Are you ready for Blue Monday, the day that falls this year at the beginning of this week, which former Cardiff University psychologist Cliff Arnall calculated in 2005 to be the happiest 24 hours in the calendar.
Arnall’s conclusion about the third Monday of the first month (which he had tried to fight) was based on an analysis of data, such as consumer surveys, divorce filings and weather reports. The main conclusion drawn from this analysis is that not all academic research is beneficial to society.
If you are a world leader or senior executive at least you have the World Economic Forum in Davos to distract you from the January blues. The FT Live team will also be in the Swiss resort town, hosting a series of in-person and digital events where leaders in policy, business and finance will share their insights on the big issues under discussion. You can view the event and register for free here
For the rest, we’ll just have to live with the bleak economic news in 2023 and hope things get better.
If you are in the UK, the dominant reality is mass strike action. This may not be close to being a “winter of discontent”, at least according to my friend Jonathan Guthrie, but another vote among ambulance workers is due this week when the Union of Universities and Colleges will announce a new wave of strikes 18 days this week including 150 UK universities in February and March after its members voted last week to reject the latest pay offer.
The Northern Ireland Protocol is set to backfire again with Thursday’s deadline for the restoration of power sharing at Stormont. Don’t expect this to make you feel better about life or cross-border politics.
Abortion rights activists marched from Washington Square Park to Bryant Park in New York last June © Alex Kent/AFP/Getty Images
Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the US Supreme Court that enshrined America’s constitutional right to abortion. This is certainly a very lively debate – stretching even to the boardroom – in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year to defeat the 1973 decision. The anti-abortion campaign will march in Washington on Friday, causing further comments about the fault line of US politics.
This week will end with another man-made day, this time based on astronomy: the celebration of the lunar new year. This year’s mass movement to visit family and friends celebrating the event will take place amid rising Covid levels in China. Concerns about the impact of the spread of the disease are high.
Something to look forward to is an evening with FT columnist Martin Wolf. Join Martin and other thought leaders online for an exclusive customer event on January 31 debating the key changes needed in these times of global uncertainty. The discussion coincides with the publication of Martin’s new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Register for free here.
Economic data
Ken Murphy, the chief executive of Tesco, has warned that UK inflation could rise further © Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg
It will be busy with data from China, the UK and the US this week including inflation data, retail sales and the Fed’s Beige Book on the economic outlook. The European Central Bank will publish the minutes of its December meeting on Thursday and various central banks will discuss the regional and global economy in Davos.
UK inflation rates will be updated on Wednesday. The outlook is bleak, especially after recent comments by Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill. Ken Murphy, chief executive of Britain’s biggest food retailer Tesco, even warned that UK inflation could rise. Last month’s release showed that the cost of living as defined by the consumer price index was 10.7 percent in November, down from 11.1 percent in October.
Company
We are in the thick of the first earnings season of 2023 and it is a smorgasbord of companies, mainly from Europe and (when Wall Street returns from the Martin Luther King Day break) the US.
Online food ordering services Just Eat Takeaway and Deliveroo will update investors on festive sales on Wednesday and Thursday. Both are under pressure to generate better profits. The end of the lockdown is not good for food ordering apps as customers choose to return to the restaurant.
The question now is whether the recession will help these companies – because more people are getting takeaway than eating in – or whether it will be faster as customers return to their own kitchens. Efforts to increase grocery sales, through partnerships with supermarkets and convenience apps like Getir, could give Deliveroo and JET a slice of the home cooking market.
Last year was one to forget for Ocado Retail. The online supermarket, jointly owned by Ocado – which reports the number there – and Marks and Spencer, parted the company with chief executive Melanie Smith and warned in profits several times; sales are expected to fall for the first time in history.
Public attention has focused on the technical glitch at the low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines © Rick Bowmer / AP
In its last update in September, Ocado said it expected strong growth in customers and sales growth of around 5 percent for the fourth quarter. This would be similar to the growth posted last week by Tesco and J Sainsbury, after British shoppers went out for the first Christmas in two years to avoid being disrupted by Covid-19.
US airlines reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings as public attention focused on a technical glitch at low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines and the country’s top aviation regulator that led to its bankruptcy. But for most airlines, the news is still palpable, as (despite the increased interest in private jets post-Covid) demand for commercial air travel can generate profits.
United Airlines will report on Wednesday. Expect chief executive officer Scott Kirby to have some tart words for the US Federal Aviation Administration, which grounded a plane for two hours Wednesday when a damaged database file caused a key safety system to fail. He said in the summer that the agency needed more air traffic controllers.