London, Feb 5, 2026, 07:49 GMT — Premarket
- RELX ended Wednesday at 2,185p, slipping 1.3% following a steep sell-off across AI-focused stocks
- On Wednesday, the company announced a new round of share buybacks
- The Bank of England’s decision and RELX’s earnings next week stand out as the main short-term catalysts
RELX Plc shares (REL.L) enter Thursday’s London trading still under pressure following a steep drop in legal and data-analytics stocks linked to new generative AI developments. The stock ended Wednesday at 2,185 pence, down 1.3%, hovering close to a 52-week low of 2,115p after hitting a peak of 4,205p last year.
The move is part of a bigger shakeup in software and services stocks, which have dropped about $830 billion in market value across six consecutive sessions. Investors are wrestling with whether AI will disrupt subscription-heavy businesses. Reuters noted the latest selloff was sparked by a new legal tool from Anthropic’s Claude large language model — an LLM that generates text and code from prompts. Ocean Park Asset Management CIO James St. Aubin described it as “an awakening to the disruptive power of AI.” Meanwhile, Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist at Bellcurve Trading, warned there’s “more room to go in this selloff.” Reuters
RELX plunged 14% on Tuesday, marking its sharpest single-day decline since 1988. Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer also dropped as investors grew wary that AI could automate legal and analytics tasks. “Investors are aggressively repricing these areas as the historical ‘visibility premium’ erodes,” said Schroders analyst Jonathan McMullan, highlighting how rapid AI progress complicates long-term forecasts. Thomson Reuters will release quarterly results on Thursday, offering a key sector checkpoint. Reuters
London has seen a steadier mood. The FTSE 100 hit a record high on Wednesday, though traders remained cautious ahead of Thursday’s Bank of England announcement. Axel Rudolph, senior financial analyst at IG, noted that the recent two-day dip seemed fueled by “a rotation out of high-multiple growth names” and into value stocks. Reuters
RELX continued its share buyback program, acquiring 431,217 shares on Wednesday via UBS at prices ranging from 2,116.5 pence to 2,245 pence. The company confirmed these shares will be held in treasury. According to the regulatory filing, since January 2, RELX has repurchased a total of 7,893,565 shares.
Still, the selloff has faced criticism. Reuters Breakingviews pointed out that just around 12% of RELX’s operating profit is tied to its legal database business—the segment most vulnerable to AI agents—and argued that the market’s quick move to price in an “AI apocalypse” seems premature. Reuters
RELX is selling AI as an enhancement to its existing platforms, not a replacement. In its July half-year results, the company pointed to rising demand for generative AI tools among lawyers and scientists. CFO Nick Luff said the new technology can continue to boost professional workflows. RELX highlighted offerings like “Lexis+ AI Protégé” for the legal sector and “ScienceDirect AI” for researchers. Reuters
Investors are starting to question just how strong that narrative is, as the market shifts to view AI more as a rival than a boost. If customers turn to cheaper AI assistants and reduce their paid seats—the per-user subscriptions that keep many data platforms afloat—pricing power could slip. In that scenario, buybacks might not be enough to prevent a valuation reset.
On Thursday, traders will be eyeing the opening auction to see if bargain hunters jump in following two steep sell-offs. They’ll also monitor for any new AI news that could ripple through the wider UK software sector.
RELX is set to release its full-year results for the period ending Dec. 31, 2025, on Feb. 12.
