Top Ten Retail Investor Buys & Sells for week ending 23 March 2007

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse, commented: This week saw the Chancellor deliver his eleventh and possibly swan song budget with much attention given to headline cuts in corporation tax aimed at boosting the international competitiveness of the UK's tax system.

The reaction from the market seems to have been generally positive, although at the time of writing the finer details have yet to be properly digested. It seems that speculation on the Budget has done little to dent our investors' appetite for gaming stocks. Despite the Chancellor's higher than expected tax rate for online gaming operators, PartyGaming comes in as the number one traded stock this week for the second week running.

Much of the talk and action this week has been on the baking sector with Barclay's taking centre stage. News of a possible tie up with Dutch bank ABN Amro has been the focus of the UK business pages. Investors have also been interested in the debate with incentives such as cost savings and the possibility that a HQ move to Holland will bring tax benefits. Shares in the two banks moved up on hopes they could finalise terms within a week. Barclays shares climbed 12p to 714p to value the group at £45bn. ABN was up nearly 1pc to £21 (e31.2) and is worth £40bn.

As Barclays has been under the spotlight, other banks have benefited from renewed attention in the sector. Lloyds joins its high street competitor in this week's top ten trades. Lloyds' shares were up on the sector speculation and were cited as a possible target in the trend towards consolidation.

If banking stocks made all the waves in the big pond, then Tadpole Technology created some interesting ripples on a smaller scale. The company which makes mapping and distribution software put out an upbeat trading statement this week and added 1.75p to 6.37p to its share price after it signed deals with Microsoft and Citrix.

Elsewhere innovative South African company Biofuels Group slipped in to the top ten this week as our investors reacted to the South African government's incentives to bolster the Country's emerging biofuels sector. South Africa wants biofuels to contribute up to 75 percent of renewable energy needs by 2013 under a 6 billion rand programme.

Top 10 Buys
1 Partygaming
2 Barclays
3 BP
4 Lloyds TSB
5 Royal Bank of Scotland
6 HSBC Holdings
7 Vodafone
8 Legal and General GP
9 Tadpole Technology
10 Biofuels Group

Top 10 Sells
1 Partygaming
2 Lloyds TSB
3 Scottish Power PLC
4 Barclays
5 Vodafone
6 BHP Billiton PLC
7 Xstrata PLC
8 BP
9 Bradford and Bingley
10 Prudential

The Top Ten buys and sells are measured as the number of trades carried out in each stock over the previous 7 days.