GBP: GDP numbers not as strong as they look – ING

Here are the thoughts of our UK economist, James Smith, on today's seemingly better-than-expected GDP figures, ING’s FX analysts Chris Turner notes.

EUR/GBP to find support this month in the 0.8300/8350 area

"UK GDP was a bit better than feared in the fourth quarter but the outperformance was solely because of a massive increase in inventories. Remember these are volatile and don’t tell us much/anything about the underlying economic fundamentals. Consumption was flat."

"Business investment fell sharply despite some really good numbers earlier in the year. Net trade was poor. So it’s a lacklustre story which puts pressure on the Treasury to find savings. The OBR, which polices the fiscal rules, has forecast 0.4% in Q4 and therefore it will be revising down its highly optimistic 2% 2025 growth forecast."

"EUR/GBP dropped 20 pips on today's data, but as James says a re-assessment of the data could see sterling hand back its gains. We're negative on sterling into the second quarter and suspect that EUR/GBP will find support this month in the 0.8300/8350 area."