Anyone seized by a sudden urge to erect a shed today can blame it on Easter, Britain’s busiest period for DIY, when queues form at B&Q.
It might, then, seem a strange time to drill a “sell” sign into the DIY chain’s owner, Kingfisher, especially as the FTSE 100 stock has already lost more than a quarter of its value this year, from almost 350p in January to 259p today.
Yet Kingfisher may struggle to soar above this. The Covid boom for the chain, which also owns Screwfix in the UK and Castorama in France, has fizzled out. It is facing the now-familiar storm of soaring costs — higher shipping expenses, inflationary energy and material rates— and the impact of new lockdowns on Chinese manufacturing.