Housebuilders Cheer Brexit Progress1 Nov 2018 13:13
Housebuilders Cheer Brexit Progress News
UK housebuilders are among the stocks seeing the strongest rally today as news of progress in Brexit talks lifts the sector among the worst-hit by the vote to exit the EU.
They're seen as the most vulnerable to a messy Brexit, so signs of progress towards a deal are driving a strong surge.
Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey are both up 5 percent, Barratt Developments is up 3.7 percent, Berkeley Group is up 3.1 percent, while among mid-caps Crest Nicholson and Bellway are both up 5.5 percent, Bovis Homes is up 5.1 percent and Redrow is rising 4.5 percent.
"I think this is all related to sentiment changing around Brexit," says Charlie Campbell, housebuilders and building materials analyst at Liberum.
"The currency market adjusted in half a second and the equity market takes a day," he adds.
"Sentiment towards Brexit is the dominant theme at the moment in housebuilding shares," he reckons, and with a large short base in many of these stocks, even a little positive news causes big moves as shorts are squeezed.
But those investors long housebuilders are probably not bringing out the champagne just yet: Persimmon, for example, is only back at its levels of end-September, when investors were very nervous about a no-deal Brexit.
Overall the housebuilding sector is still down quite sharply this year, and trading around the levels it was before the Brexit vote.