British investors will be hoping to finally kick-start the new year this week when a number of major companies deliver trading updates and the government publishes economic growth data. The FTSE 100 index of leading London shares closed at 4,803.3 points on Friday, down 17.5 points, or 0.36 percent, over the week. The busiest day for British investors was expected to be next Wednesday, when the government published fourth-quarter growth figures. HSBC analysts said gross domestic product growth was expected to be 0.6 percent in the three months to December from the previous quarter.
On the same day, the Bank of England was set to publish minutes from the latest monthly meeting of its nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which decided to keep rates unchanged at 4.75 percent for a fifth consecutive month earlier in January.
"Markets are less convinced that the next move in UK rates will be down. MPC minutes and GDP estimates ... may help add fresh insights," Nomura Securities investment strategist Anais Faraj said. Next week sees also results data from British mobile phone companies Vodafone and mmO2, insurance groups Aviva and Prudential and troubled Anglo-Swedish drugs pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which will deliver its annual results Thursday.
Meanwhile, a results' update from British newspaper and book retailer WH Smith was expected to be followed closely after another tough week for retailers here.
British retailers suffered their worst Christmas trading period for almost a quarter of a century, official figures showed Friday.
Retail sales dropped by 1.0 percent in December from November, the National Statistics Office said, making it the worst Christmas since 1981 - when month-on-month sales dropped by 1.7 percent amid a recession.