Rumours that Barratt would breach its banking covenants did nothing to ease fraying nerves in the City this week.

Investors eventually saw through the speculation and on Tuesday the housebuilder was 2% up on the previous week, at 415p. It prompted one person close to Barratt to joke that it wanted more bad news to help push the price even higher.

The rise was against the backdrop of a rally across most housebuilding stocks earlier this week, which one analyst put down to the “absence of bad news”.

Persimmon climbed from 718p to 752p on Monday and Bellway jumped from 770p to 800p. It was the absence of good news that sent prices downwards at the end of last year.

Elsewhere Morgan Sindall kicked off the results season with a healthy set of figures. By Tuesday its share price was almost 20% up on the week at £10.90.