Shares in housebuilder Taylor Wimpey rose after the firm said it expects UK sales to remain ‘robust’ this year. 

In a bullish trading update, the company said it was on track to report a £293 million annual operating profit after a strong finish to 2020. 

That is down from £850.5 million in 2019, after a temporary shutdown of the housing market in the spring sent the firm’s completed sales for the year tumbling 39 per cent to 9,609. But Taylor Wimpey said sales had bounced back in the second half, with the company boasting an order book of agreed sales worth £2.7 billion. 

Shares in housebuilder Taylor Wimpey rose after the firm said it expects UK sales to remain 'robust' this year

Shares in housebuilder Taylor Wimpey rose after the firm said it expects UK sales to remain 'robust' this year

Shares in housebuilder Taylor Wimpey rose after the firm said it expects UK sales to remain ‘robust’ this year

And it said interest levels ‘remain good’ despite current lockdown restrictions, adding that the market looked ‘robust’ despite some economic uncertainty. In another sign the firm is betting on continued demand, it has gone on a £1.3 billion land-buying spree to provide for future projects. 

Taylor Wimpey was the latest developer to report a strong finish to last year after the stamp duty holiday helped to turbocharge demand. Like other builders, the company now hopes to resume paying a dividend this year. 

After its announcement, shares closed up 2.5 per cent, or 4p, at 165p. Pete Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s boss, said: ‘While operations were impacted by the shutdown period, the return to near normal construction capacity and continuing resilience of the UK housing market enabled sales and production to recover strongly towards the end of the year.’ 

Also cheering an ‘extraordinary rebound’ in the property market since May was Savills, with the estate agent reporting that sales activity outside London had reached levels not seen since before the financial crisis. 

Also cheering an 'extraordinary rebound' in the property market since May was Savills , with the estate agent reporting that sales activity outside London had reached levels not seen since before the financial crisis

Also cheering an 'extraordinary rebound' in the property market since May was Savills , with the estate agent reporting that sales activity outside London had reached levels not seen since before the financial crisis

Also cheering an ‘extraordinary rebound’ in the property market since May was Savills , with the estate agent reporting that sales activity outside London had reached levels not seen since before the financial crisis

The group said it expects profits for 2020 to be at the top end of expectations after a ‘resilient’ performance, with analysts predicting it will report an underlying profit of about £85 million – down about 40 per cent since 2019. But in contrast Savills said it was too early to make predictions for the year ahead, given uncertainty around the pandemic. 

STOCK WATCH: Clinigen

Shares in Clinigen rose by nearly 3 per cent as it stuck by its sales forecasts despite fresh coronavirus lockdowns. The Aim-listed British drugs maker, which supplies hospitals and clinical trials, has seen its business disrupted as health services have delayed non-emergency operations. But Clinigen yesterday repeated its forecast for the second half of 2020 that it expects to report a 3 per cent rise in revenues to £230 million and a 13 per cent drop in profits to £54 million. Shares rose 3 per cent, or 21p, to 720.5p.

Experts are divided on what will happen to house prices in 2021, with mortgage lenders such as Halifax expecting prices to slam into reverse this spring when the stamp duty holiday ends. 

A Savills spokesman said: ‘We expect transactional activity to remain suppressed in the first half of 2021… followed by progressive recovery through the second half of the year.’ 

Shares rose 3.2 per cent, or 31p, to 1015p after the update. Another cheery update came from home furnishings retailer Dunelm, which has benefited from the DIY boom during the pandemic – but this time investors were not as welcoming. 

Despite reporting an 11.8 per cent rise in sales for the 13 weeks to December 26, the firm’s shares fell 8.3 per cent, or 107p, to 1189p. 

Dunelm said it experienced ‘buoyant’ customer demand over the final three months of 2020, even as lockdown measures forced its stores to close. That was partly thanks to the popularity of its click and collect services, which means that customers could order online but still collect goods from the retailer’s mostly-shut branches.

Off the back of the sales bonanza, Dunelm now expects half-year profits of £112 million, up from £83.6 million in 2019. It was not so rosy, however, at fellow retailer Card Factory, which fell 7 per cent, or 2.8p, to 37.3p after warning it was set to breach the terms of its borrowings by the end of this month. 

The FTSE100 rose 0.8 per cent, or 56.44 points, to 6,801.96, while the FTSE 250 finished up 0.8 per cent, or 159.44 points, at 20,775.75.  

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