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mpc: 20 The buoyancy of business surveys so far this year did not sit comfortably with the hypothesis that output in 2004 Q4 had been sustained by an unanticipated build-up of stocks that would need to be unwound. When there had been a large initial alignment adjustment in the past, subsequent data revisions had tended to affect the expenditure-based estimate of GDP more than the output-based estimate. So it was possible that there would ultimately be upward revisions to some components of final demand for 2004 Q4. Consumption was not the most likely candidate for an upward revision, given the available evidence, but other components of demand might have been more robust than currently thought. If so, that might also help explain the apparently conflicting signals from output and consumption indicators for the first quarter of this year. However, there was little direct evidence as yet that these other expenditure components had indeed been stronger than expected.