A narrow rally focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been enough to sustain the equity bull market rally over the last couple of years. However, January saw a threat emerge in the introduction of Chinas DeepSeek’s AI model, in what has been widely described as the ‘Sputnik moment’ in the global AI race (referring to the space race of the 20th century). Despite the wobble created from the AI concerns, equity market returns were positive for the months, with equity returns showing signs of a broadening out as we started the year, although January does have a habit of wrong-footing investors. This months stock pick is Axian Telecom is a leading player in Africa’s digital transformation, tackling the issue of underserved consumers with insufficient digital coverage and accessibility.