Britain’s economy might spring a surprise on the doomsayers this year

The UK economy is looking pretty good – we’re more at risk of a boom than a bust, says John Stepek. Here’s why, and what it means for your portfolio.

Retail is faring much better than expected © Getty Images
(Image credit: © 2016 Bloomberg Finance LP)

We’re into February now. We’re starting to get economic data that covers the post-election period. So how’s the UK economy doing now that the political situation is a tiny bit less uncertain?

Let’s start with this week’s data. Yesterday, UK inflation came in significantly higher than expected. Consumer prices index inflation (CPI – the official Bank of England target measure) rose by 1.8% year on year in January. That’s still below the Bank’s 2% target, but it was quite a leap from the 1.3% seen in December.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.