Taylor Wimpey results in the City spotlight as market jitters linger

Housebuilding giant Taylor Wimpey is set to reveal its future outlook later this week against a backdrop of lower activity and growing uncertainty across many parts of the UK’s property market.

Traders will be turning their attention towards the blue-chip constituent, which is releasing its full-year trading statement on Wednesday, as City caution looms large over housebuilding stocks, which have taken a knock during the last year in the wake of political volatility.

While the FTSE 100 company confirmed that it was on track to hit full-year guidance in November last year, it also underlined fears around market volatility in the run-up to Christmas after saying that it saw “some signs of customer caution”.

This week’s results come amid fresh evidence of a slowdown in the UK property market, with Nationwide recently finding that house prices grew at their slowest annual rate since February 2013 during December last year.

Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Geroge Salmon commented: "Despite low interest rates boosting affordability and a structural housing shortage, worries over the direction of the economy post-Brexit mean the UK housing market is starting to creak."

He added: "This uncertain environment is clearly not good news for the builders, but it’s worth remembering that new build trends have been healthier than the wider market in recent times. It’ll be interesting to see if supportive government policies like Help to Buy can keep that going."

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the firm’s current share price reflected concerns over a slowdown in house price growth and wider worries about the UK economy.