When a company that spends six times more on finance costs than it makes in operating profits sees its share price rise 80 per cent in two weeks without a sliver of fresh financial information, even insiders can be caught unawares.

“It happened sooner than I expected and with less hard evidence out there in the market,” says Bob Lawson, chairman of Barratt, the housebuilder whose shares have risen from 85p on March 30 to 155p at the close on Tuesday April 14. “I genuinely thought it was going to happen, but the economic fundamentals are still pretty awful.”