In these times it is tempting to give up trying to make any sense of the markets. Take the housebuilders, several of which are on guaranteed dividend yields that would seem to make them an absolute steal. Or take Redrow, whose strategy is to build the business rather than shovel large amounts of cash to investors, although the shares yield a respectable 3.3 per cent.
In the general rout in the sector, they have come back by 30 per cent since the middle of last month, though they rose 8½p to 303¾p in yesterday’s market recovery. Yet the company, which generally does not go in for frequent trading updates, has had to push out one because trading is going so well that analysts’ forecasts are