Friday preview: Berkeley Group update, UK GDP in focus

(Sharecast News) - Friday should mark a quiet end to the week, at least on the corporate front, with housebuilder Berkeley Group due to release a trading update, and CLS Holdings set to publish full-year results. On the macro front, UK GDP, construction, manufacturing and industrial production figures for January will be released at 0700 GMT, while eurozone industrial production data for January is out at 1000 GMT.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, said: "The monthly GDP reading for January in the UK will be worth noting after an extremely weak end to 2025. Q4 GDP rose by a worryingly low 0.1%. Before the conflict in the Middle East caused an energy price shock, the UK economy looked like it was potentially bouncing back. Stronger PMI growth gave hope that the private sector could finally shed concerns about the Budget that weighed heavily on growth in Q4. This could be reflected in January's data, with a 0.2% monthly rate expected, and a 0.3% 3-month on month rate of growth expected by analysts.

"While this is still a sluggish rate of growth, it would suggest that the UK economy did not slow further at the start of this year. It seems cruel that the 'bounce' in UK growth is likely to be wiped out by a surge in inflation caused by a damaging oil price spike. However, a stronger rate of growth than expected could provide some cushioning to the coming blow.

"Overall, we think that this week's UK economic data will have a marginal impact on UK asset prices, with news flow from the Middle East a much bigger driver for the second week in a row."