There is very little to excite the market this morning, and the FTSE 100 is down 15.9 points at 5768.1.
But one thing that is worth a mention is a Goldman Sachs note on the European construction sector.
Once again, the prospect of a strong economic downturn has triggered the note, with analysts at the bank predicting that construction spend will weaken in the next two years.
Moreover, they have found that the construction and building materials sub-sectors tend to outperform UK housebuilders in times of volatile share prices.
Consequently, some UK housebuilders have been hit. Persimmon, for example, has been downgraded to sell from neutral due to a lower UK house price growth forecast for this year.
Analysts say: "Persimmon has been the second best performing stock in the sector during the past month, up 11% versus the sector down 2%. However, we do not believe Persimmon will remain immune to the downturn in UK housing, despite our positive view of its land acquisition strategy."
The company posts its full-year results on February 26, and analysts at Goldman Sachs expect it to report a fall in buyer activity during the early stages of the spring selling season as tighter credit, falling house price growth expectations and falling mortgage approvals feed through to weaker demand.
On the back of this gloomy note, the company has fallen 22.5p to 685.5p, one of the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100. Other housebuilders have followed suit.
Taylor Wimpey, for example, has been added to Goldman's conviction sell list, sending shares down 5.8p to 169.1p.
Over on the FTSE 250, Barratt Developments is down 12p at 366p.
