Wall Street has opened quietly....

It’s a blue day for Cadbury.

The chocolate maker has given up a trade mark that protected the shade of purple - called Pantone 2865c - used to package its wares for decades.

Cadbury took the move after losing a trademark case last month, when a court ruled the protection was too wide-ranging. This could allow rivals to use a similar colour for its own chocolate, ending Cadbury’s grip on purple.

Alexandra Brodie, partner at law firm Gowling WLG, says Cadbury came unstuck because its trade mark was too broad (in the minds of judges anyway).

Cadbury and the colour purple have been synonymous in the UK for decades (at least in this chocoholic’s mind!). But, in December of last year the Court of Appeal found for Nestle and held that Cadbury’s attempt to future-proof its trade mark holdings by broadening the description of the mark, registered since 1995, was invalid due to the wording being too broad.

Reading the writing on the wall Cadbury, on 28 January 2019, surrendered its mark. Cadbury do still have other “purple “ marks on the register but they suffer from the same defect and so we doubt very much that Cadbury would try to assert them.

What does this mean? Well, other chocolate makers can use purple for their chocolate offerings in a hue that is closer to Cadbury’s traditional purple. Of course there have always been other purple chocolate brands such as Milka or Nestle’s Quality Street. Cadbury could still try to enforce its rights in the Cadbury Purple relying on unregistered rights such as “passing off” but it will be very difficult.

The purple reign of Cadbury’s would appear to be over. And whilst this might be the right outcome regarding trade mark law, this Dairy Milk consumer is rather sad.

The UK stock market is just managing to hold onto its early gains, as the weaker pound give exporters a fillip.

Most European markets are in the red, though, following the drop in eurozone investor confidence.

But generally, it’s a quiet start to the new week.

Connor Campbell of SpreadEx explains:

A minor decline for the pound, one that followed a 10 month low UK construction PMI (which itself comes after last Friday’s troubling manufacturing equivalent), allowed the FTSE to hit a fresh 2 month high. Sterling dipped 0.1% against the dollar and the euro, a slip that translated to a 0.3%, 7040-grazing increase for the UK index.

The Eurozone, which saw an unexpected drop in Sentix investor confidence, wasn’t looking too well. The DAX lost 0.3%, forcing the German index back under 11150, while the CAC was down half a percent, a move that dragged it below 5000.

The slump in construction growth underlines the need to urgently resolve Brexit, says the Federation of Small Businesses.

FSB National Chairman Mike Cherry says small firms have plenty of problems to overcome, even without worrying about Brexit:

“Spiralling employment costs, skills shortages and a weak pound have made it increasingly tough for small construction firms to grow in recent years.

“Today’s PMI brings into sharp relief the impact that political uncertainty is having on one of our most important sectors.

“Small business confidence is at a seven-year low. Two-thirds of firms are not planning to increase investment and, with inward migration from the EU down, more than a third say lack of the right staff is holding them back. A lot of small construction firms rely heavily on mid-skilled employees from Europe.

“To be less than 60 days out from Brexit day and still have no idea what business environment we’ll be operating in on 30 March is completely debilitating. Politicians from all sides of the house must work together to end the impasse.

“Come the beginning of April, small construction firms will not only have Brexit to think about but also Making Tax Digital, rising pressure on wages, higher auto-enrolment contributions and further business rates hikes. It’s a flashpoint that could threaten the futures of many.”

Today’s disappointing UK construction PMI follows a weak manufacturing report on Friday, which showed growth at a three-month low despite a burst of Brexit stockpiling.

Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club, says those two reports suggest the UK economy got off to a poor start to 2019.

Here’s Phil Harris, Director at BLP Insurance, on the UK construction slowdown:

“The construction sector suffered its second monthly fall in a row down to 50.6, but scraped in just above the growth threshold of 50.0 which was an achievement in itself given the festive seasonal slowdown and the gloomy political and business backdrop.

“With two months left until the UK leaves the EU and no clear deal in sight, confidence in the construction sector on several levels is in short supply.

“Small residential building contractors, the lifeblood of the sector which have skin in the game on a personal level, are minding their costs carefully and are not committing to building new units until they are certain that they have sold the properties they have already finished.

Max Jones, relationship director in Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking’s infrastructure and construction team, reports that London-based builders are suffering particularly badly from Brexit jitters:

“It’s clearly a pivotal year for the UK and Brexit is coming up more and more in conversations with construction clients, as they express concerns that projects are increasingly being affected by the uncertainty. It’s no surprise, then, that this appears to be feeding through to the PMI reading.

“London feels particularly exposed, with evidence clients are holding off in the commercial sub-sector in particular until there is more clarity over the final terms of the agreement with the EU. While the suggestion is that regional cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh are more buoyant, it’s not clear that there is enough activity to pick up the slack from the capital.

Brendan Sharkey, head of construction and real estate at MHA MacIntyre Hudson, says larger construction companies are particularly at risk from Brexit, because of their greater dependence on European labour:

“There’s no getting away from construction’s dependence on European workers and materials, and it’s actually the larger companies with the biggest problem.

“Smaller regional firms tend to employ less European labour, and treat their subcontractors akin to regular employees. The larger the company, the more likely it is to bid for irregular contract work and to depend on European workers. As Brexit looms ever closer the labour supply looks likely to shrink, leaving the bigger companies in more difficulty than their smaller regional counterparts.

Duncan Brock, group director at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, is particularly worried that UK builders are taking on fewer new staff.

He says:

The biggest shock came in the form of job creation which has managed to suffer the slings and arrows of Brexit highs and lows with solid hiring since the referendum result.

Employment rose at the slowest rate since July 2016 and with optimism also in short supply, the sector only needs a small nudge to tip it closer to recession.”

According to Markit, UK housebuilding growth weakened to a 10-month low last month, while commercial construction actually contracted.

Today’s construction report is weaker than expected, says Andy Bruce of Reuters:

Here’s Tim Moore, Economics Associate Director at IHS Markit, on the sharp slowdown across UK building firms last month:

“UK construction growth shifted down a gear at the start of 2019, with weaker conditions signalled across all three main categories of activity. Commercial work declined for the first time in ten months as concerns about the domestic economic outlook continued to hold back activity. The latest survey also revealed a loss of momentum for house building and civil engineering, although these areas of the construction sector at least remained on a modest growth path.

“Staff recruitment slowed to a crawl in January, with construction firms reporting the softest rate of job creation since July 2016. Delays to client decision- making on new projects in response to Brexit uncertainty was cited as a key source of anxiety at the start of 2019. Difficulties converting opportunities to sales were reflected in a slowdown in total new business growth to its lowest since last May.

Brexit anxiety is also deterring UK building firms from hiring new staff.

According to Markit, employment growth across Britain’s construction sector hit its lowest level since July 2016 (immediately after the EU referendum).

Markit adds:

New orders increased only marginally at the start of 2019, which contributed to the slowest expansion of employment numbers for two-and- a-half years.

A number of survey respondents noted that Brexit uncertainty had led to hesitancy among clients and a corresponding slowdown in progress on new projects.

It’s another turbulent morning for Ryanair’s investors.

Shares in the budget airline have fallen 4%, after it posted a third-quarter loss of €19.6m and warned that the risk of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal is worryingly high.

High-profile founder Michael O’Leary is shifting to a new role of group chief executive, with a five-year contract - despite claiming last year that his wife wouldn’t want him to stay on that long....

Sony isn’t the only Japanese electronics giant suffering right now.

Panasonic has just reported a 22% slump in third-quarter operating profit, and cut its sales and profit forecasts. It warned that demand for appliances and industrial kit in China has weakened - another signal that the US-China trade war is hurting.

This helped to drag Panasonic’s operating profits down to 97.6 billion yen ($889.05 million) for the October-December quarter, down from 120.1 billion yen a year ago, and much lower than expected.

Sony is also smarting from another weak performance at its phone division.

Its mobile division made an operating loss of 15.5 billion yen during the last three months, the fourth quarterly decline in a row.

Bloomberg points out that Sony’s camera chips business is also suffering from weaker global demand for smartphones.

Operating profit in chips fell 23 percent to 46.5 billion yen. Guidance for the division is now lower, at 130 billion yen for the current fiscal year, from October’s forecast of 140 billion yen.

Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder at Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research, is worried about Sony’s prospects.

He told CNBC that today’s 8% share price tumble shows thecompany’s portfolio “is in trouble, adding.

[Sony] is in “highly competitive areas with declining unit sales and margin.

They have a bad hand and need to change ... their portfolio.

Several analysts are concerned by the drop in PlayStation sales (to 8.1m over the crucial holiday quarter, from 9m in Q4 2017).

Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie Group, says Sony is having to spend more to promote its gaming console:

“Strong profits from game software were offset by higher promotional and marketing costs aimed at driving PS4 volumes.

We are moving to the sidelines until we can better assess the risks in the Games segment.”

Amir Anvarzadeh, an analyst at Asymmetric Advisors, suspects Sony could be preparing to release a next-generation console - an expensive operation.

“There is more downside as we believe slowing growth in its games division signals a very likely PS5 launch for next fiscal year and the ensuing costs that come with the launch of a new platform.”

Bloomberg has more details: Sony Sees Biggest Drop Since 2015 on Weaker PlayStation Business