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I think its moved on to the next stage with HMRC lodging an appeal to allow another appeal, that was my understanding based on the call transcript.

Could be wrong, happy to have another opinion on this.

Its just a circus now..

After previously boasting $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments, OpenAI is now telling investors that it plans to spend $600 billion by 2030.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/openai-resets-spend-expectations-targets-around-600-billion-by-2030.html

China is definitely on the front foot, not just with Ai but autos too.

Agree on the monetization side, China will run rings around anything the US can offer ushering in an era of commoditization, something the big US players would want to avoid.

I still think S4 are in a good spot offering flexibility with monks.flow with the ability to 'plug-in' Ai agents and so forth depending on the customers or project requirements, basically an orchestration platform.

All to play for, watch this space ..

There is still a general fear of Ai as seen by the recent indiscriminate sell off, but also signs of stabilisation albeit a bit patchy.

Monetisation is the key word, how are the Ai frontier models going to monetize something that is essentially very easy to replicate, some parallels to broadband and cellular companies back in the day - Vodaphone is a good example (ish).

On top of that up many commercial web sites are now closing off access to LLM learning which could mean a basic Google search returning better results.

CEO's will need guidance to get them through, S4 and others may offer that hand holding and confidence..

Discussed a few months back as one to watch, Blue Owl are big backers of Ai data center roll-outs ..

‘Canary in the coal mine’: Blue Owl liquidity curbs fuel fears about private credit bubble

Published Fri, Feb 20 202612:34 AM ESTUpdated 3 Hours Ago

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/canary-in-the-coal-mine-blue-owl-liquidity-curbs-fuel-fears-private-credit-bubble-.html

Updates weekly, although maybe a bit obscure on graph Last update: 11/02/2026

This is the EU futures contracts from last night, whilst not WPC there is some correlation.

https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/W5G19/futures-prices

The problem with WPC which sets it apart from other dairy products is two fold, firstly its a by product of the cheese making process which means you have to make a lot more cheese which may not be wanted, hence price of cheese declines..

Second issue is processing, it needs a specialised plant which take a while to build and plan out.

Yep, but doesn't translate into lower whey prices unfortunately.

https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/document/download/413a6600-3082-4a9a-82a0-b9f6048b5449_en

Nestle reported today also creating a single nutrition division to spur on growth.

Some positives in the background, interest rates almost certain to fall further at next meeting due to stalling economy and unemployment.

Lower interest rates generally means weaker sterling, this helps S4 no end with c80% of overseas revenue.

..in other news..

The great Ai hype machine is stalling as more and more people realise the inerrant limitations or what it can and can't do, its vital to use real world examples as posted previously to understand the difference between ideal lab conditions and real world day to day usage.

My own experience of testing computer trading platforms shares some parallels, namely 'curve fitting' - its really hard to keep a balance between results based testing and curve fitting, even though you maybe conscious of the problem to start with .

https://www.remotelabor.ai/

https://www.remotelabor.ai/paper.pdf

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary warned that the U.S. is falling behind China in early-stage drug development and called for reforms that could streamline the process for starting trials on new treatments.

In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Makary specifically pointed to three bottlenecks: hospital contracting, ethical reviews and approvals, and the process for submitting and clearing so-called Investigational New Drug applications, which companies submit to test a product in humans.

China’s biotech ecosystem has flourished over the last several years, driven by massive state investment, a vast talent pool and accelerated regulatory reforms.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/18/fda-chief-warns-us-is-losing-ground-to-china-in-early-drug-trials.html

Ai generated summary

As of early 2026, a significant portion of the web, particularly high-traffic, media, and news sites, blocks AI crawlers to protect content from being used to train AI models without consent.

Roughly 79% of top news sites and over 88% of major media houses are now actively blocking AI bots (specifically OpenAI's GPTBot or others via robots.txt), according to early 2026 reports.

Key findings regarding AI bot blocking include:

Targeted Bots: OpenAI's GPTBot is the most commonly blocked, with over 55% of major news sites restricting it by early 2024, rising significantly in 2025.

Media and News Restrictive: Roughly 79% of surveyed news sites block at least one AI training bot, with 71% blocking live search/retrieval bots.

Open Ai went too far imo, now there is a backlash from the public with the use of Ai blockers rising in popularity, YouTube has just wiped out a huge amount of Ai slop after similar feedback -

This puts Ai at a disadvantage to normal Google searches as many web sites actively use Ai blockers to stop content being scrapped, BBC reports millions of sites have already enabled this service which leaves a lot of content off Ai searches.

So, where does this leave companies like Open Ai if the internet (their database) closes off access ?

Ai needs better categorisation to help people understand its not all the same technology, and certainly not the same business model.

Microsoft confirms plan to ditch OpenAI — as the ChatGPT firm continues to beg Big Tech for cash

By Jez Corden published 18 hours ago

Google Deepmind co-founder and Microsoft AI lead Mustafa Suleyman suggests that the big tech firm is moving away from OpenAI reliance, as the latter's financials look increasingly dire.

https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-confirms-plan-to-ditch-openai-as-the-chatgpt-firm-continues-to-beg-big-tech-for-cash

Humans v Ai (why didn't someone do this sooner :)

Remote Labor Index:

Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work

AIs have made rapid progress on research-oriented benchmarks of knowledge and reasoning, but it remains unclear how these gains translate into economic value and automation. To measure this, we introduce the Remote Labor Index (RLI), a broadly multi-sector benchmark comprising real-world, economically valuable projects designed to evaluate end-to-end agent performance in practical settings. AI agents perform near the floor on RLI, with the highest-performing agent achieving an automation rate of 2.5%.

https://www.remotelabor.ai/

https://www.remotelabor.ai/paper.pdf

Gartner Predicts Half of Companies That Cut Customer Service Staff Due to AI Will Rehire by 2027

STAMFORD, Conn., February 2, 2026

Service and Support Leaders Should Prioritize Long-Term Growth Over Short-Term Cost Reduction

By 2027, 50% of companies that attributed headcount reduction to AI will rehire staff to perform similar functions, but under different job titles, according to Gartner, Inc, a business and technology insights company.

“While AI-driven layoffs have captured attention, the reality is more complex,” said Kathy Ross, Senior Director Analyst in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice. “Most recent workforce reductions were influenced by broader economic conditions rather than automation alone. As organizations encounter the limits of AI and rising customer expectations, they will need to reinvest in human talent to sustain service quality and growth.”

H1 sales of TAZVERIK were $0.7 (H1 24 $0.5)

That may represent a small bounce given they cut H2 guidance quite significantly.

Short positions continue to decline, 5th drop now under 50m

AS has the right idea, enjoy life otherwise whats the point - it could take another couple of years for the economic backdrop to change, lower interest rates, inflation, whey and so on ..

You guys glued to the forum/share price, what are you going to be like in two years time ?

THG isn't the only share listed, you don't have to invest or indeed stay invested..

This is a biggie and one that was targeted in recent Ai theater, that's going to sting a few on the short side..

“It is the second FTSE 100 member to receive a takeover bid so far in 2026… and there may be grumbles from shareholders the takeout price is not generous.

“Unfortunately for disgruntled shareholders, there’s not a lot they can do in this situation.”

Schroder’s share price rocketed 28.6 per cent in morning to 588.5 pence, pulling the group out of the hole many wealth management firms found themselves in on Wednesday, after the launch of a new AI tool sent investors running for the hills.

https://www.cityam.com/city-stunned-by-nuveen-swoop-on-schroders/

“It is the second FTSE 100 member to receive a takeover bid so far in 2026… and there may be grumbles from shareholders the takeout price is not generous.

“Unfortunately for disgruntled shareholders, there’s not a lot they can do in this situation.”

Schroder’s share price rocketed 28.6 per cent in morning to 588.5 pence, pulling the group out of the hole many wealth management firms found themselves in on Wednesday, after the launch of a new AI tool sent investors running for the hills.

https://www.cityam.com/city-stunned-by-nuveen-swoop-on-schroders/

Isn't it a SaaS model ?

This is what all the software companies and car manufactures are trying to implement, like Microsoft 365 you don't own the software just rent it.

In other news..

xAi, lots of senior founders leaving..

Bitcoin and other junkie crypto continues its decent

Thanks bud, filter settings remove most of the spam but worthy of a re-post..