Times, Ivan Levingston, Emily Herbert and Florian Müller) highlights the best ever start to a year for European IPOs as ammo maker Czechoslovak Group managed to raise €3.8bn on Friday as its shares surged by 31% on its market debut last Friday in Amsterdam. This is certainly a great start, but we need momentum. At least it’s going in the right direction! Other European defence groups such as KNDS and Vincorion could be next. In the UK, IPO candidates include Waterstones, RAC, AS Watson (no relation) and CK Hutchison’s European telecoms business.

This way of tying your shoelaces will blow your mind 🤯. It takes about a second – so think of all that time you will be able to save over your lifetime! Unless you wear slip-on shoes, in which case as you were 😁.