Aviva is the most popular buy on Budget Day
While Apple was the most popular buy in the week leading to the BudgetStuart Welch, CEO, TD Direct Investing comments: "Budget day saw Aviva (AV.) finish as our customer's most popular buy, while Red Emperor Resources (RMP) took top spot in the sells. Interestingly, during the morning our customer trading activity had indicated that Lloyds Banking Group was the number one buy up until midday on Wednesday 21 March, but Aviva finished the day in pole position after the Chancellor's speech. The FTSE 100, which had edged higher to 5,897 at noon ahead of the UK Budget Report finished the day at 5,891
"Aviva's share price, which closed down 5.6% following the budget yesterday, announced better than expected 2011 earnings earlier this month. Red Emperor appeared to interest our customers after its share price rose over 3p to 50p on 20 March with its joint venture partner Range Resources (RRL) set to offer it a stake in the Nugaal Basin offshore Puntland block in Somalia.
"Looking at top ten trading activity in the week leading to budget day (up to market close on Monday, 19 March) TD customers took a bite out of Apple Inc. (AAPL). The company entered our customers' most popular buys for the week at ninth place in anticipation of the much awaited iPad 3 (which was launched on Friday, 16 March). The launch saw Apple's share value rise 2.7% from the previous week with a share price of 601.10p at close of play on Monday (19 March).
"Last week's new entrant, Game Group (GMG) shot to the top of the buys charts this week, accounting for 16.9% of the top buy trades after closing at 2.38p compared to last week's closing price of 1.193p. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 closed the week ending Monday 19 March down ever so slightly by 0.1% to finish at 5,961.
"Vodafone Group (VOD) entered our customer buys table as a new entry at number five this week. The telecoms giant saw its share price drop from 169.71p to 167.05p this week and recently came under fire from the Supreme Court after investigations indicated a lack of ‘tax liability' within its 2007 acquisition of Indian mobile network Hutchison Essar.
"Meanwhile, Essar Energy Plc (ESSR), which enjoyed a record daily gain on Monday (19 March), joined the top ten TD customer sells chart as a new entry at 10th place this week. This follows news that financial advisory firm Merrill Lynch forecast that shares in the power group could ‘more than double' due to the rise of crude oil costs, leading to a 22.9% increase in share price value with the stock priced at 134.66p in the week ending Monday (19 March)."