Housebuilders have picked up a little ahead of tomorrow's UK interest rate decision, thanks partly to some positive (or at least not too negative) broker comment.
Taylor Wimpey added 6p to 176p as Goldman Sachs gave a - perhaps slightly grudging - recommendation: "Despite continuing to hold a negative fundamental view of UK and US housing, we now believe Taylor Wimpey's shares are fairly valued given (1) its recent share price performance, and (2) the recent rally in US housebuilding stocks."
It has raised its six-month target price from 130p to 163p. Taylor is now 5.75p better at 175.75p, well above even Goldman's increased target.
Meanwhile Barratt Developments rose 8p to 385p after a note from Panmure Gordon. The broker said: "We recently turned sellers of Barratt after the share price raced up to 455p. Following weakness in the housebuilding sector in recent days, the share price has moved back below our target price to 377p. We therefore move our
recommendation back from sell to hold.
"Whilst we feel there are ongoing risks with the business, we believe that these are factored into the share price at current levels."
Persimmon, the only housebuilder left in the FTSE 100, benefited from all this, adding 13.5p to 700.5p.
