It was during the first week of June last year that housebuilding stocks began their descent in earnest. As the European football championships kicked off without England, Barratt was also having a miserable time as rumours swirled in the City about its survival

That month the term 鈥渂reach of banking covenants鈥� entered many people鈥檚 vocabulary and by October shares had dipped to their low point in the wake of the Lehman collapse.

A year on, amid tentative talk of a recovery, there are signs that housebuilders鈥� shares are on the mend. In fact, with the exception of volatile old Taylor Wimpey, which investors could have made a killing on if they had bought in at the right time, most have recovered to the shaky levels of a year ago (see the graph for just how much).

Charlie Campbell, Liberum Capital analyst, said it showed investors hoped the era of the financial catastrophe was over.

Elsewhere this week, Berkeley Homes dropped 5% on Tuesday at the news that Saudi investor Saad was halving its 29% holding. Campbell said Tony Pidgley wouldn鈥檛 lose too much sleep over it as it was motivated by Saad鈥檚 own problems not Berkeley鈥檚. He added: 鈥淚t might be bad news for their land-buying joint ventures.鈥�

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