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And finally, the FTSE 100 has closed down 27 points or 0.26% at 10,314, away from the record high hit this morning.
Although miners and precious metal producers rallied, as the gold and silver price jumped, the index was dragged down by Relx (-14.3%) and the London Stock Exchange Group (-12.8%), as investors reacted to US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic unveileing a tool for companies’ in-house lawyers.
AJ Bell head of markets Dan Coatsworth says:
“The likes of RELX, London Stock Exchange Group, Experian, Sage, Informa and Pearson were smashed as AI provider Anthropic unveiled a new product.
“The company behind the Claude chatbot has launched a new ‘agentic’ tool for corporate legal teams which can automate legal work, including reviewing contracts and composing briefings.
“RELX makes significant sums from analysing data for legal firms but the scale and breadth of the sell-off in RELX and others reflects fears that Anthropic’s breakthrough in this area will soon spread. While these data businesses have made the argument that AI can be an opportunity rather than a threat, the market seems unconvinced.
“The concern will be that, at the very least, the emergence of tools like the one unveiled by Anthropic will reduce the margins these data-driven companies can achieve and in a worst-case scenario disintermediate them entirely.
“Fund manager Nick Train’s Finsbury Growth & Income investment trust, which has underperformed for an extended period, was down sharply on Tuesday. As of the end of 2025, Sage, Experian, London Stock Exchange Group and RELX were all top 10 holdings in the trust.”
Gold is now up a chunky 6.2% at $4,957 an ounce, still on track for its best day since 2008.
Here’s the rest of today’s news:
Updated at 12.14 EST
The dollar is dipping back today, helping to lift sterling by almost half a cent to $1.37.
Thomson Reuters is also caught up in the selloff among legal software and publishing firms today.
Shares in Thomson Reuters are down 17% in New York, after Anthropic announced a new artificial intelligence-powered plugin for in-house legal teams for its Claude AI service.
Thomson Reuters runs Practical Law, which provides legal guidance for lawyers, and legal database Westlaw. It has also tried to embrace artificial intelligence through CoCounsel Legal UK, a platform that combines AI capabilities with Practical Law guidance and Westlaw UK content.
SharePalantir shares jump after results beat forecasts
Shares in Palantir have jumped 6% in early Wall Street trading, after beating analyst forecasts last night.
CEO Alex Karp described the company’s growth on an earnings call as “one of the truly iconic performances in the history of corporate performance”. He wrote in a letter accompanying the earnings report that the $1.4bn in revenue generated in last year’s fourth quarter marks a new record – a 70% growth rate over the same period the year before.
Some of this revenue growth comes from federal contracts secured amid Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.
US hypermarket chain Walmart has crossed the $1tn market value mark for the first time.
Shares in Walmart, which had been worth $988bn last night, are up 0.85% this morning, pushing its value over $1tn.
The company has been growing its revenues last year, lifted by e-commerce growth and winning new customers – prompting it to raise its sales and earnings outlook last November.
Over on Wall Street, stock have opened higher.
The S&P 500 is up 0.15%, while the Nasdaq has gained 0.35% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 0.2% higher.
ShareFTSE 100 falls from record high as AI hits legal software stocks
Back in London, the FTSE 100 index is sliding away from this morning’s record high (see here) as legal software and publishing firms are hammered by AI worries.
As flagged earlier (12.36pm), the launch of a new legal plugin for the Claude chatbot has spooked investors in the sector.
Relx, which owns data analytics firm LexisNexis, are now down over 14%, while UK publishing group Pearson’s shares are now down 4.4%.
This has helped to pull the FTSE 100 down by 0.9% today, a loss of 94 points, to 10,247, having hit a record high of 10,373 points early this morning.
Anthropic, publisher of Claude, has saidits tool could automate legal work such as contract reviewing, non-disclosure agreement triage, compliance workflows, legal briefings and templated responses.
However, it said the plugin did not provide legal advice. “AI-generated analysis should be reviewed by licensed attorneys before being relied upon for legal decisions,” the startup said.
Updated at 09.08 EST
Josh D’Amaro named as Disney CEO
The waiting is finally over!
After a three-year search, Walt Disney has chosen its successor to Bob Iger as chief executive officer.
Josh D’Amaro, currently the chairman of Disney Experiences, has been unanimously chosen by Disney’s board in a vote yesterday. He’ll take over from Iger at Disney’s AEM on 18 March.
Disney says:
As head of the company’s largest business segment with $36 billion in annual revenue in FY2025 and 185,000 Cast Members and employees worldwide, D’Amaro, a 28-year Disney veteran, is the architect of the largest global expansion in Disney Experiences history, and has led the segment to new heights financially, creatively, and in guest satisfaction.
Iger was reappointed as Disney’s CEO in November 2022, having first retired in 2020, and was meant to serve two years.
Silver is continuing to climb, now up over 9% at almost $87 an ounce.
That still leaves silver a way below last week’s record high of $121/oz, following its near-30% plunge on Friday and smaller losses yesterday.
Alexandra Symeonidi, analyst at William Blair Investment Management, attributes the selloff to factors including the stronger dollar, profit-taking by investors, and changes to margin requirements at metal trading exchanges which wiped out some trading positions.
She predicts more volatility ahead:
Looking ahead, silver continues to face liquidity challenges that could fuel further sharp price swings, and market balances still point to a deficit this year.
Moreover, speculative positioning has decreased and remains light, implying it might have not been behind the recent rally. That said, we believe that industrial demand, which accounts for roughly 60% of total silver demand, remains soft, and prices are still higher year‑to‑date. Overall, we expect volatility to persist in silver specifically and in metals more broadly.”
Shares in European legal software companies, and publishing firms, have fallen heavily today, as the shadow of AI fell on the sector.
The selloff appears to be sparked by intelligence firm Anthropic’s release of a legal plug-in for its Claude AI service.
RELX, the information and analytics company, has fallen by 11% so far today, pulling the FTSE 100 back from its earlier record high.
Wolters Kluwer, the Dutch multinational company that provides information, software, and services for professionals including accountants, doctors and lawyers, have dropped by 8%.
Europe’s benchmark share index has also hit a record high today.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index is up 0.4% at 619.86 points, with basic resources (mining) companies leading the risers.
European mining sector remains the best-performing one this year with a more than 13% gain, Reuters points out.
Gold is 12% above yesterday’s lows, while silver is 22% higher – moves which suggest the market remains “somewhat disorderly and prone to wild swings in price”, says Neil Wilson, Saxo UK investor strategist.
Wilson writes:
Nevertheless, investors and traders are dipping their toes in the waters after the clear-out of a lot of the froth and leveraged speculative positions, which a) might give them confidence that perhaps the worst of the volatility is over; and b) prices had plunged so much so fast they think it’s worth a go at these levels.
A lot of people sitting on the sidelines for months feeling every day they’d missed their chance to get in will be part of this renewed wave of buying. And if you’d liked gold at $5,500 you might love it at $4,400 – a chance to average down your cost meaningfully if you remain a long-term bull.
Indeed, long-term fundamentals for gold in particular haven’t gone away; and industrial supply-demand dynamics for silver and copper is structural not ephemeral.
Trump’s latest tariff u-turn has helped to lift markets, reports Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club:
‘’The Footsie has raced up to fresh records as a rally in gold and silver prices help boost fortunes of mining giants. Trade tailwinds helping propel the index higher, with more optimism swirling about the prospects for global growth. The strengthening of the dollar in recent days is helping to buoy multinational London listed companies. The Footsie has found its mojo once again, with investors drawn in by its defensive qualities in a volatile world.
Bargain hunters have been out in force, buying up precious metals after the dramatic fall in prices. Gold and silver are in recovery mode but are still cooler than the hot records reached last week. Gold is around 12% lower, and silver is 28% below its peak, but compared to this time last year, the rise has still been remarkable. Safe haven demand is still strong, given the erratic policymaking from the White House, and fractious geopolitical relations.
The TACO trade has come to the fore again, given that President Trump has again rolled back on some of the more onerous tariffs levied again trading partners. Trump chickening out from headline threats has been his modus operandi, though he does so by squeezing concessions out of negotiations. This time India is benefiting from the roll-back, with US tariffs on Indian goods slashed in return for India ceasing the purchase of Russian oil and buying more US commodities. This will provide significant relief for India’s exporters, opening up new supply chains.
Britain’s smaller share price index, the FTSE 250, has hit a four-year high this morning.
The FTSE 250, which contains medium-sized companies too small for the FTSE 100, gained over 0.3% to hit 23,520 points, the highest level since January 2022.
Trading platform Plus500 (+7%) are the top riser after annnouncing it has launched an event-based prediction markets on its US retail platform.
The Plus500 Futures offering will let retail customers trade contracts on economic, financial, and geopolitical events – following the roaring success of Polymarket.