Wednesday 14/10/26

Ships in Hormuz strait hit by worst spate of attacks since start of war (Financial Times, Alice Hancock) highlights a worsening situation in the Strait of Hormuz as ships were attacked in the most intense period of bombing since the Iran war started. Shipowners are now reconsidering carrying cargoes in the region. Then on top of that, Saudi Aramco HQ attacked in suspected Houthi strike (Financial Times, Ahmed Al Omran, Malcolm Moore and Arash Massoudi) shows that the Saudi Aramco HQ appeared to have been hit although the extent of the damage was not clear. The suspected Houthi attack happened during the World Petroleum Congress event in Riyadh. Things are clearly escalating…

Elsewhere, China’s exports surge 36% as AI-related shipments boom (Financial Times, Joe Leahy and Haohsiang Ko) cites official data from China’s General Administration of Customs which shows that the country’s exports boomed by a whopping 36.3% in dollar terms last month versus a year earlier! * SO WHAT? * This sounds particularly impressive given tensions with big trading partners – and ongoing difficulties of getting product to final destinations these days! Shipments of AI-related electronics were particularly strong.

In commodities news, Blocking Jackdaw and Rosebank ‘would cost Britain £11bn’ (Daily Telegraph, Jonathan Leake) cites a study commissioned by Adura, the energy company behind both projects, which said that the Treasury would lose out on £10.9bn of revenue by 2049-50 – and over 3,000 extra jobs – if the government doesn’t approve drilling. * SO WHAT? * Clearly this needs to be taken with a pinch of salt because the conclusion would hardly be “actually, you

won’t lose out much by cancelling both or either and we’ll be doing our bit to help the planet as well” now would it??! It’s like mobile phone companies commissioning research that – shock, horror – proves that mobile phones aren’t, in fact, slowly microwaving your brain or the Resolution Foundation think tank saying “actually, everyone’s standard of living is not too bad – so nothing to see here” etc. Still it gives those who support the projects some ammo to work with, although in reality the conclusions would be so much more powerful if they came from independent research.

Sulphur scramble poses latest threat to global food prices (Financial Times, Camilla Hodgson and Susannah Savage) highlights something that I must admit had passed me by – the shortage of sulphur! It is a byproduct of the oil and gas industry that is converted into sulphuric acid and then used to manufacture copper and phosphate fertilisers. About 50% of the world’s sulphur was transported via the Strait of Hormuz prior to the Iran war but the current bottleneck has pushed prices up to ten-times their pre-war level. * SO WHAT? * Miners, who have been benefiting from higher commodity prices, have been out-bidding fertiliser industry buyers because they can afford to pay higher prices – and that is having a negative knock-on effect on agriculture because farmers can’t afford higher fertiliser prices. This means that fertiliser producers are more inclined to cut production, which means that fertiliser is getting even more difficult to come by. All of this means that food prices are going to rise as well because crop yields are likely to be hit…

In AI start-up blamed for teen’s suicide goes bankrupt (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) we see that Character.AI, the company blamed for a 14-year-old’s suicide, has now filed for bankruptcy. Character.AI made avatars that users could interact with but they have been facing mounting lawsuits for putting kids at risk. At its peak, Character.AI hit a valuation of $2.5bn and raised almost $200m – and even now its app has around 20m users who can still create and talk to AI-powered characters. For now, the app will stay online but if no-one buys the company it will be wound down. * SO WHAT? * This would be the most high-profile AI business to collapse since the launch of ChatGPT. It will take a brave buyer to snap this up given the mood music at the moment and the company’s reputation. Maybe Mike Ashley will look to expand his interests into the online world…

In hacking news, Anthropic warns rogue AI agents may ‘self-replicate’ to hijack everyday devices (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw) highlights the latest AI-hacking development – this time, the Claude developer said that rogue “AI worms” will be able to hijack smart home devices including ovens, TVs, fridges, automatic vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers. It contends that it would be merely months before this becomes possible and the household devices could potentially create uncontrollable networks of AI agents. These connected devices have tended to offer poor

levels of security because they were made on the cheap by commodity hardware manufacturers, which makes them much more susceptible to hacker attacks.

Talking of which, Cyber attack on French supermarket fridges raises alarm over food security (Financial Times, Adrienne Klasa and Tom Wilson) highlights a cyber attack that took place on Sunday at 20 of the Coopérative U supermarket chain’s 2,000 stores. Hackers caused fridges to overheat to such an extent that equipment melted and food got destroyed as they reached temperatures of up to 80ºC. The attack also affected hundreds of stores at other French supermarket chains including Carrefour, Intermarché, Monoprix and Netto. * SO WHAT? * This just serves to further illustrate the vulnerability of connected systems and critical infrastructure at a time when Russia is upping its “hybrid” attacks in Europe.

Then in Hobbs and Whistles owner investigates hack that may have exposed customer data (The Guardian, Sarah Butler) we see that TFG London’s websites and IT systems got hacked, potentially leaving customer data vulnerable. The owner of Phase Eight, Hobbs and Whistles said in a statement that an “investigation is ongoing, including establishing whether any personal or other sensitive information has been compromised”. Another day, another hack, eh??

In consumer news, Fewer Britons plan to ringfence money for holidays abroad next year, says travel industry (The Guardian, Gwyn Topham) cites research travel industry body ABTA which shows that the UK’s latest cost-of-living crisis is leading to fewer people putting money aside to pay for holidays abroad next year. Somewhat amazingly, the numbers of Britons taking holidays reached pre-pandemic levels this year but that could have been the peak because almost one in three people are planning to spend less on travelling abroad next year. * SO WHAT? * I must say that I have been very surprised at the resilience of the holiday industry given the state of the economy and  overall consumer confidence. With all that’s going on at the moment, a slowdown was bound to happen. If this is the case I wonder whether domestic “day out”-type destinations like zoos and theme parks will benefit. Merlin Entertainment is one company that could certainly do well if that were the case…

As everyone is piling in on the PM and chancellor ahead of the Budget at the moment to plead their case, UK high street bosses urge chancellor to cut cost of employing young people (The Guardian, Sarah Butler and Richard Partington) shows that a load of the big cheeses at high street retailers and hospitality venues are appealing for the chancellor to cut the cost of employing young people in his first budget. They are pushing for a partial reversal of Reeves’s NICs hike. She lowered the floor of the earnings threshold over which NICs became payable from £9,100 to £5,000 a year, which the bosses say hit the employment of young people directly, causing a rise in youth unemployment. They want it raised to £6,000. * SO WHAT? * This sounds like a reasonable compromise and I’m sure it would be popular with voters and businesses alike. We’ll have to wait and see what happens here…

Meanwhile, Tougher competition for internships strains UK graduate jobs market (Financial Times, Delphine Strauss) cites survey results from the Institute of Student Employers which show that the competition for summer internships is getting tighter as applications have risen by 27% in 2025-2026 versus 2024-2025 while the number offered dropped by 8%. Employers are now getting 102 applications for each internship. Interestingly, applications for undergraduate placements – done as part of sandwich degree courses – also increased by 15%. The impact of AI is making work experience increasingly important as a differentiator in a very tight job market.

Then in ‘I hated AI, but it paid’ — why graduates join data-cleaning boom (The Times, Modupe Omitola) we see that there’s a rising trend of grads being employed as data centre cleaners. The job involves categorising and labelling test images, audio, videos and text before they can be used to train AI models. Outputs of the models also have to be cleaned and tested again with humans. According to LinkedIn stats, the number of data cleaning roles in the UK has jumped by a massive 250% year-on-year in 2026. Most roles aren’t in the UK – just 5% – while the US had 37% of the postings, India 32% and the EU 7%. The jobs are concentrated around where the models are being developed and the roles don’t require a degree or experience. Applicants find these jobs on platforms including Outlier, Mercor, Alignerr or DataAnnotation and then join a paid project if they pass an unpaid test. Pay is quite variable. It’s interesting to see how the gig economy is evolving!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Bank of America fined $1.2bn over money laundering failures (Financial Times, Akila Quinio and Joshua Franklin) highlights a huge fine dealt out by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a branch of the Treasury, for “egregious and continued” money laundering and sanctions violations, saying that it did not properly report over $5bn in dodgy transactions. * SO WHAT? * This is a MASSIVE fine and comes on the eve of the Bank of America’s Q3 earnings announcement. Management has been directly criticised for failing to address compliance shortfalls. This is major.

Aldi sales growth slows to lowest in two years (Daily Telegraph, Joe Sledge and Chris Price) highlights a rare mis-step by the German discounter as not only had its sales growth has fallen to its lowest level since July 2024 – but its market share fell to 10.5% in the 12 weeks to October 4th. It’s still Britain’s fourth biggest supermarket but its expansion rate is falling behind that of rival Lidl. Meanwhile, Asda’s sales fell, according to the latest figures from Worldpanel.

‘Ozempic face’ powers revival of a fading British giant (Daily Telegraph, Christopher Jasper) highlights a surprising discovery for an old British chemical company called Croda that has found that one of its old chemicals can be used to treat “Ozempic face” by swelling the skin. Croda’s chemical is mostly used in body creams but its ability to plump up hollow cheeks and sunken eyes has proved to be a massive hit with those on weight-loss drugs. Its chemical agent is called Volufiline and sales have sky-rocketed by 270% in the first half because over 150 companies are now using it in their products!

Then in EU hybrid curbs to offer only ‘temporary’ respite against Chinese carmakers (Financial Times, Kana Inagaki, Sarah White and Andy Bounds) we see that western car execs think that the recent EU deal with the Chinese to restrict hybrid exports to the bloc will only offer temporary protection as there are plenty of ways around it. * SO WHAT? * I guess the details of the deal need to be fleshed out more but the deal will at least give European manufacturers a small amount of breathing space…

Here’s what using corporate-speak sounds like if you were to use it in your personal life! Brilliant 🤣🤣🤣!