Daily Brief – Harmful, Toxic, Biased and Insecure

Humphrey Percy
Chairman and Founder
Mon 3 Feb 2025

Harmful, Toxic, Biased and Insecure

Well it took less than one week: after the excitement that met the DeepSeek AI application, came the fight back, the negative press and the correct questioning as to whether DeepSeek is safe. Well surprise surprise, it does not tolerate or even answer questions prejudicial to China but there are it turns out questions about whether it is sufficiently secure or whether it furthers terrorism for example. If like me you downloaded it last week, it seems to offer a fabulous responsive service, but there is a part of me that asks if it is not also harvesting data from other Apps on my device.

USD/JPY 155.19.

Great British Pound

After a torrid start to the year, GBP has settled down and recovered some of its lost ground. However coming up this week is the Bank of England meeting on Thursday. The expectation is for the BoE to cut by 25bps i.e. the same as the ECB rather than pause as the Federal reserve did last week. Given that UK Chancellor Reeves has filled the airwaves with her calls for “growth” rather than concrete ways that she will achieve it plus the somewhat cozy relationship she shares with Governor Bailey who only a few short months ago was in the firing line from the markets for having mismanaged the post Covid stimulus inflationary era, expect the Monetary Policy Committee to vote for that cut.

GBP/USD 1.2395.

Wu Qing

As the top financial market regulator in China, the West would do well to pay close attention to what Mr Wu says. And what he says is that stabilization of the market, confidence and lastly for expectations are key to attracting capital for the development of leading technology innovation which is a key plank in President Xi’s and incidentally his boss’s drive to make China a global financial superpower. That three pronged stabilisation will be key to the outlook for the global economy and hence the West in the near and medium term.

EUR/USD 1.0363.

Future of Jobs Report 2025

To save you the chore of ploughing through this World Economic Forum report in case you were tempted, here are the big findings: by 2030 92 million jobs will be displaced(disappeared) but better news lies in that 170 million will be created. The new jobs are almost all data, tech, IT and of course AI related. The ones that will disappear are at the more clerical and manual end of the jobs market. So bad news for bank clerks, post office clerks, data entry personnel and printing and ticketing related jobs. The shifts will be driven by technology advances, green and eco developments and last but not least economic uncertainty. Surprisingly if a reader did not delve into the report the summary reflects that the shifts in the jobs market are mainly due to the ESG agenda. Probably says more about the agenda of the WEF and reflects that Davos man has not caught on to the fightback against blind and uncommercial adherence to all things eco in business.

EUR/GBP 0.8360.

Crocodile Rock

While Elton John was getting better known given that his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin was taking off most visibly on the Yellow Brick Road Album, it was this day in 1973 with the release of Crocodile Rock that Elton turned good songs into good money when this number went to Number One and stayed there for weeks:

I remember when rock was young
Me and Suzie had so much fun
Holding hands and skimming stones
Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own
But the biggest kick I ever got
Was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock
While the other kids were Rocking Round the Clock
We were hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock


Well Crocodile Rocking is something shocking
When your feet just can’t keep still
I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will
Oh Lawdy mama those Friday nights
When Suzie wore her dresses tight
And the Crocodile Rocking was out of sight


La lalalala la


Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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