• Rightmove sees engagement fall as housing market cools
• Education specialist Pearson benefits from resuming travel and exams
• WH Smith faces second cyber attack
• Arm chooses New York over London for important tech listing
• Hopes for rebound in Chinese demand sees Brent crude pushed over $84 a barrel
• FTSE set for brighter end to the week on Fed comments

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Rightmove has reported a decline in the level of engagement on its site as the housing market cools compared to the pandemic.

Consumers paid over 2.3bn visits to the group's platforms last year, down from 2.5bn.

There was a 2bn reduction in the number of minutes spent searching for properties.

This is little surprise given we’ve heard from the major housebuilders who have called out tough mortgage affordability as a reason sales rates are dipping.

While a cooling market doesn’t affect Rightmove directly, it does impact the estate agents it relies on for fees.

At the moment things continue to look healthy in that regard, with price increases something of a guarantee.

As the market changes and estate agent numbers continue to decline, Rightmove could find itself needing to generate income in more creative ways in the future.

Education specialist Pearson has reported better-than-expected full year results.

The return of global movement has helped its Pearson Test of English revenues soar, as well as strong growth in Workforce Skills.

Image: Pearson Plc.

Times of economic difficulty is often seen in conjunction with people upskilling, which is a structural opportunity for Pearson. Exams resuming has also meant that the group’s Assessment & Qualifications division has been doing well, with underlying sales growth up 8%.

There are a lot of helpful tailwinds blowing in Pearson’s direction, the bigger question will be how momentum holds up as things stabilise.

The new digital focus will make this an easier task, but it’s certainly not a given.

London has lost out to New York for the listing of tech giant Arm.

The high-profile collapse of the $40bn NVIDIA takeover means holding company Softbank is keen to find new ways to unlock value in Arm.

The group is a British semiconductor and software design business, providing companies with intellectual property and designs the architecture used in a number of popular computer chips.

Chip design giant Arm is the jewel in the crown of UK tech sector.
So its decision to list its shares only in the US, despite energetic lobbying from @RishiSunak & @Jeremy_Hunt is a massive blow. Undermines their promises to make the UK a "new Silicon Valley".
Treasury statement: pic.twitter.com/klSCQrvrq1

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) March 3, 2023

Essentially, the group doesn’t manufacture tech components, it licenses its technologies to others.

This is an attractive model and it’s easy to see why the market would be excited to see shares in the company listed. But for London, this comes as further confirmation that plans to rebrand the LSE as a high growth tech haven aren’t working.

The UK’s inflation problem is stickier than the US and that’s likely to keep a lid on how attractive it will seem to companies looking to list for the first time.

WH Smith is facing its second cyberattack in under a year.

This time around, employee data has been compromised – including possible information including addresses and National Insurance numbers. This type of breach is potentially more harmful because of the highly sensitive information under threat. Above the technical level of what the breach means, the reputational damage isn’t what the retailer needs either.

The optics are less severe than the attack last year, which affected customer data, but it’s still not a good look.

WH Smith is focussed on repositioning its operations as high street footfall declines, companies like Funky Pigeon help to boost its online footprint, and it’s also doubling down on its travel locations which are more resilient.

The possibility of beefed-up security technology spending is an unhelpful addition to the business story.

Brent crude is trading over $84 dollars a barrel in response to high hopes about Chinese demand.

Very strong manufacturing and services figures all point to a surge in demand for the black stuff, which is outweighing concerns about economic contractions elsewhere, triggered by Federal Reserve tightening.

Considering that China is the only major economy where policymakers are trying to get growth going rather than slow it down, the oil price will remain very sensitive to any economic data from the region.

Comments from a Federal Reserve official pushing for a pause in interest rate hikes in the summer has pushed the US market higher, with the S&P 500 up 0.8%. This optimism is expected to feed through to the UK market, with a moderate gain in the FTSE on the cards to round off the week.

Sophie Lund-Yates is Lead Equity Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown