Tokyo slips, profit warnings mount and China quickens

A soft start to the week

Tokyo set the tone. The Nikkei fell 1.8% in Monday trading, the Wall Street Journal reported, tracking losses on Wall Street. In London, City A.M.'s morning coverage expected the FTSE 100 to dip at the open. It named two sources of pressure, artificial intelligence and oil, and described both as remaining elevated.

Gold edged higher. The Journal's commodities report said traders were weighing expectations of a rate hike from the Federal Reserve. The word in the headline was hike, not cut.

Artificial intelligence ran through the weekend's reading. A Journal piece published on Saturday described a wobble in AI shares and carried the plain judgement, in its headline, that this time is not different. It set the episode against the old pattern of market enthusiasms rather than treating it as a new kind of event. An opinion column in the same paper, published on Sunday evening, argued that for investors and savers the familiar shorthand TINA is giving way to TARA. The change of acronym was the whole of the argument's framing, and it concerned savers as much as professional investors.

Geopolitics was never far away. Some Wall Street leaders are weighing whether to stay away from the Riyadh gathering known as 'Davos in the Desert', the Journal reported, following attacks on the Saudi capital.

British companies: warnings and windfalls

Corporate Britain had a harder weekend. Profit warnings from UK companies have risen to their highest level since 2024, according to reports in This is Money and City A.M. late on Sunday. The two accounts stressed different causes. This is Money pointed to uncertainty ahead of the Budget. City A.M. pointed to costs driven up by the Iran war. Neither explanation excludes the other.

The banks sit at the opposite end of the scale. This is Money reported that they are poised to post colossal profits, buoyed by higher interest rates, just as Mr Healey eyes a bumper windfall tax. The headline placed the two facts side by side, and the timing is awkward for the lenders.

Public money drew comment too. A record £12bn surplus in a council pension fund was described as 'utterly nuts' in the same paper's coverage, which set the figure against taxpayers contending with potholes and social care it called shoddy. Elsewhere, the owner of a historic Devon hotel that inspired an Agatha Christie hit used a column to argue that John Healey must give businesses of that kind a discount on business rates.

Condé Nast's UK profits fell by more than a third. Both the Guardian and City A.M. reported that a sale of the Vogue publisher had been ruled out.

The BBC, meanwhile, reported that charities describe themselves as 'busier than ever' with furniture poverty.

China quickens, Anthropic sets its terms

China's growth accelerated, the BBC reported early on Monday, with a boom in AI exports outweighing weakness at home. The domestic side of that ledger shows up in where savers are putting their money. The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese investors are flocking to dividend stocks, whose returns are running at double those of state bonds.

China's trade reach has consequences elsewhere. A steel boss told the BBC that EU tariffs aimed at China are hitting Ukraine. The complaint is that a measure designed with one country in mind is landing on another.

In technology, Anthropic said it will commit 5% of its shares to a 'public benefit fund', a move reported by both the BBC and the Journal. The Journal also published an explainer on what it called an obscure trust looming over the company's IPO. The two stories arrived within hours of each other: a company preparing to list is setting out, in advance, who holds which claims on it and on what terms.

Two longer pieces looked further out. Euronews examined a proposed $5 billion 'Gas Ring' intended to strengthen energy security in Central Asia. And the Post, writing on property, argued that for investors there are now only two kinds of office: the best, and the rest. On a morning of falling indices and rising warnings, that division applied rather more widely than to buildings.