As the graph shows, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey continued to take the biggest hammering on the stock market last week thanks to their high debt.

Barratt closed at 50p on Tuesday, which means it is edging towards the 40p mark it hit at the beginning of July before it announced a refinancing deal amid concerns over its survival.

Barratt’s latest fall puzzled one analyst, who pointed to the fact that its finances were now on a relatively more stable footing. “The other thing it’s got going for it is its relatively ‘vanilla’ debt structure.” Translation: The debt is mostly held by UK clearing banks as opposed to faceless bondholders or private placement debt backed by an assortment of global financial institutions.

Persimmon must wish it had a scoop of vanilla in its cone. This week it brought forward its trading update by three weeks to halt the decline in its share price, which had lost 40% in a fortnight.

It didn’t work. After a mini-rally on Monday it had fallen to below last Friday’s level by Tuesday, closing at 215p. If you’d bought £100 of shares this time last year in a company traditionally seen as “solid as a rock” – they’d now be worth £22.

Alastair Stewart, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort, said Persimmon’s unscheduled statement may be the first of many.

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