Housebuilder Persimmon’s shares lost more than 6% of their value in trading today, marking a steeper fall than any other FTSE 100 stock and wiping out gains made by the company so far this year.
The drop came after a trading update in which the company said forward sales rose by 25% in 2020 but completions fell. Investors in housebuilder stocks will be poring over such statements to gauge the effect of the impending end of the stamp duty holiday and changes to the Help to Buy scheme.
Persimmon warned of the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its business.
“While the group has achieved pre-Covid build rates since the end of June 2020, including during all subsequent lockdowns imposed in England, Scotland and Wales, we recognise the elevated risk to the group’s planned build programmes presented by the higher transmission rates of the new variant of the Covid-19 virus,” the trading update read.
The shares finished the day at 2,612p. Other housebuilders were also trading down, although by notably smaller percentages than Persimmon.
The FTSE 100 closed at 6,745 points, a fall of 0.1%, and the FTSE 250 at 20,616, down about 0.5%.
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