AI software sell-off: will FTSE 100 losers bounce back?
Well-known blue-chip stocks were among those hit hardest by the launch of Anthropic’s new AI automation tool. Graeme Evans looks at City reaction.
4th February 2026 13:39
by Graeme Evans from interactive investor
The Anthropic AI logo. Photo: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
AI disruption fears continue to weigh on Nick Train’s Finsbury Growth & Income Ord (LSE:FGT) Trust after key holdings RELX (LSE:REL) and London Stock Exchange Group (LSE:LSEG) today came under more selling pressure.
The FTSE 100 pair, which accounted for more than a fifth of the Finsbury portfolio at the end of 2025, have been among major casualties after Anthropic launched an AI-driven legal tech services tool.
- Invest with ii: Open a Stocks & Shares ISA | ISA Investment Ideas | Transfer a Stocks & Shares ISA
The potential threat to pricing power and competitive standing meant the shares of LexisNexis owner Relx fell 14% on Tuesday, meaning that one of the best-performing FTSE 100 stocks of the past four decades is at its cheapest price in over three years.
Even though London Stock Exchange Group has no overlap with Anthropic’s offering, its shares fell 13% alongside poor sessions for financial data firms including S&P Global and FactSet.
The wider fears of AI disruption to data and software business models also hurt the two largest stocks in the Finsbury portfolio as Experian (LSE:EXPN) and Sage Group (The) (LSE:SGE) fell 8% and 6% respectively.
All four UK stocks sustained more losses in today’s session, while another key Finsbury holding in Rightmove (LSE:RMV) led the FTSE 100 fallers board with a reverse of almost 5% at midday.
The market shift, which yesterday caused the US software index to fall 4.6% to its lowest level since April, reflects a move away from broad AI enthusiasm towards a more selective and more demanding phase of the tech story.
- Stockwatch: time to buy Relx shares after fresh plunge?
- eyeQ: macro conditions improving for this FTSE 100 struggler
- Nick Train investment trust survives continuation vote
Charu Chanana, Saxo chief investment strategist, said that this has forced investors to distinguish between hype and defensible value.
She said: “This is not about giving up on technology or artificial intelligence (AI). It is about identifying where the real bottlenecks, moats, and profit pools are likely to sit as AI moves from promise to practice.”
Software as a service (SaaS) is feeling the pressure first as the sector sits closest to the point where AI can change behaviour quickly.
Chanana added: “Many SaaS models are built around per-seat pricing, recurring subscriptions, and work-flow dependency. AI challenges each of these assumptions.”
London Stock Exchange shares are now down by more than 40% in a year to below 7,000p, despite no material change to the City earnings per share consensus forecasts.
The AI disruption fears have added to existing headwinds such as the weaker US dollar and rotation towards EU banks, which has siphoned allocations from the stock exchange sector.
The 2021 acquisition of Refinitiv means that LSEG’s biggest division is now data and analytics, accounting for 44% of its total income of £4.5 billion in the first half of 2025. The markets division represented 39% and the benchmarks and indices business FTSE Russell 10%.
UBS, which has a price target of 1,100p, said today that it believed there was fundamental value in LSEG’s shares at a multiple of 14 times forecast 2027 earnings.
- Is this lofty Lloyds Bank price target justified?
- Investment outlook: expert opinion, analysis and ideas
- 10 shares to give you a £10,000 annual income in 2026
For a meaningful recovery it says that LSEG will need to deliver tangible evidence that it can benefit from AI, increase pricing or monetise its Microsoft partnership.
However, it believes that LSEG is well-defended against AI and that partnerships with the likes of Databricks, Snowflake Inc Ordinary Shares (NYSE:SNOW), Anthropic and OpenAI will result in a material increase to LSEG's data consumption by license holders.
The bank added: “Even though its data is not 100% proprietary, it has the deepest and most complete data set of security prices in the industry and we expect the proliferation of AI models will drive data usage higher, leading to better pricing opportunities for LSEG.”
Relx outperformed the FTSE 100 index for 13 of the previous 14 years before that run ended in 2025. The shares were today trading at 2,153p, which compares with Bank of America’s target of 4,500p as one of its 25 European top picks for 2026.
The biggest parts of Relx are its Risk and Business Analytics division and the Elsevier journals operation Science, Technical and Medical. Legal is the group’s third-largest division, with the smallest being the Exhibitions arm.
Deutsche Bank said today that the recent share price weakness represented an interesting entry point for a high-quality business-to-business data business. It has a price target of 3,700p.
It added: “While AI noise is unlikely to reduce near term, fundamentally, we believe proprietary deep data/intelligence names such as Relx should see their value increase as AI interface tools launch and look to better data.”
The bank said: “In our view, Relx is a mispriced AI beneficiary, and few companies are as well-placed to deliver such a sea-change in sentiment.”
- Must read: gold, Novo Nordisk, Watches of Switzerland
- Sign up to our free newsletter for investment ideas, latest news and award-winning analysis
- Geopolitical risk: what to focus on when picking stocks
Portfolio manager Train told investors recently that Relx and LSEG are likely to be significant beneficiaries of the increasingly sophisticated tools derived from AI.
He added: “Given the performance of both companies in the second half of 2025, it’s clear that many believe the opposite – that LSEG and Relx are at risk is being disintermediated by AI.
“We do not believe that is the case and see the recent derating of both businesses as an opportunity, but we recognise the need to see more confirmation of this potential.
“It may be that a demonstrable acceleration of their revenue growth will be enough in 2026 and this has been forecast by the companies.
“But it would also be helpful if both continue to release compelling new services and, perhaps, announce new partnerships with industry participants and emerging AI Agents themselves.”
Graeme Evans owns Relx shares.
These articles are provided for information purposes only. Occasionally, an opinion about whether to buy or sell a specific investment may be provided by third parties. The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.
Full performance can be found on the company or index summary page on the interactive investor website. Simply click on the company's or index name highlighted in the article.